Space & Cosmology

"Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." - Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky

“As a rough approximation, let us say the Virgo Supercluster contains 10^¹³ stars. One estimate of the computing power extractable from a star and with an associated planet-sized computational structure, using advanced molecular nanotechnology, is 10^{^42}operations per second. A typical estimate of the human brain’s processing power is roughly 10^{^17} operations per second or less. Not much more seems to be needed to simulate the relevant parts of the environment in sufficient detail to enable the simulated minds to have experiences indistinguishable from typical current human experiences. Given these estimates, it follows that the potential for approximately 10^³⁸ human lives is lost every century that colonization of our local supercluster is delayed; or equivalently, about 10^{^29} potential human lives per second”- Nick Bostrom

Cosmos

The Far Future of Intelligent Life Across the Universe - Stuart Armstrong. On how a technologically mature civilization may be able to explore the universe.
Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities: A Collection of Space Futures - Ed Finn, Joey Eschrich. Dropbox link to a comprehensive book covering practical and philosophical matters of space exploration.
Life As It Could Be: Astrobiology, Synthetic Biology, and the Future of Life - Library of Congress. Longish recording of the future of life in space.
Space Governance - 80.000 Hours. Intro post with risks, near-term opportunities, and organizations.
Space Races: Settling the Universe Fast - Anders Sandberg. Examines the issue of the resource demands and constraints for very fast large-scale settlement.
Cosmos - Carl Sagan. Also Pale Blue Dot. An early inspirational account of our potential future in space, including early space images.
What’s It Like in Space? - Ariel Waldman. An illustrative account of the constraints and possibilities for human life in space.
How Space Exploration Replaced Religion in the USSR - Sasha Rospopina. On what it looked like to put space exploration first for the USSR.
You Are Not Where You Think You Are, What Do Alien Civilizations Look Like? - Kurzgesagt. Explainer video on our place in the universe.
The 12 Greatest Challenges for Space Exploration - Wired. Intro-level post on technical challenges we have to overcome for space exploration.
The Edges of Our Universe - Toby Ord. Divides the universe into, affectable, observable, eventually observable, and ultimately observable universe.
Space is for Everyone - Rachel Lindberg. TED talk arguing for a democratic approach to space exploration.
Space Law and Policy - Ali Prince. Discusses international cooperation and competition around space policy issues.
Aerospace Knowledge Guide - Website. Introduces useful terminology on space.

‍

War & Encounters

An Informal Review of Space Exploration - Kbog. A critical look at the value of space exploration.
Space Debris - Creon Levit. Presentation about the millions of space debris particles clouding the orbit of Earth.
Why The Risks of Space Collusions is Skyrocketing - Moriba Jah. On space collusions, debris, and what to do about them.
The Cosmic Zoo - Dirk Schulze-Makuch.
Colder Wars - Gwern. On the game theory of space war.
Grabby Aliens - Robin Hanson. As video recording - Foresight Institute.

‍

Fermi Paradox

Fermi Paradox - After-On Podcast. A good intro to the Fermi Paradox, its implications for humanity’s survival, and potential solutions.
Stephen Webb on “Where is everybody?” Solutions to the Fermi Paradox - Rationally Speaking Podcast. Another intro to the paradox through a rationalist lens, including evaluating various solutions.
Dissolving the Fermi Paradox - Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler, Toby Ord. Dissolving the Fermi paradox by showing that when the model is recast with realistic distributions of uncertainty, the Fermi paradox yields a substantive probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe.
Eternity in 6 Hours - Intergalactic Spreading of Intelligent Life and Sharpening the Fermi paradox - Anders Sandberg, Stuart Armstrong. Extends the Fermi Paradox to other galaxies as well, showing that for a star-spanning civilizations it would be relatively easy to spread into other galaxies, thus sharpening the paradox.
That is not dead which can Eternal Lie: the Aestivation Hypothesis for Resolving The Fermi Paradox - Anders Sandberg, Stuart Armstrong, Milan Cirkovic. Suggests a solution to the Fermi Paradox that advanced civilizations may be in aestivation.
Rare Earth - Peter Ward. On why complex life is uncommon in the universe.

‍

Cosmos

Global Exploration Roadmap - NASA. A roadmap to expand human presence into the Solar System, with the surface of Mars as a common driving goal.
Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark. Especially relevant are the final chapters applying AI to long-term space exploration.
The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in 8 Easy Steps - Marshall Savage. Dated inspirational manifesto for long-term space exploration.
Game Theory of Cooperating With Aliens | Anders Sandberg, Q&A on Cosmology, Inflation & Black Holes | Creon Levit, Adam Brown, Iterate the Game | Stuart Armstrong & Robin Hanson, Space Development: Legal Considerations, Far Future Tech Tree - Foresight Institute. Various seminars on the long-term potential of humanity in space in the light of alien encounters and limited energy.
List of Readings on Space Settlement - NSS. Link list to various near-term and long-term topics for space settlement.
The Meaning of Liberty Beyond Earth - Charles Cockell. Takes the discussion of liberty and democracy into the extraterrestrial environment.
Interplanetary Federalism: Maximising the Chances of Extraterrestrial Peace, Diversity and Liberty - Ian Crawford. On the principle of subsidiarity for space governance.
Elon Musk puts his case for a multi-planetary civilization - Aeon. Long-form article of Elon Musk’s case for space exploration.
A Cosmist Manifesto - Ben Goertzel. Philosophical manifesto on our potential long-term futures in space.
Floating Worlds - Robert McCall. Art focused on space exploration.
Earth Restored - Toby Ord. A selection of beautiful digitally restored photographs of earth.
Kerbal Space Program - Computer game. Create and manage your own space program.
A Roadmap to Interstellar Flight – Philip Lubin. Proposes a roadmap for advancing space exploration which woud aim not only to explore space, but also to utilize space technology.
Spacehabs Gallery – Bryan Versteeg. Art focusing on space exploration, settlement and industrialization.

‍

Tools

How To Terraform Venus, Asteroid Mining: Unlimited Resources from Space, How to Build A Dysonsphere, How To Build A Marsbase, How to Build A Moonbase, Stellar Engines - Kurzgesagt. Explainer videos on our long-term future in space.
ESA Space Technology Tree - J. Westman. Classifies the technological expertise available in ESA for space technology.
TechPort - NASA. Portfolio of active and completed technology projects.
Cosmic Vision - ESA. Europe’s Plan for Space Science 2015 - 2025.
Statites - Space.stackexchange. On the possibility of statites, satellites which are stationary above a planet without being in orbit.

‍

Mars

The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet - Robert Zubrin. Comprehensive intro to the challenges implicated for humans living on Mars, reasons for why the settlement could be worth it.
How We’ll Live on Mars - Stephen L. Petranek. Extensive guide to life on Mars.
How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars - Tim Urban. Intro-level long-from post on SpaceX-focused Mars missions.
We Can Afford to Go to Mars — Here’s How - Bill Nye. Exploring economically feasible approaches for settling Mars.
As Silicon Valley Lays Plans to Colonize Mars, Researchers Offer a Blueprint for Governing It - Michael Coren. Long-from intro article introducing various current topics and organizations working on space governance.

‍

Fiction

Seveneves - Neal Stephenson. On space exploration incentivized by an earth-wide catastrophic event.
The Culture Series - Ian Banks. Especially: The Player of Games. A series of space operas about the lives of technologically advanced civilizations.
The Last Question - Isaac Asimov. On solving entropy.
Blue Mars, Red Mars, Green Mars - Kim Stanely Robinson. A series of books on civilizational problems on the path to colonizing Mars.
Explore the Cosmos in 10 Classical Space Operas - Alan Brown. A link list of space operas.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert. A. Heinlein. On political struggles on planetary colonies.
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia - Ursula K. LeGuin. On choosing amongst anarchism and other political regimes that govern different planets.

‍

Staying Up to Date

Planet Stories - A tool that lets everyone collapse and timelapse satellite images of almost anywhere in the world into stories to show change.
ManyWorlds.space - This site is for everyone interested in the burgeoning field of exoplanet detection and research, from the general public to scientists in the field.
Universetoday - Website. Beautiful imagery of the cosmos on that day.
ShiftedSpace - Website. Media and stories motivating action to clean up space
Astria Graph - Website. Space object visualization and tracking service.
Astronomy Podcast - Podcast. Science-driven podcast on space.
Celestial Citizen - Podcast. On economical, social, and moral questions in relation to space exploration.
Space Generation Advisory Council - organization. Largest student and early professional network for space advocacy.
NASA - Podcast. On all things NASA and other noteworthy space news.
The Space Policy Show - Podcast. Discusses a variety of space policy issues.
Space Policy Pod - Podcast. Retired podcast with good episodes on space.

‍

Organizations on the Cause

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group - A forum set up by 14 space agencies to advance the Global Exploration Strategy through coordination of their mutual efforts in space exploration.
SETI - Our mission is to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, and to apply the knowledge gained to inspire and guide present and future generations.
FQXI- Foundational Question Institute catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources. The lectures are especially good.
Planetary Society - Know the cosmos and our place within it.
Open Lunar - Create a peaceful, cooperative, long term human presence on the Moon for the benefit of all life.
European Space Policy Institute - Provide recommendations, policy options and forward vision as to how Europe’s engagement in space can bring maximum benefit to society.
The Outer Space Institute - A network of world-leading space experts united by their commitment to highly innovative, transdisciplinary research that addresses grand challenges facing the continued use and exploration of space.
McGill’s Institute for Air & Space Law - Academic setting for teaching and research in the dual disciplines of international air law and space law.
NASA - America’s civil space program and the global leader in space exploration.
ESA - Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
JAXA - The Japanese national air and space agency.
Honeybee Robotics- R&D and Manufacturing engineering company that designs and builds unique solutions for our customers’ challenges, on Earth and in space.
Orbit Fab - we need a bustling in-space economy before we can have permanent jobs in space.
Luxemburg Space Agency - Promotes the commercial space sector in Luxembourg by providing support to the space industry, fostering new and existing businesses, developing human resources, offering access to financial solutions and supporting academic learning and research.
Clearspace - Sustainability in space.
Relativity Space - American aerospace manufacturing company.
Deep Space Food Challenge - NASA challenge to bring innovative food production to space.
Space Futures Initiative - Organization focused on research, education, and outreach to improve long-term futures in space for humanity.
Democratizing Access to Space - On the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative.
Jus ad astra - Organization with the mission of bringing human rights to space.
Space Traffic Management Conference - Conference.

‍