Terraforming gets treated like a sci-fi upgrade menu—click a button, get oceans. Real life is uglier: even famous scientists ...

This story originally featured on the MIT Press Reader. Exploration, habitation, and resource extraction all carry a risk of inflicting environmental damage in space, just as they do here on Earth.

Hello everyone. When I was about 10 years old, I picked up a book about terraforming other planets. The idea that we could create a human haven on another planet was so exciting to me. How could we ...