Hello and welcome to ACFM, the home of the weird left.

My name is Keir Milburn and today I'm doing a special microdose with Fred Charman, the author of Space Forces, a critical history of life in outer space.

Hi Fred, how's it going?

Hi Keir.

So let me just explain why I'm talking to Fred.

I've only met Fred in the last week or so, and in fact this is the first time we're talking.

A couple of weeks ago we did a full trip ACFM with Jeremy and Nadia.

It's about space, space in its wider aspect, the concept of space and how the politics of space is certainly seems quite relevant.

But as part of that we talked about outer space and why this is to be a renewed focus and outer space over the last perhaps six months or so or at least in my head has been a renewed focus.

Perhaps it's longer than six months in actual fact.

And somebody recommended that I read Fred's book, now Fred's book tonight out is coming out in November and I got sent an advanced copy and I'm very glad I did because it's a great book, I really really really enjoyed it.

And so we thought, look this is a way, there's so much more to talk about in terms of outer space.

We've only scratched the surface, that's not a very good metaphor we were talking about outer space.

We've only peeked out the airlock.

We've only sniffed the extremities of the airlock.

We want to get straight through the airlocking right out into the dark mysteries of outer space.

So Fred, I'm really glad I got sent your book and I'm really glad you agreed to talk to us.

Perhaps the best way to start the conversation is for you to talk to give your own version of how you see the focus of the book and what your motivations were for writing it.

Yeah, sure. I mean, my sort of native field is architecture and urban design.

So that's where I'm coming from as a researcher and a writer and a teacher.

So what I've been interested in doing the past couple of years is like connecting people from my world in the kind of mainstream of spatial practice, if you like, to some of these ideas about creating whole worlds from scratch that come into play when we're talking about living in outer space.

So I think that in general, you know, I found that people who practice architecture and who practice making space on earth have a lot to learn from people who are working in space science and kind of vice versa.

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