Most science fiction espouses one of two very different visions of the future.  In the utopian visions of classic “golden age” sci-fi, humanity grows wiser over the years to come, with social, political and economic advances keeping pace with technological change.  In the dystopian vein of more recent sci-fi, humanity may still have cooler tech, but all of our failings, prejudices and greed follow us into the future, essentially unchanged.  You may have missed it while our society was wrestling with the decidedly old-fashioned  scourge of a pandemic, but the U.S. government may have recently taken a step toward one of these two poles — which one, we will leave to your sensibilities. In April, 2020, President Trump signed an Executive Order that declares that space is not a “global commons,” and could pave the way for commercial exploitation of the resources on asteroids and the moon.  Scott Shackelford is an Associate Professor of Business Ethics and the Cybersecurity Program Chair at Indiana University, and a self-professed “sci-fi nerd.”