"Utopia" is a term that English statesman and author Thomas More coined in the early sixteenth century in his novel of the same name. It is derived from two Greek words:Eutopia (meaning "good place") and Outopia (meaning "no place"). Utopia is therefore a good place that does not exist. A space utopia, one could claim, is a good place that can exist only in space.

The word "utopia" conjures up the vision of an ideal society, where people are physically and morally free, where they work not because of need but out of pleasure, where love knows no laws, and where everyone is an artist. A space utopia is the same paradise set elsewhere and served with a generous dose of science fiction.

Space utopias resonate mostly in the United States, because of its history as an immigrant nation with an open frontier; its tolerance for small...