Into the Extreme: U.S. Environmental Systems and Politics beyond Earth

The first book-length, in-depth ethnography of U.S. human spaceflight

What if outer space is not outside the human environment but, rather, defines it? This is the unusual starting point of Valerie Olson’s Into the Extreme, revealing how outer space contributes to making what counts as the scope and scale of today’s natural and social environments. With unprecedented access to spaceflight worksites ranging from astronaut training programs to life science labs and architecture studios, Olson...