Overview

On the Moon or Mars, where even the oxygen you breathe is made in a manufacturing process controlled by someone else, can you be free? In Interplanetary Liberty: Building Free Societies in the Cosmos, Charles S. Cockell argues that beyond Earth, space is especially tyranny-prone. Yet rather than consign humanity to a dim future of extraterrestrial despotisms, he suggests that the construction of free societies is possible using uniquely blended and reformulated classical liberal ideas for the space frontier. Considering politics, science, engineering, art, education, prisons, and other facets of society, this book lays out the general ethos and culture around which settlements might be constructed to secure the establishment and flourishing of freedom in the cosmos.

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9780192866240

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This is a brilliant and compelling book, written with great knowledge and understanding. * ANTHONY PAGDEN, Professor of political science and history at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters * If you have ever thought about the future of humanity in outer space, this book should be very high on your list. * FRANS VON DER DUNK, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Research Professor at the Lazarski University, Warsaw and author of The Handbook of Space Law * Can classical liberal political theories prevent tyranny and despotism in space? This is the central question that is compellingly examined in this fascinating book. * SASKIA VERMEYLEN, Reader in Law, Law School, University of Strathclyde, Scotland * This is a book that should be read by anyone interested in the broader philosophical questions of human space exploration. * CHRISTOPHER NEWMAN, Professor of Space Law and Policy at Northumbria University * This is an important book for building our future in space. * MARTIN ELVIS, Astrophysicist and author of Asteroids: How Love, Fear, and Greed Will Determine Our Future in Space * Interplanetary Liberty offers an engaging exploration of liberal political thought applied to human space expansion, and in so doing provides a much-needed examination of the scope and fitness of democratic principles of governance for prospective space societies. * JAMES SCHWARTZ, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wichita State University and author of The Value of Science in Space Exploration *

Author Information

Charles S. Cockell is Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His scientific research includes the study of life in extreme environments, the habitability of extraterrestrial environments, and human space exploration. He has worked for NASA and the British Antarctic Survey and spent many seasons in Antarctica and the High Arctic. He received his doctorate in molecular biophysics from the University of Oxford and his BSc from the University of Bristol. As well as over 300 scientific papers and numerous popular science books, including Space on Earth, which made the case for the indivisible links between space exploration and environmentalism, he has written a number of papers and edited books on the subject of extraterrestrial liberty.

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