Decolonising the cosmos
https://aeon.co/essays/we-need-a-more-eg...xploration
INTRO: Within four years, American astronauts will once again plant their feet and flags on the Moon’s dusty surface. They won’t be alone: Chinese, European and Russian space agencies have their sights on our nearest celestial body too, as do space companies such as Moon Express and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. If their plans come to fruition, astronauts and their robots will claim the most valuable spots and mine the Moon for water, ice and other resources. Our lunar neighbour will never be the same again.
The Moon is only a foothold, a first step on the edge of a vast landscape. Humanity stands on the brink of a new era of exploration, in which brief, intermittent and tentative space jaunts could be replaced by a multitude of cosmic activities conducted by many competing interests. Within 20 or 30 years, crewed missions could make giant leaps toward Mars – 500 times further away than the Moon – to map out the terrain and even establish colonies. Asteroids and other distant destinations will be next. With this new age dawning, we face a collective responsibility to consider the moral challenges before us, and to avoid committing the grave mistakes of the past.
So far, attitudes to space that focus on power and profit appear worryingly similar to the mindset of European and American colonial powers. The billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has begun transforming the night sky – the cultural heritage of humanity – with its reflective constellations of satellites. Military space programmes and military space companies continue developing space weapons such as anti-satellite missiles, tests of which increasingly clog low-Earth orbit with debris.
Meanwhile, if companies or anyone else carves pieces of the Moon as they please, it could irrevocably change its appearance to us, too. While NASA and other space agencies are more accountable and transparent than the space industry, they too lack a collective, long-term roadmap for what comes next. Without clear guidelines for what can and cannot be done in space, the cosmos will become not a place for collaborative exploration and shared benefits but the site of conflicts, resource extraction and pollution.
If nothing changes, commercial and military interests will influence or even supplant collective ones; the quest for resources such as water, minerals and valuable space in orbit will create imperatives to despoil the commons of space and the night sky; and investment in space exploration will become a way for the powerful to escape accountability for social justice problems on Earth.
A growing chorus of voices within the astronomy community is championing an alternative: a peaceful, sustainable and egalitarian vision of space, which keeps an eye on the injustices and inequalities on the ground. ‘The larger philosophical question is “Are other worlds there for human use or are they sovereign unto themselves?”’ Lucianne Walkowicz, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, tells me. ‘The viewpoint of European colonisers has always been that everything exists for their use, and we’re witnessing the unsurprising outcome of centuries of that thinking.’
Walkowicz is driven by their longtime involvement in politics and activism, including opposition to the Iraq War and support for Black Lives Matter. After years of giving talks and raising awareness, Walkowicz and their colleagues recently formed the JustSpace Alliance – an organisation that advocates ‘for a more inclusive and ethical future in space, and to harness visions of tomorrow for a more just and equitable world today’, according to its mission statement.
Other advocates and nonprofit organisations with aligned missions include Space Enabled, a research group at the MIT Media Lab, which promotes social and environmental sustainability in space, and applies space technology to foster justice on Earth; the Outer Space Institute, led by researchers at the University of British Columbia, which focuses on peace and sustainability in space, starting with the atmosphere; and the Secure World Foundation, a think-tank based in Broomfield, Colorado, aiming to reduce space conflicts and promote space diplomacy.
With their overlapping objectives, these advocates and institutions want to spark a cultural shift that will reshape NASA’s and other space agencies’ priorities and rein in the burgeoning space industry. Can they succeed? (MORE)
https://aeon.co/essays/we-need-a-more-eg...xploration
INTRO: Within four years, American astronauts will once again plant their feet and flags on the Moon’s dusty surface. They won’t be alone: Chinese, European and Russian space agencies have their sights on our nearest celestial body too, as do space companies such as Moon Express and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. If their plans come to fruition, astronauts and their robots will claim the most valuable spots and mine the Moon for water, ice and other resources. Our lunar neighbour will never be the same again.
The Moon is only a foothold, a first step on the edge of a vast landscape. Humanity stands on the brink of a new era of exploration, in which brief, intermittent and tentative space jaunts could be replaced by a multitude of cosmic activities conducted by many competing interests. Within 20 or 30 years, crewed missions could make giant leaps toward Mars – 500 times further away than the Moon – to map out the terrain and even establish colonies. Asteroids and other distant destinations will be next. With this new age dawning, we face a collective responsibility to consider the moral challenges before us, and to avoid committing the grave mistakes of the past.
So far, attitudes to space that focus on power and profit appear worryingly similar to the mindset of European and American colonial powers. The billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has begun transforming the night sky – the cultural heritage of humanity – with its reflective constellations of satellites. Military space programmes and military space companies continue developing space weapons such as anti-satellite missiles, tests of which increasingly clog low-Earth orbit with debris.
Meanwhile, if companies or anyone else carves pieces of the Moon as they please, it could irrevocably change its appearance to us, too. While NASA and other space agencies are more accountable and transparent than the space industry, they too lack a collective, long-term roadmap for what comes next. Without clear guidelines for what can and cannot be done in space, the cosmos will become not a place for collaborative exploration and shared benefits but the site of conflicts, resource extraction and pollution.
If nothing changes, commercial and military interests will influence or even supplant collective ones; the quest for resources such as water, minerals and valuable space in orbit will create imperatives to despoil the commons of space and the night sky; and investment in space exploration will become a way for the powerful to escape accountability for social justice problems on Earth.
A growing chorus of voices within the astronomy community is championing an alternative: a peaceful, sustainable and egalitarian vision of space, which keeps an eye on the injustices and inequalities on the ground. ‘The larger philosophical question is “Are other worlds there for human use or are they sovereign unto themselves?”’ Lucianne Walkowicz, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, tells me. ‘The viewpoint of European colonisers has always been that everything exists for their use, and we’re witnessing the unsurprising outcome of centuries of that thinking.’
Walkowicz is driven by their longtime involvement in politics and activism, including opposition to the Iraq War and support for Black Lives Matter. After years of giving talks and raising awareness, Walkowicz and their colleagues recently formed the JustSpace Alliance – an organisation that advocates ‘for a more inclusive and ethical future in space, and to harness visions of tomorrow for a more just and equitable world today’, according to its mission statement.
Other advocates and nonprofit organisations with aligned missions include Space Enabled, a research group at the MIT Media Lab, which promotes social and environmental sustainability in space, and applies space technology to foster justice on Earth; the Outer Space Institute, led by researchers at the University of British Columbia, which focuses on peace and sustainability in space, starting with the atmosphere; and the Secure World Foundation, a think-tank based in Broomfield, Colorado, aiming to reduce space conflicts and promote space diplomacy.
With their overlapping objectives, these advocates and institutions want to spark a cultural shift that will reshape NASA’s and other space agencies’ priorities and rein in the burgeoning space industry. Can they succeed? (MORE)