This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The view from 31,000 feet: A philosopher looks at fracking.

PHAs are flying past Earth this week Last Thursday, “2025 KH” flew past Earth with a diameter of 37 feet at 25,000 miles per hour, just 687,000 miles away.

Inside an airplane hangar in Roswell, New Mexico, a massive blimp-like airship—214 feet long—is getting ready to float into the stratosphere. Built by a startup called Sceye (pronounced “sky ...