Off-Earth
Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space
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- US$18.99
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THE REALITY OF SPACE SETTLEMENT: An astrophysicist ponders the ethics of living in space for anyone interested in space exploration and the philosophy of science.
Before we embark on Star Trek-type missions, we must first ask: Can we truly do better in space than we’ve done here on Earth?
We’ve pinpointed the destination, refined the technology, designed the habitat, outfitted our space residents. Are we forgetting something? A timely reminder that it’s not just rocket science, this thought-provoking book explores the all-too-human issues raised by the prospect of settling in outer space. It’s worth remembering, Erika Nesvold suggests, that in making new worlds, we don’t necessarily leave our earthly problems behind. Accordingly, her work highlights the complex ethical challenges that accompany any other-worldly venture—questions about the environment, labor rights, and medical ethics, among others.
Any such venture, Nesvold contends, must be made on behalf of all humanity, with global input and collaboration. Off-Earth thus includes historical and contemporary examples from outside the dominant Western/US, abled, and privileged narrative of the space industry. Nesvold calls on experts in ethics, sociology, history, social justice, and law to launch a hopeful conversation about the potential ethical pitfalls of becoming a multi-planet species—and, ideally, to shed light on similar problems we presently face here on Earth.
Space settlement is rapidly becoming ever more likely. Will it look like the utopian vision of Star Trek? Or the dark future of Star Wars? Nesvold challenges us to decide.
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"What kind of world do we want our descendants in space to inhabit?" asks astrophysicist Nesvold in her thought-provoking debut. Expanding on her podcast, Making New Worlds, she ponders the ethics of space settlement, including how to handle property rights, whether there is a moral way to determine if people can safely reproduce in space (where gravity and radiation levels may affect development), and how to select crews to populate settlements without succumbing to eugenics. Nesvold aims to spark discussion, and her knack for identifying thorny quandaries will undoubtedly do so, as when she addresses the difficulties new settlements will face in responding to crime when a community might be so small that the accused might be the "only person who knows how to fix the water recyclers." She draws smart historical parallels, warning that the failures of Jamestown's original colonists, who were mostly upper class and lacking practical skills, could repeat if space exploration becomes the sole province of the wealthy (though she's quick to note the limits of analogizing the settling of uninhabited planets with European theft of Indigenous land). Nesvold's timely warning is bolstered by nuanced ethics and her careful attention to how colonization has historically been accompanied by injustice and violence. This raises hard questions that deserve serious consideration.
