Today I’m going to talk about animals in space. Turns out, there’s a bit of a debate to be had here. Whether you’ve ever thought about this or not, chances are you have assumptions that put you on one side or the other. Let’s examine and challenge some of these assumptions and see if we can answer the question, “Will we really take animals to live with us in space?”

First, I gush about Douglas Adams and share some of his great writing advice. Then I’ll give you an update on where I’m at on this project. I’ll also share some thoughts I’ve been having about what I want to do and say with this project. I’ll also share some insights I’ve had about some big differences between this book and the last book I wrote.

I’ve talked quite a bit about the overall setting for the books. Lately I’ve been working more on zeroing in on the specific setting I’ll use for the first book. Today I’ll talk a bit about some exciting recent events in space exploration. Then I’ll discuss where I’m at in the worldbuilding and my ideas for the cylinder habitat that will be the stage for the first story.

One of the major features of my setting are rotating cylinder-shaped habitats for living in space. Ultimately these will be located in orbit of Earth, the Moon, Mars and beyond. I’ve done a lot of work fleshing these out, and today I’ll share some details with you. If you’re in the future, and you’re a reader of my books wanting to know more about these Cylinder Cities, then this is for you! For present day listeners, this will bring us up to date on where I’m at in the worldbuilding of these habitats and their role in the setting.

Whether you’re a writer or a game master, your job becomes much easier once your setting comes to life in your mind. You’re able to much more easily improvise new setting elements on-the-fly that fit into your overall concept. Lex shares how he’s found visualization to be a key skill to help him develop his setting and know when it’s ready to go.

Lex continues the series on Future Earth History with a discussion of the Moon, Mars & beyond!

Lex continues his exploration of the future history of Earth. This week he looks into goals to better utilize cislunar space, using the Roadmap to Space Settlement published by the National Space Society as a guide. Lex focuses in on how space solar power, especially, will change life on Earth for the better and make the rest of what we want to do not only possible, but easier and cheaper.

Lex discusses some of what he's been working on in the past week. He goes over some of the everyday technology people will be using in the setting. He then goes over some high concepts and ideas he's interested in exploring through the plots and conflicts. He discusses some research questions he'll be tackling in the future and gives an update on where he's at in the worldbuilding process. Finally he shares some informative resources he's found in his research.

Lex begins an exploration of the future history of Earth, starting at the present day and moving forward, with a focus on the expansion of humanity into the rest of the solar system. The first foundational step in this journey is fully utilizing low Earth orbit (LEO). Only with the necessary infrastructure in place in LEO will we be able to move to other parts of the solar system.

Lex explores some of his ideas for the cities of his story, which are great rotating cylinders in geostationary orbit around Earth, connected to the Earth by space elevators. To aid in this discussion, Lex explores some real-world designs of orbital habitats, including the O’Neill Cylinder, the McKendree Cylinder and Kalpana One. He also touches on arcologies and graphene.