Exploit the Universe or Die!

[dianahsieh]

By Paul from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog

Some Australian academicians have expressed concern that if humanity starts exploring outer space, we may take the wrong attitude towards the celestial environment:

Dr Toni Johnson-Woods says she and her colleagues found there is a prevailing belief that other planets and their natural resources are there simply to be exploited.

"The focus is on exploitation of the minerals. Basically, it's just Australia all over again," she said.

..."There's also an idea that there's nothing already on Mars, which I presume there isn't, in the same way that Australia had that terra nullius, like there's nothing in Australia, so, 'we're just going to go there, take what we need and leave'," she said.

Instead, the group urges that we practice "sustainability":

The other thing is that space is not an infinite resource. If we go to the Moon and litter the Moon and wreck it, there's not another one just down the road.

Even though space may not be infinite, it's pretty darned large. But the article does show the silliness of the view that there is a natural environment that has some sort of intrinsic value which must be preserved at the expense of human interests, even when there are no other valuers besides human beings.

As blogger JF Beck points out, the real (but unstated) message of the panel is "Humans are evil".

As an aside, when private commercial exploitation of the moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt becomes commercialy viable, it will raise some interesting questions about how best to implement property rights and rule of law in an area where currently no government claims any jurisdiction. I've always had a fondness for the fiercely independent asteroid miner "Belter" culture as portrayed in Larry Niven's science fiction novels, so I wouldn't mind seeing something like that come to pass.

And the Objective Standard will also have to update its t-shirts to read, "Exploit the Universe or Die".

(Via Rand Simberg.)

P.S.: Jim May points me to this story from the British press that expresses similar sentiments.

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/archives/002960.html

[Tenure]

Imagine if the Empire had adopted a policy of 'sustainability', in Asimov's 'Foundation'. It would've fallen faster and harder than it did, and would've left the outer worlds not just in a chaotic mess, but financially crippled (that is, if they actually had the human resources by the end to actually enforce such law).

This does bring up another big issue about 'space littering' however, one that is an immediate issue - that of space junk in orbit around our Earth. This stuff is very dangerous for craft going into orbit, or craft in orbit. The speed of this stuff going round the Earth can rip straight through a space ship, station, or suit (and the person/people inside).

As of yet, I have not yet heard a practical policy to deal with this issue, and until someone does, I feel space exploration will be greatly hampered.

[John McVey]

This does bring up another big issue about 'space littering' however, one that is an immediate issue - that of space junk in orbit around our Earth. This stuff is very dangerous for craft going into orbit, or craft in orbit. The speed of this stuff going round the Earth can rip straight through a space ship, station, or suit (and the person/people inside). As of yet, I have not yet heard a practical policy to deal with this issue, and until someone does, I feel space exploration will be greatly hampered.

That's been debated for decades, though I don't know what policy came of it. I do know that there have long been fears of a run-away reaction of debris hitting satellites, creating more debris, which goes on to wreck ever more satellites until there's nothing getting up there that's going to last terribly long before being shot through with umpteen holes. I can remember from 25-30 years ago reading kids' picture booklets about space (the 70's comic-book style ones with the hollowed-out asteroid idea and so on). They expressed those exact same fears you have. One once said we might end up with an enormous planetary ring network... made of satellite and space-ship debris.

IMSM, NASA tracks all debris bigger than the size of a small bolt, and I think the number of pieces is of the order of 10,000. That number can probably be easily checked, but even at ten times as much it is not an awful lot compared to the sheer volume of space even just in Earth orbit.

JJM

[Steve D'Ippolito]

IMSM, NASA tracks all debris bigger than the size of a small bolt, and I think the number of pieces is of the order of 10,000. That number can probably be easily checked, but even at ten times as much it is not an awful lot compared to the sheer volume of space even just in Earth orbit.

Even things smaller than this can cause a lot of damage, and furthermore if it was something that didn't reflect radar very well, it could be a couple times this size.

I do know that now when they launch satellites they try to minimize the problem and also try to figure out how they want to decomission satellites at the end of their lifetimes without adding the to the problem