Review
“Readers looking for science writing that sees bold possibilities in the future will be enthralled.”
– Publishers Weekly
“[This] book arrives at a fascinating moment in the history of technology, when we may, after all, be able to avert previously unavoidable catastrophes . . . Mason’s book is a genuine, timely and engaging addition to a 1000-year-old Western tradition, grounded in religious expectations and a quest for transcendence and salvation. Visionaries from Isaac Newton to Joseph Priestley to space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky have all expounded on the tenets that underpin Mason’s account: the apocalypse is imminent, but, by increasing human knowledge, we may recover the paradise we enjoyed before the flood . . . Mason puts a new layer of flesh on what have, so far, been some ardent but very sketchy dreams.”
– New Scientist
"In his new book, The Next 500 Years, geneticist Christopher Mason argues, 'It is no longer a question of ‘if’ we can engineer life—only ‘how' and that 'Engineering is humanity’s innate duty, needed to ensure the survival of life.'"
–Science
“What sets Mason’s ideas apart . . . is that he realizes that human bodies aren’t well suited for life away from Earth, what with the radiation, toxic gases and so on. His programme for expansion comes with a detailed blueprint for the genetic improvements we will need to make to ourselves to boost our resilience off-world. Mason is well placed to write such a plan.”
– Joshua Howgego, New Scientist
“Provocative”
– Bloomberg News
“Mason is serious. His new book, The Next 500 Years, maps out in detail how we’ll do it.”
–BBC Science Focus
Review
“Christopher Mason is a pioneer in aerospace medicine and genetics. In this book, he creates an intricate, molecular-level understanding of what happens to astronauts’ bodies in space—including my own! He brings his knowledge, passion, and rich mission insights to create an inspiring vision of the next 500 years of spaceflight and human exploration.”
—Astronaut Scott Kelly
“An eye-opening and insightful tour-de-force of a genetically altered possible future for humans in space.”
—Sara Seager, MIT; author of The Smallest Lights in the Universe
“Mason takes us on a voyage into space and time to address an existential risk facing humanity with a clear-headed discussion of the limitations of human biology and how to overcome them. He gives a great perspective on synthetic biology and how it impacts us today and in the future.”
—George Church, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
“A breathtaking vision of humanity’s future, scientifically founded on the most cutting-edge discoveries, science, and ethical frameworks of today. Dr. Mason has already driven ceaseless advances in experimental and computational genomics, and his visionary roadmap of biology and engineering reveals the exciting centuries of progress ahead.”
—Manolis Kellis, Professor of Computer Science, AI, and Genomics, MIT
About the Author
Christopher E. Mason is a geneticist and computational biologist who has been a Principal Investigator and Co-investigator of seven NASA missions and projects. He is Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, with affiliate appointments at the Meyer Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School, and the Consortium for Space Genetics at Harvard Medical School.
