To expand a little bit, I'm starting from the idea that space in the mid-20th century to today holds a similar position to the New World in, say, the 14th Century. The similarities I am thinking of are not so much the shock of a brand new thing, since "space" has known to exist for a long time, but rather the more idealized ideas of a fresh start, expanding humanity's/civilization's reach, wonder at the conceptually new, and perhaps most (in my mind), the sudden expansion of the common view of the possible.

Today, space exploration has inspired all sorts of popular media, the obvious being music and TV shows, really piercing the popular consciousness in the 50s and 60s, though it's not like it has completely remade the landscape; there are other things to sing and write about, after all. So I was wondering, first, the implicit question that's always there; are the assumptions/viewpoints I've started from correct, or at least close, and second, if a comparison CAN be drawn between time periods, even if it's not exactly the one I chose, what are the similarities and differences between the effects of space exploration and New World exploration on art and other media?