I Love Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky

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I suspect also it would be a kind of dystopia to have Heinlein's tunnel in the sky. Even individual governments, as you know, they put mobility restrictions often on citizens. I love that sort of stuff, as you may have noticed. There's an economic model behind everything and an engineering model behind everything,. And the economic and the engineering models are integrated.

Before writing a single word of his new book Artemis, Andy Weir worked out the economics of a lunar colony. Without the economics, how could the story hew to the hard sci-fi style Weir cornered the market on with The Martian? And, more importantly, how else can Tyler find out much a Cantonese meal would run him on the moon?

In addition to these important questions of lunar economics, Andy and Tyler talk about the technophobic trend in science fiction, private space efforts, seasteading, cryptocurrencies, the value of a human life, the outdated Outer Space Treaty, stories based on rebellion vs. cooperation, Heinlein, Asimov, Weir’s favorite episode of Star Trek, and the formula for finding someone else when stranded on a lonely planet.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded November 15th, 2017 Other ways to connect

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