Author: Lawrence Wu Page 2 of 3
Throughout my research process with Bass Connections, I discovered an intriguing and recurring historical pattern: when private or quasi-private companies initiate large-scale settlement projects, they often leave behind economic and social collapse when those company towns fall apart. The public sector ie. government is then left to deal with the consequences. This pattern, which played out in the twentieth-century totalitarian regimes I studied, offers crucial insights for how we should think about the future of space settlement.
Examining how historical developments in transportation and logistics have made remote settlements more feasible, and how these lessons can be applicable to future space colonies, has been one of the most intriguing parts of my study. Reliable supply lines are essential to maintaining human existence in isolation, whether in isolated Arctic settlements, Pacific island populations, or Antarctic research sites. The extent to which contemporary shipping advancements, including as automation, containerization, and predictive logistics, might directly influence the design of supply systems for Mars or lunar colonies caught me off guard.
My name is Zachary Partnoy and I studied British East India Company settlements in South and Southeast Asia for the company towns team on the Future Space Settlements: Lessons from History Bass Connections project. My research primarily centered on the three East India Company Presidency towns of India, Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay, each of which began as a small fishing or trading post and gradually developed into a commercial hub and later a global metropolis. Something I found particularly fascinating during the course of my research was the history of the Company’s land reclamation projects in Bombay. The EIC’s approach to urban development of Bombay, which was originally a settlement spanning several disparate islands (Portuguese maps listed four, while others counted seven), featured a series of large-scale environmental engineering projects to reclaim land from the harbor in order to connect these islands into one more easily governed whole. Taking over from the British Crown in 1668 (which had previously gained Bombay from the Portuguese as part of Catherine of Braganza’s marriage dowry to Charles II in 1661), the EIC was eager to conceptualize of Bombay as one island, for political and economic purposes.
The first amendment of the United States Constutution makes a couple of big promises, but all of them fall under the general idea of freedom of expression. One idea that the Constitution doesn’t touch on, though, is the idea of personal expression. Do we have the right to be who we want to be? Is that even a right that needs to be written out?
While conducting research for the Future Space Settlements: Lessons from History group, I identified a compelling parallel between current advancements in wearable health monitoring technologies and the lessons learned from Biosphere 2, one of the most ambitious isolation experiments of the late 20th century. Built in Arizona as a prototype for long-term space habitation, Biosphere 2 was designed as a fully closed ecosystem meant to simulate the environmental and life support conditions required for sustaining life beyond Earth. From 1991 to 1993, eight individuals lived inside the structure for two years, attempting to survive on self-grown food, recycled air and water, and minimal external input.
