Book Reviews: A City on Mars and The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space
Routledge Handbooks need snappier titles
One of my motivations for writing Off-Earth is that I really wanted to read a book about the ethical issues we’ll face during space settlement. Turns out I could have saved myself some trouble by waiting a few years, because there are a ton of great space ethics books rolling off the presses these days! I read two this month that I really recommend: A City on Mars, by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, and The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space, edited by Juan Francisco Salazar and Alice Gorman.
A City on Mars
I’ve been reading a webcomic called Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal for many many years, so I was excited to see that the artist, Zach Weinersmith, and his wife, ecologist Kelly Weinersmith, were writing their next book about space settlement. I was even more tickled when Kelly reached out to me to ask how Off-Earth had been received by the space community. She mentioned that she and Zach had reached many of the same conclusions about the challenges of space settlement in their upcoming book A City on Mars, and she was kind enough to send me an advanced copy! (Fun under-advertised benefit of writing a book: you make friends with other people who write books and they send you their books.)
The first half of A City on Mars looks at the physical obstacles for humans who want to live in space: how and where to build habitats, what we know (and more importantly don’t yet know) about human physiology and reproduction in space, etc. Then the Weinersmiths turn towards those pesky legal questions, like how to approach property rights in space and whether independent states in space might realistically emerge. Ultimately, they argue that if we want to settle space, we should wait until we have the technology and resources to go big— really, really big— with enough infrastructure and initial population to be able to address most of these challenges right from the start.
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith also recently published a really interesting “deleted scene” from their book as an article in Space Policy, which can be read here (although it’s partially paywalled): To Each According to Their Space-Need: Communes in Outer Space. And to think I’ve just been publishing my deleted scenes from Off-Earth in this newsletter!
If you liked Off-Earth but wish it was funnier, with more pictures, and explored more of the technical and biological challenges of living in space, you’ll love A City on Mars. Just don’t try to read Chapter 3 in public on an airplane, like I did (it’s the one about human reproduction in space— did I mention this book is illustrated?).
A City on Mars comes out TODAY, November 7, and can be ordered from a variety of booksellers here. I will warn potential readers, though: the book contains a truly unforgivable pun involving Buzz Aldrin drinking Communion wine on the Moon, plus, separately, use of the word “comm-moon-ism”. You’ve been warned.
The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space
Part of what makes space ethics such an interesting subject, as I mentioned last month, is the huge range of fields that are contributing to the discussion. I interviewed historians, philosophers, anthropologists, lawyers, astronomers, sociologists, and more for Off-Earth; my co-edited volume, Reclaiming Space, included contributions from all of the above, plus artists, linguists, and science fiction authors.
The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space is a fantastic compilation of perspectives on space— and the people who work in and on space— from experts in the social sciences. Co-edited by Juan Francisco Salazar and Alice Gorman (who both happen to be board members of my nonprofit), the volume is more academically focused than pop-space-settlement books like Off-Earth or A City on Mars, so the technical language of some of the chapters may be tougher for non-social-scientists (like myself!) to parse, but many of the contributions were extremely readable for outsiders to the field. There are also several chapters about art— so like A City on Mars, it’s illustrated!
It was especially fun and useful to read “outside” perspectives on my own field of research, like ethnographer Fionagh Thomson’s “Whiteboards, Dancing, Origami, Debate: The Importance of Practical Wisdom for Astrophysicists and Instrument Scientists”. There were also some particularly relevant chapters for people who want to learn to think critically about space colonization (emphasis on the “colonization”):
“Space Ethics” by Tony Milligan and J. S. Johnson-Schwartz: an excellent and readable overview of space ethics by two philosophers with extensive expertise in the field.
“Feminist Approaches to Outer Space: Engagements with Technology, Labour, and Environment” by Réka Patrícia Gál and Eleanor S. Armstrong: I liked their point that “a feminist approach to outer space does not end with demands for representation within the field”, but that we should also work towards identifying “why certain identities have been a subject of exclusion and oppression within the field”.
“Diversity in Space” by Evie Kendal: A nice complement to Gál and Armstrong’s chapter, this chapter does a great job of explaining the importance of role models and representation, not just in STEM fields but in more senior and significant positions.
“The Iconography of the Astronaut as a Critical Enquiry of Space Law”, by Saskia Vermeylen: A really interesting exploration of the astronaut as a symbol and how that symbol is evolving over time. Vermeylen argues that “the role of the astronaut has become reduced… to that of a blue-collar worker”, and that to prevent labor exploitation in space, we need to restore “the prestige of astronauts of envoys of humankind”—but not as the faceless, white-suited embodiments of various political ideologies that she sees in historical representations of the astronaut.
“Safeguarding Indigenous Sky Rights from Colonial Exploitation” by Karlie Alinta Noon, Krystal De Napoli, Peter Swanton, Carla Guedes, and Duane Hamacher: A good survey of a number of different ways in which “Indigenous peoples’ connections to the stars are being actively erased by colonial states pushing for the human colonisation and exploitation of natural resources in space with almost no consultation with First Nations peoples around the world”, including the effects of artificial satellites and light pollution on the night sky and the building of space launch facilities on Indigenous lands. I particularly appreciated the examples offered of sites where there has been “collaborations and proper engagement” between space organizations and Indigenous peoples, “leading to positive outcomes for all.”
There are two other chapters that expand upon this connection between Indigenous peoples and the night sky: “Celestial Relations with and as Milŋiyawuy, the Milky Way, the River of Stars” by Bakawa Country, including Dr. Laklak Burarrwanga, Ritjilili Ganambarr, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Banbapuy Ganambarr, Djawundil Maymuru, Lara Daley, Sarah Wright, Sandie Suchet-Pearson, and Kate Lloyd with Naminapu Maymuru-White and Rrawun Maymuru, and “Anishnaabeg in Space” by Deondre Smiles. I especially liked Smiles’ vision of an Anishnaabeg space program, and the way Bakawa Country et al. share their knowledge of Sky Country and the Milky Way through story.
Thanks again to Kelly, Zach, Juan, and Alice for their work on this two excellent books, and for their ongoing work to stimulate more discussion about humanity’s future in space!
Other News
I’m organizing a virtual conference through my nonprofit, the JustSpace Alliance, called the Environmental Justice in Space (EJiS) Workshop. It’ll be held on June 20-21, 2024, and our goal is to bring space experts together with environmental justice activists and researchers to discuss areas of concern in the space environment, lessons learned from the history of environmental justice movements on Earth, and ideas for ensuring an equitable and sustainable future for humanity in space. Registration is free(!) and open now at this link; you can also submit an abstract on this form to give a pre-recorded talk.