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FACING ARGUMENTS AGAINST SPACE SETTLEMENT

The Evidence is In, and it’s Time to Go

Credit: James Vaughan

Space settlement is moving from the fringes of the spaceflight conversation toward the mainstream, and as this happens some may object to this vision. Most of these objections have been heard before; since space settlement became a serious discussion after the publication of Gerard O’Neill’s work on free-space settlements in the 1970s and 80s, these arguments have surfaced again and again. Countering them begins with understanding why the settlement of the solar system matters.

ARGUMENT ONE: WHY LEAVE EARTH TO SAVE EARTH?

The overarching argument for space settlement is that sometime in the distant future, Earth will become uninhabitable, and if our civilization is to survive, we must move beyond our planet. But there are potential near term threats as well. These include a major asteroid collision, supervolcano eruptions, nuclear war, pandemics, a nearby supernova, and technology run amok (including out-of-control artificial intelligence or malevolent nanotechnology).

Space capabilities can mitigate some of these threats. For example, space technology played an important role in avoiding nuclear war by providing spacebased warning of enemy missile launch preparations during the Cold War. In the future, space settlements may help to avert asteroid impacts, since an extensive space civilization would monitor asteroids and comets as a potential source of materials for free-space settlements and would have the technology to divert objects heading toward Earth. Special purpose space settlements for developing potentially dangerous technologies could improve safety when used as laboratories isolated from the rest of humanity by hundreds or many thousands of miles of vacuum and radiation—both of which are deadly to most dangerous pathogens. If large numbers of people are living in space before these threats manifest themselves, the unaffected space settlements could provide aid to both other settlements and Earth itself.

Space settlements offer a way to move polluting industries off-Earth, allowing our planet to recover from the era of heavy industry
Credit: James Vaughan and Storyblocks

A key aspect of space settlement is the ability to build new land, rather than taking it from someone else. This allows for a thriving, expansive civilization free from resource wars or destruction of Earth’s biosphere. With an established space settlement infrastructure, resource wars are unlikely because the sun provides millions of times the energy used on Earth and the asteroids provide enough material to make new spacebased real estate hundreds of times greater than the surface of our planet.

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