This title presents a uniquely human perspective on the quest to explore space and to understand the universe through the lens of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It considers early stories about the universe in various cultures; recent space fiction; the origins and cultural rationale for the space age; experiences of humans in space and their emerging interactions with robots and artificial intelligence; how humans should treat environments and alien life; and the alternative futures of space exploration and settlement.

Early Visions of Not-Earth and Space Fiction.- Origins of the Space Age.- Cultural Rationale for Space.- Humans in Space.- Humans and Posthumans.- Do Rocks Have Rights?.- Never Again!.- Space Futures.- Top Ten Things to Know about Space and Society.- Key Words List.

Jim Dator is Professor and Director of the Hawaii Research Center for Future Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu. He has been Co-Chair of the Space and Society Division of the International Space University, Strasbourg, France, since 1994. He also taught at Rikkyo University (Tokyo, for six years), the University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, the University of Toronto, and the InterUniversity Consortium for Postgraduate Studies in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia.

He is a Danforth Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and Fulbright Fellow.

His main areas of interest are political futures studies (especially the forecasting of alternative futures and the design of preferred futures of governance, law, education, and technology); space and society, especially the design of governance systems for space settlements; the political-economic futures of North America, the Pacific Island region, and east Asia, especially Japan and Korea; and media production and the politics of media, and the effects of media on political and other human relations and consciousness.