Is our only hope interplanetary immigration? Personal Struggle Overpopulation has serious consequences, including resource depletion and geopolitical strife. According to some theories, Earth’s carrying capacity for humans is between 4 billion and 16 billion people. Heinlein writes that Earth is overpopulated and that there’s no hope for its inhabitants unless they offload some of that pressure. It’s not just about how we can affect another planet, but how would another planet affect us? Interplanetary ImmigrationĪnother theme in Farmer in the Sky is the reason for moving to Ganymede in the first place. In the book, Bill’s stepsister, Peggy, simply cannot adjust to the low pressure atmosphere of Ganymede and is forced to live in a pressurized bubble. We must also think about how living on those planets will affect the human body. But it’s not just about making other planets habitable for humans. The idea of terraforming another planet is something we are currently grappling with today as we try to figure out how to colonize Mars. The atmosphere must be thick enough to contain oxygen, among other examples. The rocky surface of the moon must be pulverized and have organic material added to it in order to turn it into soil fertile enough for farming. This is an interesting aspect of the story, as Heinlein goes into great detail and description regarding how it is accomplished. The crux of Farmer in the Sky is the terraforming of the moon Ganymede. The story takes us through various successes and failures experienced by Bill, who, in the end, learns to love his new home. Bill, his father, stepmother, and stepsister move to the Jovian moon, where they learn how difficult it is to terraform the land there. Heinlein is skilled at nailing the young boy voice, which he uses in other books in this series as well. Plot & Narrationįarmer in the Sky is narrated in the first person by the main character, a teenage boy named Bill Lermer, a boy scout who lives with his father on Earth before relocating to Ganymede. Unlike other Heinlein stories of this style, I enjoyed Farmer in the Sky for its character development, hard sci-fi description, and overall storytelling. Heinlein is an intimate look at one boy’s adventures in relocating to Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, as an early colonist looking to start a farm.

Robert heinlein farmer in the sky