Considering regulation of the space industry now could prevent the proliferation of colonial practices in the future. Credit: NASA
The past decade has seen rapid expansion of the commercial space industry. Rival nations are competing for prime military and economic positions beyond Earth. Public and private entities are crying out to mine the moonand a growing halo of space debris is Polluting low Earth orbit.
In a 2023 white paper, a group of concerned astronomers warned against repeating terrestrial events.colonial practices” in outer space. But what's wrong with colonizing space if there's nothing there to begin with?
I am a philosopher of science and religion who has been writing about the space industry for several years. As government agencies and private companies turn their eyes to the stars, I have noticed that many of the factors that drove European Christian imperialism between the 15th and 19th centuries are reappearing in high-tech, high-speed forms.
Some of these colonial practices could include the enclosure of landthe exploitation of environmental resources and the destruction of landscapes, in the name of ideals such as destiny, civilization and the salvation of humanity.
Many space industry leaders, such as Mars Society President Robert ZubrinHe argues that while European-style colonialism may have had unpleasant consequences on Earth, it is the only way forward in outer space. Indeed, he warns, any attempt to curb or regulate the space industry Making the Martian frontier inaccessible to humanityleaving us stuck on an increasingly boring and decadent Earth.
Zubrin has argued against Concerns about colonialism in spaceUnlike Earth, outer space is empty, he says. Why should anyone care about the rights of rocks and a few hypothetical microbes? But it turns out that not everyone agrees that outer space is empty. And, as concerned astronomers have argued, ditching the colonial playbook would benefit both industry insiders and outsiders.
Is space really empty?
Residents of Bawaka County in Northern Australia The space industry has been told that their ancestors guide human life from their home in the galaxy, and that This relationship is increasingly threatened. by large networks of orbiting satellites.
Similarly, Inuit elders say their ancestors live on celestial bodiesNavajo leadership has asked NASA Do not land human remains on the MoonKanaka elders have insisted that No more telescopes It will be built on Mauna Kea, which Native Hawaiians consider ancestral and sacred.
These indigenous positions contrast sharply with the insistence of many in the industry that space is empty and inanimate.
The key to reconciling these very different positions is to seek agreement, not on beliefs or worldviews, but on behaviors. Secular space enthusiasts do not need to agree that outer space is populated, living, or sacred to treat it with the care and respect that indigenous communities demand from industry.
Treating outer space with care could mean Preservation of remarkable natural formationslimiting mining, Reduction in permits and satellite launches and find a way to clean up junk in orbit.
Environmental concerns
The emerging field of spatial ecology examine the Relationships between human artifacts and natural environments in the context of the orbit of the Earth, the Moon and other planets. As this discipline seeks to demonstrate, planetary orbits and bodies are delicately balanced systems.
Without consistent regulation, commercial space activity could render orbits unusable and Discarding the Moon's vacuum atmosphere.
In fact, light bounces moving space junk – decommissioned satellites, spacecraft parts, cell phones, nuts, bolts, fragments of metal and glass – can prevent astronomers from seeing, photographing and Navigating through The stars.
The Moon, Mars and asteroids help scientists understand how planets and the solar system formed, what conditions are necessary for life, and what planets might look like in the future. If the space industry mines, extracts and exploits, following a suggestion from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, nuclear weapons planetary bodiesScientists could lose access to this knowledge.
The commercial space industry has already caused significant environmental damage on and around Earth.
SpaceX's constant rocket testing and launches have decimated the wetlands from Boca Chica, Texas. A SpaceX's Starship spacecraft explodes in April 2023 damaged a It is estimated to be 385 acres of land, waterways, turtles and birds, not to mention cars, houses and human lungs.
The growing number of private and public releases from the industry deposit kerosene, carbon and sulfur. into the upper atmospherewhere these substances remain longer than in the stratosphere.
Research has shown that the accumulation of these substances could exponentially intensify climate change. According to one estimate, rocket emissions warm the atmosphere 500 times faster such as aviation emissions.
Even if Musk never makes it to Mars, SpaceX and a host of competitors are creating Satellite traffic in low earth orbit That can threaten the lives of astronauts and risks making these orbits unusable.
Human consequences
Many space industry leaders celebrate space as the new New World or the final frontier. But early modern economies based on sugar, tobacco and gold generated profits from empire building for Europe and the early United States through slavery and indentured servitude.
Space industry leaders will have to consider what labor arrangements will look like when they send workers to staff their hotels, build their bunkers and facilitate asteroid mining. After all, space workers will depend on their employers not only for pay and health care, but also for food, water, air and transportation back to Earth.
In 1967, a number of countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR, signed the… Outer Space TreatyThis treaty declared, among other things, that no nation can own a planetary body or part of it.
The Outer Space Treaty, negotiated and signed in the aftermath of two world wars, was a product of the conflicts in Europe in the 20th century. If colonialism on Earth culminated in those two wars, the nations that signed the Outer Space Treaty were in effect saying: “Let’s not fight over territory and resources again. Let’s do outer space differently.”
At this point, the Outer Space Treaty It has become obsolete and practically inapplicable.But any future legislation would do well to retain the anti-colonial spirit of the original treaty.
From a political perspective, then, it does not matter whether space is actually inhabited or whether rocks have rights. Preventing colonialism in outer space does not require the space industry to agree on these metaphysical questions.
Instead, it will require participants across industry and beyond to agree on a shared set of standards for caring for the planets and their orbits, regardless of whether their motivations are scientific, environmental, humanitarian or religious.
Maria Jane RubensteinDean of Social Sciences, Professor of Religion and Science and Technology Studies, Wesleyan University
This article is republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the Original article.
