On the 125th anniversary of Nietzsche's death on August 25, we spoke with two of the most internationally recognized Nietzsche experts, Andreas Urs Sommer and Werner Stegmaier. While the conversation with Sommer (link) focused primarily on Nietzsche's life, we spoke with the latter about his thinking, its topicality and Stegmaier's own “philosophy of orientation.” What are Nietzsche's central insights? And how do they help us to find our way in the present time? What does his concept of “nihilism” mean? And what are the political implications of his philosophy?

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin achieved the unbelievable: He was the first person in history to leave the protective atmosphere of our home planet and circumnavigate the Earth in the Vostok 1 spaceship. In 2011, the anniversary of this “superhuman” act was declared International Manned Space Day. The stars aren't that far away anymore. With the technical progress achieved, the fantasy of expanding human civilization into space takes on concrete plausibility. The following text attempts to philosophically rhyme with these prospects and finally describes the approach of a possible space program from Nietzsche. Although airplanes didn't even exist during his lifetime, his concepts can still be applied to this topic in a productive way, as is so often the case.

Editorial note: We have explained some difficult technical terms in the footnotes.

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