Space Habitats, Space Colonies and the New Space Economy

Abstract

Most of our visual images of space habitats and space colonies come from science fiction movies. Perhaps you have seen movie classics that range from the sexy and garish worlds portrayed to us in Barbarella, A Clockwork Orange, and Starship Troopers to the more ethereal and philosophically challenging futures that Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick visualized for us in 2001: A Space Odyssey. These imagined alien worlds were, in quite different ways, all strangely visually compelling and often frightening. But essentially all these worlds were also far removed from a real and actually possible future that could ever exist. The most realistic representation that has recently been provided to us on the big screen is The Martian. This movie at least conveys the magnitude of the struggle to stay alive in a stark and cold Mars environment.