Building a Space Colony*

Big Picture Science

Ready to become a space emigre? For half a century, visionaries have been talking about our future off-Earth – a speculative scenario in which many of us live in space colonies. So why haven’t we built them? Will the plans of billionaire space entrepreneurs to build settlements on Mars, or orbiting habitats that would be only minutes away from Earth, revive our long-held spacefaring dreams? And is having millions of people living off-Earth a solution to our problems… or an escape from them?

Guests:

Marianne Dyson – Author and former NASA flight controller

Emily St. John Mandel – Author, most recently of “Sea of Tranquility”

John Adams – Deputy Director, Biosphere 2, University of Arizona

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

*Originally aired July 25, 2022

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