Outer Space Podcast Trilogy 1: Haircuts and Billionaires

This is the first episode in a special podcast trilogy through AnthroPod highlighting three anthropologists of outer space. The other two episodes include “Moon Dust and Cosmo/politics” with Dr. Debbora Battaglia and “Ice Cream and Architecture” with Dr. Valerie Olson.

Incorporating soundscapes created from the recently released NASA audio archive, these episodes aim to place the work of these anthropologists in dialogue with current events and popular culture.

Dr. David Valentine

In this episode, I interview David Valentine, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. Our wide-ranging conversation engages:

• Haircuts in space
• The settlement of Mars
• Outer space as the new colonial frontier
• Space shuttle Atlantas and the perception of NASA’s decline
• The rise of the commercial NewSpace community
• The potential for Elon Musk to become a super villain
• The “failure is an option” risk mentality of NewSpacers
• The “evacuation of the near future” in space exploration
• The fragility of human life off-Earth
• The symbolic power of “liftoff”
• Iconic NASA archival sounds

Astronauts cutting hair. Photo by NASA.

The following two episodes, to be released in February and March, will engage Dr. Debbora Battaglia on moon dust and cosmopolitics, and Dr. Valerie Olson on ice cream and medicine.

I hope you will join us on this journey to better understand what it means to be human beyond the planet on which we have evolved.

Earth’s atmosphere, as seen from the International Space Station. Photo by NASA.

Special thanks to Executive Producer Marios Falaris for valuable feedback, and to NASA for their vast sound library. You can find AnthroPod at SoundCloud, subscribe to it on iTunes, or use our RSS feed.

This post was adapted from its homepage on culanth.org.