OFF-EARTH Ethical Questions and Quandaries For Living In Outer Space

OFF EARTH

- Erika Nesvold -

With Musk making plans to settle Mars, it's time to think about the ethics of living in space.

Off-Earth is a great overview of some of the things we should be thinking about, like should we even settle other planets? Who is going to be the settlers? What kind of laws will we use? Equity? Customs and rules? So many things, big and small, to consider.

I picked up this book from my local library, I'm a sucker for the NEW RELEASE SCI-FI wall, and I slowly made my way through all the pages. It wasn't earth shattering, or even a book I'd say is required reading. But it made me start to think.

With all this hype about putting people on the Moon, maybe even Mars, I get excited. I picture Star Trek, and the countless Sci-Fi stories I've read. Astronauts floating in space, planting flags in craters, mining exotic minerals, etc.

But what about reality, the day to day functioning of space. Currently there is a very weak, vague, UN charter on Space. And, who really follows UN rules anyway? The only real rule seems to be that no country is allowed to claim a planet to themselves. Kind of like Antarctica here on Earth. But who is going to actually enforce this? 

The book brings up many topics that one might not think about here on earth. Air, for instance. Who's in charge of air. What about homeless people? With such little space how do you deal with homelessness? 

The big thing to me was who is going to be settling space? It seems like the Super-Duper-Rich are going to be the first people to get into space. How is that going to effect all future development?

See, a whole big bag of things to mull over.

It looks like space is the new wild west. 

The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin

 The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin

- Ursula K. LeGuin -

What a world builder this book is! Ursula is so great at making up new worlds, like in her Earthsea novels. Not only that, but this book was a solid manifesto on her idea of communal living, and I guess taken a little further, her ideas on socialism/communism. LeGuin makes this big idea very readable with a decent  plot and her amazing prose. 

We follow the story of a man living on another planet that is very resource poor (what could be the moon?). The society there is set up to be most efficient by cooperation and sharing. Nobody owns anything, they all sleep in communal dorms, they all take turns doing manual labour, etc. Then this man, who is a scientific genius I should add, is transported back to Earth. Our home planet is set up the exact same as now, with overabundance, excess, and a class based society. The contrast between these two societies is interesting, especially when you throw in a love story, a revolution, and some science fiction.

The entire time I was reading this book I kept getting flashbacks of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Which makes sense since both novels explore utopian and dystopian themes. However, they both take different sides of the idea of an individual focused society and a communal focused society. 

As always, I'm impressed with LeGuin's writing and was very happy with this book. I'd recommend getting a copy for yourself.

I have to explain the picture of the book on display at a laundromat. Our dryer stopped working, so I was making nightly trips to the laundromat. I'd wash the clothes at home, and take three or four loads to the laundromat to dry. I also took this book to read while waiting. Well, somedays I would be tempted to throw another quarter in the dryer just to get a few more minutes of reading time.