Fashioning the Body in Space
Course DescriptionIn popular culture, life in outer space always seems to be represented by making the environment conform to our needs, rather than figuring out how we can adapt to space. In some pop culture, life on a planet in outer space was represented as not much different from life on earth. But life in outer space will be radically different from life on earth. And the question we will think about is, what will we wear?
We will have very different needs if we live on Mars, the Moon, or another planet in a galaxy far, far away. We will have incredibly different lifestyles living on other planets. What we wear will need to adapt to these new environments.
This is not a class about spacesuit design, but rather about what we clothe ourselves in once we inhabit a new planet, and the challenges that that new environment presents.
Questions we will ask ourselves:
What circumstances brought us to live on this planet?
What is the environment like on this planet?
What are our lives like on this planet?
Can we grow anything on this planet?
How will waste be processed/dealt with on this planet?