As planet Earth continues to boil, billionaires are setting their sights on the heavens.

You might have heard about Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson setting up space programs

supposedly to usher humanity out to other planets, to colonize Mars and beyond.

They aren't alone here. People of all different political stripes have imagined a human future

beyond the limits of Earth's atmosphere.

19th century Russian scientists Konstantin Salkovsky once famously opined that Earth is the cradle of humanity,

but one cannot remain in the cradle forever.

And here in the 21st century, governments and private industrialists alike are shaking off the restrictions

of Cold War era space treaties and exploring mining, construction, technology,

military expansion and more in space.

Some people are looking at this as the promise of a glorious new future.

Others worry that the economic and geopolitical realities of this new space age pose big risks to Earth's security, its democracy and its ecology.

Daniel Dudney is an academic and writer teaching political science, international relations and political theory at Johns Hopkins University.

He's the author of the book Dark Skies, Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics and the Ends of Humanity.

On this episode, he joined me to talk about the origins of the space age and its deep connections to the nuclear age,

about Silicon Valley Utopianism and the Cold War.

We discussed climate change, resource extraction, and how this new space race is turning into

a new arms race.

Daniel, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Oh, well, thank you for having me. Would you

like to tell us first off how you got interested in this subject? Because some people might think of

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