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What Philosophers Can Contribute to Space Exploration

photograph of explorer with flashlight beam pointed to night sky

“It is good to renew one’s wonder,” said the philosopher.

“Space travel has again made children of us all.”

– Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

Several weeks ago, the Daily Nous published an article entitled “What Can Philosophers Contribute to Space Exploration?” The piece was triggered by a recent NASA report that highlights the “ethical, legal, and societal implications” of the Artemis program to return humans to the Moon, and – ultimately – send them to Mars. When we think of space travel, philosophers most likely aren’t the first group of individuals we bring to mind. Instead, we (rightfully) focus our attention on the scientists, engineers, and intrepid explorers who make spacefaring possible. But there is much that philosophy – and the study of ethics in particular – can contribute to these endeavors.

We stand on the cusp of a revolution in space travel. For the very first time, the heavens are no longer the exclusive preserve of government-run space programs. The privatization of space has begun. Just this week, SpaceX launched its twenty-ninth resupply mission to the International Space Station. But, while the private sector has provided a logistical lifeline to the U.S. space program – especially since the retirement of the Space Shuttle – the privatization of space has seen the cosmos quickly become yet another playground for the rich and famous. On July 11 2021, Richard Branson made history by becoming the first human to self-fund his own journey into space. He was quickly followed by Jeff Bezos a few days later. Not to be outdone, Elon Musk delivered his first private tourists into orbit just a few months later.

The costs of these trips is astronomical (pun intended). With a ticket aboard Branson’s Virgin Galactic costing a cool $250,000, one can’t help but wonder whether there might not be better ways of spending this money. Such concerns have always surrounded investment in space travel. But at least, historically, expenditure by state-run space agencies could be justified as a nationally-borne cost for nation-wide benefits. The same is not obviously true in the case of space tourism, where the benefits seem to extend only so far as the tourists themselves. Others disagree. Chris Impey – Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona – argues that entrepreneurs like Branson, Bezos, and Musk “are like the high-octane fuels needed to take space travel to the next level” and that we need to “accept the risk and give the visionaries a free rein” in order to advance as a spacefaring species.

Our very own writers here at The Prindle Post have contributed much to the discussion of these potential cosmic follies. A.G. Holdier notes that a single Virgin Galactic ticket will cost the same as the annual grocery bill for 53 average U.S. families, while Carlo Davia argues that these costs can’t be justified by the purported benefits of things like innovation or ensuring that the Earth has an insurance policy. Giles Howdle, on the other hand, is more generous – taking a nuanced consequentialist approach to defend space tourism.

It’s discourse like this that truly highlights the importance of ethics for space travel. While an accountant can put a dollar value on a trip to space, and a scientist can tell you what stands to be gained from that journey, it takes an ethicist to examine whether – morally – those benefits justify that cost.

And the costs aren’t just financial. It seems that those going to space – be it for recreation or not – should be fully informed of the risks they’re assuming. There’s little doubt that many of us understand the highly dangerous nature of space travel. But it may in fact be the case that we somewhat overestimate this risk. As Impey notes, the fatality rate of spacefaring is around 2%. The fatality rate of a lifetime of driving in a car, however, is around 1.1%. What this means then, is that a single joyride to space is only about twice as risky as a lifetime of using an automobile. What does this mean for the morality – and, indeed, rationality – of taking such a journey? An ethicist can help with that.

What’s more, the ethical considerations of spacefaring even extend to those of us on the ground. As I’ve argued before, an open sky is both extrinsically and intrinsically valuable for us, yet a project link SpaceX’s Starlink threatens to take all of that way. This concern raises an even larger question: How should we treat property in space? We might think of it as a global commons – like the oceans or the Antarctic – there for the shared enjoyment of all humanity. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 seems to support this idea, claiming that no part of space can be subject to appropriation by a particular state. On the other hand, we have the approach of John Locke – who famously argued that we can appropriate common property by mixing our labor with it. What then, might we say of the Moon rocks that an astronaut judiciously shovels from the Lunar surface? Should she be able to claim ownership over these?

To complicate matters further, Locke placed a proviso on his approach to property – namely that one can only appropriate property through labor where she leaves “enough, and as good” for others. Traditionally, we might have understood this to include other members of one’s community, state, or – in the case of a global commons – the whole world. But space is so much bigger than this. In considering how we should carve up the heavens, should we also be considering the interests of beings we’ve not even met? Is the very notion of a “global commons” antiquated? Should we instead be changing our mindset to see space as a galactic commons instead?

It is precisely these kinds of questions that philosophers – and ethicists especially – are well equipped to consider. While answers might not be straightforward, nor agreement easy to find (as evidenced by the views of our very own writers), the consideration of these questions is imperative if we want to become a spacefaring race worthy of the cosmos.

In Defense of Space Tourism for Billionaires

photograph of astronaut sitting on surface of foreign planet at dawn

It is a powerful reminder of wealth inequality. It serves no direct scientific purpose. Yet, the billionaire class’s space tourism venture is cause for celebration.

Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and the richest man in the world, is heading to space today. Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson, also multi-billionaires, have reservations for future spaceflights. This news has largely been met with a mix of amusement and negative moral judgment. Admittedly, it seems immoral for billionaires to spend large sums on the frivolity of space tourism while, here on Earth, there is such great need for their financial resources. A “fun trip to space,” our own A.G. Holdier writes, could “fully pay two years of tuition for thirty-three students at community college.”

This kind of consequentialist argument seems fairly convincing. Between the two options, it seems like community college would surely produce the better outcome. So, it seems like the moral choice. But a closer examination of this argument yields a more complicated picture.

Within consequentialism (of which utilitarianism is the best-known version), there are both “maximizing” and “non-maximizing” consequentialists. Each view suggests a different moral verdict on space tourism for billionaires.

Let’s start with non-maximizing consequentialism. According to this view, for our actions to be morally permissible, they must simply be good enough. Imagine all the good consequences of an action, and all the bad. The world is incredibly causally complex, and our actions have consequences that ripple out for days, months, and even years. Presumably, then, every action will have some good consequences and some bad ones. Non-maximizing consequentialists say that an action is permissible if it produces more good consequences than bad ones. Or, more precisely, it claims that an action is permissible if it produces a good enough ratio of good consequences to bad ones. In other words, there’s a threshold level that divides moral actions from immoral ones, and that the goodness of the action’s consequences determines which side of the threshold the action lands. On this view, the moral question is: does billionaire space tourism fall above or below this threshold?

Most of us seem to think that, with a few exceptions, ordinary tourism is generally above the threshold of moral permissibility. After all, every dollar spent is also a dollar earned. Tourism, besides being an enjoyable and enriching experience for the tourist, also creates jobs and income, and thereby reduces poverty and raises education and healthcare outcomes. Those all seem like good consequences that often compensate for the (e.g., environmental) costs.

In similar fashion, space tourism also generates jobs and income in the growing space industry. Like traditional tourism, it has certain environmental costs (a rocket launch releases about as much CO2 as flying a Boeing 777 across the Atlantic Ocean). The consequences of space tourism are largely comparable, in other words, to other forms of tourism.

Unlike other forms of tourism, however, space tourism has a morally significant added benefit: strengthening humanity’s capacity for space exploration. Given the choice between a billionaire funding the design, manufacture, and development of spacecraft and buying another luxury beachside holiday house, the former is surely preferable. Since space tourism produces a similar (or perhaps even superior) cost/benefit ratio to traditional tourism, that suggests that space tourism has a similar moral status. And most people seem to think that moral status is permissible.

A maximizing consequentialist has a different theory about the moral permissibility of actions. According to this view, any action that fails to produce the best possible outcome is morally impermissible. A maximizing consequentialist may accept that space tourism has largely the same consequences, or perhaps even somewhat better consequences, as compared with traditional tourism. All this shows, according to the maximizing consequentialist, is that they are both immoral; there’s much better ways to spend those sums of money — sixty-six years of community college for example!

But if producing the best consequences is what morality demands, then why should we stop at community college? Sure, that seems like a better way of spending money than sending a rich guy to space (and back). But we could instead spend that $250,000 a seat in the rocket capsule costs on the most effective international aid charities and save 50-83 lives. What’s more important? Reducing the student debt burden for thirty-three (disproportionately well-educated) people in the world, or saving 50-83 people’s lives? The argument against billionaires funding space tourism, it seems, works equally well against billionaires funding community college tuition.

The maximizing consequentialist position is now beginning to look extremely morally demanding. Indeed, even donating to moderately effective charities looks morally impermissible if we have the option of donating to the most effective ones. On this view, billionaire space tourism is indeed immoral because it fails to produce the best possible consequences. But that is a fairly uninteresting conclusion, given that this view also entails that just about everything we do is immoral. And this suggests there’s nothing particularly immoral about billionaire space tourism.

Of course, consequentialist moral arguments are not the only game in town. For example, A.G. Holdier provides a non-consequentialist argument against billionaire space tourism here. According to Holdier’s Aristotelian argument, we ought to focus more closely on the moral characters of those who would spend such large sums (of their enormous wealth) on something like space tourism instead of, for example, philanthropic causes. The sort who would do this, his argument suggests, are “simply not good people.” Someone who exhibited the Aristotelian virtues of “liberality” and “magnificence” would know how to use their money in the right kinds of way and at the right kind of scale. They would not spend it on “a fleeting, personal experience” while keeping it from “others who might need it for more important matters.”

While Holdier makes a strong case that Aristotle would condemn the space billionaires’ characters, I am less confident that he would condemn their spaceflights. On Aristotle’s account, our upbringing and life experiences contribute greatly to our character development and our acquisition of the virtues. Not everyone gets the right circumstances and experiences to fully develop the virtues, but the lucky few do.

The “Overview Effect” is an oft-reported and now well-studied effect of viewing the Earth from space. It is best summarized as a profound and enduring cognitive shift. Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo 14 astronaut, described the effect of seeing Earth from space as follows:

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it.

Ronald Garan described a similar shift:

I was really almost immediately struck with a sobering contradiction between the beauty of our planet on one hand and the unfortunate realities of life on our planet, for a significant portion of its inhabitants on the other hand.

Yuri Gargarin, Scott Kelly and Chris Hadfield are among numerous astronauts who reported the same profound and lasting shift in their worldview upon looking back on Earth from space. Central to the effect is the sense that the world and humanity are a valuable whole that must be cared for and protected. If we really want these incredibly powerful individuals to do more for our planet and for humanity, indeed if we want their characters to improve, for them to become more virtuous, we should be cheering them all the way to their capsules — for their sake as well as for ours.

Space: The Immoral Frontier?

photograph of starry night in the woods

Space exploration has been all over the news this year, mostly because of billionaires racing to send their rockets and egos into orbit. This cold war between geek superpowers – Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson – is a bonfire of vanities. The obvious moral critiques have been made (here, here, here, et cetera, ad nauseam caelorum). Petitions have even been signed to deny them re-entry into our atmosphere.

Despite such criticisms, the public remains strongly supportive of our collective investment in space. According to a recent C-SPAN poll, 71% of Americans think that space exploration is “necessary.” A similar Pew poll found that 72% of Americans deemed it “essential” for the United States to continue to be a leader in space exploration. In our age of polarization, this is quite a consensus. But I suspect the view is wrong. I suspect that space is the immoral frontier.

I’m not suggesting that we should pull the plug on all extraterrestrial investment. Life as we presently know it would come to a standstill without satellites. I am, however, suggesting that it is no easy task to justify our spending another pretty penny in putting a human being on the moon or Mars or any other clump of space dirt. It seems to me that before we set out for other planets, we should first learn to live sustainably on the one we presently inhabit.

Most people would probably agree with me that humanity must learn to dwell on our present planet without destroying it. But they probably also think that we – or at least the Bezos crowd – should throw some money at space exploration. Four arguments have been frequently given in support of this view. Let’s consider each in turn:

The Capabilities Argument

When JFK pitched the Apollo program to the American people, he argued: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” This is surely not the full reason for the Apollo program, but it was part of it. The mission summoned all of our capabilities as human beings. It gave us the chance to see what we as a people and species could achieve.

This argument reflects a “capability approach” to ethical theory. According to that approach, our actions are morally right to the extent to which they help us realize our human capabilities, and especially our most valuable ones. Making friends is one such valuable capability, throwing frisbees less so. JFK’s argument reflects this capability approach insofar as it holds that space exploration is worth doing because it helps us realize our most valuable capabilities as human beings. It demands that we bring out “the best of our energies and skills.”

Realizing our capabilities may very well be an important part of the good human life. But must we realize our capabilities by sending a few astronauts to space? Are there not countless other ways for us to be our best selves?

The Eco Argument

Some will say that space exploration promotes precisely the kind of environmental awareness that we need to cultivate. Sending people to space and having them share their experiences in word and image reaffirms our reverence for the planet and our responsibility to protect it. When Richard Branson held his post-flight press conference, he made this very point: “The views are breathtaking…We are so lucky to have this planet that we all live on…We’ve got to all be doing everything we can do to help this incredible planet we live on.”

The Eco Argument has a bit of history on its side. The photograph “Earthrise” (below), taken in 1968 by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders, helped spark today’s environmental movement.

The photograph is undoubtedly beautiful, and its influence undoubtedly significant. But should we really keep shelling out billions for such pictures when a sunrise photo taken from Earth, at a fraction of the cost, might do comparably well? Moreover, a sense of reverence is not the only reaction that photographs like “Earthrise” provoke. As philosopher Hannah Arendt already observed in The Human Condition (1958), such photos can just as easily prompt a sense of relief that we have taken our first step “toward escape from men’s imprisonment to the earth.” And that invites laxity. If the scientists will save us, why worry? In this way space exploration produces marketing collateral that is double-edged: it can deepen our appreciation for the planet just as much as promise an escape hatch.

The Innovation Argument

A second argument is that we should invest in space exploration because it promotes technological innovation. Without NASA, we wouldn’t have LEDs, dust busters, computer mice, or baby formula. Even if a space mission fails, those invented byproducts are worth the investment.

This Innovation Argument is also nearly as old as space exploration itself. We heard it from Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson, who got together to inform other “city dudes and country cousins” that space research has given us medical imaging technology and other life-saving devices. This is no doubt true, and we should be grateful that it is. But Frank and Willie do not give us any reason to think that space research is especially well-suited to producing technological innovation. Most of the great inventions of the past century have had absolutely zilch to do with outer space.

The argument becomes even weaker when we recognize that the technological innovations generated by space exploration are often quite difficult for poorer communities to access – and particularly so for communities of color. I can do no better than quote Gil Scott-Heron’s “Whitey on the Moon” (1970):

“I can’t pay no doctor bills.

But Whitey’s on the moon.

Ten years from now I’ll be paying still.

While Whitey’s on the moon.”

Medical imaging is life-saving, but not so much for those who can’t afford it. Might we be better off providing affordable (dare I say free?) healthcare before investing in more space gizmos?

The Insurance Argument

Back in October 2018, Elon Musk tweeted:

“About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth & half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens & we destroy ourselves”

This, in a nutshell, is the Insurance Argument: let’s invest in space exploration so that we can be sure to have an escape hatch, just in case of a meteor strike or nuclear fallout.

This is an argument that seasoned philosophers have also offered. Brian Patrick Green, an expert in space ethics (with a forthcoming book so titled), has been making a version of this argument since at least 2015 (even on CNN). It is quite plausible. Every building has an emergency exit. Shouldn’t we have an emergency exit for the planet we live on? Just in case?

It’s a compelling line of thought – until we consider a few facts. Mars is hands-down the most hospitable planet that astronauts can reach within a lifetime of space travel. But Mars is freezing. At its balmy best, during the summer, at the equator, Mars can reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. But at night it drops to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s little surprise that when Kara Swisher asked Diana Trujillo, a NASA flight director, if she wanted to live in outer space, Diana immediately answered “No!!!” We humans were made to live on planet Earth, and there’s no place like home.

If an asteroid slams against our planet, we will likely go the way of the majestic dinosaurs. But are we sad that velociraptors aren’t prowling the streets? I certainly am not. Should we really be sad at the prospect of our ceasing to exist? Maybe. But we probably should get used to it. The Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius was on to something:

“Life is given to no one for ownership, to all for temporary use. Look back at how the past ages of eternity before our birth are nothing to us. In this way nature holds up a mirror for us of the time that will come after our death. Does anything then seem frightening? Does it seem sad to anyone? Does it not appear more serene than all of sleep?”

We cannot escape death or extinction. So perhaps we should stop allocating resources on moonshots for the few, at the expense of the poor. And perhaps we should instead invest in those who are in greatest need. They deserve a life befitting a human being — a life of dignity in a safe community with access to education, medicine, and a chance to marvel at the starry skies above.

Yes Elon, There Is Space Law

image of deep space with nebulae and bright stars

Elon Musk has spoken at great length about the details of his envisioned human colony on Mars. Among other things, he has ideas about the legal and political contours of Martian life. In terms of the form of Martian government, Musk argues for a direct democracy in which the laws can easily be repealed. His company, SpaceX, is also making a gambit at escaping not only Earth’s gravitational effects, but its legal influence as well. In the various legal terms and conditions of the company’s Starlink app, SpaceX asserts that neither Mars, nor the space between it and Earth, are governed either by the law of any earthly nation or their international laws. (Activities on the Moon, however, will be governed by California law!) Instead Mars and the starships going there will freely govern themselves according to principles of self-government. However, the reach of Musk and SpaceX exceed their grasp.

The laws of the United States govern SpaceX, which is headquartered in California and incorporated in Delaware. In turn, the United States is signatory to a series of United Nations treaties that govern the activities of signatories with respect to outer space and celestial bodies — not limited to only the Moon. As such, SpaceX is subject to the existing laws that govern extra-planetary activity. The assertion by SpaceX that it will not be bound by existing law amounts to a strange choice of law clause, by which a corporation attempts (sometimes unsuccessfully) to prevent potential plaintiffs from forcing the corporation to litigate under less favorable law, or at least make the law that will govern corporate activity more predictable. SpaceX appears to be trying to create a choice of law clause that chooses no law at all.

Being more charitable, SpaceX’s terms can be interpreted as choosing a sort of natural law stemming from generic principles of reason. However, this likely won’t help SpaceX reach legal escape velocity either. Earthly international law is largely based on international treaties, but international treaties and other legal instruments are based on jus gentium, which is natural law stemming from generic principles of reason. SpaceX, trying to choose nothing, has instead chosen exactly what it wanted to avoid.

SpaceX’s status as a corporation is a significant source of its difficulty. A corporation is a legal entity, existing only under its charter, which is governed by the law of the country where it is incorporated. There is a sense in which SpaceX extinguishes itself by disavowing the laws of the United States under which it is incorporated. If SpaceX were a sovereign nation it would be able enter treaties with other nations as it wished. So an eventual Martian colony, if independent from any terrestrial nation, could declare itself unbound by any other nations laws. But as a corporation, SpaceX is much like the colonial enclaves of England in the Americas and elsewhere. These colonies were chartered corporations created by the British Monarch. Independence and self-rule are not automatically granted to colonies, as history amply demonstrates.

The comparison to colonies is apt, as SpaceX appears to adopt the Earthlight Foundation’s contention that it is the “inalienable right” of space pioneers to do as they like, including “use any resources they find” and “own any land or space” they inhabit. The use of “inalienable,” which means not able to be taken or given away, is not likely what the Foundation wanted to say. Presumably, they envision a sort of free market exchange allowing people to exchange — i.e., give away — rights of use for resources in exchange for other considerations. More important that this pedantic point is the air of colonialism and Manifest Destiny that wafts off of the language. Space and its contents are conceptualized as resources to be exploited, valued in economic terms. This is the mentality of sentient locusts, roving the stars to deplete them, like the alien invaders in Independence Day.

The laws of earthly nations often badly fail to reign in the bad behavior of corporations. However, a self-regulated, corporate space colony is not likely to be better. Neither SpaceX nor any of the other corporate space exploration programs are able to operate wholly without oversight. That is at least some small insurance against a Martian corporate hegemony.

InSight’s Landing on Mars: Ethics of Space Exploration

Artist's rendering of InSight and the two MarsCubes as they approach Mars from Earth

On Monday, November 26th, at approximately 2:54 pm ET, NASA’s InSight probe landed on its three legs on the surface of Mars. InSight hurtled at 13,200 mph towards the open plains of Mars, the Elysium Planitia, to a safe landing.  The total descent took six and a half minutes, otherwise known to NASA as the “seven minutes of terror” because only 40% of missions on Mars are successful.  InSight’s landing is adding to the US’s success rate of seven Mars landings in the past four decades with only one failed touchdown. These missions can be risky and very expensive but can make very important scientific achievements.

Space exploration, such as InSight, has provided many benefits to our society. Inspired by human curiosity, the exploration is deep into the unknown. According to NASA, exploration pushes the boundaries of current scientific and technical limits, inspiring scientists to address challenges that are unique and rewarding. From the Apollo, they created the guidance computer, the predecessor to the microcomputer, now in all smart phones. Other advances have created fire resistant clothes and in-depth research with how diseases behave in microgravity. The immune system in particular has been studied in depth because microbes react differently in space. New industries have emerged and connections have been fostered between differing countries. These missions aren’t possible without lots of time and funding spent.

InSight traveled for seven months in space before the probe landed on Mars. InSight’s principal investigator, Bruce Banerdt, said, “It’s taken more than a decade to bring InSight from a concept to a spacecraft approaching Mars — and even longer since I was first inspired to try to undertake this kind of mission. But even after landing, we’ll need to be patient for the science to begin.” InSight’s purpose is to study the characteristics of the mantle, core, and crust of Mars to deepen scientist’s understanding about the great red planet. It aims to study the heat fluctuations and tremors on the planet’s surface. It is tracking the wobbles of the planet on the axis which will tell us if the planet is molten or solid at the core. Scientists hope to learn more about how Mars was formed, how this differs from Earth, and more in depth about the “liveable” conditions. “We’ve studied Mars from orbit and from the surface since 1965, learning about its weather, atmosphere, geology and surface chemistry,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA. “Now we finally will explore inside Mars and deepen our understanding of our terrestrial neighbor as NASA prepares to send human explorers deeper into the solar system.”

InSight alone was a $814 million-dollar mission that took over a decade of planning. The amount of time and valuable resources spent towards this mission and other space explorations is astounding. It’s possible that those resources could be utilized on Earth. An important consideration to make is if the benefit from the space missions outweighs the cost of the expense. Beyond monetary expenses, space missions can be dangerous for the well-being of space travelers and the ecosystems of the planets being studied.

The human body and space do not go well together. When humans travel to space they are exposed to harmful radiation which can lead to increased risk of cancer, damage to the central nervous system, and radiation sickness. With a lack of gravity, the muscles and bones deteriorate. Food is primarily freeze dried and lacks in nutrients, increasing the likelihood of malnutrition. Astronauts are isolated in a confined space for extended periods of time which requires months of training and preparation. This travel is not ideal for the people taking the journey.

Not all space travel requires a human on board, as seen with the InSight probe.  However, similar to the concerns with the SpaceX mission launched this year in February, there is the risk of contamination to the planet of study. The probes bring microorganisms from earth which could contaminate the natural ecosystem of the planet. Spacecraft parts also frequently fall off. With global dust storms on the planet, it could carry these contaminants across the planet surface having a vast effect.

Having anthropocentrism, human-centric values one would argue that these possible adverse contaminations to explored planets aren’t concerning because these planets are of instrumental use to humans. However, a ecocentric holism viewpoint says that non-individuals, such as natural processes, species, and ecosystem interactions on earth have intrinsic value and deserve respect. So, where does the human ecosystem begin or end? It becomes a question of if extraterrestrial areas should be protected considering they are not technically a part of the earth’s ecosystem.  John D Rummel of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, proposes a precautionary principle that says, “If an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.” With this viewpoint, he says that because of the suspected risk to other planets, space groups like NASA must prove that the harm is not too great. We’ve covered environmental ethics of Mars and the morality of possible other life more in-depth here and here.

Space exploration leads to new ethical dilemmas with new discoveries. As the technologies begin to increase and our knowledge of other systems grows, we have to reconsider the ethics behind exploration. The basis of this is beyond our intentions for good and is the problem of not knowing our the actions taken towards space discovery might affect life and systems so different from Earth’s.

 

Environmental Ethics for the Red Planet

Image of Mars from space

Elon Musk recently claimed that the colonization of Mars needs to be prioritized, lest a catastrophe such as World War III wipe out humanity on this planet before we make it to another. And yet, colonization runs headlong into another scientific goal for our exploration of Mars: the search for indigenous Martian life. The problem, in simple terms, is that human colonists will undoubtedly bring bacteria and other microscopic life forms from the planet Earth. If these life forms of terrestrial origin take root in the Martian landscape, scientific research may lose the ability tell indigenous from non-indigenous life forms. Scientists worry that these terrestrial lifeforms may even kill off the Martian ones (if they exist). And wouldn’t that be tragic? Continue reading “Environmental Ethics for the Red Planet”

SpaceX and the Ethics of Space Travel

An image of faraway galaxies taken by the Hubble space telescope.

On Tuesday, February 6th, SpaceX will launch a rocket that could be the future of space tourism. If successful, it could be the rocket that takes private tourists around the moon within the year and lay the groundwork for taking humans on missions to Mars. With human expansion within sight at this level, three sets of ethical concerns arise – bioethical concerns, and political concerns both among the nations of Earth and between Earth and those that venture off-planet. Continue reading “SpaceX and the Ethics of Space Travel”