Against Terraforming Mars, Strip-Mining the Moon, and Militarizing Outer Space
“It would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars,” said Elon Musk.
Given the dominant space visions, he may get his wish. That’s because Musk and his fanboy legions are not space visionaries. They are merely advocating that we extend into space the same stuff we are doing on Earth, the same stuff causing so many problems for life on this planet. Terraforming Mars, strip-mining the moon, and militarizing space will not improve life on Earth.
With plans like terraforming Mars and strip-mining the moon, we are sending into space the very things that cause tribal warfare on planet Earth. Resource exploitation, nationalist rivalry, needless competition, and economic greed at the expense of enlightened goals for humanity in space. Unless these visions change, we will see space warfare on Mars and the moon. Hell, the Pentagon is already spending more on space weapons that what NASA gets for its entire budget. President Trump just announced a new branch of the US military, the “Space Force” to be run by the Pentagon.
Mars Anthropocene
Musk and his fanboys want to terraform Mars into another Earth for human colonization and industrial exploitation. Musk’s vision of terraforming and industrializing Mars is regressive, as are American and Chinese plans to strip-mine the moon for helium-1 (to burn as an energy source on back Earth) and other minerals. These are 19th and 20th century industrial-consumer visions repackaged as 21st century progress. Are these people not aware of what we’ve done to our own planet? Apparently, we want to create an Anthropocene — human epoch of planetary transformation — on Mars and reduce the moon to an industrial wasteland. As on Earth, as on Mars.
Peter Diamandis, founder of the International Space University, says there are “twenty-trillion-dollar checks” waiting to be cashed in space. Maybe so. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is developing rockets for a future with “millions of people living and working in space.” What will these millions be doing? Trashing the moon for starters.
Less well-known than Musk and Bezos are the wannabe “space cowboys” leading Shackleton Energy Corporation in Texas, who plan to strip-mine the moon for human consumption? Shackleton founder Dr. Bill Stone says: “Water on the moon is literally the feedstock for the next major Gold Rush in space.” Translation from a native Texan (me): “Saddle up pardners, let’s ride herd on the moon. It will be a human stampede just like the Wild West. To protect your space canteen and helium-1 stockpile, you’ll need to be fast on the draw, so bring your six shooters and laser drones. Yee haw!”
Terraforming, strip-mining, and endless consumption, with wholesale planetary and lunar destruction certain to follow. Hydrogen atoms evolved for 13 billion years to produce humanity and this is the best we can do when we leave the planet? And we’re told this is “progress.” It’s absurd. Seriously.
Terraforming and Strip-Mining Will Not Improve Human Life
These industrialized space visions do not represent enlightenment or human progress. Here’s why. On a September 2015 episode of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, Elon Musk proposed detonating thermonuclear devices on the poles of Mars to accelerate the warming of the Martian atmosphere, thus enhancing the prospects of terraforming Mars to eventually colonize it. Hence, it’s altogether possible we might extend our capabilities for nuclear and planetary destruction to the Martian landscapes and atmosphere, especially if millions of Earthlings migrate into space. Imagine all the tourists visiting “Disney Mars,” and bloated space consumers in McDonald’s and Starbucks on Mars. Can’t you just see the Golden Arches glowing atop a Martian mesa? How about electronic billboards lining the rim of a crater, creating a Mars Times Square?
Perhaps Musk and various space profiteers have mistakenly used Interstellar as an inspiration for leaving Earth and terraforming Mars. Recall that in Interstellar, Professor Brand apocalyptically states: “We’re not meant to save the world. We’re meant to leave it.” Brand’s statement should be seen as a warning, not a prophecy. If it comes true, then we’ll have failed as a species in taking care of our home planet. If we are so stupid as to end up facing an extinction event because we have destroyed the ecosystems on Earth, then what gives us the cosmic right to terraform and trash Mars?
Perhaps we should merely strip-mine the moon and Mars for resources to consume on Earth? Whether we send humans or robots to do the work, it will inevitably generate industrial waste. Will millions of space farers pollute the moon and Mars the way we have polluted Earth and the space around our planet with orbital debris? Additionally, if we mine the moon or Mars for minerals to be used here for energy or consumer products, parts of Mars and the moon will merely end up in the atmosphere as well as in our landfills. Just think: The marvel of space travel is literally being used to strip-mine the moon for resources that are destined for Earth’s landfills— from Neil Armstrong’s “One Giant Leap” to Shackleton’s “One Giant Landfill.”
Today’s space “visionaries” should realize that strip-mining the moon or terraforming Mars is not going to change one damn thing for the better on planet Earth. I seriously doubt any new energy sources would reduce Earth’s pollution. Sure, some people might make some big money. But big deal if their missions are meaningless and have no positive impact on the cosmos or on our future as a species! Absent a sane space narrative, colonizing and terraforming Mars wouldn’t change anything either — it would merely extend to Mars the human carnival of war, greed, theism, tribalism, unbridled consumerism, ecological destruction, religious warfare, and delusions of cosmic centrality. We’ll just have millions of people in space doing what billions on Earth are doing.
Space war is coming
Scientific American (perhaps the world’s leading science magazine) is already anticipating the emergence of war in space. Should we blindly extend our tribalist, nationalist, economic, and religious warfare into space along with all the ingenious technologies we have developed to kill each other? In the coming century, rival nations on Earth will be interested in starting their own Martian colonies. Maybe all the tribes will live together peacefully. If so, it would be the first time in human history. What happens when the inevitable tribal disputes occur? Whose laws will apply to whom? What happens if rival colonies get into protracted disputes and declare war? Will the governments be democratic, socialist, libertarian, green, or theocratic? Should we naively export our nationalist rivalries to another planet, or should we cooperate as a single species?
What happens if the tribes, nations, and religions get into conflicts, which has happened nonstop on Earth for at least 2,000 years? Some space analysts think “a new Martian religion” would provide the colonizers with a “sense of purpose and quell any existential dread they might feel due to the fact that they live on a planet that is entirely hostile to their very existence.” Of course, history has shown that theologies do indeed provide most people with purpose and meaning; that’s why we invented them. However, these religions (and their meanings and commands) are usually at the heart of the endless human warfare on Earth. In fact, it is more likely humans will extend their old religions to Mars and elsewhere in hopes of colonization and conversion. After all, a crucifix plays a key symbolic role in The Martian.
Hollywood has already envisioned such scenarios, not merely in space films set in the distant future (Star Trek and Avatar) or distant past (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) but in the 21st century. In the popular and critically acclaimed film Gravity, the apocalyptic destruction of the Explorer space shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope is caused by a chain reaction in orbital space debris that’s triggered when Russia destroys one of its own defunct satellites. The plot and special effects depict a terrifying view of space exploration. Given that Russia instigated the events in the film, the Cold War is apparently alive and well in the space narratives of the 21st century. In the actual future, space explorers and space tourists face the danger of increasing amounts of space debris, including that from a Chinese satellite destroyed by China. If humans continue on this trajectory, then the following space farers will soon be born (if they have not been already):
• The first person to perish in an industrial accident on the moon
• The first soldiers to kill another nation’s soldiers in space, be it on Mars, on the moon, or at a space station
• The first soldiers, astronauts, or civilians to die in a space war
• The first space terrorists to kill astronauts or civilians in space
• The first fighters to wage a holy war (and torture other humans) in space
• The first interplanetary televangelists and fundamentalists to claim that the colonization of Mars is part their non-existent Creator’s plan
If we extend our war mongering into space, we can expect various space weapons on Mars or on the moon, such as lasers, drones, and missiles. Imagine bomb-caused craters replacing the billion-year-old craters on the moon. Imagine military fortresses built in the moon craters or on the rims of Mars’s beautiful canyons. That the rebooted Star Trek and Star Wars films have been helmed by the same director (J. J. Abrams) shows that the two franchises are promoting the exact same philosophy — one that celebrates war and violence in space. Hasn’t this always been the ultimate existential meaning of the Star Wars film narrative — endless wars fought amid the infinite stars? Terrorism and religious fanaticism may seem unlikely in space, but it has already been foreshadowed in the film Contact (1997). Can’t humans be a better species?
Our journey into space gives us the chance to set aside all the narcissistic narratives that claim we have a privileged position in the cosmos, usually at the center of all value, meaning, and purpose. It’s our great opportunity to think and act as an enlightened species from a tiny planet, not as competitive and warring simians who leave destruction their wake. That’s why we need to radically modify our visions of what we do in space — as members of the human species. To do that, we need a new space philosophy based on our actual existence in the universe.
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Barry Vacker is author of the new book, Specter of the Monolith (2017), which offers a new and entirely original space philosophy for the human species, including a space ecology alternative to terraforming and strip-mining. The book also explores the meaning of Apollo and films like 2001 and Interstellar. The book is available in Apple’s iBooks, Barnes & Noble (here), and Amazon (here).
