Is there a term to describe fiction about the space race and planetary colonization?
There’s not really a catchy term for exactly what you’re describing, but Campbellian science fiction is compromised of a lot of the SF archetypes you describe (ie space adventures). Campbellian science fiction (similar to, but not exactly like, ‘Hard’ SF) is the early body of SF that dealt with the environment in very cold and logical terms. Campbellian SF is never sentimental or cheesy, but always had characters that recognized their role their environment, making the choices that were necessary, regardless of any emotional angle they might take. In general, Campbell liked his writers to put their characters into situations that tested the limits of human reasoning by forcing them to make choices that went against what ‘felt right;’ happy endings are hard to come by in the genre. Space, a lethal vacuum, is a very convenient setting for this sort of thing, so there is a si
