Peter McKnight: Reach for the stars without losing our souls? Then some serious space ethics needed – Vancouver Sun

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Opinion: Our solar system, and even one day its planets, will be getting a little more crowded, and that will present a host of challenges

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Thanks to the stars in Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezoss eyes, Captain Kirk has finally gone boldly where no (over)actor has gone before.

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OK, thats not entirely accurate. William Shatners wild ride this week was, in a sense, predated by his former Star Trek castmate and fellow Canadian James Doohan (Scotty, of beam me up, Scotty fame), whose ashes were flown to space in 2012.

Doohans post mortem journey to the heavens came courtesy of Elon Musks SpaceX and Celestis, a company that specializes in sending your loved ones on a memorial spaceflight which just goes to show that when it comes to space, theres a business for everything.

Indeed, space is no longer the private domain of soldiers and scientists, as private industry, led bySpaceX, Blue Origin and Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic, has made the final frontier accessible to billionaires and guys who play astronauts on TV.

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Thats still a rarefied crowd, but if the cockeyed optimism of the space set is realized, space travel might one day become a reality even for those who cant afford a business class airline ticket. Space, it seems, is about to get a lot more crowded, and that presents a host of challenges.

In fact, as Trans Astronautica Corporation president Joel Sercel stresses , space is already crowded at least the space around the Earth, as there now exist millions of pieces of space debris left by various missions. That garbage, which is orbiting at thousands of kilometres an hour, represents a serious hazard to further missions, including those with space tourists.

Consequently, space agencies have discussed how to clear the air, if you will, and various sophisticated garbage collectors have been proposed. But according to the outdated Outer Space Treaty (1967), that garbage belongs to whoever put it there, so picking it up would be tantamount to theft.

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This reveals the quandary, not only of space tourism, but of space exploration itself: While the technology is advancing at, shall we say, rocket speed, the legal and regulatory framework for space travel, not to mention the nascent field of space ethics, is struggling to keep up.

Nonetheless, a comprehensive space ethics is imperative if we are to reach the stars without losing our souls. Indeed, a number of crucial issues ought to be resolved before we go traipsing around the universe.

In addition to space junk, we must also consider the contamination of entire planets and their ecosystems or environments.

One-upping Bezoss effort to send stars to the stars, Musk envisions a city on Mars but how Mars or Martian life, should there be any, feels about that is another matter entirely. A recent NASA paper notes that if Martian microbial life exists, we will inevitably affect that life in ways we cannot predict.

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In other words, we could become an invasive species wreaking havoc in an alien environment. Or alternatively, the alien environment could wreak havoc on us through radiation, microgravity or infection with unknown pathogens.

Should Musks vision nonetheless come to fruition, there remain further questions: Who will own Mars, or the land on which the colony sits? Now that Elon Musk owns much of the Earth, will he lay claim to Mars as well?

And who will govern the new Martian colony and how will it be governed? (Star Trek, for its part, spoke of the Fundamental Declaration of the Martian Colonies, which helped establish individual rights off world.)

But for all Star Treks cockeyed optimism, Meredith McFadden, writing for DePauw Universitys Prindle Institute, notes that a Martian colony would likely resemble the Wild West , complete with a draconian justice system necessitated by the fact that the survival of the colony would be under constant threat.

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Colonization clearly presents existential threats to both colonized and colonizer. Consequently, historian and anthropologist Nicholas Dirks suggests that we learn lessons from the ugly history of colonization on Earth before we make the same mistakes in other worlds.

To be sure, space tourism presents us with the opportunity to ascend to unimaginable heights or descend to inconceivable depths both literally and figuratively. But whether we rise or fall will depend entirely on whether our ethics keep pace with our ambitions.

Peter McKnights column will appear weekly in the Sun. He can be reached at mcknightvansun@shaw.ca

Letters to the editor shouldbe sent tosunletters@vancouversun.com.The editorial pages editor is Hardip Johal, who can be reached athjohal@postmedia.com.

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Is there more to this story? Wed like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Emailvantips@postmedia.com.

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Peter McKnight: Reach for the stars without losing our souls? Then some serious space ethics needed - Vancouver Sun