How can I explain space travel being accepted and supported in a typical fantasy setting?
Picture a setting similar to that of many fantasy works: a relatively low level of technology among the general population, lots of manual labor, agriculture or hunter/gatherer society, and that most people are generally content with the way of life. Note that this particular world does not have magic.
Now consider that in the world just described, there's also space travel by means of technology (in other words, not too dissimilar from what we are doing in our real world as of today) on some non-negligible scale.
Also assume that the general population is fully aware that such space travel is going on, and are generally either indifferent to it, or actively support it.
Now consider that space travel is, on the whole, freakishly expensive.
How can I explain, in-universe, that the general population doesn't revolt against the space program of their world?
If desired, you may assume that the whole planet, as well as any other planets that may possibly harbor life and are reachable by their spacecraft, is largely similar in terms of lifestyle and technological capability. You may also freely assume the opposite, should you prefer to do so. Please specify early in your answer which approach you take.
1 answer
Make it a ruse - an offering to the gods.
I'm reminded, strangely, of the Minotaur.
Every seven or nine years (accounts differ), seven boys and seven girls were sent from Athens to Crete in tribute to King Minos, and were promptly devoured by the beast, until Theseus defeated it. From the perspective of the Athenians, fourteen people went aboard a ship went somewhere far away, and were never heard from again (well, it was known that they died, but apparently nobody normally confirmed this).
Apply this to your world.
Every so often, people are chosen as sacrifices to the gods, who happen to live in a space station in low orbit around the planet (the people don't know it's a space station; they just see the rockets leave). There are other people to go with them as security, so to speak, but they always come back alive and well. The space gods are happy, and everyone lives.
However, the rockets are in fact carrying whatever the elite need them to carry, and the people who supposedly go on the rocket in tribute never fly to space, but are instead brought somewhere else, or possibly killed, depending on how dark you want this to be. It's all a ruse. A conspiracy. But as whoever's controlling this can show, if the people fail to make a payment - the rocket explodes, nobody is picked as tribute, etc. - bad things happen. Really bad things. Take your pick of any man-made disaster you can think of in such a primitive society.
People will pay what they need to make the gods happy. There's a reason many cathedrals, mosques, temples and the like are so nicely decorated.
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