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The final chapter considers Robinson’s two most recent novels, Aurora (2015) and New York 2140 (2017), that offer different visions of the future. Aurora drives a stake through the heart of interstellar romance by depicting the failed mission of a multigenerational starship to colonize another solar system. Narrated in large measure by the spaceship’s artificial intelligence, Aurora brilliantly experiments with the narrative structures of sf even as it explores the ecological and biogeographical limits of terrestrial life. New York 2140, in contrast, depicts the struggle for the city’s political and environmental future in a future where a sea-level rise of forty feet above today’s level has occurred and rampant financial speculation still drives a capitalist worldview. Rather than a dystopian struggle for survival, however, the novel offers a utopian comedy of political and ecological regeneration.

This concluding chapter details the current state of space law and, in particular, the mechanisms that might be used to deal with the discovery of extraterrestrial life. The law in such discovery events will operate in a number of ways, defining the roles of different terrestrial agencies, protecting the scientific integrity of any discovered life, and providing valuable protection for the newly discovered life form. The chapter then argues that existing planetary protection and contamination rules, with their clearly anthropocentric bias (preserve the science), are outmoded and the resulting regulatory gap should be filled with nonbinding soft laws. It also proposes some ways forward to ensure that the seminal discovery event does not lead to conflict on Earth, the loss of irreplaceable scientific information, or even the destruction of the alien life. Ultimately, at present, there is little consensus as to how to start formulating laws to govern relations with alien lifeforms, no matter what their composition.

This chapter examines Greg Egan's view of ethics, which can be seen from his earliest breakout story, “The Cutie” (1989). It looks at several facets of ethical concerns, including medical ethics as seen in “Blood Sisters” (1991) and “Cocoon” (1994). It also covers the uneven distribution of technological benefits, best illustrated by “Yeyuka” (1997) and the genetic engineering piracy shown in Distress (1995). Finally, it focuses on our ethical responsibilities to life that we create and to alien life that we may find out in the universe.

This conclusion reflects on the reputation that William Gibson will likely enjoy in the future, based on his publications to date. Gibson has earned a permanent place in the history of science fiction, and he will always be remembered for his seminal contributions in the 1980s. Despite the stylishly cynical attitude said to characterize cyberpunk, Gibson has shown himself to be unfashionably optimistic fiction tropes of space travel and alien life. But he even more assiduously avoids creating apocalyptic futures such as Alas, Babylon and similar science fiction visions that terrified him as a child. This chapter argues that Gibson does not worry about what future generations might say about him; for Gibson, anyone thinking about the future is really thinking about the present, precluding genuine speculation about the future, so there is no reason to worry about the unknowable judgments of posterity.

This chapter examines the poems of William Empson in an attempt to add knowledge to what poetry can do for science in culture, and vice versa. Empson took inspiration from the world of entomology and was heavily influenced by science-fiction writers, including H.G. Wells, T.S. Elliot and John Donne, who is the subject of his second major essay, ‘Donne the Space Man’. In writing the poem, ‘The Ants’. Empson blends entomology and science fiction and attempts to transcend the established political symbolism of social insects.

Sara Seager, the pioneering astrophysicist, mathematician and planetary scientist reflects in this dialogue about how exoplanets, the purpose of her science, discovered her before she discovered them. She also explains her relationship with mathematics and why for her physics is the most beautiful way to describe the universe, as well as explaining the growing scientific interest to discover planets that orbit a star different to our sun. Later, Sara explains that all astrophysics projects she works on are very long term and is consequently concerned about whether there will be enough young people in this world of immediacy with sufficient patience to become astronomers. She also goes on to explain why life capable of travelling across galaxies will be non biological, as well as discussing how, and with what help, she is facing the greatest challenge of her life: trying to find another Earth, in other words, another planet like Earth with signs of life.

This chapter examines how classical ethical theory might apply to the kind of alien life humans are most likely to encounter: nonrational, nonsentient life. Humans are unlikely to have basic ethical obligations to extraterrestrial life because it is very unlikely that extraterrestrial life could have moral status, by the lights of leading moral theories. Furthermore, even if extraterrestrial life did have moral status, consistency with moral practices on Earth would suggest that humans have very few basic ethical obligations to this life. However, it does not follow that humans could treat extraterrestrial life in any matter human beings see fit, because extraterrestrial life may require protection as humans follow through on basic ethical obligations to themselves. In sum, humans would not have ethical obligations to such life per se but the obligations people clearly do have to their fellow humans entail that people cherish, promote, and protect extraterrestrial life.

This chapter outlines the ethical frameworks provided by some of the leading figures in the contemporary debate on space exploration, identifying resonances between their views and traditional concepts in ethical philosophy such as natural law and virtue theory. One of the first deep similarities apparent to the ethical frameworks of these leading figures is that, to a certain extent, living things should just be left to be—that is, not meddled with, allowed to pursue their own ends. The second deep similarity between these ethics is that sometimes one ought to help things grow. As a third deep similarity is all of these ethics issues acknowledge that problems appear when one organism’s natural goals conflict with those of another organism. This, then, promotes the idea that one should avoid conflicts that harm other living things. Ultimately, despite their differences, these ethics converge on a broadly applicable ethical framework: protect alien life in proportion to its capacity for excellence.

This chapter considers science fiction writer Philip K. Dick’s novels The World Jones Made and Counter-Clock World. The World Jones Made contemplates the unattended aberration that is technophobicity, which arises when the group-psychologization of gadget love or life as preparedness is dismissed or reinterpreted in favor of rationalization, the world Ernest Jones made. What Jones admits to be his own “provincialism” regarding alien life motivates the interstellar search for Earth’s double where human life would not require technological or evolutionary adaptation to and internalization of alien conditions of existence. Counter-Clock World was originally titled “The Dead Grow Young” and “The Dead Are Young”; where the former takes growing pains to reverse loss, the latter focuses on the dead as our future, the other next generation. As all three titles underscore, in this Hobart Phase the finitude of lifetime is also resurrected. The novel recognizes as its own inside view the erad powers of the archive (the fever or fire of the archive in Jacques Derrida’s reading).

This chapter presents George Boole's lecture on whether the planets are inhabited. He first considers the general conditions to which life here has manifested; second, the adaptations of the earth as the abode of life; and third, the presumptions in favor of such adaptation on the part of the remaining orbs of the planetary system. He says that if it is granted that the Author of nature acts consistently in all his works, that he accomplishes the purposes of his will by special means and adaptations, that his purpose with respect to the earth is that it should be an abode of life, and that the mass and adaptations by which that purpose is accomplished are employed in other worlds, then it appears that other worlds are also intended to be habitations of life.