>>18441Space Exploration has always been an afterthought in cyberpunk fiction with good reason.
The spaces in which these stories take place in are fundamentally heterotopian; meaning that the characters we become invested in live in environments that are so multicultural, no singular identity will ever have a chance at forming. You have various people and groups battling it out over the veracity of competing truths; everything is in flux and we're left to our own devices.
Space is merely the absence of everything; instead of staring into a mirror, you're staring into a black hole.
>>18443Space Sci-Fi offers ample room for injecting grand narrative and modernist sensibilities; cyberpunk is postmodern and rife with deconstruction and nihilism. It shouldn't be very surprising why Space Exploration isn't used.