The author summarizes the framework that Jean Ladrière has proposedfor describing and understanding the impact that science and technology haveon cultures and employs this framework to characterize the cultural influenceof astronomy and cosmology. The author hypothesizes that astronomy and cosmologyare similar to other areas of science and technology in their contributionto cultural and social evolution and change at the level of destructuration.However, at the level of positive restructuration, they play a unique integrativerole in a number of ways - by restoring a more open-ended and uncontrollablesense of the future and of temporality, by acting as an invitation toself-transcendence and by disclosing new horizons and limits.