Inner Space
“Inner Space”1 is a term proposed by John McHale in his 1967 article “The Future of the Future: Inner Space” to describe the spaces within the Earth’s planetary edge. Opposite of “Outer Space” and distinct from the more commonly inhabited spaces of the Earth’s surface, Inner Space explorations would include undersea explorations, spelunking (caving), or excavatory explorations underground. The Earth’s Inner Space is often hostile to human life, and the term also suggests the occupiable (architectural) spaces within the protective and life-sustaining hardware2 usually needed for humans to safely explore or inhabit such spaces, such as the interior space of a submarine, or the interiors of Jacques Cousteau’s undersea work stations Conshelf One, Two & Three. “Inner Space” explorations of the Earth’s seas and oceans McHale calls “The Future” of scientific and societal development and “our manner of living”, due to what he believes to be the vast, yet untapped potential of undersea resources. “In terms of space, resources, and exploratory challenge”, McHale writes, “it is rather like having another world at our disposal”, wording that is, probably inadvertently, rather alarming. The same attitude of indiscriminate resource plunder that led to the large-scale disposal of much of our finite terrestrial resources brought into the oceans would surely dispose of this Inner Space as well.