Book & podcast collection

Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space

byErika Nesvold

Astrophysicist Erika Nesvold asks how humans should organize life beyond Earth before technology and commercial pressure make the decisions for us. She examines labor, property, reproduction, disability, medicine, crime, governance, environmental protection, cultural heritage, and inequality in settlements, stations, and resource operations. Thought experiments connect space scenarios with ethical failures and experiments already visible on Earth. The book challenges the assumption that exploration automatically represents progress, arguing that rockets and habitats are incomplete without institutions capable of protecting rights, resolving conflict, and treating new environments as more than empty territory.

Publisher

MIT Press

Publication date

2023

Format

Print edition

Pages

—

ISBN

9780262047548