by Over the past decade the commercial space industry has grown rapidly. Rival nations compete for key military and economic positions outside of Earth. Public and private entities are mourning the Moon, and a growing space fringe is polluting low Earth orbit.
In a 2023 white paper, a group of concerned astronomers warned against repeating Earth’s “colonial practices” in outer space. But what’s wrong with colonizing space if there’s nothing 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 to the stars, I have noticed many of the factors that fueled European Christian imperialism between the 15th and 19th centuries reappearing in high-speed, high-tech forms.
Some of these colonial practices may include the enclosure of land, the 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 Zubrin, argue that while European-style colonization of Earth may have unpleasant consequences, it is the only way forward in outer space. Indeed, he suggests that any attempt to slow down or regulate the space industry will render the Martian frontier inaccessible to humanity, leaving us stranded on an increasingly remote and desolate Earth.
Zubrin has argued against concerns about colonialism in space. Unlike Earth, outer space is empty, he claims. Why should anyone care about the rights of rocks and a few hypothetical microbes? But as it turns out, not everyone agrees that outer space is empty. And as the concerned astrologers argued, abandoning the colonial playbook would benefit both insiders and outsiders.
Is space really empty?
The people of Bawaka Country in northern Australia have told the space industry that their ancestors guide human life from their home in the galaxy, and that this relationship is threatened by large orbiting satellite networks.
Similarly, Inuit elders say that their ancestors live on celestial bodies. The Navajo leadership asked NASA not to land human remains on the Moon. Kanaka elders insisted that no more telescopes be built on Mauna Kea, which Native Hawaiians consider ancestral and sacred.
These Native positions stand in stark contrast to many in the industry who insist that space is empty and lifeless.
The key to bringing these very different positions together is to seek agreement – not on beliefs or worldviews, but on behavior. Space enthusiasts do not need to agree that outer space is inhabited, alive or sacred in order to treat it with the care and respect that indigenous peoples seek from industry.
It may be necessary to preserve significant natural formations, limit mining, cut permits and cut satellite launches and find a way to clean up garbage in orbit.
Environmental concerns
The emerging field of space ecology examines the relationships between human artifacts and natural environments in the context of Earth’s orbit, the Moon, and other planets. As this discipline seeks to demonstrate, orbits and planetary bodies are balanced systems.
Without consistent regulation, commercial space activity could leave orbits unusable and throw out an atmosphere like the void of the Moon.
In fact, the light bouncing off observant space junk – defunct satellites, pieces of spacecraft, mobile phones, nuts, bolts, sticks of metal and glass – can prevent astronomers from seeing the stars see, photograph and navigate.
The Moon, Mars and asteroids help scientists understand how planets and the solar system formed, what conditions are necessary for life and what the planets will look like in the future. If the space industry explodes, mines and – following the suggestion of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk – nukes planetary bodies, scientists could lose access to this information.
The commercial space industry has already caused significant environmental damage on and around Earth.
The wetlands of Boca Chica, Texas have degraded SpaceX’s fixed rocket tests and launches. The explosion of a SpaceX starship in April 2023 damaged an estimated 385 acres of land, waterways, turtles and birds – not to mention cars, houses and human lungs.
The industry’s number of private and public rockets send kerosene, carbon and sulfur into the upper atmosphere, where these substances stay longer than they do in the stratosphere.
Research has shown that the accumulation of these substances could increase climate change exponentially. According to one estimate, rocket emissions heat the atmosphere 500 times as fast as aviation emissions.
Even if Musk never gets to Mars, SpaceX and a host of competitors are creating satellite traffic in low Earth orbit that could endanger the lives of astronauts and risk making those orbits unusable.
Human consequences
Many space industry leaders celebrate space as the New World or the final frontier. But the early modern economies of sugar, tobacco, and gold generated empire-building profits for Europe and the early United States through enslavement and enslavement.
Space industry leaders will have to look at what labor arrangements will look like as they send workers to their hotels, build their tanks and facilitate asteroid mining. After all, space workers will depend on their employers not only for paychecks and health care, but also for food, water, air and transportation back to Earth.
In 1967, a number of nations including the USA, the UK and the USSR signed the Outer Space Treaty. This treaty declared, among other things, that no nation can possess a planetary body or part of a body.
Negotiated and signed after the two world wars, the Outer Space Treaty was a product of conflict in 20th century Europe. If these two wars were the culmination of colonialism on Earth, the nations that signed the Outer Space Treaty were effectively saying, “Let’s not fight each other for territory and resources again. Let’s do outer space differently.”
At this point, the Outer Space Treaty is outdated and virtually unenforceable. But any future legislation would do well to maintain the anti-colonial spirit of the original treaty.
From a policy point of view, then, it doesn’t matter whether people live in space or whether rocks have rights. Preventing colonization in outer space does not require the space industry to agree on these metaphysical questions.
Instead, it will require participants across and outside industry to agree on a set of common standards for caring for the planet and its orbit – whether motivated by scientific, environmental, humanitarian or religious reasons.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a non-profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.
Written by: Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Wesleyan University.
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Mary-Jane Rubenstein does not work for, consult with, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and she has disclosed no relevant relationships beyond her academic appointment.
