What do you think?
Rate this book
The Giant Leap: Why Space Is the Next Frontier in the Evolution of Life
A leading astrobiologist argues that space travel is an evolutionary event at least as important as life’s first journey from sea to land
The story of life has always been one of great transitions, of crossing new frontiers. The dawn of life itself is one; so, too, is the first time two cells stuck together rather than drifting apart. And perhaps most dramatic were the moves from the sea to land, land to air. Each transition has witnessed wild storms of innovation, opportunity, and hazard. It might seem that there are no more realms for life to venture. But there is space.
In The Giant Leap, planetary scientist Caleb Scharf argues that our journey into space isn’t simply a giant leap for humankind—it’s life’s next great transition, an evolution of evolution itself. Humans and our technology are catalysts for an interplanetary transformation, marking a disruption in the story of life as fundamental as life’s movement from sea to land, and land to sky.
Inspired by Darwin’s account of his journey on the Beagle, The Giant Leap thrills at both life’s creativity and the marvels of technology that have propelled us into the cosmos. And it offers an awesome glimpse of the grander vistas that wait in the great beyond.
The story of life has always been one of great transitions, of crossing new frontiers. The dawn of life itself is one; so, too, is the first time two cells stuck together rather than drifting apart. And perhaps most dramatic were the moves from the sea to land, land to air. Each transition has witnessed wild storms of innovation, opportunity, and hazard. It might seem that there are no more realms for life to venture. But there is space.
In The Giant Leap, planetary scientist Caleb Scharf argues that our journey into space isn’t simply a giant leap for humankind—it’s life’s next great transition, an evolution of evolution itself. Humans and our technology are catalysts for an interplanetary transformation, marking a disruption in the story of life as fundamental as life’s movement from sea to land, and land to sky.
Inspired by Darwin’s account of his journey on the Beagle, The Giant Leap thrills at both life’s creativity and the marvels of technology that have propelled us into the cosmos. And it offers an awesome glimpse of the grander vistas that wait in the great beyond.
- GenresNonfiction
368 pages, Hardcover
First published October 21, 2025
8 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Caleb Scharf
7 books77 followersCaleb Scharf is a scientist, writer, and speaker. His research career has spanned cosmology, astrophysics, and astrobiology. He is Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University in New York where he pursues fundamental questions about the nature of life in the universe. He is a prolific, critically acclaimed, writer and scientific explainer, with several popular science books and hundreds of articles appearing in publications such as Scientific American, Nautilus, Aeon, and The New Yorker. His public lectures and events have taken him around the globe and he is a frequent consultant for a variety of TV and media science productions. His mantra is: Imagine. Think. Discuss. Repeat.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Read
October 21, 2025My first line edit- very proud of this book
Currently reading
December 8, 2025This is The Planetary Society’s Book Club January selection. Caleb Scharf builds a convincing case for humankind's brilliant future across the solar system. Along the way, Caleb reviews how we've already grown to depend on space-based resources across all of civilization.
April 22, 2025
Orthogenesis...in...SPAAACE!!!
The center of this book is an introduction to the state of modern space science. It consists of a whistle-stop tour of the Solar System, mixing history of its exploration with the current scientific understanding of its component parts. This layer is good, which is good, seeing as how it is most of the book. At worst, it is ‘Carl Sagan at home’ with the blending between science, history, personal reflection, and expressions of awe, and as such shares the same flaws with the material that sounds sagacious and quotes great but withers under scrutiny. But the store is out of more Cosmos, anyway, so this is welcome. There is nothing radical here, but there need not be.
The framing mechanism on this is Charles Darwin’s time on the Beagle, the inciting incident for his publishing the Theory of Evolution. The clever choice here is that the device is both form and metaphor. Darwin’s story acts as representative for the general act of human exploration and discovery over the ages, and specifically not only in an Age of Exploration or Colonization sense but in the impressive way that humans have made everything their ecological niche. But it is also intended literally.
The history of life in whole mirrors that of humans, in the sense that life does the meme and desires its own propagation. The story of humans exploiting the world is only a footnote to the story of life exploiting the world. Evolution is fitness-seeking into every possible fit. This, then, is the framing device to the framing device. Or at least the marketing.
The eponymous great leap, customarily referred to as the dispersal, is then human expanse into space, maybe onto other planets but off this one at some rate. Human progress into space is what life does. Therefore, it is necessary and proper to live extra-terrestrially.
The teleology light is now lit.
Other than its Dawkins-y strong adaptation view of evolution, my problem here is that a lung is not an airplane. You can put human social and cultural events into evolutionary terms. That is the whole point of the idea of a meme. You can, I think, squeeze it through in claiming technology use as subsidiary to culture. But then why space travel? Nuclear weapons are as much an accomplishment, but the argument is not self-immolation.
This then is the dual meaning to the dispersal. Extra-terrestrial living means the expansion of life, but it also means the expansion of the definition of humanity. This in itself provides the brake on the more dystopian visions. The ‘company town’ fear is not biologically sustainable as a concept.
What the author is driving towards is the soft singularity. The term, or something like transhumanism, never is invoked (that I noted), but something like the vision of Mars here is not the Red/Blue/Green split as much as Techno, even so far as to be something where it is more akin to telepresence for humans, but in a manner that the systems that are there exceed any contemporary understanding of human or robot or AI, to the point that it is a new life form.
I think that this book is mis-sold as being about extra-planetary expansion. It ultimately affirms that. It acknowledges the challenges as serious, non-trivial, and potentially unsolvable, calling out the usual suspects of justification as incorrect (rocks hit Mars, too). It just gets excited about the prospect. The book argues that we know that we do not know. We need to be ready for all our answers to be wrong. But trying is the only way to find out what we do not know. Failure is the antithesis to get to a heretofore unimagined synthesis, one that may in fact not be space exploitation. And the author's enthusiasm is infectious.
After several other books on the sort of tech oligarch futurism and its debate, I wanted to see what the scientific pro- argument was for reckless expansion. This is not that. Most of the book is just science review. To the extent that it is an argument for expansion, it is science at a point where it is indistinguishable from moral philosophy. I feel less certain about whether I agree or disagree. I like the ideas here as a thought experiment, or even as a science fiction prompt: what if you mixed ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ with ‘Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.’ But due to this book I am particularly conscious here of how the Overton Window on this discussion is in a weird place.
My thanks to the author, Caleb Scharf, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Basic Books, for making the ARC available to me.
The center of this book is an introduction to the state of modern space science. It consists of a whistle-stop tour of the Solar System, mixing history of its exploration with the current scientific understanding of its component parts. This layer is good, which is good, seeing as how it is most of the book. At worst, it is ‘Carl Sagan at home’ with the blending between science, history, personal reflection, and expressions of awe, and as such shares the same flaws with the material that sounds sagacious and quotes great but withers under scrutiny. But the store is out of more Cosmos, anyway, so this is welcome. There is nothing radical here, but there need not be.
The framing mechanism on this is Charles Darwin’s time on the Beagle, the inciting incident for his publishing the Theory of Evolution. The clever choice here is that the device is both form and metaphor. Darwin’s story acts as representative for the general act of human exploration and discovery over the ages, and specifically not only in an Age of Exploration or Colonization sense but in the impressive way that humans have made everything their ecological niche. But it is also intended literally.
The history of life in whole mirrors that of humans, in the sense that life does the meme and desires its own propagation. The story of humans exploiting the world is only a footnote to the story of life exploiting the world. Evolution is fitness-seeking into every possible fit. This, then, is the framing device to the framing device. Or at least the marketing.
The eponymous great leap, customarily referred to as the dispersal, is then human expanse into space, maybe onto other planets but off this one at some rate. Human progress into space is what life does. Therefore, it is necessary and proper to live extra-terrestrially.
The teleology light is now lit.
Other than its Dawkins-y strong adaptation view of evolution, my problem here is that a lung is not an airplane. You can put human social and cultural events into evolutionary terms. That is the whole point of the idea of a meme. You can, I think, squeeze it through in claiming technology use as subsidiary to culture. But then why space travel? Nuclear weapons are as much an accomplishment, but the argument is not self-immolation.
This then is the dual meaning to the dispersal. Extra-terrestrial living means the expansion of life, but it also means the expansion of the definition of humanity. This in itself provides the brake on the more dystopian visions. The ‘company town’ fear is not biologically sustainable as a concept.
What the author is driving towards is the soft singularity. The term, or something like transhumanism, never is invoked (that I noted), but something like the vision of Mars here is not the Red/Blue/Green split as much as Techno, even so far as to be something where it is more akin to telepresence for humans, but in a manner that the systems that are there exceed any contemporary understanding of human or robot or AI, to the point that it is a new life form.
I think that this book is mis-sold as being about extra-planetary expansion. It ultimately affirms that. It acknowledges the challenges as serious, non-trivial, and potentially unsolvable, calling out the usual suspects of justification as incorrect (rocks hit Mars, too). It just gets excited about the prospect. The book argues that we know that we do not know. We need to be ready for all our answers to be wrong. But trying is the only way to find out what we do not know. Failure is the antithesis to get to a heretofore unimagined synthesis, one that may in fact not be space exploitation. And the author's enthusiasm is infectious.
After several other books on the sort of tech oligarch futurism and its debate, I wanted to see what the scientific pro- argument was for reckless expansion. This is not that. Most of the book is just science review. To the extent that it is an argument for expansion, it is science at a point where it is indistinguishable from moral philosophy. I feel less certain about whether I agree or disagree. I like the ideas here as a thought experiment, or even as a science fiction prompt: what if you mixed ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ with ‘Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.’ But due to this book I am particularly conscious here of how the Overton Window on this discussion is in a weird place.
My thanks to the author, Caleb Scharf, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Basic Books, for making the ARC available to me.
December 23, 2025
This is surely Caleb Scharf's most personal work - and certainly quite different from some of his earlier output, such as his excellent Gravity's Engines. In part this is a technological exploration of space travel, not unlike Final Frontier, but it is also about the future of humanity, more reminiscent of The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire, but with a more positive outlook. Overall, it was fascinating reading.
Let's take those two aspects separately. As always, Scharf gives us plenty of meat in an approachable fashion, whether it's delving into the rocket equation, considering the pros and considerable limitations of Mars as a destination for humans (the chapter is pointedly called The Red Siren), or taking on the possibilities of asteroids. And even in the semi-technical aspect of the first Moon landing we get some more personal detail - I hadn't realised until reading this that Scharf was English by birth (being bathed in a sink at a key moment).
Although there is plenty of content, this side of the book occasionally lacks storytelling nouse. For instance, when describing the hilarious way that the New York Times (incorrectly) laid into rocket pioneer Robert Goddard, accusing him amongst other things of lacking 'the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools'. This demands a quote, but Scharf just says 'Famously, in 1920, an article was published in which Goddard speculated on one day reaching the Moon, a New York Times editorial publicly and disparagingly dismissed his ideas about rockets working in space,' before going on to the Times' much later retraction. It's a bit like explaining a joke without ever telling it.
The other aspect of the book, linked by a common thread of the story of Darwin and the voyage of the Beagle, is more about the future of humanity and how it is linked to our ability to boldly go and so forth. This is fine, though it can feel a little vague when put alongside the more factual aspects. And while it's true that extremely long term we either leave the Earth or the species will perish, I can't help but feel that on the timescale where we have concerns, our species would no longer exist in any recognisable form - we've only been around a couple of hundred thousand years, where this is a billion years away.
One small moan - I'm all in favour of stressing the amazing contributions made by the likes of Emmy Noether to the development of mathematics and physics, but from reading this book, you might think that no one apart from Émilie du Châtelet, Mary Somerville and Noether really thought about anything relevant to space travel between Newton and Tsiolkovsky (apart from a few small contributions from the likes of Leibniz and Laplace). It's essential to tell us about women of science, but it should be in a more realistic context.
Overall, for me the whole concept of the need for 'Dispersal' (with a slightly pretentious capital letter) is perhaps driven more by Star Trek fun than any real view of the future. Is it really true that 'life is busy making its transition to being interplanetary right now'? I suspect human space travel will remain a niche activity with far less impact than probes and satellites helping us on Earth for many lifetimes to come. Nonetheless, it's an interesting and distinctly different book that deserves to do well. Recommended.
Let's take those two aspects separately. As always, Scharf gives us plenty of meat in an approachable fashion, whether it's delving into the rocket equation, considering the pros and considerable limitations of Mars as a destination for humans (the chapter is pointedly called The Red Siren), or taking on the possibilities of asteroids. And even in the semi-technical aspect of the first Moon landing we get some more personal detail - I hadn't realised until reading this that Scharf was English by birth (being bathed in a sink at a key moment).
Although there is plenty of content, this side of the book occasionally lacks storytelling nouse. For instance, when describing the hilarious way that the New York Times (incorrectly) laid into rocket pioneer Robert Goddard, accusing him amongst other things of lacking 'the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools'. This demands a quote, but Scharf just says 'Famously, in 1920, an article was published in which Goddard speculated on one day reaching the Moon, a New York Times editorial publicly and disparagingly dismissed his ideas about rockets working in space,' before going on to the Times' much later retraction. It's a bit like explaining a joke without ever telling it.
The other aspect of the book, linked by a common thread of the story of Darwin and the voyage of the Beagle, is more about the future of humanity and how it is linked to our ability to boldly go and so forth. This is fine, though it can feel a little vague when put alongside the more factual aspects. And while it's true that extremely long term we either leave the Earth or the species will perish, I can't help but feel that on the timescale where we have concerns, our species would no longer exist in any recognisable form - we've only been around a couple of hundred thousand years, where this is a billion years away.
One small moan - I'm all in favour of stressing the amazing contributions made by the likes of Emmy Noether to the development of mathematics and physics, but from reading this book, you might think that no one apart from Émilie du Châtelet, Mary Somerville and Noether really thought about anything relevant to space travel between Newton and Tsiolkovsky (apart from a few small contributions from the likes of Leibniz and Laplace). It's essential to tell us about women of science, but it should be in a more realistic context.
Overall, for me the whole concept of the need for 'Dispersal' (with a slightly pretentious capital letter) is perhaps driven more by Star Trek fun than any real view of the future. Is it really true that 'life is busy making its transition to being interplanetary right now'? I suspect human space travel will remain a niche activity with far less impact than probes and satellites helping us on Earth for many lifetimes to come. Nonetheless, it's an interesting and distinctly different book that deserves to do well. Recommended.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews