CU’s Conference on World Affairs: Exploring tough questions posed by space exploration – Boulder Daily Camera

Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

If you go

What: Space Ethics: Asking the Tough Questions

When: 9 to 10:20 a.m. Friday

Where: UMC West Ballroom

More info: colorado.edu/cwa/

As human exploration of space extends mankind's reach beyond even the edges of our solar system, the difficult ethical questions only continue to mount.

Michelle Thaller has heard them all as well as the ones that aren't so difficult.

"Sometimes I am amazed at what some people think are ethical problems, that I think are not ethical problems at all such as, would scientists tell us if an incredibly destructive comet was headed our way?" said Thaller, the deputy director of science for communications at NASA headquarters.

David Grinspoon

"We're all on this planet together. I am a person, too. I'm a human being. The idea that we would be on in some sort of ethical argument, if we knew something like this is coming, I am amazed. Of course we would tell you."

She recalled that much of her time at the end of 2012 was taken up with questions concerning the supposed "Mayan Apocalypse," a series of cataclysmic events that some feared would unfold on or around Dec. 21 of that year.

"People are asking me, 'Is the world ending?' I'm at work; I'm at my desk," Thaller would reply. "If the answer was yes, would I be here? I don't think so. All the scientists would buy up the all the good wine and max out their credit cards."

Thaller will be one of a trio of panelists Friday entertaining the topic, "Space Ethics: Asking the Tough Questions" one entry in a full slate of panels on the closing day at the University of Colorado's Conference on World Affairs.

Scientists are also not sitting on information that alien life is out there, Thaller said, although intriguing questions do persist around the 20 percent fluctuations of light observed at a star identified as KIC 8462852 in the constellation Cygnus also known as Tabby's Star, after Yale researcher Tabetha Boyajian.

Michelle Thaller

"It's very unlikely, but one of the possibilities is it could be artificial," Thaller said, meaning a sign of intelligent extraterrestrial life. "We would love there to be aliens. We would love to find a signal. We are not the people who would be covering this up. We would be running down the streets and cracking open the Champagne."

Setting aside Mayan cataclysms and alien contact, there are plenty of ethical conundrums, such as whether humans should employ genetic editing tools to render the species more sustainable in space or on other planets, or whether geoengineering should be used to change Earth's atmosphere, to counter the effects of global warming.

And, co-panelist David Grinspoon said, the list goes on.

"The topic of environmental ethics that we focus on, on Earth, take on a different dimension when we go to other planets," said Grinspoon, an astrobiologist who is senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and adjunct professor of astrophysical and planetary science at CU.

"Is it a problem to pollute the moon? The Apollo astronauts left equipment on the moon, and tracks. Is that the same as leaving dune buggy tracks, and litter, and junk, on the beach, on Earth? I don't think it is the same, but it's an interesting question."

Another, he said, is, "How much should we worry about contaminating other planets that may potentially have life? Do we have to worry about the rights of Martian organisms? Another interesting one is, do we have to worry about endangering life on Earth by bringing dangerous materials back from space? And what are the rights of babies born in space who obviously had no choice in the matter?"

As the questions mount, there is also a question about who ultimately gets to answer them and, based on whose standards?

"What's the jurisdiction?" Grinspoon said. "How do we extend our laws and principles and possible enforcement elsewhere in the universe? What's the mechanism?"

Completing Friday's panel is Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides, an astrobiologist who, with her husband, was among the first people to buy a ticket for a suborbital spaceflight on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.

Charlie Brennan: 303-473-1327, brennanc@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/chasbrennan

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CU's Conference on World Affairs: Exploring tough questions posed by space exploration - Boulder Daily Camera