Human Migration to Space: Alternative Technological Approaches for Long-Term Adaptation to Extraterrestrial Environments

ISBN-13: 9783319059297 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 205 str.

Elizabeth Lockard

Opis

Human migration to space will be the most profound catalyst for evolution in the history of humankind, yet this has had little impact on determining our strategies for this next phase of exploration. Habitation in space will require extensive technological interfaces between humans and their alien surroundings and how they are deployed will critically inform the processes of adaptation. As humans begin to spend longer durations in space--eventually establishing permanent outposts on other planets--the scope of technological design considerations must expand beyond the meager requirements for survival to include issues not only of comfort and well‐being, but also of engagement and negotiation with the new planetary environment that will be crucial to our longevity beyond Earth. Approaching this question from an interdisciplinary approach, this dissertation explores how the impact of interior space architecture can meet both the physical and psychological needs of future space colonists and set the stage for humankind to thrive and grow while setting down new roots beyond Earth.

Spis treści

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Current Directions in Space Exploration.- Chapter 3: Shifting from Habitation to Adaptation in Space.- Chapter 4: Alternative technological Interfaces with the space Environment.- Chapter 5: The Case for an Integrative Approach.- Chapter 6: Futures of Human Evolution.- Chapter 7: Conclusion.- Bibliography.

O autorze

Liza Lockard is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental and Interior Design program at Chaminade University. She has a Masters in Architecture from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Futures Studies from University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Prior to her arrival at Chaminade, she practiced architecture in the U.S., Vietnam, Switzerland, and Costa Rica, and previously taught at the University of Hawai‘i School of Architecture. Her current research focuses on how architecture could be used for future human space exploration needs.

Blurb

As humans embark upon the next phase of Space exploration—establishing human outposts in low-Earth orbit, on the Moon, and on Mars—the scope of human factors must expand beyond the meager requirements for short-term missions to Space to include issues of comfort and well-being necessary for long-term durations. However, to habitate—to dwell in a place—implies more than creature comforts in order to adapt. Human factors research must also include a phenomenological perspective – an understanding of how we experience the places we live in – in order for a community to be robust and to thrive.

 

The first phase of migration will be an especially tenuous one requiring intensive technological intervention. The modes by which those technologies are implemented will have significant bearing on the process of human adaptation: the nature of the mediation can be either one of domination, subordination, avoidance, or integration. Ultimately, adaptation is best ensured if

symbiotic processes of negotiation and cooperation between subject and environment are espoused over acts of conquest or acquiescence.

 

These adaptive mechanisms will have wider implications for long-range human evolution. Migration to extraterrestrial environments will be unequivocally the most profound catalyst for evolution in the history of humankind—not only for the human species itself but also for the new environments we will eventually inhabit. At the same time, humans are also—via a new generation of bio-, nano-, and digital technologies—in the position to consciously and willfully direct evolution. Technology has always been transformative, but in the not-so-distant future, humans will soon possess the capacity for radical re-invention in almost any way conceivable.