The “space economy” is at the center of 21st century exploration, with the race for precious minerals, satellite dominance and even interplanetary colonization driving government and industry into Earth’s orbit and beyond. Some people want to pump the brakes. A growing number of thinkers and activists are concerned that this new wave of space activity is motivated by our worst impulses on the Earth’s surface, and could reproduce some of our biggest mistakes. Anti-war activists have protested the perceived militarization of space, the better to protect our investments there. Academics worry that its limitless expanse could worsen the excesses of billionaire capitalism. And some thinkers warn that we’re in danger of ignoring decades of evidence about what we’ve already done to our own planet, arguing it’s time to set new rules to protect an environment we’ve only just begun to remake in our image. Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a professor of religion and science at Wesleyan University and author of the book “Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race,” argues in a new essay for The Conversation that policymakers need to recognize this and move quickly — building on existing space treaties to ensure development doesn’t wreck planets’ existing environments, or our own. As a scholar of religion, she also points out that stellar bodies are some of the few remaining places beyond the reach of human commerce, with significant roles in earthbound religious beliefs. To would-be space colonists like Elon Musk, part of the appeal is that there are no such rules, and they see little need for them. Unlike the bad old days of Industrial Revolution-era colonialism, they argue, there is no one — and hardly even any thing — to harm or exploit in space. Robert Zubrin, engineer and banner-carrying Mars enthusiast, told Newsweek in 2018 that “On Mars, we have a chance to create something new with clean hands … We're not going to Mars to steal other people's property.” To critics, that’s both erroneous and beside the point. “From a policy perspective … it doesn’t matter whether space is actually inhabited or whether rocks have rights,” Rubenstein writes. In her essay, Rubenstein argues against what she calls the exploitation of a shared natural resource, and suggests that an international body desperately needs to set new standards for all players in the new space economy — “whether their motivations are scientific, environmental, humanistic or religious.” “The colonial enterprise remains a bad idea even when we’re talking about outer space,” Rubenstein said during an interview with DFD yesterday. “Relentless extraction of materials in order to claim land, maximize production and maximize profit has a disastrous local effect,” Rubenstein said, comparing it to clear-cutting forests in North America, and said a similar argument can be made about altering the landscape of other planets. Even if the planet harbors no life, she argued that to terraform Mars with nuclear weapons, as Musk has proposed, would be to pass up an invaluable opportunity to learn about the planet’s history, something scientists say could offer invaluable clues about the basis of biological life itself. She also flips the lens the other direction, pointing out that an unbridled space economy could have damaging effects on Earth and humans. A 2022 study showed that rocket fuel heats the atmosphere far more efficiently than jet fuel in the atmosphere, and another study showed that increased rocket launches could lead to significant ozone degradation. Just last week, regulators found Musk’s SpaceX violated the Clean Water Act by dumping its discharge into Texas bodies of water. As for the human side, Rubenstein pointed out that many cultures have spiritual beliefs about space that have been considered even less than the paltry attention given to them on Earth. There are also serious questions about human rights once commerce moves off the Earth’s surface. Rubenstein cites remarks Musk made on (then) Twitter in 2020 about a hypothetical Mars colony’s labor model that critics have compared to indentured servitude. “I'm particularly concerned about this when your employer controls your access, not only to things like healthcare and your salary, but to water and air and earth,” Rubenstein said. “There’s no way you’re going to strike.” To soften the space industry’s impact without keeping the moon or Mars off limits entirely, she pointed to the example of the National Parks system — an idea that could potentially protect significant sites on those bodies. There are also countries around the world trying new legal theories to protect the environment, such as giving rivers the same legal rights as humans. Of course, some international body would actually have to identify and enforce these rights or protections — and to Rubenstein, the current patchwork model of bi- or multilateral space accords isn’t going to cut it. “At the moment we’ve got the United Nations, but the problem with that is diplomacy between the U.S. and China in particular is so broken,” Rubenstein said. Flawed as it is, however, she suggested that the UN likely provides the best path forward for changing our relationship with space — and possibly with each other here on Earth. “If it’s possible to imagine a freestanding orbital colony, it’s possible to imagine the U.S. talking to China,” she continued. “If the space industry is thinking this big technologically, and even existentially, they should be able to think even half as big diplomatically.”
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