Democracy in Outer Space: Speculative Design for Future Citizenship

Year 2050, the Moon. Year 2100, planet Mars. Human settlements have been established off Earth, where daily life is possible thanks to a system of pressurized bubbles and the local, self-sufficient production of resources. But what system of institutions and policies will govern those settlements? Will it still be a democratic system? This perspective on the future interests us, not because it is more or less plausible, but because it provides an opportunity to reflect on the societal implications of design and technology choices. It is a convenient approach for cross-disciplinary collaboration between the fields of design and legal- and policy-making. In this context, speculative design can pursue “sustainable scenarios” following the “environmental, social, and governance” guidelines of the U.N. Bruntland Commission, questioning current economic, social, and political structures and rethinking our relationship with nature. Designing the social, as well as the institutional and legal implications of living in outer space is also an educational opportunity, one that we have explored in a series of design labs at our university, where the goal is to instill awareness of the deep interdependence that binds all the components of our technological, political, and institutional ecosystem.