… And I imagine Carl Sagan listening to him and wrinkling his nose. And clearly what he sees is a transplant-taking a culture of the most rapacious of Republican-right unfettered capitalism in America, taking that and transplanting it out there, and just culturing it and seeing if it grows. He’s been in a lot of working groups and so forth. “I’ve read quite a lot about the various initiatives that there are as far as this idea of colonies on Mars is concerned, and features very widely. And check out some highlights from the discussion below. Morgan in Episode 332 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). Listen to the complete interview with Richard K. “For the forseeable future, the home of the human race is on Earth, and once a lot of minds and attention start turning away from that, it’s bad news for Earth,” he says. He also worries that excessive optimism about the prospect of settling other planets may distract people from the serious challenge of maintaining a livable biosphere here on Earth. “And I think we need people with a bit more thought and a bit more balance to their vision.” “While I’ve got an immense amount of respect for what Musk has achieved in technological terms, I don’t think he has a very grown-up view of how the world works and how human beings work,” Morgan says.

Morgan would prefer to see humanity organize itself into large-scale government initiatives, rather than relying on the personality quirks of a handful of super-wealthy individuals.

He’s particularly skeptical of the sort of techno-utopian thinking typified by figures like Elon Musk. “I think the idea that it’s going to be some sort of reprise of the American frontier, that this is where men will go and test themselves against the cutting edge of human progress, and the expansion of the human sphere-I mean, that isn’t what it’s going to be like at all,” he says. It’s a grim vision, but one that Morgan finds far more plausible than the cheerful visions of plucky Mars colonists common in sci-fi.

An ambitious terraforming effort has stalled, a victim of corporate greed, and now the Martian settlers huddle beneath a thin screen called the Lamina, which helps keep in the breathable air. Thin Air is set on a futuristic Mars colony in the Valles Marineris.

Richard morgan novels