Less faithful to the original text than Robert Wise’s 1971 film, the current version, whose executive producers include Tony and Ridley Scott, retains the essential elements of the plot: a government satellite on an intergalactic germ-related fact-finding mission crashes into a small town out West, emitting a deadly pathogen that kills everyone nearby save for an unhealthy older man and a baby whose survival is an epidemiological mystery. The military is called in to contain the disaster, and a team of high-status scientific researchers is assembled to determine the capacities of whatever is causing this plague and thus forestall the end of civilization.

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Astronomical Bodies

Astronomical Bodies is based on the research of Dr. Terence Kee of the University of Leeds. He proposes that that a reactive form of phosphorus arrived on the early Earth via meteorite impacts. His research found that phosphorus from space was more suitable for the chemical reactions to develop complex life. Astronomical Bodies reverses this process and tries to transform phosphorus harvested from the body — in the form of kidney stones and urine — into manmade meteorites. Rather than the traditional idea of transpermia addressed in a host of science fiction writings and films, Astronomical Bodies proposes that the galactic transferal of life-promoting chemicals is a natural process that we can facilitate.

Galactic Everyday

The subject of humanness and achieving human comfort in space has been overlooked by science. Humanizing space needs to be addressed and given attention and research in order for humans to live well in long-term space colonization and deep space exploration. My position on space travel is neither the picture painted by NASA and SPACEX, nor is it the adventures of Barbarella, it is the grey area of space, the overlooked day-to-day life of humanity that I believe to be of importance. Why can’t living in space be purposeful and fulfilling but also enjoyable, pleasurable, and sensuous?

Autonomous InterGalactic Space Program