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Life Beyond: From Prison to Mars
Life Beyond' is a project to enable the prison population to make a contribution to the exploration and settlement of space. This report contains several studies of Martian settlements conducted by learners in two Scottish prisons, HMP Glenochil and HMP Edinburgh. The project was developed by the University of Edinburgh’s UK Centre for Astrobiology and it is part of the Scottish Prison Service’s Learning & Skills programme. Prof Charles Cockell, the Project Director, The point of the ‘Life Beyond’ project is very simple – from behind the boundaries of a prison, you can direct humanity to the stars
187 pages, Paperback
Published June 28, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 13, 2020
This is an extraordinary book. It presents a plan and a blueprint for the creation of a viable Mars colony, but it was written by a number of long term inmates in a couple of Scottish prisons. It says something about prisons, it says something about prisoners, and it says something about the ability to dream irrespective of the surrounding circumstances.
It seems to me that education can be an important part of prison life. However, prisoners come fro all sorts of backgrounds, which leaves the question of what to do with well educated prisoners. The media feeds us a view of prisoners as uneducated and a little stupid. Like all stereotypes, this has to be wrong more often than it is right. What I found affecting me the most about this book is the way in which it challenged my view of the lazy stereotype in a very subtle way. An uneducated population could not have come up with a work as detailed as this. This is a work of considerable scholarship.
It left me asking myself what prisons are for? Obviously, there is a dimension of protecting the public if the prisoner is a danger to the public, but what if they aren't? Does incarceration actually do any good? I found myself asking these questions because, as it happens, I don't actually know many prisoners or former prisoners. It is my earnest hope that those who took part in this exercise used it to grow themselves as people so that, upon release, they would avoid returning to prison. If prison is to reform behaviour, then this sort of project is a very useful framework to use.
Much of the book reads like a technical manual. There is a lot of maths and a good amount of physics, neither of which make good reading. I didn't mind that. The technical details read almost like a checklist of things that have to be resolved if you are going to create a Mars base. This would be of immense use to a fiction writer looking to set a piece in the first 200 years of a Mars colony. The detail all fits together and the writer's imagination can fill in any gaps in the detail. This is a really useful resource.
There is also, at the end of the book, the results of a creative writing competition. That did have my attention. I found some of the pieces there to be very well crafted and very readable. I would certainly recommend those. They led me to think about the ways in which living in an enclosed community on Mars has a certain number of similarities to living in the closed community of a Scottish prison. Perhaps that's why the participants readily took to the project?
The book is published by the British Interplanetary Society, and has their seal of approval. This is quite a recommendation. The book doesn't take long to read and is really interesting. I would suggest giving it a try.
It seems to me that education can be an important part of prison life. However, prisoners come fro all sorts of backgrounds, which leaves the question of what to do with well educated prisoners. The media feeds us a view of prisoners as uneducated and a little stupid. Like all stereotypes, this has to be wrong more often than it is right. What I found affecting me the most about this book is the way in which it challenged my view of the lazy stereotype in a very subtle way. An uneducated population could not have come up with a work as detailed as this. This is a work of considerable scholarship.
It left me asking myself what prisons are for? Obviously, there is a dimension of protecting the public if the prisoner is a danger to the public, but what if they aren't? Does incarceration actually do any good? I found myself asking these questions because, as it happens, I don't actually know many prisoners or former prisoners. It is my earnest hope that those who took part in this exercise used it to grow themselves as people so that, upon release, they would avoid returning to prison. If prison is to reform behaviour, then this sort of project is a very useful framework to use.
Much of the book reads like a technical manual. There is a lot of maths and a good amount of physics, neither of which make good reading. I didn't mind that. The technical details read almost like a checklist of things that have to be resolved if you are going to create a Mars base. This would be of immense use to a fiction writer looking to set a piece in the first 200 years of a Mars colony. The detail all fits together and the writer's imagination can fill in any gaps in the detail. This is a really useful resource.
There is also, at the end of the book, the results of a creative writing competition. That did have my attention. I found some of the pieces there to be very well crafted and very readable. I would certainly recommend those. They led me to think about the ways in which living in an enclosed community on Mars has a certain number of similarities to living in the closed community of a Scottish prison. Perhaps that's why the participants readily took to the project?
The book is published by the British Interplanetary Society, and has their seal of approval. This is quite a recommendation. The book doesn't take long to read and is really interesting. I would suggest giving it a try.
November 24, 2020
An excellent initiative, with interesting ideas put together.
A bit disappointed by misunderstanding: I approached the book as a joint work with prison systems to study psychological and physiological aspects of deep space travel, by design long term confinements. I was wrongly expecting work to relate to William J. Clancey's initiatives at NASA.
The book remains interesting, but often difficult to read for a rather patchwork structure.
A bit disappointed by misunderstanding: I approached the book as a joint work with prison systems to study psychological and physiological aspects of deep space travel, by design long term confinements. I was wrongly expecting work to relate to William J. Clancey's initiatives at NASA.
The book remains interesting, but often difficult to read for a rather patchwork structure.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews