Space Col Bad

! – WarSpace colonization causes intergroup bias – that leads to armed conflict between space-faring nationsKovic 18 [(Marko Kovic, Marko Kovic is the co-founder president of the nonprofit think tank ZIPAR (Zurich Institute of Public Affairs Research) and the co-founder and CEO of the consulting firm ars cognitionis, and a researcher in Rationality, Decision-Making, Democracy, Technology-Related Risks, Future of Humankind) “Political, Moral, and Security Challenges of Space Colonization” SocArXiv Papers, June 11, 2018] TDI

In the above discussions of political and moral challenges, it is presumed that the problems and challenges that arise do so in a

generally peaceful system of colonization. However, peace in the sense of a lack of armed con - ict is not guaranteed with space colonization. On the contrary: Space colonization might produce new kinds of security challenges Violence and war have been decreasing over the course of our civilization’s history [45, 46, 47]. The decrease in violent armed con - ict has coincided with an increase in cultural, political, and economic interconnectedness. Even though major armed con - icts are not yet a thing of the past [48], humankind will probably continue on its current trajectory of peace. With space colonization, however, the trend of growing closer together might reverse because of increasing fragmentation, and with that reversal, peaceful cooperation might again give way to armed con - ict. Some amount of human fragmentation due to space colonization is almost

inevitable. One of the strongest biases we humans have is the intergroup bias [49]: We tend to separate people into ingroups and outgroups, and we generally favor our own ingroup over any outgroup. Our ingroup favoritism is often the source of collective identity: We identify with our home city and think it is better than other cities; we identify with our favorite football team and think it is better than other teams; we identify with our country of origin and think it is better than other countries. In a future in which humans have successfully mastered type I colonization (colonization within our Solar System) and perhaps even type II colonization (intersolar colonization), belonging to one habitat rather than another will almost certainly also be a source of collective identity. Humans born and raised on Venus would probably have more positive general attitudes towards Venus than towards Earth. That is not a problem in and of itself, but it can become a problem: If humankind is very successful at space colonization and manages to establish colonies across the galaxy, the ingroup dynamics within colonies and regions of colonies might grow so much that the perceived benets of armed con-ict increase, and the perceived costs decrease. In part, this might be due to the infrahumanization (or dehumanization) bias [50]: Our intergroup bias can have the eect of perceiving members of the outgroup as less human than members of our own ingroup. The problem of intergroup bias and armed con-ict could be compounded by real biological differences in the long-term future. In the long term, different colonies of humans might adopt dierent stances on human enhancement technology and embrace dierent kinds of enhancement technologies. These differential paths of human enhancement might result in technology-induced quasi-speciation, whereby dierent strands of humans have increasingly distinct biological traits. The ultimate result of such a development might be a strong frag-mentation of humankind and an increasing arms race in order to defend against the outgroup of all the (former) humans that are dierent from the ingroup (former) humans [51]

Space colonization leads to immeasurable conflict – lack of inter-space policy guarantees escalation Torres 18 [(Phil Torres is the director of the Project for Human Flourishing and the author of Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: an Introduction to Existential Risks) “Why We

Should Think Twice About Colonizing Space” Nautilus, July 23, 2018] TDIThere are lots of reasons why colonizing space seems compelling. The popular astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson argues that it would stimulate the economy and inspire the next generation of scientists. Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, argues that “there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multiplanetary…to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen.” The former administrator of NASA, Michael Griffin, frames it as a matter of the “survival of the species.” And the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has conjectured that if humanity fails to colonize space within 100 years, we could face extinction. To be sure, humanity will eventually need to escape Earth to survive, since the sun will make the planet

uninhabitable in about 1 billion years. But for many “space expansionists,” escaping Earth is about much more than dodging the bullet of extinction: it’s about realizing astronomical amounts of value by exploiting the universe’s vast resources to create something resembling utopia. For example, the astrobiologist Milan Cirkovic calculates that some 1046 people per century could come into existence if we were to colonize our Local Supercluster, Virgo. This leads Nick Bostrom to argue that failing to colonize space would be tragic because it would mean that these potential “worthwhile lives” would never exist, and this would be morally bad. But would these trillions of lives actually be worthwhile? Or would colonization of space lead to a dystopia? In a recent article in Futures, which was

inspired by political scientist Daniel Deudney’s forthcoming book Dark Skies, I decided to take a closer look at this question. My conclusion is that in a colonized universe the probability of the annihilation of the human race could actually rise rather than fall. The argument is based on ideas from evolutionary biology and international relations theory, and it assumes that there aren’t any other technologically advanced lifeforms capable of colonizing the universe (as a recent study suggests is the case). Consider what is likely to happen as humanity hops from Earth to Mars, and from Mars to relatively nearby, potentially habitable exoplanets like Epsilon Eridani b, Gliese 674 b, and Gliese 581 d. Each of these planets has its own unique environments that will drive Darwinian evolution, resulting in the emergence of novel species over time, just as species that migrate to a new island will

evolve different traits than their parent species. The same applies to the artificial environments of spacecraft like “ O’Neill Cylinders ,” which are large cylindrical structures that rotate to produce artificial gravity. Insofar as future beings satisfy the basic conditions of evolution by natural selection— such as differential reproduction, heritability, and variation of traits across the population—then evolutionary pressures will yield new forms of life. But the process of “ cyborgization ”—that is, of using technology to modify and enhance our bodies and brains—is much more likely to influence the evolutionary trajectories of future populations living on exoplanets or in spacecraft. The result could be beings with completely novel cognitive architectures (or mental abilities), emotional repertoires,

physical capabilities, lifespans, and so on. In other words, natural selection and cyborgization as humanity spreads throughout the cosmos will result in species diversification. At the same time, expanding across space will also result in ideological diversification. Space-hopping populations will create their own cultures, languages, governments, political institutions, religions, technologies, rituals, norms, worldviews, and so on. As a result, different species will find it increasingly difficult over time to understand each other’s motivations, intentions, behaviors, decisions, and so on. It could

even make communication between species with alien languages almost impossible. Furthermore, some species might begin to wonder whether the proverbial “ Other ” is conscious . This matters because if a species Y cannot consciously experience pain, then another species X might not feel morally obligated to care about Y. After all, we don’t worry about kicking stones down the street because we don’t believe that rocks can feel pain. Thus, as I write in the paper, phylogenetic and ideological diversification will engender a situation in which many species will be “not merely aliens to each other but, more significantly, alienated from each other.” But this yields some problems. First, extreme differences like those just listed will undercut trust between species. If you don’t trust that your neighbor isn’t going to steal from, harm, or kill you, then you’re going to be suspicious of your neighbor. And if you’re suspicious of your neighbor, you might want an effective defense strategy to stop an attack—just in case one were to happen. But your neighbor might reason the same way: she’s not entirely sure that you won’t kill her, so she establishes a defense as well. The problem is that, since you don’t fully trust her, you wonder whether her defense is actually part of an attack plan. So you start carrying a knife around with you, which she interprets as

a threat to her, thus leading her to buy a gun, and so on. Within the field of international relations, this is called the “ security dilemma ,” and it results in a spiral of militarization that can significantly increase the probability of conflict, even in cases where all actors have genuinely peaceful intentions. So,

how can actors extricate themselves from the security dilemma if they can’t fully trust each other? On the level of individuals, one solution has involved what Thomas Hobbes’ calls the “Leviathan.” The key idea is that people get together and say, “Look, since we can’t fully trust each other, let’s establish an independent governing system—a referee of sorts—that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. By replacing anarchy with hierarchy, we can also replace the constant threat of harm with law and order.” Hobbes didn’t believe that this happened historically, only that this predicament is what justifies the existence of the state. According to Steven Pinker, the Leviathan is a major reason that violence has declined in recent centuries. The point is that if individuals—you and I—can overcome the constant threat of harm posed by our neighbors by establishing a governing system, then maybe future species could get together and create some sort of cosmic governing system that could similarly guarantee peace by replacing anarchy with hierarchy. Unfortunately, this looks unpromising within the “cosmopolitical” realm. One reason is that for states to maintain law and order among their citizens, their various appendages—e.g., law enforcement, courts—need to be properly coordinated. If you call the police about a robbery and they don’t show up for three weeks, then what’s the point of living in that society? You’d be just as well off on your own! The question is, then, whether the appendages of a cosmic governing system could be sufficiently well-coordinated to respond to conflicts and make top-down decisions about how to respond to particular

situations. To put it differently: If conflict were to break out in some region of the universe, could the relevant governing authorities respond soon enough for it to matter, for it to make a difference? Probably not, because of the immense vastness of space. For example, consider again Epsilon Eridani b, Gliese 674 b, and Gliese 581 d. These are, respectively, 10.5, 14.8, and 20.4 light-years from Earth. This means that a signal sent as of this writing, in 2018, wouldn’t reach Gliese 581 d until 2038. A spaceship traveling at one-quarter the cosmic speed limit wouldn’t arrive until 2098, and a message to simply affirm that it had arrived safely wouldn’t return to Earth until 2118. And Gliese 581 is relatively close as far as exoplanets go. Just consider that he Andromeda Galaxy is some 2.5 million light-years from Earth and the Triangulum Galaxy about 3 million light-years away. What’s more, there are some 54 galaxies in our Local Group, which is about 10 million light-years wide, within a universe that stretches some 93 billion light-years across. These facts make it look hopeless for a governing system to effectively coordinate law enforcement activities, judicial decisions, and so on,

across cosmic distances. The universe is simply too big for a government to establish law and order in a top-down fashion. But there is another strategy for achieving peace: Future civilizations could use a policy of deterrence to prevent other civilizations from launching first strikes . A policy of this sort, which must be credible to work, says: “I won’t attack you first, but if you attack me first, I have the capabilities to destroy you in retaliation.” This

was the predicament of the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War, known as “mutually-assured destruction” (MAD). But could this work in the cosmopolitical realm of space? It seems unlikely. First, consider how many future species there could be: upwards of many billions. While some of these species would be too far away to pose a threat to each other—although see the qualification below—there will nonetheless exist a huge number within one’s galactic backyard. The point is that the sheer number would make it incredibly hard to determine who initiated a first strike, if one is attacked. And without a method for identifying instigators with high reliability, one’s policy of deterrence won’t be credible. And if one’s policy of deterrence isn’t credible, then one has no such policy! Second, ponder the sorts of weapons that could become available to future spacefaring civilizations. Redirected asteroids (a.k.a., “planetoid bombs”), “ rods from God ,” sun guns , laser weapons , and no doubt an array of exceptionally powerful super-weapons that we can’t currently imagine. It has even been speculated that the universe might exist in a “metastable” state and that a high-powered particle accelerator could tip the universe into a more stable state. This would create a bubble of total annihilation that spreads in all directions at the speed of light—which opens up the possibility that a suicidal cult, or whatever , weaponizes a particle accelerator to destroy the universe. The question, then, is whether defensive technologies could effectively neutralize such risks. There’s a lot to say here, but for the present purposes just note that, historically speaking, defensive measures have very often lagged behind offensive measures, thus resulting in periods of heightened vulnerability. This is an important point because when it comes to existentially dangerous super-weapons, one only needs to be vulnerable for a short period to risk annihilation. So far as I can tell, this seriously undercuts the credibility of policies of deterrence. Again, if species A cannot convince species B that if B strikes it, A will launch an effective and devastating counter strike, then B may take a chance at attacking A. In fact, B does not need to be malicious to do this: it only needs to worry that A might, at some point in the near- or long-term future, attack B, thus making it rational for B to launch a preemptive strike (to eliminate the potential

danger). Thinking about this predicament in the radically multi-polar conditions of space, it seems fairly obvious that conflict will be extremely difficult to avoid. the lesson of this argument is not to uncritically assume that venturing into the heavens will necessarily make us safer or more existentially secure. This is a point that organizations hoping to colonize Mars, such as SpaceX, NASA, and Mars One should seriously contemplate. How can humanity migrate to another planet without bringing our problems with us? And how can different species that spread throughout the cosmos maintain peace when sufficient mutual trust is unattainable and advanced weaponry could destroy entire civilizations? Human beings have made many catastrophically bad decisions in the past. Some of these outcomes could have been avoided if only the decision-makers had deliberated a bit more about what could go wrong—i.e., had done a “premortem” analysis. We are in that privileged position right now with respect to space colonization. Let’s not dive head-first into waters that turn out to be shallow.

! - DiseaseSpace travel increases disease risksMermel 13, Mermel, Leonard A. “Infection Prevention and Control During Prolonged Human Space Travel.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 9 Oct. 2012.

Prolonged human spaceflight to another planet or an asteroid will introduce unique challenges of mitigating the risk of infection. During space travel, exposure to microgravity, radiation, and stress alter human immunoregulatory responses, which can in turn impact an astronaut's ability to prevent acquisition of infectious agents or reactivation of latent infection. In addition, microgravity affects virulence, growth kinetics, and biofilm formation of potential microbial pathogens. These interactions occur in a confined space in microgravity, providing ample opportunity for heavy microbial contamination of the environment. In addition, there is the

persistence of aerosolized, microbe-containing particles. Any mission involving prolonged human spaceflight must be carefully planned to minimize vulnerabilities and maximize the likelihood of success.

Nevertheless, in microgravity, potential microbial pathogens demonstrate enhanced expression of virulence factors [2–5], more rapidly enter into log-phase growth in liquid media [6, 7], and may increase biofilm formation

[8]. At the same time, there is dysregulation of the human immune system during space travel, which

may increase risk of infection [9–11], including reactivation of herpesviruses [12]. In addition, anaerobic colonic flora is diminished with a commensurate increase in aerobic bacteria such as Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus aureus [13, 14] and there is

a greater abundance of S. aureus, along with Enterobacteriaceae, on the skin [13] and in the upper airway [14]. Numerous conditions that are conducive to the spread of infection exist within the confines of a containment vessel such as the International Space Station. Transmission of microbial flora among astronauts, including some multidrug-resistant pathogens, has been demonstrated [13, 15–20]; microbes survive in free-floating condensate [21]; and symptom-based management of medical conditions [22] may be carried out by individuals who may not have medical or nursing

degrees and must confer with earthbound physicians at Mission Control. Based on postflight medical debriefs, there were 29 infectious disease incidents (ie, fever/chills [8], fungal infection [5], flu-like illness [3], urinary tract infection

[4], aphthous stomatitis [3], viral gastroenteritis [2], subcutaneous skin infection [2], and other viral disease [2]) among approximately 742 crew members who have flown 106 space shuttle flights [23].

Disease spread is inevitable in space.Lopez 19, Lopez, Jose V, et al. “Inevitable Future: Space Colonization Beyond Earth with Microbes First.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 22 Aug. 2019.

Based on modern microbiology, we propose a major revision in current space exploration philosophy and planetary protection

policy, especially regarding microorganisms in space. Mainly, microbial introduction should not be considered accidental but inevitable. We hypothesize the near impossibility of exploring new planets without carrying and/or delivering any microbial travelers. In addition, although we highlight the importance of controlling and tracking such contaminations—to explore the existence of extraterrestrial microorganisms—we also believe that we must discuss the role of microbes as primary colonists and assets, rather than serendipitous accidents, for future plans of extraterrestrial colonization. This paradigm shift stems partly from the overwhelming evidence of microorganisms’ diverse roles in sustaining life on Earth, such as symbioses and ecosystem services (decomposition, atmosphere effects, nitrogen fixation, etc.). Therefore, we propose a framework for new discussion based on the scientific implications of future colonization and terraforming: (i) focus on methods to track and avoid accidental delivery of Earth's harmful microorganisms and genes to extraterrestrial areas; (ii) begin a rigorous program to develop and explore ‘Proactive Inoculation Protocols’. We outline a rationale and solicit feedback to drive a public and private research agenda that optimizes diverse organisms for potential space colonization.

Disease causes extinction.Ord ‘20 (Toby, a moral philosopher, Oxford University, Future of Life Institute. Ord has advised the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Office, and Government Office for Science; “Why we need worst-case thinking to prevent pandemics”; The Guardian; D.A. April 18th 2020, [Published March 6th 2020]; https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/06/worst-case-thinking-prevent-pandemics-coronavirus-existential-risk)

The world is in the early stages of what may be the most deadly pandemic of the past 100 years .

In China, thousands of people have already died; large outbreaks have begun in South Korea, Iran and Italy; and the rest of the world is bracing for impact. We do not yet know whether the final toll will be measured in

thousands or hundreds of thousands. For all our advances in medicine, humanity remains much more vulnerable to pandemics than we would like to believe .

To understand our vulnerability, and to determine what steps must be taken to end it, it is useful to ask about the very worst-case scenarios. Just how bad could a pandemic be? In science fiction, we sometimes encounter the idea of a pandemic so severe that it could cause the end of civilisation, or even of humanity itself . Such a risk to humanity’s entire future is known as an existential risk.

We can say with certainty that the novel coronavirus, named Covid-19, does not pose such a risk. But could the next pandemic? To find out, and to put the current outbreak into greater context, let us turn to the past.

In 1347, death came to Europe. It entered through the Crimean town of Caffa, brought by the besieging Mongol army. Fleeing merchants unwittingly carried it back to Italy. From there, it spread to France, Spain and England. Then up as far as Norway and across the rest of Europe – all the way to Moscow. Within six years, the Black Death had taken the continent.

Tens of millions fell gravely ill, their bodies succumbing to the disease in different ways. Some bore swollen buboes on their necks, armpits and thighs; some had their flesh turn black from haemorrhaging beneath the skin; some coughed blood from the necrotic inflammation of their throats and lungs. All forms involved fever, exhaustion and an intolerable stench from the material that exuded from the body.

There were so many dead that mass graves needed to be dug and, even then, cemeteries ran out of room for the bodies. The Black Death devastated Europe. In those six years, between a quarter and half of all Europeans were killed. The Middle East was ravaged, too, with the plague killing about one in three Egyptians and Syrians. And it may have also laid waste to parts of central Asia, India and China. Due to the scant records of the 14th century, we will never know the true toll, but our best estimates are that somewhere between 5% and 14% of all the world’s people were killed, in what may have been the greatest catastrophe humanity has seen.

The Black Death was not the only biological disaster to scar human history. It was not even the only great bubonic plague. In AD541 the plague of Justinian struck the Byzantine empire. Over three years, it took the lives of roughly 3% of the world’s people.

When Europeans reached the Americas in 1492, the two populations exposed each other to completely novel diseases. Over thousands of years, each population had built up resistance to their own set of diseases,

but were extremely susceptible to the others. The American peoples got by far the worse end of the exchange, through diseases such as measles , influenza and, especially, smallpox .

During the next 100 years, a combination of invasion and disease took an immense toll – one whose scale may

never be known, due to great uncertainty about the size of the pre-existing population. We can’t rule out the loss of more than 90% of the population of the Americas during that century, though the number could also be much lower. And

it is very difficult to tease out how much of this should be attributed to war and occupation, rather than disease. At a rough

estimate, as many as 10% of the world’s people may have been killed.

Centuries later, the world had become so interconnected that a truly global pandemic was possible . Towards the end of the first world war, a devastating strain of influenza, known as the 1918 flu or Spanish flu, spread to six continents, and even remote Pacific islands. About a third of the world’s population were infected and between 3% and 6% were killed. This death toll outstripped that of the first world war.

Yet even events like these fall short of being a threat to humanity’s long-term potential . In the great

bubonic plagues we saw civilisation in the affected areas falter, but recover. The regional 25%-50% death rate was not enough to precipitate a continent-wide collapse. It changed the relative fortunes of empires, and may have substantially

altered the course of history, but if anything, it gives us reason to believe that human civilisation is likely to make it through future events with similar death rates, even if they were global in scale.

The Spanish flu pandemic was remarkable in having very little apparent effect on the world’s development, despite its global reach. It looks as if it was lost in the wake of the first world war, which, despite a smaller death toll, seems to have had a much larger effect on the course of history. The full history of humanity covers at least 200,000 years. While we have scarce records for most of these

2,000 centuries, there is a key lesson we can draw from the sheer length of our past. The chance of human extinction from natural catastrophes of any kind must have been very low for most of this time – or we would not

have made it so far. But could these risks have changed? Might the past provide false comfort?

Our population now is a thousand times greater than it was for most of human history, so there are vastly more opportunities for new human diseases to originate . And our farming practices have created vast numbers of animals living in unhealthy conditions within close proximity to humans . This increases the risk, as many major diseases originate in animals before crossing over to humans .

Examples include HIV (chimpanzees), Ebola (bats), Sars (probably civets or bats) and influenza (usually pigs or birds). We do not yet know where Covid-19 came from, though it is very similar to coronaviruses found in bats and pangolins. Evidence suggests

that diseases are crossing over into human populations from animals at an increasing rate .

Modern civilisation may also make it much easier for a pandemic to spread . The higher density of people living together in cities increases the number of people each of us may infect. Rapid long-distance transport greatly increases the distance pathogens can spread, reducing the degrees of separation between any two people . Moreover, we are no longer divided into isolated populations as we were for most of the past 10,000 years.

Together these effects suggest that we might expect more new pandemics, for them to spread more quickly,

and to reach a higher percentage of the world’s people.

But we have also changed the world in ways that offer protection. We have a healthier population; improved sanitation and hygiene; preventative and curative medicine; and a scientific understanding of disease. Perhaps most importantly, we have public health bodies to facilitate global communication and coordination in the face of new outbreaks. We have seen the benefits of this protection through the dramatic decline of endemic infectious disease over the past century (though we can’t be sure pandemics

will obey the same trend). Finally, we have spread to a range of locations and environments unprecedented for any mammalian species. This offers special protection from extinction events, because it requires the pathogen to be able to flourish in a vast range of environments and to

reach exceptionally isolated populations such as uncontacted tribes, Antarctic researchers and nuclear submarine crews.

It is hard to know whether these combined effects have increased or decreased the existential risk from pandemics. This uncertainty is ultimately bad news: we were previously sitting on a powerful argument that the risk was tiny; now we are not.

We have seen the indirect ways that our actions aid and abet the origination and spread of pandemics. But what about cases where we have a much more direct hand in the process – where we

deliberately use, improve or create the pathogens?

Our understanding and control of pathogens is very recent. Just 200 years ago, we didn’t even understand the basic cause of pandemics – a leading theory in the west claimed that disease was produced by a kind of gas. In just two

centuries, we discovered it was caused by a diverse variety of microscopic agents and we worked out how to grow them in the lab, to breed them for different traits , to sequence their genomes, to implant new genes and to create entire functional viruses from their written code.

This progress is continuing at a rapid pace. The past 10 years have seen major qualitative breakthroughs, such as the use of the gene editing tool Crispr to efficiently insert new genetic sequences into a genome, and the use of gene drives to efficiently replace populations of natural organisms in the wild with genetically modified versions.

This progress in biotechnology seems unlikely to fizzle out anytime soon: there are no insurmountable challenges looming; no fundamental laws blocking further developments. But it would be optimistic to assume that this uncharted new terrain holds only familiar dangers.

To start with, let’s set aside the risks from malicious intent, and consider only the risks that can arise from well-intentioned research. Most scientific and medical research poses a negligible risk of harms at the scale we are

considering. But there is a small fraction that uses live pathogens of kinds that are known to threaten global harm. These include the agents that cause the Spanish flu, smallpox, Sars and H5N1 or avian flu. And a small part of this research involves making strains of these pathogens that pose even more danger than the natural types, increasing their transmissibility, lethality or resistance to vaccination or treatment.

In 2012, a Dutch virologist, Ron Fouchier, published details of an experiment on the recent H5N1 strain of bird flu. This strain was extremely deadly, killing an estimated 60% of humans it infected – far beyond even the Spanish flu. Yet its inability to pass from human to human had so far prevented a pandemic. Fouchier wanted to find out whether (and how) H5N1 could naturally develop this ability. He passed the disease through a series of 10 ferrets, which are commonly used as a model for how influenza affects humans. By the time it passed to the final ferret, his strain of H5N1 had become directly transmissible between mammals.

The work caused fierce controversy. Much of this was focused on the information contained in his work. The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity ruled that his paper had to be stripped of some of its technical details before publication, to limit the ability of bad actors to cause a pandemic. And the Dutch government claimed that the research broke EU law on exporting

information useful for bioweapons. But it is not the possibility of misuse that concerns me here. Fouchier’s research provides a clear example of well-intentioned scientists enhancing the destructive capabilities of pathogens known to threaten global catastrophe .

Of course, such experiments are done in secure labs, with stringent safety standards. It is highly unlikely that in any particular case

the enhanced pathogens would escape into the wild. But just how unlikely? Unfortunately, we don’t have good data, due to a lack of transparency about incident and escape rates. This prevents society from making well-informed decisions balancing the risks and benefits of this research, and it limits the ability of labs to learn from each other’s incidents.

Security for highly dangerous pathogens has been deeply flawed, and remains insufficient. In

2001, Britain was struck by a devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock. Six million animals were killed in an attempt to halt its spread, and the economic damages totalled £8bn. Then, in 2007, there was another outbreak, which was traced to a lab working on the disease. Foot-and-mouth was considered a highest-category pathogen, and required the highest level of biosecurity. Yet the virus escaped from a badly maintained pipe, leaking into the groundwater at the facility. After an investigation, the lab’s licence was renewed – only for another leak to occur two weeks later.

In my view, this track record of escapes shows that even the highest biosafety level (BSL-4) is insufficient for working on pathogens that pose a risk of global pandemics on the scale of the Spanish flu or worse. Thirteen years since the last publicly acknowledged outbreak from a BSL-4 facility is not good enough.

It doesn’t matter whether this is from insufficient standards, inspections, operations or penalties. What matters is the poor track record in the field, made worse by a lack of transparency and accountability. With current BSL-4 labs, an escape of a pandemic pathogen is only a matter of time.

One of the most exciting trends in biotechnology is its rapid democratisation – the speed at which cutting-edge techniques can be adopted by students and amateurs. When a new breakthrough is achieved, the pool of people with the talent, training, resources and patience to reproduce it rapidly expands: from a handful of the world’s top biologists, to people with PhDs in the field, to millions of people with undergraduate-level biology.

The Human Genome Project was the largest ever scientific collaboration in biology. It took 13 years and $500m to produce the full DNA sequence of the human genome. Just 15 years later, a genome can be sequenced for under $1,000, and within a single hour.

The reverse process has become much easier, too: online DNA synthesis services allow anyone to upload a DNA sequence of their choice then have it constructed and shipped to their address . While still

expensive, the price of synthesis has fallen by a factor of 1,000 in the past two decades, and continues to drop. The first ever uses of Crispr and gene drives were the biotechnology achievements of the decade. But within just two years, each of these technologies were used successfully by bright students participating in science competitions.

Such democratisation promises to fuel a boom of entrepreneurial biotechnology. But since biotechnology can be misused to lethal effect, democratisation also means proliferation. As the pool of people with access to a technique grows, so does the chance it contains someone with malign intent.

People with the motivation to wreak global destruction are mercifully rare. But they exist. Perhaps the best example is the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan, active between 1984 and 1995, which sought to bring about the destruction of humanity. It attracted several thousand members, including people with advanced skills in chemistry and biology. And it

demonstrated that it was not mere misanthropic ideation. It launched multiple lethal attacks using VX gas and

sarin gas, killing more than 20 people and injuring thousands. It attempted to weaponise anthrax, but did not succeed. What happens when the circle of people able to create a global pandemic becomes wide enough to include members of such a group? Or members of a terrorist organisation or rogue state that could try to build an omnicidal weapon for the purposes of extortion or deterrence?

The main candidate for biological existential risk in the coming decades thus stems from technology – particularly the risk of misuse by states or small groups. But this is not a case in which the

world is blissfully unaware of the risks. Bertrand Russell wrote of the danger of extinction from biowarfare to Einstein in 1955. And, in 1969, the possibility was raised by the American Nobel laureate for medicine, Joshua Lederberg: “As a scientist I am profoundly concerned about the continued involvement of the United States and other nations in the development of

biological warfare. This process puts the very future of human life on earth in serious peril.”

In response to such warnings, we have already begun national and international efforts to protect humanity. There is action through public health and international conventions, and self-regulation by biotechnology companies and the scientific community. Are they adequate? National and international work in public health offers some protection from engineered pandemics, and its existing infrastructure could be adapted to better address them.

Yet even for existing dangers this protection is uneven and under-provided.

Despite its importance, public health is underfunded worldwide, and poorer countries remain vulnerable to being overwhelmed by outbreaks . Biotechnology companies are working to limit the dark side of the democratisation of their field. For example, unrestricted DNA synthesis would help bad actors overcome a major hurdle in creating

extremely deadly pathogens. It would allow them to get access to the DNA of controlled pathogens such as smallpox (whose genome is readily available online) and to create DNA with modifications to make the pathogen more dangerous. Therefore, many synthesis companies make voluntary efforts to manage this

risk, screening their orders for dangerous sequences. But the screening methods are imperfect, and they only cover about 80% of orders. There is significant room for improving this process, and a strong case for making screening mandatory.

We might also look to the scientific community for careful management of biological risks. Many of the dangerous advances usable by states and small groups have come from open science. And we’ve seen that

science produces substantial accident risk. The scientific community has tried to regulate its dangerous research, but with limited success. There are a variety of reasons why this is extremely hard, including difficulty in knowing where to draw the line, lack of central authorities to unify practice, a culture of openness and freedom to pursue whatever is of interest, and the rapid pace of science outpacing that of governance. It may be possible for the scientific community to overcome these challenges and provide strong management of global risks, but it would require a willingness to accept serious changes to its culture and governance – such as treating the security around biotechnology more like that around nuclear power. And the scientific community would need to find this willingness before catastrophe strikes.

Threats to humanity, and how we address them, define our time. The advent of nuclear weapons posed a real risk of human extinction in the 20th century. There is strong reason to believe the risk will be higher this century, and increasing with each century that technological progress continues. Because these anthropogenic risks outstrip all natural risks combined, they set the clock on how long humanity has left to pull back from the brink.

I am not claiming that extinction is the inevitable conclusion of scientific progress, or even the most likely outcome. What I am

claiming is that there has been a robust trend towards increases in the power of humanity, which

has reached a point where we pose a serious risk to our own existence . How we react to this risk is up to us. Nor am I arguing against technology. Technology has proved itself immensely valuable in improving the human condition.

The problem is not so much an excess of technology as a lack of wisdom. Carl Sagan put this especially well: “Many of the dangers we face indeed arise from science and technology – but, more fundamentally, because we have become powerful without becoming commensurately wise. The world-altering powers that technology has delivered into our hands now require a degree of consideration and foresight that has never before been asked of us.”

Because we cannot come back from extinction, we cannot wait until a threat strikes before acting – we must be proactive. And because gaining wisdom takes time, we need to start now.

I think that we are likely to make it through this period. Not because the challenges are small, but because we will rise to them. The

very fact that these risks stem from human action shows us that human action can address them. Defeatism would be both unwarranted and counterproductive – a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, we must address these challenges head-on with clear and rigorous thinking, guided by a positive vision of the longterm future we are trying to protect.

! – InequalitySpace colonization results in inequalityKovic 18 [(Marko Kovic, Marko Kovic is the co-founder president of the nonprofit think tank ZIPAR (Zurich Institute of Public Affairs Research) and the co-founder and CEO of the consulting firm ars cognitionis, and a researcher in Rationality, Decision-Making, Democracy, Technology-Related Risks, Future of Humankind) “Political, Moral, and Security Challenges of Space Colonization” SocArXiv Papers, June 11, 2018] TDI

If humankind succeeds in colonizing space, the absolute number of people in existence will probably be greater than if space colonization did not take place. Even if technological innovations such as rejuvenation [27] should result in a decrease in reproductive activity, the total human population is more likely to increase than to stagnate or decrease. An increase in the total population is not, in and of itself, problematic. However, a potentially drastic increase of the human population in the wake of space colonization could make a specific problem of population ethics very salient: The mere addition paradox, or, as it is better known, the repugnant conclusion [28]. The repugnant conclusion is an apparent ethical paradox. On the one hand, we usually have a preference for as much happiness as possible (or as little suffering as possible) in a population. On the other hand, a lower average happiness (or level of suffering) also seems morally acceptable if it results from a population increase. In order to demonstrate this point, let us return to our fictional Venus colony. Let us assume that there are around 1 billion people on Venus, in addition to the 8 billion on Earth. Life on Venus is almost identical to life on Earth in terms of happiness and suffering. There is only one slight difference: Due to the composition of the terraformed atmosphere on Venus, people who suffer from asthma (an inflammatory disease of the airways) have to endure slightly more unpleasant asthma attacks. On average, this means that life for the inhabitants of Venus is 1% more unpleasant than life for inhabitants of Earth. The conclusion in his example is that, slight though the difference is, the existence of the 1 billion people on Venus results in an lower average level of happiness and in a greater average level of suering for humankind. Would it be preferable that the 1 billion people on Venus did not exist? Or is the existence of the 1 billion people on Venus justied, because the total amount of happiness is greater than if they did not exist? Most people will intuitively answer that the existence of the Venusians is morally justifiable, perhaps mainly because the difference in welfare between Earth and Venus is so small. Unfortunately, the general problem in this fictional comparison of Earth and Venus holds for situations in which the differences in welfare are enormous. That is what is repugnant about the repugnant conclusion: Even in situations in which vast numbers of people live in abhorrent misery and suffering, the total amount of happiness can increase. In theory, even 100 billion slaves who work on space colonies only to serve their Earth masters would result in a net increase of happiness, even though the average level of happiness would decrease tremendously compared to today. Is there a solution to the repugnant conclusion in the context of space colonization? A useful moral guideline could be to adopt facets of anti-natalist moral philosophy [29]. Anti-natalism is a philosophical position that shifts the moral calculus of happiness and suering: Even though we experience a lot of happiness in life, the suffering we experience is always at least as great. The conclusion from this adjusted calculus is that, under the best of circumstances, the overall welfare of a human life is neutral (happiness and suering are in balance), but it is almost always negative (suering

outweighs happiness). Implementing anti-natalism directly into the moral framework of space col-onization cannot work, since direct anti-natalism is a rather obvious argument against space colonization. However, implementing a part of the anti-natalist argument into the moral framework of space colonization could be a pragmatic solution. This could be done by adopting the moral guideline that additional lives created in the course of space colonization are justified when and only when those lives enjoy at least the average level of welfare that existing lives enjoy. Such a guideline would be a strong moral imperative to not colonize space merely for the sake of colonization, but in order to improve the average welfare across humankind. 3.2 Inequality, or: The Matthew eect on steroids? Inequality is a basic fact of life. Not all people are born into the same contexts and with the same biological faculties, resulting in vastly different outlooks in their lives, regardless of individual motivation and discipline. In addition, inequalities in life have cumulative effects [30] that result in a kind of Matthew except everyone who has will more be given»). Mitigating inequalities is generally one of the top priorities of modern governments, as is evidenced by the existence of some form of social security net in virtually all countries. The challenge of cumulative inequality could grow over the course of space colonization. Those individuals, families, organizations, and countries who enjoy relatively greater wealth and opportunities (which in itself is not morally bad) might enjoy greater access to opportunities thanks to their better starting conditions A very plain example could be a wealthy family that can afford to invest in the colonization of a hitherto unoccupied planet, which might result in even greater wealth accumulation within that family. That is, again, not a bad thing in and of itself, but exacerbated inequality in the context of space colonization should be a concern. Large-scale cumulative inequality might seem like an abstract and unrealistic challenge, but we know from ample historical evidence that these kinds of cumulative wealth inequalities can and do occur [31]. Given our prior experience with addressing inequality and its negative side-effects we can be reasonably condent that we will be able to continue addressing it.

Space colonization cements current inequality. Billings 19 [(Linda Billings is a consultant to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Astrobiology Program and Planetary Defense Coordination Office on communication issues. Dr. Billings earned her Ph.D. in mass communication from the Indiana University School of Journalism, M.A. in international transactions from George Mason University, and B.A. in social sciences from the State University of New York at Binghamton (now Binghamton University) “Should Humans Colonize Mars? No.” 2019] TDI

Beyond the scientific argument, the other reason why colonizing Mars should not proceed in the foreseeable future is that the way proponents argue for it and propose to do it is deeply flawed. Astrophysicist Lucianne Walkowicz, serving as the Blumberg Chair in Astrobiology for 2017–2018 at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, undertook a study of the ethics of the human exploration of Mars. She has critiqued the way that advocates of colonizing Mars characterize the endeavor—perpetuating a long-outdated way of thinking, that humankind was put on Earth to do what it likes with all available resources—a way of thinking now extending to the “land” and other resources of outer space. In an interview with space.com,9 she said, “what really draws me to this particular line of research is the opportunity to closely examine our past history so that we can move forward in a way that is more inclusive for our future … We

currently speak about exploration” in ways that echo historical narratives of conquest and exploitation. We constantly recycle these narratives from history that were actually quite harmful … So, as we move forward to trying to explore places like Mars, I’m curious as to how we can acknowledge these harmful past events and move forward in a way that is more inclusive for everyone who might choose to explore the universe, whether by leaving Earth or by studying it here. Her aim is to work, with a diverse community of scholars, on “decolonizing” the way the space community tends to think about and plan for the human exploration of Mars. Andrew Russell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica, New York, and Lee Vinsel, an assistant professor of science and technology studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, have observed, “Musk’s plan to colonize Mars is a sign of an older and recurring social problem. What happens when the rich and powerful isolate themselves from everyday concerns?” THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 343 Musk claims colonizing Mars will save humanity. “But Musk’s concept of humanity excludes most living and breathing humans.” He claims that a fully self-sustaining civilization on Mars would need around 1 million people. From Earth’s current population of 7.125 billion, the Musk Million would bring 0.014035087719298244 per cent of it to Mars … Shouldn’t we be ashamed for having given up on protests against inequality? Shouldn’t we be ashamed for spending so much time and effort to raise money to put Whitey on Mars? How do we get our technology leaders to focus on real societal problems, including those faced by the least fortunate among us? Until we are able to answer these questions collectively, Elon’s moral failures are outpaced only by our own.10 Wichita State University philosopher James Schwartz, who is an advocate for the human exploration of space, also argues that science must come before settlement on Mars and that ethical issues need to be resolved before people move to another planet. “The social challenges associated with space settlement raise especially vexing ethical questions,” he says, “such as whether it is possible to justify placing settlers and their descendants into the conditions of life in space, conditions which might compromise heretofore non-negotiable personal liberties, including reproductive autonomy.” 11 This year, a group of 15 (mostly European) scholars published “a Manifesto for Governing Life on Mars.” 12 In it the authors urge that debates on the social and political dimensions of future Martian space settlement can and should be taking place already … To help move … thinking beyond the purely ‘science-fictional’ [the manifesto] outlines some key topics for debate in relation to governing Mars: economics, the Martian natural environment, dealing with dissent among Martian inhabitants, reproduction, the built environment, and education. It ends by considering the possibility that future settlement will need to be supported by a guaranteed bill of Martian Rights.13 Such efforts are a start, but the dialogue about these issues needs to take place worldwide. Author Meghan O’Gieblyn wrote in The Paris Review this year, Elon Musk claims that reaching the planet will make the future ‘vastly more exciting and interesting.’

! – ImperialismSpace colonization can’t solve existential threats – space imperialism guarantees that efforts will fail Yun 20 [(Board certified in radiology, Yun served on the clinical faculty at Stanford from 2000 to 2006. Yun has served on numerous boards, and he is currently a trustee of the Salk Institute. Joon and his wife Kimberly launched the $1 million Palo Alto Longevity Prize and donated $2 million to support the National Academy of Medicine’s Longevity Grand Challenge. He received his M.D. from Duke Medical School and B.A. from Harvard College.) Joon Yun, 1-2-2020, "The Problem With Today's Ideas About Space Exploration," Worth, https://www.worth.com/is-space-the-next-frontier-for-the-same-old-story-of-imperialism/ TDI

In July 16, 2019, Jeff Bezos went on primetime national television to tell the world about his investment thesis in space. The founder of Amazon, who also founded the space company Blue Origin, outlined his ambition to preserve a dying Earth by “using the resources of space” and by moving high-polluting industries like manufacturing to other planets. For a change, the rest of us got a window into what he wants rather than the other way around.

But what Bezos wants is a bit troubling. While he is no doubt well-intentioned, isn’t that precisely the kind of thinking that got us into this whole mess of planetary degradation in the first place? After all, the zero-sum strategies of exporting problems to distant lands and extracting resources from them are as old as the history of imperialism . Are we sure we want to lurch forward into the age of interplanetary imperialism as the latest frontier of the same old story?

Before we mount our high horses, however, let’s also consider our own everyday complicity in that story. In the illusory emotional safety of morning coffees and pajamas, our keystrokes extract natural resources from anonymous mines in other continents to deliver disposable goods that become permanent trash shipped to anywhere but our backyard. Digital imperialism starts at our fingertips.

Not surprisingly, people don’t generally think of themselves as imperialists. We reserve the word to characterize the behavior of others even though we are each other’s other. In that sense, even our protestations reek of moral imperialism: Extract the credit and dump the blame. Yet, seen from a higher plane, we—all of us—are in some ways part of the problem, and only by accepting collective responsibility do we stand a chance of not destroying our lands, oceans and skies. The us-versus-them instinct is alive and unwell in all of us. None of us are above it all.

Our collective self-blindness to this heads-we-win-tails-you-lose thinking has been no small oversight. The expanding concentric circles of imperialism have hit their planetary limits, and now we can see its accumulated consequences: pollution, consumerism and the dystopian desperations. Growing by extracting resources from others is the self-defeating algorithm of cancer that eventually kills the host.

Looking back, once humans shifted from highly genetically aligned social hives to lowly aligned ones, leaders began ruling over the people rather than on behalf of them. Such systems are inherently ravenous for power, to be disbursed for the purposes of maintaining internal loyalty.

When unchecked, these self-serving systems turn into self-expanding beasts that feed themselves through external conquests, crusades and imperialism.

This has led to today’s endless array of imperialistic gambits, fueled by a “grow-or-die” mentality—reflecting what mathematician and economist Eric Weinstein calls “embedded growth obligations.” Robbing Mars to pay Earth is a not-so-heavenly version of the Ponzi scheme of imperialism. In trying to solve Earthly pollution by polluting other planets, we are merely perpetuating the same problem.

As if that weren’t ungracious enough, today we find ourselves also extracting resources from future generations, the voiceless stakeholders upon whom we are dumping federal deficits, pension Ponzi schemes and other unfunded liabilities: all part of our intertemporal imperialism. It shouldn’t take an Einstein to see that the relentless forces of imperialism are spreading across space and time.

The world needs a better narrative than human colonization of other planets for the purposes of dumping our poor behaviors there or setting up a new habitat to escape a planet that we have destroyed (Elon Musk’s vision). Both of these defeatist ideologies will virtually ensure that we fail to find the solutions to our civilization’s fallibilities before metastasizing these same cancerous behaviors to distant planets.

Space colonization is built on American ideals of exploitation and conquest Billings 19 (Linda Billings is a consultant to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Astrobiology Program and Planetary Defense Coordination Office. Dr. Billings earned her Ph.D. in mass communication from the Indiana University School of Journalism, M.A. in international transactions from George Mason University, and B.A. in social sciences from the State University of New York.) “Colonizing Other Planets is a Bad Idea” Elsevier, February 2019] TDI

Examining the history of the U.S. space program reveals an underlying ideology of space exploration that has at its core a rationale for conquest and exploitation. This ideology is deeply rooted in a durable American cultural narrative of frontier pioneering, free enterprise, rugged individualism, and a right to life without limits.5 It is a pastiche of many ideologies, drawing on American exceptionalism, neoliberalism (and its more extremist cousin, libertarianism), the doctrine of manifest destiny, the belief in the necessity of “progress,” and even Russian cosmism.6 In the early 21st century, the trend in the U.S. space community, energized during Ronald Reagan’s administration and reinvigorated during the George W. Bush administration, has been to view the solar system as an environment to exploit, as we have done with our own planetary environment. From this “dominionist” or “manifest destiny” perspective, our home planet, and our home solar system, are seen as resources here for humans to use as they like. The Obama administration embraced this way of thinking and advanced the cause of colonization and exploitation. Though at this writing the Trump administration has not issued any official guidance on the future of human exploration, except for NASA Administrator Jim

Bridenstine’s repeated claim that NASA will be returning people to the Moon and landing people on Mars, it is reasonable to assume we will see no change in ideological direction. As to American exceptionalism, political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote, “The United States is a country organized around an ideology which includes a set of dogmas about the nature of a good society. Americanism…is an ideology in the same way that communism or fascism or liberalism are isms…. The nation’s ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire.” With the exception of the former Soviet Union, he noted, “other countries define themselves by a common history as birthright communities, not by ideology.”7 The idea of American exceptionalism as it appears in space exploration rhetoric looks bright and shiny on the surface – it’s about the U.S. leading in space exploration for the benefit of humankind. Beneath that shiny surface, though, lies neoliberal/libertarian ideology, an embrace of space as a wide-open frontier, open to exploitation and colonization, ripe for so-called commercialization unfettered by government oversight. It promotes capitalism and development, whenever and wherever possible, according to the principle that those who get there first get the most. Behind today's American exceptionalism lies a specific religious vision of manifest destiny. Historian Anders Stephanson has explored the premise that the ideology of manifest destiny “is of signal importance in the way the United States came to understand itself in the world and still does…. The world as God’s ‘manifestation’ and history as predetermined ‘destiny’ had been ideological staples of the strongly providentialist period in England between 1620 and 1660,” the period when English Puritans migrated to North America, bringing their beliefs with them. The related belief in “right” – that is, that white Europeans had been “chosen by the finger of God to possess (America)” – is at least as old. These beliefs came to underlay a U.S. national narrative of “prophecy, 3 L. Billings Futures 110 (2019) 44–46 45 messianism, and historical transcendence.”8 Some threads of Russian cosmist philosophy are also woven into the web of beliefs propagated by advocates of space colonies – the belief that humans are destined to conquer the planets and the stars, to populate the universe, to evolve to a higher form in space.9 While Russian Orthodox cosmist philosopher Nikolai Fedorov (1828–1903) is not often cited by space colonization advocates, his disciple Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) often is, especially for his avowal that while Earth is the cradle of humanity, humans can’t stay in their cradle forever. For more than 500 years, these ideologies have wreaked havoc on Earth, and they should not be exported to other planets. The founding declaration of the Mars Society states: “The settling of the Martian New World is an opportunity for a noble experiment in which humanity has another chance to shed old baggage and begin the world anew; carrying forward as much of the best of our heritage as possible and leaving the worst behind.” Human societies have tried and failed to “shed old baggage” over centuries. We have not yet learned how to do it

! – Cosmic SufferingSpace colonization results in “cosmic suffering”- even minor mistakes are irreparable and costlyKovic 18 [(Marko Kovic, Marko Kovic is the co-founder president of the nonprofit think tank ZIPAR (Zurich Institute of Public Affairs Research) and the co-founder and CEO of the consulting firm ars cognitionis, and a researcher in Rationality, Decision-Making, Democracy, Technology-Related Risks, Future of Humankind) “Political, Moral, and Security Challenges of Space Colonization” SocArXiv Papers, June 11, 2018] TDI

Imagine that humankind has successfully mastered phase II colonization (colonization beyond our Solar System). All the problems described in the previous sections and subsections have long been successfully solved, and humankind is progressing steadily and peacefully. Then, something happens. At some point and for some reason, future humans decide that they do not want to merely engage in space colonization, but to do more: Actively seed the universe with (non-human) life [43]. Given the technological development of future humankind, it is relatively easy to send out non-sentient primitive life forms across the galaxy. Unfortunately, something horrible happens: The primitive microbial life-forms sent out into the cosmos mutate into aggressive bacteria that attack any life form they encounter, including sentient life – and in doing so, they cause tremendous pain and agony in the organisms they attack. The benevolent idea of spreading life has quickly turned into unimaginable suffering of trillions of sentient beings across the galaxy. Colonizing humans have thus created suffering on a cosmic, or astronomical, scale [44]. Cosmic suffering is the risk of creating suffering on a scale that is either not possible or not as probable without space colonization. There are many potential scenarios in which successful space colonization results in cosmic suffering. For example, the general problem of the repugnant conclusion discussed further above can also be regarded as an example of this class of risks. Cosmic suffering is a severe problem because it is contingent on, or at least made more likely by, successful space colonization. The conceptually challenging aspect of cosmic suffering is the correlation of cosmic suffering with the degree of space colonization: The greater the level of space colonization, the greater the risks of cosmic suffering become. This is the opposite of the relationship between space colonization and existential risks: The greater the level of space colonization, the lower existential risks become – this is one of the main motivations for space colonization, after all. In other words, successful space colonization decreases the probability that something goes wrong for humankind in terms of existential risks, but it Increases the probability that something goes wrong in terms of suffering for the whole universe.

! – Kills EarthSpace col causes nuclear/bio war on earthMorton 18 [(Adam Morton, retired philosopher attached to the University of British Columbia. He is a philosophical generalist with a particular interest in issues about knowledge and about how people understand one another. His book Should We Colonize Other Planets? is available now.) “Colonizing Other Planets Could Trigger War on Earth | Opinion” Newsweek, 11/22/18, https://www.newsweek.com/colonizing-other-planets-could-trigger-war-earth-and-ecological-disaster-1226630] TDI

Plans for the exploration and even colonization of other planets are very much in the air, and getting to Mars in particular has become a billionaire's hobby lately. Elon Musk would like to establish a human colony on Mars in a matter of decades. (For the foreseeable future—a century, I would venture—Mars will be the only real possibility.) But planetary colonies may be a bad idea, even a disastrous idea. So, it is important to see the arguments against them, as well as their appeal. I begin with a reason that is sometimes made central to proposals for colonies—the idea that we should achieve them as soon as it is feasible.

It is a call for escape from imminent danger. The idea is that nuclear war, ecological catastrophe, or the rise of artificially intelligent robots, will wipe out humans on Earth. But a colony far away might survive, so that the species continues. Stephen Hawking is among those who have argued, or usually just pronounced, for versions of this (and if you want scientific authority, it is hard to do better). But the idea has serious flaws. It is hard to think of even a post-apocalyptic Earth that is less hospitable to any terrestrial life than Mars, let alone elsewhere in the solar system, so the challenges are enormous. But let us ignore that. Suppose that a colony had a reasonable chance of surviving, would the argument from danger justify founding it soon? I think not.

One danger is nuclear and biological war : One nation or ethnic group fears or hates another enough to unleash bombs or viruses. In a bad scenario they succeed . Millions die, and their territory becomes uninhabitable. In the worst scenario, the other side retaliates or the affliction spreads and eventually everyone is dead. But people survive on Mars. Which people? They will include members of one group or their opponents, so if the aim really is to wipe out this group it will be directed at the colonists as well. They are hated, and they are capable of retaliation. Bomb-bearing rockets are much simpler to make than people-bearing rockets. And someone crazy enough to push the button would be crazy enough to direct them at the hated enemy wherever they are found. So, the colony would not be safe. At any rate, it will not be not safe enough that founding it is a better bet than making war less likely on Earth. Worse, any nation party to founding a colony will arouse suspicion in its enemies that it is scheming to start and survive a war. And this makes war more rather than less likely.

Space colonization will kill the Earth by redirecting already scarce resources Morton 18 [ (Adam Morton is a retired philosopher attached to the University of British Columbia. He is a philosophical generalist with a particular interest in issues about knowledge and about how people understand one another. His book Should We Colonize Other Planets? is

available now.) Adam Morton, 11-22-2018, "Colonizing other planets could trigger war on Earth and ecological disaster," Newsweek, https://www.newsweek.com/colonizing-other-planets-could-trigger-war-earth-and-ecological-disaster-1226630] TDI

The third danger is ecological. We are ruining the climate and polluting the oceans. We could develop technology that mitigated or even reversed the dangers. It would be easier than developing technology for surviving on Mars, where we must grow food and create oxygen in a very cold and dark environment without much protection from radiation and a limited supply of water. Moreover, getting enough people to Mars to make a colony that could survive without help from home, self-sufficient technologically and with enough genetic diversity that our already rather uniform species would have a future, would involve a lot of rockets. Musk talks in terms of 10,000 flights, although some plans require more. And this would be just to get things started. We just do not know what the impact on the earth and its atmosphere of the launches and the prior manufacturing would be. It would not be positive, at any rate. And industrial power and scientific brains would be diverted away from the needs of earth to the well-being of the colony . It is not what we need; you would only think that we could afford it if you were blind to how desperate things really are. So again, the colony solution is likely to make the earthly situation even more dire.

These are problems for human colonies as refugees on any planet. What about colonies for other purposes, from exploiting resources to the destiny of humanity? There are so many possible purposes, and the means and destinations are so varied, that there is not going to be a single simple answer. But some of the dangers are common to many of the plans. There is the possibility of triggering war or ecological catastrophe on earth, already mentioned. There is the folly of sending vulnerable humans to do jobs that robots can do more safely and cheaply. There is the diversion of resources, effort, and commitment from the pressing needs of our planet . To appreciate many of these, one has to take fully on board quite how inhospitable to anything like human life most planets are. Cold, radiation, lack of oxygen and lack of the food-providing soil that has built up on earth over billions of years: all of these are a problem anywhere in the solar system except for our one place. And there is the extreme neediness of human beings, who have to keep their body temperature constant and their brains constantly operating, and who flourish only when they maintain complex delicate social systems. This is a matter of biology rather than of physics; we have evolved to fit our own planet and we require enormous resources to survive anywhere else.

D – InfeasibleSpace colonization infeasibleOzimek 17 [(Adam, an economist at Moody's Analytics, covered labor markets and other aspects of the U.S. economy. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of employer, Moody’s Analytics, its parent company (Moody’s Corporation) or its affiliates. In addition, and all the other usual blogging caveats apply. Can be reached at adam dot r dot ozimek at gmail dot com.)” Sorry Nerds, But Colonizing Other Planets Is Not A Good Plan”, Forbes, 2017/05/06, https://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2017/05/06/sorry-nerds-but-colonizing-other-planets-is-not-a-good-plan/?sh=730abf5251e6] TDI

Sorry Nerds, But Colonizing Other Planets Is Not A Good Plan

In November, Stephen Hawking warned that humans needed to colonize another planet within 1,000 years. Now, six months later, he’s saying we have to do it within 100 years in order to avoid extinction. There’s a problem with this plan: under almost no circumstances is colonizing another planet the best way to adapt to a problem on earth.

Let’s start with Mars, which is a favorite planet for colonization scenarios, including for Elon Musk who thinks we should colonize Mars because earth will eventually face a “doomsday scenario”. The problem with this is that there is almost nothing that could happen to earth that would make it less hospitable than Mars . Whether it’s nuclear war or massive global warming, post disaster earth would be way more habitable than Mars.

For example, we worry that the oceans on earth will get too polluted, or too acidified, or rise up too high. It’s true that could make life on earth very hard. But on Mars the only surface water is frozen in the polar ice caps. We would be hard pressed to ruin the water on earth so badly that it’s worse than what’s available on Mars.

We also worry about the level of carbon dioxide we humans are creating. But there’s nothing we could do to earth’s atmosphere to make it as bad as Mars, which is both extremely thin and also 96% carbon dioxide . Not to mention a significantly lower level of gravity . Whatever we’d have to do on Mars to make the atmosphere habitable would be more easily done on a very very ruined earth.

Even if an asteroid were to strike earth it would very likely remain more habitable than mars. For example, consider the asteroid that struck the earth 66 million years ago creating the Chicxulub crater and wiping out 75% of plant and animal species on earth, including the dinosaurs. Well that disaster still left 25% of species that survived , all of whom would die instantly on the surface of Mars .

If an asteroid like this was heading for the earth here’s what we would do instead of abandoning the planet. First, we’d try to deflect it. If we didn't know how to do that, everyone who lived on the part of the planet where it was going to land would move to safer parts of the planet. If need be we'd create biodomes and move into them, maybe even at the bottom of the ocean. “Impossible!” you say? “Technology and human behavior would never allow this!” you insist?

It’s true it would be extremely hard and today's technology wouldn’t allow it. And yet it would still be way, way easier than colonizing another planet. If you think getting humans to abandon a continent peacefully is hard, try getting them to abandon the planet.

Perhaps we could focus on colonizing another planet then. One with an atmosphere closer to ours than Mars. This may be possible, but the technology required to do this is a far bigger lift than the technology required to build habitable ecosystems on the bottom of the ocean, deflect asteroids, reverse global warming, or cure pandemics. The closest star system to us is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away. At a max speed of around 17,000 mph would take existing space shuttles 165,000 years to reach this. Even the faster New Horizon probe, the first to visit Pluto, would take 78,000 years.

The technology required to travel fast enough to get to other planets makes geoengineering to reverse climate change seem quaint.

It is hard to come up with a scenario where evacuating the earth makes the most sense. So why do so many smart people obsess about it? I think the issue is that nerds find space travel and colonizing other planets extremely appealing because they love science fiction and find space exploration exciting. That’s fine, and if some nerd billionaires want to colonize Mars for fun I say go for it. But unfortunately, their nerd desires are biasing their assessment of how humanity should prepare for doomsday threats. Sorry nerds, we won’t be evacuating earth. If we are underestimating the risks of doomsday threats, lets instead invest in the technologies that will help protect earth from them or recover from them. Even though I am not an expert on space, physical sciences, or basically any relevant field, I can tell that this is obviously true. Maybe just it takes an economist to see through the nerd fantasies.

ADDENDUM: The goal of colonizing to preserve the human species rather than evacuate all humans doesn't make sense either. If there are habitable planets within reach, then there must be many, many habitable planets that aren't within reach. In this case the Drake Equation implies humans are not alone in the universe, and therefore our existence is far less special, lowering the benefit of preserving humanity. In a world of other habitable planets, saving the actual life on earth grows in importance compared to preserving the species somewhere in the universe.

Space colonization unlikelyCoates 18 [(Andrew, Professor of Physics, Deputy Director (Solar System) at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory) “Sorry Elon Musk, but it’s now clear that colonising Mars is unlikely – and a bad idea”, May 6, 2017, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/sorry-elon-musk-but-its-now-clear-that-colonising-mars-is-unlikely-and-a-bad-idea-100964] TDI

Space X and Tesla founder Elon Musk has a vision for colonising Mars, based on a big rocket, nuclear explosions and an infrastructure to transport millions of people there. This was seen as highly ambitious but technically challenging in several ways. Planetary protection rules and the difficulties of terraforming (making the planet hospitable by, for example, warming it up) and dealing with the harsh radiation were quoted as severe obstacles.

Undeterred, Musk took a first step towards his aim in February this year with the launch of a Tesla roadster car into an orbit travelling beyond Mars on the first Falcon Heavy rocket. This dramatically illustrated the increasing launch capability for future missions made available by partnerships between commercial and government agencies.

But six months later, the plans have started to look more like fantasy . We have since learned that there could be life beneath Mars’ surface and that it may be impossible to terraform its surface.

The possibility that there currently could be life on the red planet was raised last week as scientists reported the discovery of a salt water lake beneath Mars’ surface . The lake would be 1.5km below the south polar cap and at least 20km in diameter. This was found from analysis of subsurface radar data from the Mars Express spacecraft . The water is thought to be briny, with the likely magnesium, calcium, and sodium perchlorate salts acting as an antifreeze down to temperatures of perhaps 200K (-73.15°C).

This is exciting as it is the first definitive detection of liquid water on Mars, and it is possible that there may be further deep lakes elsewhere on the planet. This means there is a real possibility of current life on Mars.

We already knew life could have existed on Mars in the past. There are several pieces of evidence indicating that Mars was habitable 3.8-4 billion years ago. Data from recent missions – including Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, Opportunity, Curiosity and Mars Express – have provided mounting evidence that water was present on the surface in streams and lakes with reasonable acidity and that the right chemistry for life to evolve existed there around the time that life was evolving on Earth.

But Mars lost its magnetic field, which would have protected life from harsh radiation from space, 3.8 billion years ago. This also meant its atmosphere started leaking into space , making it increasingly inhospitable. So living organisms may not have survive d.

But while the new discovery may fuel aspiring colonisers’ dreams that the water in the subsurface lake might be usable to sustain a human presence, the reality is very different.

The risk of contamination means we shouldn’t send humans there until we know for sure whether there is naturally evolved life – something that could take years to decades. We will need to drill under the surface and to analyse samples, either in-situ or from material returned to Earth, and find suitable biomarkers to be sure .

Terraforming plans crushed?

Perhaps even more damning, the long-suggested idea of terraforming Mars is now firmly locked in the realm of science fiction. Musk has previously indicated that he wants to terraform the planet to make it more Earth-like, so you can “eventually walk around outside without anything on.” This would most easily be done by producing an atmosphere made of heat-trapping greenhouse gases locked in the planet’s ice in order to raise its temperature and pressure. Musk has suggested that we could drop thermonuclear bombs on the ice at its poles in order to heat it up to release the carbon dioxide.

But according to a new study, published in Nature Astronomy, Mars has lost so much of its potential greenhouse gases to space over billions of years that there is now no possibility of transforming the remaining atmosphere into a breathable one with available technology.

The study is based on measurements of the recent escape rate of gases to space measured over the last 15 years by Mars Express and the last four years by MAVEN. This can tell us how much effective greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and water are available at Mars. The measurements, combined with knowledge of the inventories of carbon dioxide and water on Mars from recent space missions, show that greenhouses gases locked in the ice caps are not enough to provide the necessary heating.

More may be available deep within the planet but extracting that is well beyond today’s technology. Also, the atmosphere is still being lost due to the lack of a magnetic field, so that would need to be somehow slowed to maintain any changes achieved by terraforming. This means that potential explorers would need to use heavy, airtight walls, roofs or buildings to provide the right atmosphere and the required screening from cosmic radiation .

While Musk may be disappointed by these new results, most Mars scientists are breathing a sigh of relief. There may be present or past life on Mars, and we can now focus on finding it.

We will be searching for signs of life with the ESA-Russian ExoMars 2020 rover, and the NASA Mars 2020 mission will gather samples for eventual return to Earthbound laboratories by around 2030. The results of all this may tell us if there was, is or could be life elsewhere. In our solar system, the best targets are Mars, Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Titan, and Jupiter’s moons Europa. And these just hint of the potential for life on the many planets beyond our own solar system.

Mars is bright in our skies this week, the brightest since 2003. The red planet is never far from our thoughts, whether as a potential cradle for life beyond Earth or as a target for humans in the future. We live in exciting times when it comes to space exploration. So let’s not spoil one of the largest and most fundamental experiments for humankind by letting dreams of colonisation go too far – at least until we know whether there is life.

Too expensive and risky Lichtenstein 18 [(Drew Lichtenstein is a writer for Sciencing. His articles have appeared in the collegiate newspaper "The Red and Black." He holds a Master of Arts in comparative literature from the University of Georgia.) “Bad Things About Space Exploration” Sciencing, April 23,2018] TDI

One of the biggest criticisms against space exploration is the cost. According to the University of Florida, it costs around $500 million to launch a space shuttle. These expenses will only go up when considering longer-term space travel, such as manned explorations to Mars or Jupiter's moons. While new technology may certainly limit the inefficient costs involved in space exploration, many argue that it is still money that could be better spent on more pressing issues. There is always the problem of unforeseen risk with space exploration. The space shuttle Challenger exploded during launch in 1986, killing seven astronauts, and the shuttle Colombia

exploded during reentry in 2003, also killing seven. Radiation from the sun is a constant danger to astronauts, and there may be unforeseen risks when they are traveling far beyond the earth, exacerbated by the fact that there would be little hope of getting back home in time for help. Tied in with the question of cost and risk of human life is the question of justification. Space exploration appeals to the human desire to learn about the universe; however, it does not have any straightforward, pragmatic application. While there may be some practical use in the distant future, such as possibly colonizing other planets, it is difficult to justify continued space exploration to people who are worried about immediate concerns, such as crime or the economy. Unmanned space probes are often considered the best choice for space exploration, because they do not put human lives at risk and are relatively cheaper to launch since they do not need space for human comfort or necessities. However, there are also downsides to unmanned probes, including the fact that they cannot adapt to unforeseen circumstances. A good example of this is the Mars Climate Orbiter, which received incorrect coordinates for landing and burned upon entry before it could send any data about Mars. Over $120 million was wasted on this probe.

Space colonization is infeasible – we lack the tech, it’s unsustainable, and too far Williams 10 [(Lynda Williams s has a M.S. in Physics and is a physics faculty member at Santa Rose Junior College in Northern California. Lynda is also a science entertainer who is devoted to nuclear disarmament and the proliferation of peace on earth and in space.) “Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization” Peace Review 2010] TDI

Life on Earth is more urgently threatened by the destruction of the biosphere and its life-sustaining habitat due to environmental catastrophes such as climate change, ocean acidification, disruption of the food chain, bio-warfare, nuclear war, nuclear winter, and myriads of other manmade doomsday possibilities. If we accept these threats as inevitabilities on par with real astronomical dangers and divert our natural, intellectual, political, and technological resources from solving these problems into escaping them,

will we be playing into a self-fulfilling prophesy of our own planetary doom? Seeking space based solutions to our earthly problems may actually exacerbate the planetary threats we face. This is the core of the ethical dilemma posed by space colonization: should we put our resources into developing human colonies on other worlds to survive natural and manmade catastrophes, or should we focus all of our energies on solving and mitigating the problems that create these threats on Earth? What do the prospects of colonies or bases on the moon and Mars offer? Both the moon and Mars host extreme environments that are uninhabitable to humans without very sophisticated technological life support systems beyond any that are feasible now or will be available in the near future. Both bodies are subjected to deadly levels of solar radiation and are void of atmospheres that could sustain oxygen-based life forms such as humans. Terra-forming either body is not feasible with current technologies and within any reasonable time frames (and may, in any case, be questioned from an ethical and fiscal point of view). Thus, any colony or base would be restricted to living in space capsules or trailer park–like structures that could not support a sufficient number of humans to perpetuate and sustain the species in any long-term manner. Although evidence of water has been discovered on both bodies, it exists in a form that is trapped in minerals, which would require huge amounts of energy to access. Water can be converted into fuel either as hydrogen or oxygen, which would

eliminate the need to transport vast amounts of fuel from Earth. According to Britain’s leading spaceflight expert, Professor Colin Pillinger, however, ‘‘You would need to heat up a lot of lunar soil to 200C to get yourself a glass of water.’’ The promises of helium as an energy source on the moon is also mostly hype. Helium-3 could be used in the production of nuclear fusion IRRATIONAL DREAMS OF SPACE COLONIZATION 5 Downloaded by [University of Otago] at 19:19 08 January 2015 energy, a process we have yet to prove

viable or efficient on Earth. Mining helium would require digging dozens of meters into the lunar surface and processing hundreds of thousands of tons of soil to produce one ton of helium-3. (25 tons of helium-3 would be required to power the United States for one year.) Fusion also requires the very rare element tritium, which does not exist naturally on the moon, Mars, or Earth in the abundances needed to facilitate nuclear fusion energy production. Currently, there are no

means for generating the energy on the moon needed to extract the helium-3 to produce the promised endless source of energy. Similar energy problems exist for the proposed use of solar power on the moon, which has the additional problem of being sunlit two weeks a month and dark for the other two weeks. A moon base is envisioned as serving as a launch pad for Martian expeditions, so the infeasibility of a lunar base may prohibit trips to Mars, unless they are launched directly from Earth or via an orbiting space station. Mars is, in its closest approach, 36 million miles from Earth and would require a nine-month journey with astronauts exposed to deadly solar cosmic rays. Providing sufficient shielding would require a spacecraft that weighs so much that it becomes prohibitive to carry enough fuel for a roundtrip. Either the astronauts get exposed to lethal doses on a roundtrip, or they make a safe one-way journey and never return. Regardless, it is unlikely that anyone would survive a trip to Mars. Whether or not people are willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of scientific exploration, human missions to Mars do not guarantee the survival of the species, but rather, only the death of any member who attempts the journey. The technological hurdles prohibiting practical space colonization of the moon and Mars in the near future are stratospherically high; the environmental and political consequences of pursuing these lofty dreams are even higher. There are no international laws governing the moon or the protection of the space environment. The Moon Treaty, created in 1979 by the United Nations, declares that the moon shall be developed to benefit all nations, that no military bases could be placed on the moon or on any celestial body, and bans altering the environment of celestial bodies. To date, no space-faring nation has ratified this treaty, meaning the moon, and all celestial bodies including Mars and asteroids, may be up for the taking. If a nation did place a military base on the moon, they could potentially control all launches from Earth. The moon is the ultimate military high ground. How can we, as a species, control the exploration, exploitation, and control the moon and other celestial bodies if we cannot even commit to a legal regime to protect and share its resources? Since the space age began, the orbital environment around Earth has become crowded with satellites and space debris, so much so that circumferential space has become a dangerous place with an increasing risk of collision and

destruction. Thousands of pieces of space junk, created from past launches and space missions, orbit the Earth at the same distance as satellites, putting them at risk of collision. Every time a space mission is launched from Earth, debris from the rocket stages is added to orbital space. In 2009, there was a disastrous collision between an Iridium satellite and a piece of space junk that destroyed the satellite. In 2007, China blew up one of its defunct satellites to demonstrate its antiballistic missile capabilities, increasing the debris field by 15 percent. The United States followed suit a few months later when, in February 2008, it used its ship-based antiballistic missile system to destroy one of its own satellites that had reportedly gone out of control. There are no international laws prohibiting antisatellite actions. Every year, since the mid-1980s, a treaty has been introduced into the UN for a Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), with all parties, including Russia and China, voting for it, except for the United States and Israel. How can we hope to pursue peaceful and environmentally sound space exploration without international laws in place that protect space and Earth environments, and guarantee that the space race to the moon and beyond does not foster a war over space resources? Indeed, if the space debris problem continues to grow unfettered, or if such a thing as a space war were ever to occur, then space would become too trashed for further launches to take place without a great risk of destruction. The private development of space is growing at a flurried pace. Competitions such as the X-Prize for companies to reach orbit and the Google Prize to land a robot on the moon have helped create a new desire for space travel in many citizens throughout the world. The reality is that there are few protections for the environment and the passengers of these flights of fancy.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates space launches, is under a Congressional mandate to foster the industry. It is difficult, if not impossible, to have objective regulation of an industry when it enjoys government incentives to profit. We have much to determine on

planet Earth before we launch willy-nilly into another space race that would inevitably result in environmental disaster and include a new arms race in the heavens. If we direct our intellectual and technological resources toward space exploration without

consideration of the environmental and political consequences, what is left behind in the wake? The hype surrounding space exploration leaves a dangerous vacuum in the collective consciousness of solving the problems on Earth. If we accept the inevitability of the destruction of Earth and its biosphere, then it is perhaps not too surprising that many people grasp at the last straw and look toward the heavens for solutions and a possible resolution. Many young scientists are perhaps fueling the prophesy of our planetary destruction by dreaming of lunar and/or Martian bases to save humanity, rather than working on the serious environmental challenges that we face on Earth.

We’re not prepared to colonize space – more logical and feasible to direct efforts to preventing extinction on Earth Sanober 13 [ (Student, Aerospace Engineering, 330 Walker AT Hardy Rd, Mississippi State, MS – 39762, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) Riaz, S. (2013). Space Colonization and Its Limitations. AIAA SPACE 2013 Conference and Exposition. doi:10.2514/6.2013-5345] TDI

A. Survival of Species Our scientist’s major worriment is the survival of our species. Scientists today are anxious that mankind will be wiped out; the big question is: “Are we guaranteed survival in space in the years to come?” Are the astronauts of today given a one hundred confirmation that they will be back home in the same condition that they left Earth? In a span of less than four decades, the world saw five heart breaking disasters in which we lost twenty one precious lives. These were not ordinary people. They were highly qualified, well trained professionals. These astronauts were among the most intelligent and sought-after brains of their time, and yet we saw a tragic end to them. We have not only seen deaths in space missions, but we also witnessed many fatal ends to the best brains of the world whilst they were training for their space missions. When we are not in a position to speak affirmative of an astronaut’s return from a few months in space, we cannot be in a position to confirm that we will successfully colonize Space. Scientists are troubled that the rate at which we are advancing in weaponry and research, we may not be far behind when we hit the “self-destruct” button. If this is the case, then we should be channelizing our resources into studying what could cause this destruction and working our way around it. If there is a possibility that a nuclear disaster could destroy life on this planet, then we are closer to this mishap than we are to successfully establishing a colony in space. On March 4, 1975, Professor Albert Szent – Gyorgyi stated: “Mankind will be wiped out in two to three decades, not more.” It is almost four decades since he made the statement and we seem to have survived and there is QUITE a certainty that we will live for longer than it will take to create a habitat in Space and survive in it. Experts believe that there will be diseases that will kill the human population in such large numbers, that what has become of the dinosaurs will become of us. Researchers should try to investigate the diseases that are a potential threat to mankind and find vaccines and solutions to these diseases. We do not have the least idea of diseases that can be inflicted upon us in outer space. Should there arise a situation like this, there is a possibility that we will not be able to study the disease and find a solution to it in time to the people who would habitat themselves in Space.

D – No impactThere is no risk on Earth sufficient to justify the expense of a space colonizationSzocik 18 [(Konrad Szocik is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow.) Szocik, K. (2018). Should and could humans go to Mars? Yes, but not now and not in the near future. Futures.] TDI

Space refuge is justified only when there is at least one kind of catastrophe on Earth which will lead to extinction of the entire human species. Baum (2015) and Baum et al. (2015) do not believe that space settlement offers advantage over terrestrial refuge. If terrestrial refuge (aquatic and/or subterranean) is able to protect against the strongest catastrophes including asteroid impact, the unique serious rationale accepted by public opinion for space human mission fails. As Alexey Turchin and Brian Patrick Green (2017) show, aquatic refuges based on adaptation of nuclear submarines may effectively play their role. They may be surface independent, which is the basic criterion of any refuge (Baum et al. 2015). They are cheaper and easier in engineering terms when compared with Mars settlement. A space refuge would not be able to cope with currently-occurring risks, e.g. overpopulation and climate change. Human overpopulation can be limited only on Earth by terrestrial policy and, if this can be done, no space base is necessary. If it is not possible, then no space base can solve this problem. For example, space settlement is not able to alleviate global warming, against Milligan’s suggestion. The unique way to do that on Earth is to reduce methane emission and/or to cool Earth by turning sunlight into space, as Solar Radiation Management proposes (Farquhar et al. 2017). There is only indirect, not direct applicability of space exploration. For instance, space technology might be applied to cope with asteroid impact or increasing the Sun temperature (Crawford). But these exogenous catastrophes caused by cosmic events are unlikely in lifespan of current and future generations (Tegmark and Bostrom 2005, p. 754), and for this reason they offer poor incentive for human space program. The unique rationale for space refuge mission could be future development of the Sun which will be getting more and more warmer in next billions years. But this threat does not justify human space settlement due to its high risk and high costliness (Jebari 2015). Nick Beckstead speculates on possible disasters on Earth deleterious also for humans living in shelters, e.g. scenarios that include invasion of aliens, runaway AI, or ecophagy caused by nanotechnology (Beckstead 2015).9 Beckstead rightly adds that the big challenge is not only rate of survival immediately after catastrophe but also chances for survival in longterm scale including collapse in food production and supply chain, and associated social and 9 The status of epidemics and/or pandemics as existential threat is doubtful. Beckstead (2015), citing Doherty (2013) argues that even in the past when human progress in medical knowledge was weak – we can add poor hygienic standards – smaller human population did not extinct despite epidemics and pandemics. This historical track may suggest to not exaggerate putative lethal role played by future pandemics. The same – as Beckstead notes – may be the case of global food crisis which does not have to lead to human extinction. ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 15 political collapse. It is hard to imagine catastrophe which kills the entire Earth population excluding people living in refuge. In this case, rationale for refuge fails.

Existential threats don’t leave after colonization of space.Stoner 17 [(Ian, teaches philosophy at Saint Paul College in Minnesota. My teaching focuses on the acquisition of philosophical skills, especially critical reading skills. I'm most interested in virtue theory, methods in practical ethics, and questions at the intersection of philosophy of disability and theories of well-being.) “Humans Should Not Colonize Mars” 2017] TDI

We have an obligation to ensure the long-term survival of our species. We ought, then, to expand beyond Earth, because once humans are established elsewhere in the heavens, our species will no longer be vulnerable to catastrophes on Earth. Since Mars is by far the best prospect for an autonomous human colony in the foreseeable future, we should settle it. As Larry Niven once said, according to Arthur Clarke, “the dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right.”5 Many people celebrated for their smarts endorse this argument for colonizing Mars. This is Elon Musk’s reason for pushing for Mars (Urban 2015). Carl Sagan (1994, 377), Ray Bradbury (Bradbury et al 1973, 133), Stephen Hawking (Highfield 2006), and Paul Davies (2004) have all endorsed some version of the species-survival argument for space colonies. Everyone on this list agrees that establishing an autonomous colony on Mars is a rational response to the moral imperative to hedge against the risk of an extinction-level

catastrophe on Earth. Reply: The range of species-level threats addressed by a Mars colony is relatively narrow (York 2002). A Mars colony would not insure against large-scale threats to the solar system, such as nearby supernovae, invading extraterrestrials, or an early expansion of the sun. Nor would it insure against threats we pose to ourselves, such as war and environmental destruction. We carry these threats to ourselves everywhere we go, and we would carry them with us to Mars . A Mars colony would only insure against externally imposed large-scale environmental threats specific to Earth. A colony on Mars would be unmolested by, for example, a Chicxulub-scale asteroid or comet strike on Earth. But is a Mars colony the best way to hedge against this risk? First, note that while it’s relatively easy to imagine an asteroid or comet impact knocking civilization back a few hundred years, it’s genuinely difficult to imagine a sapiens-extincting impact. Contra-Niven, Chicxulub didn’t kill the dinosaurs because they lacked a space program; it killed them because they lacked blankets. Now, imagine that you have no vested interest in colonizing Mars, and your concern is to do a flinty eyed cost/benefit analysis of various proposals to hedge against asteroid-based threats to civilization and species survival. You’re presented with the following options. The first is the Musk option: invest the resources required to establish a million-person settlement on Mars that might possibly be self-sustaining in the event of a civilization-ending asteroid strike on Earth. 5 https://www.clarkefoundation.org/about-sir-arthur/sir-arthurs-quotations/ 7 Option two: invest in detection and re-direct capabilities for near-Earth objects. Invest in seed arks and hardened knowledge repositories and energy sources. With proper investment we could come close to eliminating the chance of a civilization-ending, let alone a species-ending impact. This course

would be cheaper and more effective than establishing a Mars colony. Even if planetary

defenses fail and a strike happens, there is virtually nothing an asteroid could do to Earth that would make it as hostile to human life as Mars already is; even Chicxulub II would leave Earth with non-lethal atmospheric pressure, a radiation-blocking magnetic field, and oxygen, all of which Mars lacks. Musk and others promote Mars colonies as required by a cost/benefit analysis of the best way to discharge our obligation to ensure the survival of our species. But their cost/benefit analysis only appears rational because they have carefully loaded the comparison scenarios in a way that guarantees a pro-colonization conclusion. Musk is surely right that colonizing Mars is more prudent, from a species-preservation perspective, than sitting on our hands. But once we supply a third option it is clear that if there is a moral obligation to take instrumentally effective steps to safeguard the species, then investment in planetary defense and civilization protection, 6 not Mars colonization, is what is morally required (Baum 2016). This conclusion is not a consequence of pinchpenny aerospace budgets forcing a hard choice between promising options. If the goal is species survival, and given that the Martian environment is much less survivable than even a post-strike Earth would be, then there is no remotely realistic budget point at which the marginal dollar would be more effectively spent on Mars colonization than on protecting Earth and the creatures and civilizations that evolved to live within its shelters.

AT Mars ColonizationMars colonization is impossible – tech too new.Szocik 18 [(Konrad Szocik is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow.) Szocik, K. (2018). Should and could humans go to Mars? Yes, but not now and not in the near future. Futures.] TDI

The current state of the art in space technology makes a successful mission to Mars impossible both now and in the near future. There is no analog of a long-term Mars mission in any previous and current human space programs. Apollo program did not include long staying of astronauts in habitats on the Moon, and the journey to the Moon is substantially shorter than journey to Mars. The full time of Apollo 11 mission in 1969 was 8 days including journey to the Moon, staying there almost one day, and return journey to Earth. This is important in case an emergency because both during the stay on the Moon base or during flight problem. The good illustration of the latter case is Apollo 13 mission in 1970. Something like “in case of emergency” does not exist in human mission to Mars. Mars crew cannot count on real time ground mission control support due to communication delay. An evacuation mission or rescue mission will be impossible, at least in the first years of Mars space program. Even if the next rescue spacecraft could be sent from Earth – if it was feasible technologically and economically – its 6-9 months journey to Mars could be too long to offer help for Mars astronauts in need. The model of astronauts who stayed at the ISS for more than one year non-stop should not be treated as equivalent of future Mars astronauts staying on Mars. ISS is not a good analog for Mars habitat for many reasons. Astronauts who stay at ISS are able to leave the ISS in a couple of hours. There are also some basic differences caused by distance and by exposure to cosmic rays that undercut analogies between a human mission to ISS, to the Moon and a mission to Mars. For these reasons, Borowitz and Battat (2016) argue ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 23 that cis-lunar habitat space missions should be the next target for collaborative effort of spacefaring states in their route to Mars. These basic challenges appropriate for human mission to Mars shows how fragile and risky is human factor in a mission to Mars (Szocik 2019). The unique receipt for successful space exploration is to develop and to invest in robotic, without a human crews space missions. The risk of catastrophic failure also cannot be excluded. In the briefly mentioned human progress in building and testing aircrafts, there is obvious correlation between failures and advance in flight technology. It seems that this progress would not be possible without failures. Failures are impossible to avoid because some challenges and risk factors were impossible to predict and to test before they happened. Some limitations appear only during flights. Aircraft accidents often led to changes in technological solutions, training procedures, and flight control rules. Something similar may be expected in regard to human mission to Mars. Some failures (Apollo 13) or even lethal catastrophes (NASA space shuttles in 1986 and 2003) show that risk of failure is relatively high. During a mission to Mars, this risk increases due to the long journey and the delay in communication between astronauts and mission control on the ground. NASA fatal accidents in 1986 and 2003 attracted media interest and led to the cancellation of the human spaceflight program, but here cultural differences may be important. Chinese Xichang space disaster in 1996 did not cancel Chinese space programs (Szocik et al., in press b). The question of safety and the risk of failure is especially challenging for private initiatives when because accidents may result in canceling the entire program (Genta 2014). Let

us assume that, due to unknown reasons, there will be mission planners and mission organizers who decide to sponsor as fast as possible progress in space technology. Let us assume that they will do that independently based on cost-benefit analysis or that they will treat the human mission to Mars as beneficial in any terms, not necessary in monetary one. We should not expect to get such technologies earlier than after a couple of decades. The essence of the second idea of the paradox of technological progress lies in this time issue, i.e. in the distance from now to the point in the future when appropriate technology will be achieved. No one can predict political, social and economic situation in next decades. The current social and political conditions which theoretically could enable this big technological effort, do not exist now. One anthropogenic risk, overpopulation, is unavoidable. The current human population of Earth, about 7.6 billion, is estimated to grow until around 10.0 billion for 2050. Overpopulation is associated with limited and permanently depleting resources. ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 24 Climate changes may only worse these issues. It is hard to predict the next decades of Earth in political, social, and economic terms. There is always the risk of wars and conflict, and the effects on resources. In this scenario, long-term project of progress in space technology may be endangered, and its continuity may be easily interrupted, even if it is the case that technological readiness to human space Mars mission is achieved in next decades. We should expect that global situation will be worse than it is now due to overpopulation and limited resources. Therefore, the chances for social, public opinion support for such mission seem likely to decrease, not increase, with time. We cannot expect that new, currently unknown or unrealistic rationale for a long-term mission to Mars will appear in next decades. Such rationale may not appear for billions of years. The worse political, social and financial situation is, the lower chances for social and public acceptance and support for human space missions are. Only sufficiently strong rationale could rescue this project. Similar problem was reported by Shapiro (2009) who proposes, as a remedy that would justify the sense of space mission, the concept of extraterrestrial backup copy of terrestrial digital data. There are no strong rationale that could be put successively into broader social and political context of current world. Even if value of human life is the highest value, and even if making the human species a multi-planetary species would be the best way to increase its chances for survival, this task is not only unrealistic but even impossible to imagine in currently available technology.

The colonization of Mars is almost impossible in the near future. Levchenko ‘19 [( Igor Levchenko is currently a Research Scientist with the Plasma Sources and Applications Center/Space Propulsion Center, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and an Adjunct Professor with the School of Chemistry, Physics, and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia. He has authored and co-authored about 150 journal articles, and authored several book chapters. His current research interests include the development of plasma-enabled strategies for synthesis and functionalization of hierarchical multicomponent metamaterials and their application in energy harvesting and storage, electronics and medicine, and electric propulsion systems for space techniques and applications.) “Mars Colonization: Beyond Getting There” 2019] TDI

While being at the core of such ambitious projects as Mars One, a self sustained colony of any ‐size on Mars is hardly feasible in the foreseeable future. Indeed, sustaining even a small number of colonists would require a continuous supply of food, oxygen, water and basic materials. At

this stage, it is not clear whether it would be possible to establish a system that would generate these resources locally, or whether it would at least in part rely on the delivery of these resources (or essential components necessary for their local production) from Earth. Beyond the supply of these very basic resources, it would be quite challenging if not impossible for the colonists to independently produce hi tech but vitally important assets such as medicines, ‐electronics and robotics systems, or advanced materials that provide us with a decent quality of life. In this case, would their existence become little more than the jogtrot of life, as compared with the standards expected at the Earth? 22

Space Col Good

! – Extinction GenericSpace colonization solves extinction Filling Space 19, 4-19, "Deflecting Existential Risk with Space Colonization," Filling Space, https://filling-space.com/2019/04/19/deflecting-existential-risk-with-space-colonization/

The first living organism on Earth emerged approximately three and a half billion years ago. Since then, life has evolved into countless forms and colonized the planet. But the story of life is not a rosy one. At least five mass extinctions have occurred, and nearly all species that have ever existed on our planet are now dead. One of the most well-understood mass extinctions occurred when the Alvarez asteroid impacted Earth and, likely combined with other factors, killed many dinosaurs and other species. Life then had no tools to detect the coming asteroid or to be able to plan proactively to ensure its survival.

In order to avoid sharing the same fate as the dinosaurs, scholars argue that humans should become a multi-planetary species . We spoke with Professor Gonzalo Munevar, Emeritus Professor at Lawrence Technical University, to hear his thoughts on the existential risks we face and how colonization of the cosmos can help us address them. He has written extensively about the philosophy of space exploration and human consciousness.

Why do you argue that “failure to move into the cosmos would condemn us to oblivion”?

By having a significant presence in the solar system in the next few thousands of years and beyond, we will be in a better position to deflect asteroids and comets that might bring the end of humanity, and much other Earth life, in a horrible collision. And if perchance one such catastrophe proves inevitable (e.g. a rogue planet passing through the solar system), humanity would still survive by having colonized Mars and other bodies, as well as by having built artificial space colonies of the type advocated by Gerard O’Neill.

Once the sun begins to turn into a red giant in a few billion years, we must have long moved into the outer solar system. In the very long run, we have to move into other solar systems. Relativistic-speed starships would be nice, but they are not necessary for the task of moving humanity to the stars. We can reach them, slowly but surely, by propelling some of our space colonies away from the sun, carrying perhaps millions of human beings. They would take advantage of the many resources to be found in the Oort Cloud, and then of equivalent clouds in other solar systems. Even interstellar space has resources to offer. Nuclear energy, probably fusion, would likely be required. It may take us tens of thousands of years, but in the cosmic time scale, that is but a blink in the eye.

What are these catastrophic threats? Are there any records of catastrophic events happening before humans appeared on Earth?

I have already mentioned collisions with asteroids and comets. Although the active geology of our planet tends to erase the record of many collisions, we can find a well-preserved record on the Moon and Venus, the two closest bodies to Earth. On the 600-million-years-old Venusian surface, the spacecraft Magellan discovered about one thousand impact craters at least twice the diameter of meteor craters on Earth. This impact record makes it reasonable to estimate a

catastrophic impact on Earth every half a million years or so. Collisions with bodies of 5 km across would happen, on the average, every 20 million years. Apart from the Alvarez asteroid (crater near Yucatan) that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the majority of species on Earth 65 million years ago, there have been at least two more impacts by asteroids 10 km or larger in the last 300 million years.

How could human colonization of outer space save other terrestrial life?

On both O’Neill types of colonies as well as on colonies on other planets, and particularly on terraformed planets, we would need all sorts of organisms like bacteria and plants for food, medicine, and ornamentation, as well as many animals for food and other purposes. We cannot have a proper colony without an Earthly environment to surround and nourish us. So, we have to take much other terrestrial life with us in order to survive and flourish. And given the value of biodiversity we would make it a point to take a great variety of organisms that contribute to our biosphere. Of course, we should heed Mark Twain and be sure not to include mosquitoes in our future space arks. I myself would keep out tarantulas and some other obnoxious viruses, bacteria, plants, and animals.

Earth won’t be inhabitable forever – colonization is essential to preventing extinction Newitz 13 [(Annalee, is the author, most recently, of the science fiction novel The Future of Another Timeline, a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, and co-host of the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.), “Escape Plans,” Slate, 5/15/13, https://slate.com/technology/2013/05/surviving-the-next-mass-extinction-humans-will-need-to-leave-earth-for-space-colonies.html] MN

When the Russian asteroid became a fireball in the air over Chelyabinsk, destroying buildings and injuring hundreds, we were lucky it wasn’t worse. What about when the next one hits? Just for fun, let’s say a 10-kilometer-diameter asteroid—much larger than the one over Chelyabinsk but close to the size of one that hit the planet 65 million years ago—smashed into central California. It wouldn’t just destroy Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It would punch a hole in the atmosphere.

That’s what surprises people the most. Every disaster-from-space movie we’ve ever seen prepares us for fire and explosive destruction. Instead, blowback from the strike would be so powerful that it would hurl millions of tons of debris back into space. A thick, toxic cloud layer would settle over our upper atmosphere, wrapping itself around the world within hours after the impact, cutting off the sun. We’re not talking about an ordinary cloud, either. Packed with carbon, dust, and sulfur particles, it would reflect a lot more sunlight than a normal cloud would. Our satellites would record images of a once-blue planet gone brilliant white, like a pool ball. On Earth, it would be twilight for months. Temperatures would plummet. Crops would die, and then the forests.

There would be fires the whole time, of course, especially around the impact site. Plus earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But most of the 5 billion people who are likely to be killed by an asteroid strike like this would die of famine. In many parts of the world, permanent dusk

would mean nothing to feed our animals, let alone our families. Food supplies would dwindle. And that’s when the riots would start.

This is an all-too-plausible scenario for the near future if we suffered an asteroid strike comparable to the one that killed most of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. It wasn’t a giant explosion that exterminated Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and their kin. In reality, most of those giants died out over thousands of years, their numbers winnowed down to nothing as their food-rich, tropical environments grew barren and cold.

Today, we have solid evidence that confirms environmental changes like these can be blamed directly or indirectly for most mass extinctions that have scourged the Earth. And that’s why our space program isn’t just something educational we’re doing to learn more about the universe. It’s vital to our survival as a species, because the Earth isn’t going to be a safe place for us in the long term.

I learned about the many pathways to mass death while researching my book published this week: Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. There is a pattern to how mass extinctions happen. A calamity like an asteroid strike or an enormous volcanic eruption causes an initial disaster that kills a lot animals and plants at once. And this leads to climate changes that eventually kill more than 75 percent of all species on the planet, usually in less than a million years—the blink of an eye in geological time.

There is a pattern to survival, too. Every mass extinction has its survivors. A group of furry, mouselike mammals took over the planet after the dinosaurs’ heyday and eventually evolved into us. What these survivors have in common are three abilities encapsulated by the title of my book: They are able to scatter to many places in the world, adapt to them, and remember how to avoid danger. Humans are exceptionally good at all three, but perhaps our greatest strength is an ability to reconstruct the deep history of our planet—and to plan for the future.

Because we know Earth is inherently dangerous, any long-term plan for humanity has to involve building communities on other worlds , or maybe in vast, artificial environments in space. But the process of doing so will take a lot longer, and be a lot weirder, than what you see in most science fiction stories.

It’s likely we won’t have bustling cities the size of San Francisco on Mars or Titan in the next hundred years, so in the meantime we need to come up with a plan to deal with threats to Earth from space. Already, the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs and space agencies like NASA monitor the skies for potentially deadly asteroids in our neighborhood, called near-Earth objects (NEOs). These groups have already proposed simple solutions to the asteroid problem, all of which are within our technological grasp.

Colonization of outer space is essential to humanity – 5 warrantsOrwig 15 [(Jessica, a senior editor at Insider. She has a Master of Science in science and technology journalism from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Science in astronomy and physics from The Ohio State University. Before NY she spent time as an intern at: American Physical Society in MD International Center for Theoretical Physics in Italy Fermi National

Accelerator Laboratory in IL American Geophysical Union in DC), “5 undeniable reasons humans need to colonize Mars — even though it's going to cost billions,” Slate, 4/21/2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/5-undeniable-reasons-why-humans-should-go-to-mars-2015-4] MN

Establishing a permanent colony of humans on Mars is not an option. It's a necessity.

At least, that's what some of the most innovative, intelligent minds of our age — Buzz Aldrin, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson — are saying.

Of course, it's extremely difficult to foresee how manned missions to Mars that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars each, could benefit mankind. It's easier to imagine how that kind of money could immediately help in the fight against cancer or world hunger. That's because humans tend to be short-sighted. We're focused on what's happening tomorrow instead of 100 years from now.

"If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before," Hawking said in 2008 at a lecture series for NASA's 50th anniversary.

That brings us to the first reason humans must colonize Mars:

1. Ensuring the survival of our species

The only home humans have ever known is Earth. But history shows that surviving as a species on this tiny blue dot in the vacuum of space is tough and by no means guaranteed.

The dinosaurs are a classic example: They roamed the planet for 165 million years, but the only trace of them today are their fossilized remains. A colossal asteroid wiped them out.

Putting humans on more than one planet would better ensure our existence thousands if not millions of years from now.

"Humans need to be a multiplanet species," Musk recently told astronomer and Slate science blogger Phil Plait.

Musk founded the space transport company SpaceX to help make this happen.

Mars is an ideal target because it has a day about the same length as Earth's and water ice on its surface. Moreover, it's the best available option: Venus and Mercury are too hot, and the Moon has no atmosphere to protect residents from destructive meteor impacts.

2. Discovering life on Mars

Nye, the CEO of The Planetary Society, said during an episode of StarTalk Radio in March that humanity should focus on sending humans instead of robots to Mars because humans could make discoveries 10,000 times as fast as the best spacecraft explorers we have today. Though he was hesitant to say humans should live on Mars, he agreed there were many more discoveries to be made there.

One monumental discovery scientists could make is determining whether life currently exists on Mars. If we're going to do that, we'll most likely have to dig much deeper than NASA's rovers

can. The theory there is that life was spawned not from the swamps on adolescent Earth, but from watery chasms on Mars.

The Mars life theory suggests that rocks rich with microorganisms could have been ejected off the planet's surface from a powerful impact, eventually making their way through space to Earth. It's not a stretch to imagine, because Martian rocks can be found on Earth. None of those, however, have shown signs of life.

"You cannot rule out the fact that a Mars rock with life in it landing on the Earth kicked off terrestrial life, and you can only really test that by finding life on Mars," Christopher Impey, a British astronomer and author of over a dozen books in astronomy and popular science, told Business Insider.

3. Improving the quality of life on Earth

"Only by pushing mankind to its limits, to the bottoms of the ocean and into space, will we make discoveries in science and technology that can be adapted to improve life on Earth."

British doctor Alexander Kumar wrote that in a 2012 article for BBC News where he explored the pros and cons of sending humans to Mars.

At the time, Kumar was living in the most Mars-like place on Earth, Antarctica, to test how he adapted to the extreme conditions both physiologically and psychologically. To better understand his poignant remark, let's look at an example:

During its first three years in space, NASA's prized Hubble Space Telescope snapped blurry pictures because of a flaw in its engineering. The problem was fixed in 1993, but to try to make use of the blurry images during those initial years, astronomers developed a computer algorithm to better extract information from the images.

It turns out the algorithm was eventually shared with a medical doctor who applied it to the X-ray images he was taking to detect breast cancer. The algorithm did a better job at detecting early stages of breast cancer than the conventional method, which at the time was the naked eye.

"You can't script that. That happens all the time — this cross pollination of fields, innovation in one, stimulating revolutionary changes in another," Tyson, the StarTalk radio host, explained during an interview with Fareed Zakaria in 2012.

It's impossible to predict how cutting-edge technologies used to develop manned missions to Mars and habitats on Mars will benefit other fields like medicine or agriculture. But we'll figure that out only by "pushing humankind to its limits" and boldy going where we've never been before.

4. Growing as a species

Another reason we should go to Mars, according to Tyson, is to inspire the next generation of space explorers. When asked in 2013 whether we should go to Mars, he answered:

"Yes, if it galvanizes an entire generation of students in the educational pipeline to want to become scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians," he said. "The next generation of astronauts to land on Mars are in middle school now."

Humanity's aspirations to explore space are what drive us toward more advanced technological innovations that will undoubtedly benefit mankind in one way or another.

"Space is like a proxy for a lot of what else goes on in society, including your urge to innovate," Tyson said during his interview with Zakaria. He added: "There's nothing that drives ambitions the way NASA does."

5. Demonstrating political and economic leadership

At a February 24 hearing, Aldrin told the US Senate's Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness that getting to Mars was a necessity not only for science, but also for policy.

"In my opinion, there is no more convincing way to demonstrate American leadership for the remainder of this century than to commit to a permanent presence on Mars," he said.

If Americans do not go to Mars, someone else will. And that spells political and economic benefit for whoever succeeds.

"If you lose your space edge," Tyson said during his interview with Zakaria, "my deep concern is that you lose everything else about society that enables you to compete economically."

Colonies on the moon are key to preventing extinction Alexander 19 [(Donovan, After 5 years in the start-up world collaborating with companies like Google and Škoda Auto, the award-winning marketer Donovan Alexander restarted his career. He has combined his passion for artificial intelligence, fashion, design, and technology to begin a new journey as an aspiring multidisciplinary designer and technology writer. Throughout his career, he has authored over 300 articles, worked on 34 advertising campaigns for international brands, and curated 4 major art projects. Donovan is fascinated with how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and 3D printing are changing the way we design and engineer our everyday products. With a creative studio based in the heart of Europe, Donovan loves sharing the stories of the people and organizations engineering change around the world.), “Colonizing the Moon Could Be the Key to Saving the Earth, Says Jeff Bezos,” Interesting Engineering, 6/9/2019, https://interestingengineering.com/colonizing-the-moon-could-be-the-key-to-saving-the-earth-says-jeff-bezos] MN

The space race towards colonizing Mars is very much underway. Private companies have made it their personal mission to reach the big red planet in the near future.

Nevertheless, not only is the trip to Mars a long and strenuous one, colonizing Mars is not an easy feat. You hear all about colonizing Mars, but what about the Moon?

Some have argued that colonizing the moon should be our first big priority before heading to the big red planet. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has made moon colonization one of his top priorities

at his aerospace company Blue Origin, something that should also be a top priority for humanity, according to him.

Saving the Earth

According to Bezos, there is a very simple reason why we need to colonize the moon, he believes that “Humanity's very survival relies on colonizing space, starting with the moon”.

Just this past month, Bezos and his Blue Origin team unveiled a lunar-lander vehicle, called Blue Moon, designed to deliver a variety of payloads to the moon.

Eventually, the ultimate goal is to help humans establish, “sustained human presence” on Earth’s moon. In a presentation at Amazon’s Re:Mars tech conference, Bezos stated:

"The reason we've got to go to space, in my view, is to save the Earth. If we're going to continue to grow this civilization, we need to move – and I'm talking about something our grandchildren will work on and their grandchildren and so on. This isn't something just this generation is going to accomplish."

Bezos believes the moon is the perfect landing spot. The moon itself is only a three-day ride, has access to solar energy, has lighter gravity, and even has water in the form of ice.

Why the Moon?

According to Philip Metzger, a physicist at NASA Kennedy Space Center, the moon could also offer even more in the great history of human space travel, eventually becoming a base and stomping ground for longer trips.

“The Moon is a natural first step. It’s nearby. We can practice living, working and doing science there before taking longer and riskier trips to Mars.”

What do you think about the future of colonization? And do you think the moon should be humanity’s first stop?

! – Climate ChangeSpace colonization solves climate changeYoun and Theodorou 19, 5/9, "Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos unveils plans for space colonization," ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/Business/blue-origin-jeff-bezos-unveils-lunar-lander-mission/story?id=62941981 TDIHis inspiration? American physicist Gerard O'Neill, who became interested in the idea of space colonization in 1969.

Bezos extolled his belief in the idea that humans could live in environments that were ideal and create colonies where heavy industry can be carried out without subjecting the earth to atmospheric pollution. He also did refer to coming back to Earth.

“Earth is the best planet. It is not even close. Don’t even get me started on Venus," Bezos said.

The Amazon founder identified two initial goals that Blue Origin would focus on: a radical reduction in launch costs and establishing resources for space. Like Elon Musk's SpaceX, Blue Origin has focused on reusable rockets.

Blue Origin would begin by sending human's into space in 2019 on New Shepard -- a suborbital vehicle designed for space tourism -- which uses liquid hydrogen, an incredibly efficient fuel source.

! – Innovation

Space exploration key to scientific innovationKeusen 21 Tanya, "Space Exploration and Innovation," United Nations Office for Outer Affairs, https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/topics/space-exploration-and-innovation.html

Since the beginning of time, exploring the Universe has been a dream of humankind. Human curiosity has fuelled interest in exploring and discovering new worlds, pushing the boundaries of the known, and expanding scientific and technical knowledge.

States and space agencies have been engaging in space exploration since the first space launch. The first space launch led to the first human space flight, which led to the first moonwalk. Nowadays focus has shifted to joint human and robotic missions, near-Earth asteroids, Mars and destinations beyond our own solar system.

Space exploration and the innovation it entails are essential drivers for opening up new domains in space science and technology. They trigger new partnerships and develop capabilities that create new opportunities for addressing global challenges. Space exploration also motivates young people to pursue education and careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (the STEM disciplines).

Though the precise nature of future benefits from space exploration is not easily predefined, current trends suggest that significant advantage may be found in areas such as new materials, health and medicine, transportation and computer technology. As the benefits of space exploration and innovation become better known, increasingly more countries and non-governmental entities are interested in engaging in exploration and innovation.

Recent COPUOS and UNOOSA Efforts

In 2016, seven thematic priorities were endorsed by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in the context of preparations for the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Use of Outer Space (UNISPACE+50), the first of which was global partnership in space exploration and innovation. The Committee established an action team as the mechanism to drive the topic. Twenty-two States and seven permanent observer organizations joined the Action Team on Exploration and Innovation, producing a report including a series of recommendations ( A/AC.105/1168). The Action Team Co-Chairs underscored the significance of the report, "which represented the first time the United Nations had examined, in a comprehensive way, human and robotic exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, and provided a basis for further consideration of how the United Nations system may contribute to a new era in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space".

In 2018, on the basis of the Action Team recommendation, the Committee added "Space exploration and innovation" as an item on its agenda ( A/73/20, para. 364).

Under this agenda item, first considered at the Committee session in 2019, States share information on, among other things: research and development activities; astronaut

programmes; a space exploration innovation hub centre; the planned establishment of a Mars scientific city; activities in connection with the International Space Station and the China Space Station; the use of a satellite as a multi-wavelength observatory; various missions to the Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and asteroids; the planned Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway; a new spacecraft that has the potential to be utilized as a deep-space logistics carrier to the cis-lunar region; a dedicated solar mission with a focus on studying the inner solar corona; a tracker of electromagnetic counterparts of binary neutron star merger events; a mission to examine the atmospheric composition of exoplanets; and satellites launched for the purpose of deep space exploration. Much of this information is available in technical presentations.

Space col key to innovation, space tourism, and hegWest 20 Darrell M. West, 8-18-2020, "Five reasons to explore Mars," Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2020/08/18/five-reasons-to-explore-mars/ TDI

The recent launch of the Mars rover Perseverance is the latest U.S. space mission seeking to understand our solar system. Its expected arrival at the Red Planet in mid-February 2021 has a number of objectives linked to science and innovation. The rover is equipped with sophisticated instruments designed to search for the remains of ancient microbial life, take pictures and videos of rocks, drill for soil and rock samples, and use a small helicopter to fly around the Jezero Crater landing spot.

Mars is a valuable place for exploration because it can be reached in 6 ½ months, is a major opportunity for scientific exploration, and has been mapped and studied for several decades. The mission represents the first step in a long-term effort to bring Martian samples back to Earth, where they can be analyzed for residues of microbial life. Beyond the study of life itself, there are a number of different benefits of Mars exploration.

UNDERSTAND THE ORIGINS AND UBIQUITY OF LIFE

The site where Perseverance is expected to land is the place where experts believe 3.5 billion years ago held a lake filled with water and flowing rivers. It is an ideal place to search for the residues of microbial life, test new technologies, and lay the groundwork for human exploration down the road.

The mission plans to investigate whether microbial life existed on Mars billions of years ago and therefore that life is not unique to Planet Earth. As noted by Chris McKay, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Science Center, that would be an extraordinary discovery. “Right here in our solar system, if life started twice, that tells us some amazing things about our universe,” he pointed out. “It means the universe is full of life. Life becomes a natural feature of the universe, not just a quirk of this odd little planet around this star.”

The question of the origins of life and its ubiquity around the universe is central to science, religion, and philosophy. For much of our existence, humans have assumed that even primitive life was unique to Planet Earth and not present in the rest of the solar system, let alone the universe. We have constructed elaborate religious and philosophical narratives around this assumption and built our identity along the notion that life is unique to Earth.

If, as many scientists expect, future space missions cast doubt on that assumption or outright disprove it by finding remnants of microbial life on other planets, it will be both invigorating and illusion-shattering. It will force humans to confront their own myths and consider alternative narratives about the universe and the place of Earth in the overall scheme of things.

As noted in my Brookings book, Megachange, given the centrality of these issues for fundamental questions about human existence and the meaning of life, it would represent a far-reaching shift in existing human paradigms. As argued by scientist McKay, discovering evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars would lead experts to conclude that life likely is ubiquitous around the universe and not limited to Planet Earth. Humans would have to construct new theories about ourselves and our place in the universe.

DEVELOP NEW TECHNOLOGIES

The U.S. space program has been an extraordinary catalyst for technology innovation . Everything from Global Positioning Systems and medical diagnostic tools to wireless technology and camera phones owe at least part of their creation to the space program. Space exploration required the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to learn how to communicate across wide distances, develop precise navigational tools, store, transmit, and process large amounts of data, deal with health issues through digital imaging and telemedicine, and develop collaborative tools that link scientists around the world. The space program has pioneered the miniaturization of scientific equipment and helped engineers figure out how to land and maneuver a rover from millions of miles away.

Going to Mars requires similar inventiveness. Scientists have had to figure out how to search for life in ancient rocks, drill for rock samples, take high resolution videos, develop flying machines in a place with gravity that is 40 percent lower than on Earth, send detailed information back to Earth in a timely manner, and take off from another planet. In the future, we should expect large payoffs in commercial developments from Mars exploration and advances that bring new conveniences and inventions to people.

ENCOURAGE SPACE TOURISM

In the not too distant future, wealthy tourists likely will take trips around the Earth, visit space stations, orbit the Moon, and perhaps even take trips around Mars. For a substantial fee, they can experience weightlessness, take in the views of the entire planet, see the stars from outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and witness the wonders of other celestial bodies.

The Mars program will help with space tourism by improving engineering expertise with space docking, launches, and reentry and providing additional experience about the impact of space travel on the human body. Figuring out how weightlessness and low gravity situations alter human performance and how space radiation affects people represent just a couple areas where there are likely to be positive by-products for future travel.

The advent of space tourism will broaden human horizons in the same way international travel has exposed people to other lands and perspectives. It will show them that the Earth has a delicate ecosystem that deserves protecting and why it is important for people of differing

countries to work together to solve global problems. Astronauts who have had this experience say it has altered their viewpoints and had a profound impact on their way of thinking.

FACILITATE SPACE MINING

Many objects around the solar system are made of similar minerals and chemical compounds that exist on Earth. That means that some asteroids, moons, and planets could be rich in minerals and rare elements. Figuring out how to harvest those materials in a safe and responsible manner and bring them back to Earth represents a possible benefit of space exploration. Elements that are rare on Earth may exist elsewhere, and that could open new avenues for manufacturing, product design, and resource distribution. This mission could help resource utilization through advances gained with its Mars Oxygen Experiment (MOXIE) equipment that converts Martian carbon dioxide into oxygen. If MOXIE works as intended, it would help humans live and work on the Red Planet.

ADVANCE SCIENCE

One of the most crucial features of humanity is our curiosity about the life, the universe, and how things operate. Exploring space provides a means to satisfy our thirst for knowledge and improve our understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe.

Space travel already has exploded centuries-old myths and promises to continue to confront our long-held assumptions about who we are and where we come from. The next decade promises to be an exciting period as scientists mine new data from space telescopes, space travel, and robotic exploration. Ten or twenty years from now, we may have answers to basic questions that have eluded humans for centuries, such as how ubiquitous life is outside of Earth, whether it is possible for humans to survive on other planets, and how planets evolve over time.

Space innovation solves extinction – generates ecological survival mechanisms.Sadedin 17 (Suzanne, PhD in Evolutionary Biology, 10-9, "Will Human Innovation Save Us From Future Extinction?," Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/10/09/will-human-innovation-save-us-from-future-extinction/?sh=773a4f276c65) TDI

Does the human ability to innovate suggest an immunity to total extinction? Yes and no. Currently, innovation reduces our chance of extinction in some ways, and increases it in others. But if we innovate cleverly, we could become just about immune to extinction. The species that survive mass extinctions tend to share three characteristics. They're widespread . This means local disasters don't wipe out the entire species , and some small areas, called refugia, tend to be unaffected by global disasters. If you're widespread, it's more likely that you have a

population that happens to live in a refugium. They're ecological generalists. They can cope with widely varying physical conditions, and they're not fussy about food. They're r-selected. This means that they breed fast and have short generation times, which allows them to rapidly grow their populations and adapt

genetically to new conditions. Innovation gives humans the ability to be widespread ecological generalists . With technology, we can live in more diverse conditions and places than any other species. And while we can't (currently) grow our populations rapidly like an r-selected species, innovation does allow us to adapt quickly at the cultural level. Technology also increases our connections to one another and

connectivity is a two-edged sword. Many species consist of a network of small, local populations, each of which is

somewhat isolated from the others. We call this a metapopulation. The local populations often go extinct, but they are later re-seeded by others, so the metapopulation as a whole survives. Humans used to be a metapopulation, but thanks to innovation, we're now globally connected. Archaeologists believe that many past civilizations, such as the Easter Islanders, fell because of unsustainable ecological and cultural innovations. The impact of these disasters was limited because these civilizations were small and disconnected from other such civilizations. These days, a useful innovation can spread around the world in weeks. So can a lethal one. With many of the technologies and chemicals we're currently inventing, we can't be certain about their long-term effects; human biology is complex enough that we often can't be absolutely certain something won't kill us in a decade until we've waited a decade to see. We try to be careful and test things before they're released, and the probability that any particular invention could kill us all is tiny, but since we're constantly innovating, it's a real possibility. Pandemics pose the same problem for a well-connected species. There are certain possibilities where species extinction is really hard to avoid; fortunately, they're also very unlikely, but we are definitely not immune from this. The most likely cause of our extinction, in my opinion, is innovation in machine learning/AI. This could destroy the planet, but even if it doesn't, humans will be ultimately redundant to the dominant systems. They might keep us alive in a zoo somewhere, but I doubt it. A happier scenario (to me at least)

is transhumanism, where humans become extinct in a sense because we've managed to liberate ourselves from biology. So how could innovation prevent our extinction ? We seed the galaxy with independently evolving human populations to create a new metapopulation. These local populations would hopefully be sufficiently isolated that some would survive an innovation or disaster that wipes out the rest. They would, of course, evolve in response to local conditions, perhaps creating several new species. So you could say this is

still extinction, but it's as close as we'll come to persistence in our ever-changing universe.

! – DiseaseSpace colonization encourages healthcare innovations- solves diseases Donoviel 19 (Dorit Donoviel, 7-19-2019, "Space exploration is reinventing healthcare," [20+ years leadership experience as executive director of R&D overseeing diverse areas of biomedical research from basic to applied science, drug discovery, and technology development. Executing a multi-million dollar national research portfolio of grants addressing the plethora of physiological and behavioral challenges of humans in space. Executive Director, Translational Research Institute for Space Health at Baylor College of Medicine] The Hill, https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/453853-space-exploration-is-reinventing-healthcare) TDI

Though many do not realize it, humans have been living and working in space continuously for the past two decades. The conditions of spaceflight have accelerated our ability to study progressive degenerative diseases. This novel paradigm of understanding human physiology under the stresses of living in space holds great promise for new sources of medical breakthroughs for Earth.

Although astronauts are carefully selected to be exceptionally healthy and exhibit peak physical and mental performance, after only four to six months in space, they can develop numerous medical conditions. Without appropriate exercise, they lose bone and muscle mass. They become prone to developing kidney stones. Their hearts become deconditioned. Their blood vessels stiffen. A subset of astronauts develop a swelling of the optic nerve and possibly an increase in pressure on the brain. Even dormant viruses

become activated, alongside changes to the immune system. There is a sense of urgency to solve these problems if we are to send humans to Mars and return them safely in the next decade or two.

This is why NASA is investing in cutting-edge research for human health and performance including high-risk high-reward approaches funded through the Translational Research institute for Space Health (TRISH). Supporting potentially ground-breaking innovations requires a leap of faith in the right direction.

Keeping astronauts healthy during deep space exploration missions — where there are no hospitals and no medical specialists — requires a different paradigm for healthcare. Astronauts are typically engineers and scientists, and only occasionally physicians. On the way to Mars, when communications with Earth will be limited, they could be forced to act as both patients and healthcare providers. If a medical condition is allowed to progress when they are millions of miles away from Earth, the situation could become catastrophic.

Therefore, astronauts will need to detect even the most subtle changes in their own health status early enough to prevent disease.

This requires a healthcare paradigm of predicting, preventing and mitigating ailments by intervening early.

This means enabling monitoring, diagnostic and therapeutic medical capabilities that are simple to use, safe, robust and

miniaturized. Additionally, what will work in a small spacecraft in the hands of an engineer is also likely to work in a community clinic with limited resources. Or even in our homes. This different approach to healthcare can help save lives and reduce costs — at a global level.

Space demands the best in healthcare innovations, focusing on prevention and early intervention using smart, creative solutions. On a mission to Mars, blood tests will be done in a matter of minutes, by the patient, on a single drop of blood . A trained and adaptive computer algorithm will track health status based on a variety of physiological parameters and alert astronauts when important deviations from normal become evident.

Automated eye exams will be performed by the astronauts on themselves and images will be analyzed by a computer for changes. Customized medications will be tailor-made for the patient on the spot. If a minor medical procedure is required, the caregiver will learn and practice beforehand using augmented reality tools and software simulations adjusted for zero-gravity.

Kidney stones will be found early and treated quickly and painlessly using ultrasound to “push” them out of the kidney so they can be cleared naturally with urination. Sleep and mood will be improved using sound stimulation and health will be improved by individualized diets which will be enriched with high-nutrient plants grown efficiently within a small footprint. Most importantly, all these advances have clear and important applications on Earth.

Space exploration has already yielded hundreds of inventions that filled our arsenal for fighting diseases. To land women and men on Mars and return them healthy, we must reinvent healthcare. The positive consequences of this work will impact all of humanity. The spirit of Apollo is alive and well in space health

research today. And for science, medicine and technology pioneers, our most important work is still ahead.

D – No warNo war from colonizationBritt 16 [(Ryan, contributer to Inverse), “Mutually Assured Destruction Will End Space War,” Inverse, 8/8/16, https://www.inverse.com/article/19284-future-space-was-insurgency-mutually-assured-destruction-star-wars-colonialism] MN

University of Edinburgh Astrobiology Professor Charles Cockell, author of the book Dissent, Revolution and Liberty Beyond Earth, spends a lot of time thinking about space battles and how mankind could learn to resolve its differences in a non-Earth environment. This bears thinking about, Cockell explains, because the potential for loss of life and destruction in space is deeply problematic. And Earth solutions don’t necessarily translate.

“Destructive revolution is something to be avoided in space,” he told Inverse, “But dissent is good - it’s part of the continuous re-adjustment of society to new conditions - conflicting views about the way to deal with problems that are brought into collision resulting in a conclusion, which if wrong, can be further changed by the next round of dissent.”

Whether an extra-Earth society were living on the Moon, or Mars, or in some kind of space colony, the dangerous and omnipresent life-threatening conditions inherently change the nature of interaction and co-dependence. If blowing-up a module or a space station could lead to the immediate eradication of everyone inside, the people inside that module are less likely to attack other modules capable of that violence. As any fan of geopolitical Realism will point out, nuclear powers have historically avoided going to war with each other — albeit narrowly.Cockell doesn’t just consider the political endgame of space movement. He thinks about how things get there. It turns out that it would be relatively easy for a despot like the Emperor to rise to power because of the distances between star systems. “If the speed of light sets a real limit to information exchange, then planetary outposts are likely to be places where there can be no rapid free exchange of information from outside,” Professor Cockell points out.

This means that the amounts of information an average person receives in a galaxy like Star Wars of Dune is limited to begin with and that the interplanetary distances “make it easier to control the extent of incoming information.” The divide part of “divide and conquer” is relatively simple.

Still, if we hew closer to science fiction scenarios in which the space-action remains modest, laser and explosion style revolutions seem less and less likely. In Robert A. Heinlein’s novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress a disenfranchised lunar colonists revolt. In the Expanse, asteroid belt denizens get increasingly unruly about their second-class citizen status. Babylon 5 features Martians rising up against the People (their ancestors) on Earth. Cockell says these depictions of “an outpost seeking to reduce the power or influence of an overbearing authority” are the most realistic stories in science fiction. Yet, Cockell points out that it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense for a powerful group of space people to marginalize a group charged with the colonization or settlement of less accessible world very wise. If colonial history is any indication, the people at the fringes will most likely be there to supply the bulk of the population with something they need or desperately want.

“I would have thought there would be a strong incentive for minimizing economic differences because of the very strong interdependence required to live in space,” Cockell says. “Treating people who make the oxygen you breathe as slaves does not seem a good policy.”

Let’s imagine an Elysium-style space station, or even a Babylon 5-esque set-up. A certain amount of people are living in the comfort of artificial gravity and running water, and oxygen, and another part of population has been marginalized to keep these things running. Would they start zapping people or blowing enemies out of various airlocks?

“A bunch of people refusing to tend to the oxygen producing machines - just not turning up to work could be non-violent but very very politically powerful,” Cockell said, “Under such a strike, the authorities are under strong pressure to resolve the conflict without force and before people are deprived of something vital.”

In this way, living in a space station, or a space colony could theoretically create an insanely positive form of dissent which we haven’t yet glimpsed here on Earth. Peaceful governing in space is something which Cockell describes as “vital,” since to live in space is to live somewhere where the “the environment is instantaneously lethal.” It’s very likely future space colonists will have this in mind as some knowledge of the inherent dangerousness of space seems like a prerequisite for hypothetical future space colonists.

AT InfeasibleHumans can survive on asteroids within 15 years Pettit 1/20 [(Harry, Senior Digital Technology and Science Reporter, a science and technology reporter at MailOnline, Harry Pettit joined The Sun in December 2018. He holds an undergrad degree in Physiology from the University of Manchester and a Master’s degree in Science Communication from Imperial College London.), “Humans could move to ‘floating asteroid belt colony’ within 15 years,” NYPost, 1/20/2021, https://nypost.com/2021/01/20/humans-could-move-to-floating-asteroid-belt-colony-within-15-years/] TDI

Humans could live on giant orbs floating in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter within the next 15 years.

That’s the bonkers claim made by top scientist Dr. Pekka Janhunen, who says millions of people could inhabit a megacity in space by 2026.

Janhunen, an astrophysicist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki, described his vision in a research paper published this month.

He laid out the blueprint for floating “mega-satellites” around the dwarf planet Ceres, which lies roughly 325 million miles from Earth.

“The motivation is to have a settlement with artificial gravity that allows growth beyond Earth’s living area,” Janhunen wrote.

The vast majority of plots to settle distant worlds revolve around the moon or Mars. This is largely due to their proximity to Earth.

Janhunen’s proposal, on the other hand, looks a little farther afield.

His disk-shaped habitat would boast thousands of cylindrical structures, each home to more than 50,000 people.

Those pods would be linked by powerful magnets and generate artificial gravity by slowly rotating.

Residents would mine resources from Ceres 600 miles below the settlement and haul them back up using “space elevators,” Janhunen said.

“Lifting the materials from Ceres is energetically cheap compared to processing them into habitats, if a space elevator is used,” he wrote.

“Because Ceres has low gravity and rotates relatively fast, the space elevator is feasible.”

Ceres — the largest object in the asteroid belt — is the best destination for off-world settlements due to its nitrogen-rich atmosphere, Janhunen added.

This would allow settlers to more easily create Earth-like conditions than those colonizing the harsher, carbon dioxide-rich environment of Mars.

That doesn’t solve the threats of rogue asteroids or space radiation, though Janhunen, who worked with a number of Finnish researchers on the paper, has thought of that, too.

He proposed that giant, cylindrical mirrors placed around the mega-satellite could protect it from bombardment of all kinds.

Those mirrors would also focus sunlight onto the habitat for the growth of crops and other plant life.

Space colonization possibleKennedy 19 Fred, 12-18, (I am currently the President of Momentus, a space transportation company located in the San Francisco Bay Area, a member of multiple space company advisory boards, and a member of the Guiding Coalition for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics ASCEND event. I served as the inaugural Director of the Defense Department’s Space Development Agency during 2019, and led the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Tactical Technology Office from 2017 to 2019. I served as a senior advisor for space and aviation in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2016. I retired from the Air Force as a colonel after a 23-year career in space and airborne system engineering and acquisition. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Surrey for work on small satellite propulsion systems. Following my departure from the government, I worked as an executive at Astra, a small rocket company in Alameda, California. At Forbes, my interest areas include the accelerating pace of technological change, the impact of the private sector’s primacy in technology investment, and how civil, defense, and commercial interests will increasingly work together over the coming decades to build new ecosystems on earth and in space) "To Colonize Space Or Not To Colonize: That Is The Question (For All Of Us)," Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/fredkennedy/2019/12/18/to-colonize-or-not-to-colonize--that-is-the-question-for-all-of-us/?sh=3118b432367f

The good news: Critical technologies such as propulsion and power generation systems will improve over time . Transit durations between celestial destinations will shorten (in the same way sailing vessels gave way to steam ships and then to airliners and perhaps, one day, to point-to-point ballistic reusable rockets). Methods for obtaining critical resour ces on other planets will be refined and enhanced . Genetic engineering may be used to better adapt humans, their crops and other biota to life in space or on other planetary surfaces – to withstand the effects of low or micro-gravity, radiation, and the psychological effects of long-duration spaceflight.

As nation after nation lands their inaugural exploratory vessels on our Earth’s moon, and as billionaire space enthusiasts race to launch passengers, satellites and other cargo into orbit, it’s clearly time for us to sit down as a species and debate whether our future will be one highlighted primarily by growth and discovery , opening the solar system to settlement and economic development, or one that eschews outward expansion for conservation and preservation. Doing so would allow us to focus our attentions on this planet, leaving the solar system in its natural state, a celestial Antarctica stretching beyond Neptune.

Terra-forming and in-situ resources make colonization possible, we just need help from international helpJaramillo 20 Antonio, 12-30; Antonia Jaramillo is responsible for writing and developing stories on the aerospace community, specifically NASA, SpaceX, Boeing, ULA and other aerospace companies. Part of her coverage includes reporting on all the rocket launches happening at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for FLORIDA TODAY and the USA TODAY NETWORK."On a planet where you cannot breathe, is living on Mars the best idea?," No Publication,

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/12/30/colonizing-mars-even-good-idea-you-cant-breathe-after-all/4091010001/

According to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, we have the technological capability to go to Mars. The problem is money, or lack thereof. Under Space Policy Directive 1, President Donald Trump tasked NASA with sending the next man and first woman to the moon by 2024 and then eventually heading on to Mars. But this isn't the first time a president has said we're going back to the moon or we're finally sending humans to the Red Planet. After John F. Kennedy made his declaration that we would "put a man on the moon," several other presidents have tried to walk in his footsteps. But unlike Kennedy, none have come close to succeeding. On the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11 in 1989, President George H.W. Bush said we would return to the moon and go on to Mars, but in the end, the price proved too high. His son President George W. Bush echoed the same goal. Under the Constellation program, the plan was to return to the moon by 2020 and then head to Mars, but the project was ultimately scrapped after a series of delays and increasingly high costs. President Barack Obama also hoped to go to Mars. Instead of proposing returning to the moon, however, Obama said we should send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 before moving on to Mars. Congressional Republicans rejected the idea, and nothing came to fruition. NASA Administrator discusses crewed missions to Mars NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine discusses NASA's ability to send humans to Mars RACHAEL JOY, FLORIDA TODAY Then came Trump's turn. After heading back to the moon in the next four years under the Artemis program, the next big milestone would be a

trip to Mars. But again, the problem boils down to spending what's necessary to send astronauts there, Bridenstine said. "The question isn't whether or not we're technologically capable of doing it, because we are. The question is whether or not we have the political will to do it," he told reporters at Kennedy Space Center in July for NASA's Mars Perseverance rover launch. The Apollo program, Bridenstine pointed out, was driven by the need to beat the Soviet Union to the moon, which is why Congress appropriated vast sums of money to NASA. Today, that's no longer the case. With

no Cold War to encourage federal spending on the program, NASA instead is looking to international partners to help pay for any trip to Mars . "Today we don't have that large power competition that we had back then, but what we do have is we have international partners, we have commercial partners, we have technological advances that are so far beyond what we had in the 1960s," Bridenstine said. "So the answer is yes, we can do it. The question is: Will we receive the budget to do it right now?" It is unclear how much support the incoming Biden administration is going to give the Artemis program. Money is also

an issue for SpaceX's Mars plans. As a private company, SpaceX can't rely solely on taxpayer dollars to send humans there. Instead, the aerospace company is looking for other revenue streams to help pay for a Mars mission, such as its Starlink internet constellation. Aside from providing internet connection to people living in remote areas around the world, Starlink will also help fund SpaceX's goal of having people live on Mars – or at least, that's the plan. But first, Starlink has to be successful. 'On Mars, there's nothing to breathe' Not everyone believes sending people to live on Mars is the right move, however. Bill Nye, CEO for the Planetary Society and famously known as "Bill Nye the Science Guy" for his TV show that aired in the '90s, is one of those who doesn't believe in setting up camp on Mars. "I would love to go to space, you guys. But this idea of living on another world where we can't be outside just doesn't sound that appealing," Nye told reporters in 2019 before the launch of the Light Sail 2 project he and other Planetary Society members had worked on. "You think you want to go to Venus? We'd be vaporized in a second, way less than a second," Nye said. "And then on Mars, there's nothing to breathe. There's nothing to breathe, people. It's not just there's nothing to eat, there's nothing to breathe. So, you know if you live in a dome and you go outside, you're going to put on a spacesuit and you're in another dome, like my good friend Sandy the squirrel," referencing the character from the children's TV show "SpongeBob SquarePants." Bill Nye I would love to go to space, you guys. But this idea of living on another world where we can't be outside just doesn't sound that appealing. And as of now, that's really the only option for humans to live on Mars – a dome. It would essentially be like how actor Matt Damon' character lived in the sci-fi film "The Martian." Even the author of "The Martian," on which the sci-fi film is based, doesn't believe we're close to having a human settlement on Mars. "Mars is horribly inhospitable," Andy Weir told Florida Today via email. "Though it's an awesome idea – living on Mars – it would be far easier to colonize Earth's ocean floor. There won't be a significant settlement on Mars until there's an economic reason for a city to exist there. Like Antarctica, the only people there are researchers because there's no reason to be there otherwise." So like Nye, Weir isn't inclined live on Mars. Bill Nye doesn't think humans should live on Mars Bill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society, talks to FLORIDA TODAY reporters Antonia Jaramillo and Rachael Joy about the idea of humans living on Mars. STAFF, FLORIDA TODAY "Nope! I write about brave people, but I'm not one of them," Weir said." I like Earth and plan to stay." Others argue there's another way to live on Mars that doesn't include living in a dome. The only problem is the logistics of changing

the Martian landscape into one that can support human life. Terraforming vs. in-situ resources Called "terraforming," this essentially involves transforming Mars into a more Earth-like habitat. It's what Musk has proposed doing and what astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson believes would be best if humans were to live on Mars. “Elon Musk has a plan. He’s

thinking of putting satellites in orbit that have big reflectors that focus sunlight that would otherwise miss the planet. Focus it down on the planet and just add more energy to the planet, heating it up, and if you do it right, you might be able to set sort of a chain reaction in place ,"

deGrasse Tyson said in his podcast, "StarTalk." "If everything is frozen and it gets warmer, you’ll evaporate more carbon dioxide , and that’ll help trap more heat , and then that’ll make it hotter to evaporate even more carbon dioxide," he said. "You get all of that out of the system and into the atmosphere. Then now it’s warm enough, now you’re still mostly greenhouse gases, you still need oxygen to breathe. So now you put microorganisms that eat the CO2 and they release oxygen.” But terraforming Mars isn't going to happen anytime soon. Not only is the technology not available to do so, but the question also becomes, "How long would that take?" “That’s the big problem. Is it a thousand years, is it a million years? Or can you speed it up with some fast-acting microbes? This remains to be established,” deGrasse Tyson said. “But I’m telling you that if we’re going to be a two-planet species, I’m thinking you have to terraform Mars for that to happen.” Yet not everybody agrees with that tactic, especially because that would change the whole geology of Mars. "I’ve never been someone that has been a fan of terra-transforming a planet to make it more Earth-like. I think that the excitement of going to a different planet would be utilizing the in-situ resources that are there," NASA astronaut Christina Koch told deGrasse Tyson on his podcast. Neil deGrasse Tyson But I’m telling you that if we’re going to be a two-planet species, I’m thinking you have to terraform Mars for that to happen. "So, I would see something like a sustainable Mars establishment, to me, would always require some type of resupply, and even if that’s just to make it livable and habitable in terms of what humans think of as habitable and livable, I think is the important thing. But using the in-situ resources as well,” she said. In other words, living in that dome-like structure. Florida Tech professor and plant biochemist Andrew

Palmer also believes using in-situ resources to live on Mars is the best plan. He, along with other researchers at the university are collaborating on how future Mars settlers can use the resources, namely the soil on Mars to grow

their own food. "So the whole premise of this project, it all falls under something that's called in-situ resource utilization , which is a simple way of just saying using what's already there . So what we want to do is establish how little do you need to bring from Earth in order to be self-sufficient ," Palmer told Florida Today. "Mars is about six months away. If something goes wrong on Mars and you're unable to get a rocket to Mars to rescue people, they need to have their own food." By studying various simulated Martian soils, Palmer and his colleagues hope to determine what else is needed to help grow crops on Mars, especially since the Martian soil may not be able to host plant life. Florida Tech to find right Mars soil to grow plants on the red planet Dr. Andrew Palmer , fellow professors and his grad students are working on growing plants in simulated Mars soil for sustainability on Mars. MALCOLM DENEMARK, FLORIDA TODAY "If I go take a sample of soil on Florida Tech campus and then I went out beachside and I took a soil sample there, those are not going to be the same, and the same is true on Mars," Palmer said. That's problematic for future Mars settlers. What if they get to Mars and all of a sudden they can't grow anything there? To avoid that, Palmer suggests sending a robotic greenhouse in advance. "In our mind, one way to do this would be you land robots there six months in advance, and you inflate a tent and you start working on the soil, all remotely, and colonists get there and the soil is ready to grow," Palmer said. View |7 Photos Photos: Florida Tech preps for humans to live on Mars Florida Tech professor is collaborating with grad students to grow plants with different simulated Martian soil for

when humans eventually go to Mars. When discussing what crops would be best to grow on Mars and what other nutrients settlers would need, Palmer recommends crops like potatoes, corn, radishes and kale. As for protein, Palmer says, insects are the way to go. "Trying to grow a cow on Mars, that's a huge amount of resource investment, but growing insects, it's a very cheap investment, relatively speaking," Palmer said. The other option could be to grow synthetic meats. Besides just the

different eating habits and living arrangements humans would have to get accustomed to if they lived on Mars, life would be very different from Earth, perhaps more environmentally friendly, because nearly everything would have to be recycled. But that might not be all that enticing to future colonists. "In a Martian colony, (the settlers) will have never not had water that was made from previous urine, and their entire world will be completely recycled and reused," Palmer said. 'Let's save our future' But even with a Mars establishment, others don't believe Mars should be the final destination or

a "colony" at all. "I think going to Mars is fine – it's not a final place to go. I mean, you know, it's like just going to the moon but it's a little further out," the late Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden told Florida Today in November 2019. "When the sun burns out, Mars is going to go too, along with the Earth," Worden said. "We'd be better off solving all the problems we've got here (on Earth) than colonizing Mars. What we need is an Earth-like planet in another solar system somewhere." But if humans haven't even been able to head back to the moon since 1972, the odds of trying to head to a planet in another solar system is nothing more than science fiction at this point. Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden doesn't believe in colonizing Mars At Florida Tech, Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden explained why he doesn't believe in colonizing Mars & where we could eventually live (Alpha Centauri) RACHAEL JOY, FLORIDA TODAY Technological challenges aside, will humans even live long enough to travel and settle on another planet? "That's my greatest concern," Worden said. "We're not very good to each other here, and we don't seem to care about the things that will sustain this place to live in for a long time. … I think we're doing more damage to ourselves and the planet that it may be of such an extent that we don't have to wait till the sun burns out – we're

going to do it ourselves." He's not the only one who thinks so. In a July 2019 Pew Research Center study, 63% of Americans said NASA's top priorities should be using space to monitor key parts of Earth’s climate system. Meanwhile, only 13% believe sending astronauts to the moon should be a top priority. That figure jumps to a mere 18% for a crewed mission to Mars. Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Post in 2019 stating NASA should focus its resources on saving our planet instead of heading to other celestial bodies. "The public is right about this. Climate change – not Russia, much less China – is today’s existential threat. Data from NASA satellites show that future generations here on Earth will suffer from food and water shortages, increased disease and conflict over diminished resources," Garver said. Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver Data from NASA satellites show that future generations here on Earth will suffer from food and water shortages, increased

disease and conflict over diminished resources. Instead of focusing on sending humans to the moon or Mars, Garver said, NASA should create a Climate Corps "in which scientists and engineers spend two years in local communities understanding the unique challenges they face, training local populations and connecting them with the data and science needed to support smart, local decision-making ." "Apollo’s legacy should not be more meaningless new goals and arbitrary deadlines," Garver said. "Let’s not repeat the past. Let’s try to save our future. Besides, humanity’s intrinsic need to explore is driven by our need to survive."

Colonies in space are sustainable and rely on planetary resources Haynes 19, 5/17, Korey "O’Neill colonies: A decades-long dream for settling space," Astronomy, https://astronomy.com/news/2019/05/oneill-colonies-a-decades-long-dream-for-settling-space

Last week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos revealed his spaceship company’s new lunar lander, dubbed Blue Moon, and he spelled out a bold and broad vision for humanity’s future in space. Faced with the limits of resources here on Earth, most fundamentally energy, he pointed to life in space as a solution.“If we move out into the solar system, for all practical purposes, we have unlimited resources,” Bezos said. “We could have a trillion people out in the solar system.” And while colonies on other planets would be plagued by low gravity, long distances to Earth (leading to communication delays), and further limits down the road, those weaknesses are avoided if the colonies remain truly in space.To that end, Bezos instead suggested people consider taking up residence in O’Neill colonies, a futuristic concept for space settlements first dreamed up decades ago. “These are very large structures, miles on end, and they hold a million people or more each.”Gerard O’Neill was a physicist from Princeton University who teamed up with NASA in the 1970s on a series of workshops that explored efficient ways for humans to live off-world. Beyond influencing Bezos, his ideas have also deeply affected how many space experts and enthusiasts think about realistic ways of living in space.“What will space colonies be like?” O’Neill once asked the Space Science Institute he founded. “First of all, there’s no point in going out into space if the future that we see there is a sterile future of living in tin cans. We have to be able to recreate, in space, habitats which are as beautiful, as Earth-like, as the loveliest parts of planet Earth — and we can do that.” Of course, neither O’Neill nor anyone since has actually made such a habitat, but in many ways, the concepts he helped developed half a century ago remain some of the most practical options for large-scale and long-term space habitation.

While NASA has mostly focused on exploring the moon and Mars in recent years, O’Neill colonies offer an option untethered to any planetary body. Instead, people would live in

enormous circular structures in space that would be capable of hosting many thousands of people — or even millions according to Bezos — on a permanent basis. You may have seen these kinds of colonies in science fiction, from Star Trek, to the movie Interstellar. But in real life, researchers have thought up a a few variations: either a sphere, a cylinder, or a ring-shaped torus. All of these are designed to rotate and create a centrifugal force that mimics gravity for the inhabitants.While the sizes and specifications of the colonies vary, there are a few staples. In general, O’Neill colonies were designed to be permanent, self-sustaining structures. That means they would use solar power for electrical energy and for growing crops . The outer walls of an O’Neill colony are generally pictured as a transparent material, so that mirrors can aim sunlight through its walls as needed to provide light and energy – or to allow darkness, a feature humans also need, especially while we sleep.

But building these colonies is a challenge beyond any humans have accomplished so far in space, and Bezos acknowledged that. He referred to two “gates” in his announcement, which he clarified as challenges that humans need to overcome. The first, which his company Blue Origin and other space entrepreneurs have been tackling, is to reduce the cost and difficulty of getting to space at all. But the second involves using resources from space, rather than hauling them from Earth.Bezos isn’t alone in such thinking. Most of NASA’s long-term plans for the Moon and Mars involve rely on harvesting materials and manufacturing products locally, using lunar and martian regolith to build and repair structures. And in the shorter term, three of the dozen experiments NASA selected as the first to fly as part of the new lunar program — possibly even by the end of the year — are what NASA terms “resource prospecting instruments.”That pairs well with O’Neill’s vision. These colonies are meant to use resources gathered from space, whether asteroids, the Moon, or even Mars . Doing so avoids the costly effort of heaving materials and goods out of Earth’s deep gravity well. That means they would be built using materials available cheaply in space. The humans and their attendant plants and animals would need to be carried from Earth. But raw materials like oxygen, nitrogen and aluminum are plentiful in the solar system, and mining for resources in space is a common theme across space settlement discussions. Because of their size, the colonies should be able to act as fully independent ecosystems, with plants to cycle air and water and resource cycles not so dissimilar from Earth.Humans are a long way from being able to launch anything like an O’Neill colony in the near future. But it’s somewhat telling that, after 50 years of space exploration and technological achievement, one of the modern leaders in private spaceflight is still espousing an idea from the first days of space exploration.

Living in space is sustainable and better for human settlementMaryniak 92(Gregg Maryniak, 1-2-1992, [Gregg Maryniak is executive vice president of the Space Studies Institute of Princeton, N.J] "How Space Colonies Could Benefit Earth ," https://www.csmonitor.com/1992/0102/02161.html)

SPACE colonization means much more than Antarctic-style research habitats on the moon or other planets for an elite group of astronauts. Space can be colonized and provide Earth with the equivalent of the New World that Columbus "discovered" in the 15th

century. Space colonies can supply clean energy necessary for human survival in the 21st century. In addition, they can provide new homelands and an expanded ecological niche for our species. For many people, the term "space colony" brings to mind visions of domed

cities on the moon or the surface of a hostile planet. Since September 1974, however, the words have had a very different meaning. That month's issue of Physics Today contained an article by Princeton University professor and nuclear physicist Gerard K. O'Neill

entitled, "The Colonization of Space." Dr. O'Neill proposed construction of large-scale habitats built in free space rather than on the surface of planets. Building the structures in space would allow the inhabitants to select whatever gravity level they desired by controlling the rate of rotation of the habitat. O'Neill showed that even if relatively simple

materials such as steel cables were used in colony construction, habitat cylinders of up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) in length and 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) in diameter could be built to house up to 1 million people under comfortable conditions.

Early habitats would be much smaller, with populations of hundreds or thousands. Each habitat would have provisions for agriculture and closed-cycle life support so that once a colony is established, very little outside material would be required to sustain it.

To obtain construction materials for these settlements from Earth would obviously not be economical. Instead, O'Neill proposed using materials already in space.

The first source of raw materials would be the surface of the moon. Thanks to the Apollo missions and the Soviet sample return probes, we know that the required elements are present in abundance.

Because the moon has no atmosphere and only one-sixth Earth's gravity, it is possible to use an electromagnetic catapult (called a mass driver) to launch raw materials to a point in space without incurring the costs of chemical-rocket transport.

Space colonies were the subject of three studies the National Aeronautics and Space Administration conducted in 1975, 1976, and 1977. These projects examined the issues of closed-cycle life support, radiation shielding, habitat design and construction, economics and logistics, and lunar and asteroid mining. The initial economic reason for the colonization of space would be to use the resources of space to provide for the needs of our home planet. O'Neill proposed that the space colonists use low-cost space resources to construct large solar platforms to collect the sun's energy and convert it into electricity. This electrical power would be transmitted to Earth's surface in the form of a high-frequency radio beam. The beam would be received by a special antenna and rectifier array, which would convert it ba ck into electricity with an efficiency of about 90 percent.

Solar-power satellites would provide electricity without the air pollution and atmospheric heating caused by burning fossil fuels. The use of space resources would enable these satellites to be built at less than 10 percent of the cost of launching construction materials from Earth. Self-sufficiency of colonies

In addition to the workers and their families, space colonies would contain many of the professions found in any small terrestrial

town. Space settlements would also address human needs beyond the physical and economic. By its very nature, each habitat would have a high degree of self-sufficiency and independence.