'Spaceship Earth' was a key metaphor in the late twentieth-century debate over the world's resources and the future of humankind. This idea of the earth as a vessel in space came of age in an era shaped by space travel and the Cold War. Hohler's study innovatively brings together technology, science and ecology to explore the way this latter-day ark was invoked by politicians, environmentalists, cultural historians, writers of science fiction and many others across three decades.