In this talk we start from the observation that shortest path routing creates congested areas in multi-hop wireless networks. These areas are critical---they generate both security and energy efficiency issues. We attack these problems and set out routing in outer space, a new routing mechanism that transforms any shortest path routing protocol (or approximated versions of it) into a new protocol that does not create congested areas, does not have the associated security-related issues, and does not encourage selfish positioning. Moreover, the network lives longer f the same network using the original routing protocol (in spite of using more energy globally), and dies more gracefully. We also describe applications of our idea to mobility and to a security protocol for the detection of node replication attacks.