This week’s guest is Tanya Harrison, a Mars geologist, author, and infectious banner-waving space enthusiast. We talk about For All Humankind, her new book with Danny Bednar on the legacy of the Apollo missionsm, as both a planetwide accomplishment and also a high bar against which we have since not seemed to measure up...as well as:
What it’s like to drive a mars rover and extend yourself technologically through space.
What will have to change for us to attune to the plural temporalities of life on multiple worlds.
How the tone of science fiction and space fantasy has changed over the course of our lives, for better or worse.
The cultural differences between national space programs and commercial “jobs in space” exploration.
The tragedy of how light pollution cuts us off from crucial perspective and our tangible belongingness in the starry cosmos.
Using space-based imagining to understand our own planet as the unique and wonderful place it is.
Tanya Works for Planet Labs.
Here’s another great (short) conversation with her about Martian geology.
Grab the books we mention in this episode and I get a tiny kickback.
Support this show on Patreon for secret episodes, the Future Fossils book club, and more awesome stuff than you probably have time for.
People Mentioned:
Jessa Gamble, Barry Vacker, Divya Persaud, Stewart Brand, Carl Sagan, Sara Imari Walker, Rusty Schweickert, Biosphere II
Media Mentioned:
For All Humankind, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy, Ad Astra, The Expanse
Theme Music: “God Detector” by Evan “Skytree” Snyder (feat. Michael Garfield)
Additional Intro Music: “Lambent” by Michael Garfield
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138 - Tanya Harrison on Space Exploration 50 Years After Apollo