CAN SPACE EXPLORATION REALLY BE ETHICAL?

More than 60 years after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere, human exploration and exploitation of space isn’t just a matter of technological innovation… it continues to raise many ethical issues

- Paul Cockburn

Astrophysicist and lifelong space travel enthusiast Erika Nesvold was participating in what she describes as “a really fun” research program, based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, when she experienced something of a “conceptual breakthrough”. “We got introduced to a lot of people working in the commercial space industry,” she explains. “At the time, space mining was the really big thing everyone was talking about. I met several of the entrepreneurs and had conversations where I would ask them about things like labour rights or environmental protection and got sort of dismissive responses, which I found concerning.”

Nesvold decided to consult some experts in the field by launching a podcast called Making New Worlds – Exploring the Ethics of Human Settlement in Space. This project, she says, “was a lot of fun”, enabling her to explore many of the themes which she has since expanded upon in her first book, Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space. She has also co-edited Reclaiming Space: Progressive and Multicultural Visions of Space Exploration, an anthology of essays exploring similar themes.

ANTARCTICA