Episode 9: Fred Scharmen

This week, Daniel Keller and Fred Scharmen talk about the cultural legacy of space colonization and its connections to contemporary movements like e/acc, longtermism, and network states.

Fred is architect, educator, and researcher whose work focuses on the history and theory of architecture and urban design in outer space. His first book, Space Settlements (Columbia University Press, 2019) is about Gerard O'Neill's work with NASA and others to design large-scale cities in space intended to house millions of people. His second book, Space Forces (Verso, 2021), is a broader history of human aspirations in space. Fred is an international speaker and has helped speculate about life in future space habitats for NASA and the Museum of the Future in Dubai. In 2015 Fred built a scale model solar system stretching for a mile and a half through downtown Baltimore. He teaches at Morgan State University. 

Topics: 

• Historical context of space architecture

• The concept of the ‘planetary imagination’

• The roots and legacy of Russian Cosmism

• The ‘Brick Moon’ vs. ‘Glass Moon’ paradigms of space colonization

• J.D Bernal’s early vision for a pluralistic ‘proto-patchwork’ in space composed of numerous self-reproducing bubble space habitats

• The Von Braun Paradigm, Operation Paperclip and UFOs

• Comparison of Soviet and US space program culture and sci-fi influences

• New Space and the quasi-cold war rivalry between Musk and Bezos

• Gerard O’ Neill’s influential space habitat work for NASA in the 1970s

• What makes those Don Davis and Rick Guidice Space habitat paintings so damn appealing and the Bezos commissioned ones so flat?

• Why we can absolutely afford to build a Stanford Torus  

• How the aesthetics of space habitats influences public perception

• Fred’s work with Brick Moon, a space habitat consultancy

• “Don’t Let Them Leave” movement, opposed to space colonization

• Space habitats for manatees 

• Fred’s incredible GoT fan theory: It takes place on a malfunctioning Truman Show-style Bernal Sphere

Artwork: Don Davis, “Model 3 O’Neill Cylinder ‘Lunar Eclipse’ lighting (Sun in eclipse behind Earth)”, 1975