Fifteen Years of NASA Student Space Settlement Design Contests: Some Lessons

This paper considers possible futures for human space settlements through the life story and experiences of David Vetter—a child born with severe combined immunodeﬁciency who became known in popular media as the “bubble boy.” Lynn Margulis imagined the creation of ecosystems and human settlements on another planet could be an act of Gaia reproducing by budding, through ecopoiesis. Thinking with Margulis about humans as holobionts, our species is both constituted by and embedded within communities of organisms and ecologies. As holobionts we may not be able to live outside of these communities and systems or away from Earth, even if we can temporarily survive without them. Placed within an evolutionary framework, techno-capitalist imaginaries of space settlement limit conceptions of planetary reproduction to heteronormative models of ecopoiesis which promote competition as a key driver of evolution instead of cooperation. Technologically mediated survival along with forced reproduction of holobionts within Earth-like systems and could lead to suffering and isolation like David Vetter’s forced survival in a bubble. I propose alternative liberatory modes of conceptualizing and materializing space migration (including queer and decolonized forms of reproduction) which better respect the Earth, its inhabitants, as well as extraterrestrial planets, landscapes, lives, and possibilities. Cite as: Oman-Reagan, Michael P. “Politics of Planetary Reproduction and the Children of Other Worlds.” Futures. (Forthcoming, 2019)

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Design and Contestation in the Jewish Settlement of Hebron, 1967–87

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians ◽

10.1525/jsah.2020.79.1.82 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 79 (1) ◽

pp. 82-102

Author(s):

Noam Shoked

Keyword(s):

Architectural History ◽

Military Strategy ◽

Government Officials ◽

Jewish Settlement ◽

History Of ◽

Six Day War ◽

The Government ◽

A Site ◽

Settlement Design

In Design and Contestation in the Jewish Settlement of Hebron, 1967–87, Noam Shoked explores how this settlement, built on lands Israel captured from Jordan in the Six-Day War of 1967, became a site of both collaboration and confrontation among architects, settlers, and government officials. Working for the government, architects at first sought to mitigate the ambitions of the settlers, but their plans were undermined by unexpected actors, such as amateur archaeologists and volunteer architects, who commandeered their designs. Unearthing the architectural history of the settlement, this article questions the received history of settlement design as the outcome of military strategy and points to the unanticipated ways in which Hebron's religious settlers drew on mainstream architectural culture to fashion their identities.

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Resistance factors for settlement design

Canadian Geotechnical Journal ◽

10.1139/t05-053 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 42 (5) ◽

pp. 1422-1436 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

Gordon A Fenton ◽

D V Griffiths ◽

W Cavers

Keyword(s):

Random Field ◽

Limit State ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Site Investigation ◽

Soil Mass ◽

Shallow Foundation ◽

Random Field Theory ◽

Large Variability ◽

Resistance Factors ◽

Settlement Design

To control serviceability problems arising from excessive settlement of shallow footings, geotechnical design codes generally include specifications regarding maximum settlement, which often govern the footing design. Once the footing has been designed and constructed, the actual settlement it experiences on a real three-dimensional soil mass can be quite different than expected, due to the soil's spatial variability. Because of this generally large variability (compared to other engineering materials, such as concrete and steel) and because this particular serviceability limit state often governs the design, it makes sense to consider a reliability-based approach to settlement design. This paper looks in some detail at a load and resistance factor design (LRFD) approach to limiting footing settlement. In particular, the resistance factors required to achieve a certain level of settlement reliability as a function of soil variability and site investigation intensity are determined analytically using random field theory. Simplified approximate relationships are proposed and tested using simulation via the random finite element method. It is found that the simplified relationships are validated both by theory and simulation and so can be used to augment the calibration of geotechnical LRFD code provisions with respect to shallow foundation settlement. Key words: reliability-based design, settlement, geotechnical, shallow foundation, random field, probability.

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The Value of Science in Space Exploration

10.1093/oso/9780190069063.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

James S.J. Schwartz

Keyword(s):

Scientific Knowledge ◽

Intrinsic Value ◽

Space Exploration ◽

Social Philosophy ◽

Space Environment ◽

Resource Exploitation ◽

Extraterrestrial Life ◽

Planetary Protection ◽

New Knowledge ◽

Space Settlement

The Value of Science in Space Exploration provides a rigorous assessment of the value of scientific knowledge and understanding in the context of contemporary space exploration. It argues that traditional spaceflight rationales are deficient, and that the strongest defense of spaceflight comes from its potential to produce intrinsically and instrumentally valuable knowledge and understanding. It engages with contemporary epistemology to articulate an account of the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge and understanding. It also parleys with recent work in science policy and social philosophy of science to characterize the instrumental value of scientific research, identifying space research as an effective generator of new knowledge and understanding. These values found an ethical obligation to engage in scientific examination of the space environment. This obligation has important implications for major space policy discussions, including debates surrounding planetary protection policies, space resource exploitation, and human space settlement. Whereas planetary protection policies are currently employed to prevent biological contamination only of sites of interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, it contends that all sites of interest to space science ought to be protected. Meanwhile, space resource exploitation and human space settlement would result in extensive disruption or destruction of pristine space environments. The overall ethical value of these environments in the production of new knowledge and understanding is greater than their value as commercial or real commodities, and thus, exploitation and settlement of space should be avoided until the scientific community adequately understands these environments.

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The ethical dimensions of space settlement

Space Policy ◽

10.1016/s0265-9646(00)00024-2 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. 205-211 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Martyn J Fogg

Keyword(s):

Space Settlement ◽

Dimensions Of Space

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