Building a Space Colony*

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.
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0:28.1	Until 18th of June 2024, 18 plus, T's and C's apply, exchange fees and fair usage limits supply.
0:36.0	The world is constantly changing and transforming.
0:39.0	Cut through some of the noise with What's New With Wired.
0:42.0	A podcast that goes in depth on the latest
0:44.9	news and technology and culture. Their award-winning journalism will help you make
0:49.6	sense of what's happening in the world. Listen to What's New with Wired wherever you get your podcasts.
0:55.8	That's What's New with Wired, wherever you get your podcasts. The idea of humans living somewhere off Earth has long been a dream of visionary
1:14.7	thinkers. Many reasons have been given for why we've got to do this, for more elbow
1:19.8	room to increase access to resources.
1:23.0	But more recently, the idea has taken on a greater urgency.
1:27.0	According to space entrepreneur Elon Musk,
1:30.0	humanity can either get started getting off the planet or risk its own annihilation.
1:35.4	There are really two fundamental paths.
1:37.6	History is going to bifurcate along two directions.
1:40.0	One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event.
	...

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