Interplanetary Environmentalism (Part 2)

We usually think that exploration and settlement of outer space are all about technological innovation, but we’ll need more than that to do it right.

How Did We Ever Live Without GPS?

GPS is everywhere these days, but if it suddenly disappeared all would not be lost: We’ve been making cognitive maps for eons.

Interplanetary Environmentalism (Part 1)

We’ve already left permanent marks on other worlds. Do we have a responsibility to protect the solar system?

Our Living Message for Extraterrestrials

A brief encounter with a new artificial intelligence suggests we may not be able to control the message we send to extraterrestrial intelligences.

Dancing “My Humps” in Rural China

Middle-aged women use private online space to organize their public square-dancing performances. The new technology has changed their dance moves—and their lives.

Unmanning Space Language

Do the terms we commonly use to discuss space exploration reflect the reality of humankind and our engagements with outer space?

Anthropologists in Outer Space

Anthropologists studying outer space might sound like fringe science, but they’ve been at it a long time, from archaeoastronomy to ethnoastronomy.

Wandering Among the Stars

As we spend longer in space, and plan to set up human habitation on other worlds, it is no longer a question of whether humans will move into space, but when.