Sylvia Engdahl's Space Advocacy Pages
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If you care about the future of Earth, you should care about space.
Because Earth's resources can't last forever--our descendants will need
power and materials from space. Because they'll need room to raise families
when Earth becomes too crowded. And because the only long-term way to
preserve Earth's beauty, and its ecosystem, is for some humans to move on.
Space Quotes to Ponder
What famous people, and some not famous, have said about why humankind must expand into space.
From This Green Earth: Essays on Looking Outward
An ebook, paperback and audiobook containing the following essays, available at Amazon, all ebook retailers, and by special order at bookstores.
The Once and Future Dream
New to the 2024 edition of the book, emphasizing the continuity of longing to travel to distant wolsds since the late 17th century and the reason for the public's current loss of enthusiasm.
Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary of the First Moon Landing
Why we haven't yet returned to the moon and why that shouldn't be discouraging to space advocates.
Breaking Out from Earth's Shell
Written for the first edition of this book and now also available at the Lifeboat Foundation website.
Why Does the History of Outlook Toward Space Matter?
The the 2022 Preface to my book The Planet-Girded Suns, plus a revised version of the original Foreword,
Confronting the Universe in the Twenty-First Century
The Afterword to the 2012 edition of my book The Planet-Girded Suns, republished in The Space Review, and here including an optimistic 2016 update.
Space and Human Survival
Why our species must colonize space to survive.
The Only Sensible Way to Deal with Climate Change
The urgent need to develop space-based solar power on a large scale as soon as possible. (Added to the original book in June 2022.)
Update on the Critical Stage
New thoughts about the theory of the Critical Stage that's presented in my novel
The Far Side of Evil -- of interest to everyone interested in my ideas
about space colonization, whether you've read the novel or not.
Space Colonization, Faith, and Pascal's Wager
Essay published in The Space Review, arguing that it is not irrational to have
faith that space colonization can ensure the long-term survival of humankind.
Why There Will Never Be an Interplanetary War
The past must be seen in perspective with awareness of how our species has evolved, and will continue to evolve, from era to era.
Humankind's Future in the Cosmos
My personal views on our species' long-term future in space, written for my ebook
The Future of Being Human and Other Essays and revised for the 2024 edition of this book.
Essays from the 2019 edition of From This Green Earth
Deleted to make it short enough for an affordable paperback edition,but still available online. Some have been moved to the ebook The Future of Being Human.
Is It Time to Send Humans to Mars?
My comments on how soon we should go to Mars.
Space Age Mythology Revisited
What changing trends in science fiction movies reveal about the public's current attitude toward space.
The Significance of Belief in UFOs
Speculation about why people believe in UFOs and abduction by aliens, and what this signifiies about the public's view of space.
The Meaning of Gaia in Space Age Mythology
If Earth is to be revered as a Mother it should be recognized that her ills are due to her pregnancy.
The Mythopoeic Nature of Speculation About ETs
Ideas about subjects on which no data can be obtained arise through the mythopoeic, rather than rational/scientific, mode of human thought, even in the case of scientists.
From the Journal of an Alien Observer
My opinion about what an alien from an advanced civilization would think of the enironmental movement on Earth.
The New Mythology of the Space Age
My "lectures" for a graduate-level online course I taught in 1995. (16 pages, contents on first.)
Other Essays and Commentary
Introduction to The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
In The Apollo 11 Moon Landing (Perspectives on Modern World History series), a book I edited. Available in this preview, the "Look Inside," and the book's free sample download at Amazon. (It comes after the Foreword.)
Introduction to The Challenger Disaster
In The Challenger Disaster (Perspectives on Modern World History series), another book I edited. Available as a free sample of the book at Google Play. (It comes after the Foreword.)
Tragedy in Space
Posted February 1, 1986 on the early online service The Source, with a recent postscript about why the Challenger disaster decreased public support for space.
Achieving Human Commitment to Space Colonization: Is Fear the Answer?
Why the public gives so little support to the space effort, with a recent postscript about why that's not a real problem. Also available at the Lifeboat Foundation's website.
Plus 50 Years and Counting
50 years after the first flight to the moon, we're beginning to count again after long years of holding.
The Future of Humans in Space
Essay from my ebook The Future of Being Human and Other Essays consisting of the portion of the original version of "The Future of Humankind in the Cosmos" that deals with our own solar system, which was deleted from the version now in From This Green Earth.
Does It Matter Whether Humankind Survives?
Essay from my book The Future of Being Human and Other Essays.
The Mythic Role of Space Fiction
My acceptance speech for the 1990 Phoenix Award, about how today's emerging
mythology reflects our era's perception of the universe.
Miscellaneous
Early Space Poetry
Passages about space from poetry of the 17th - 19th centuries. (There are more in
The Planet-Girded Suns.)
Hymn for Spacefarers
A poem suitable for use as a hymn by churches, written in 1971 and first published in 1986 on the early online service The Source.
The Evolutionary Significance of Space Colonization
My 1980 proposal for a master's thesis in Anthropology.
"Space Race," In Americans at War: Society, Culture and the Homefront, John P. Resch, ed., Vol. 4, Macmillan Reference, 2004. pp. 180-183. (Available in Infotrac, an online database accessible through public and school libraries.)
My 90-minute radio interviews on The Space Show
(Archived in Windows Media Player format)
#1: Aired on October 26, 2003
#2: Aired on May 9, 2004
Links to some of the best sites and books advocating space colonization.
The initial version of this page wenr online in 1997. Last updated in August 2024