Space and Human Survival, Part II

When we think of space exploration, we usually think of its goal as “To seek out new life and new civilizations, to go where no [hu-] man has gone before.” That’s what excites us and inspires awe, in some of us at least, and that’s certainly the fountainhead of our mythology. Personally, I believe that from the evolutionary standpoint the joy of exploration is a built-in factor for preservation of the species, just as is the joy of sexual love. But, as our feelings about sexual love mean much more to us than biology and have been the source of many great achievements of our civilization, our exploratory instinct means more than survival. The discovery of new lands has always led to a renaissance in the arts and in intellectual progress, and the same will be true of expansion into space. This process is an aspect of our creativity. We do not explore because we want to survive, any more than we make love because we want to survive; survival is only a byproduct.

However, at this stage of our evolution we have run into a problem with the process. Columbus explored because of his personal urge to do so, and both the Renaissance and human survival followed. (Explorers of some sort were essential to survival—imagine what would have happened if our species had been forever confined to the single site where it diverged from its hominid ancestors.) It was difficult for explorers to get money for ships, but each had to talk only one backer into it; Columbus, according to legend, convinced Queen Isabella. Settlers could move into new lands with their personal resources alone, as Americans did when they loaded their belongings into wagons and set out on the Oregon Trail. Both explorers and settlers were laughed at by people who didn’t share their views; it didn’t matter. They went anyway. It wasn’t necessary for their culture as a whole to decide that it wasn’t a waste of money.

Not so with space humanization. We can’t rely on the drive toward exploration because, by the population at large, it’s not considered a top priority. It never was, in any society. If the people of Columbus’ time had had to vote to tax themselves in order to fund his ships, he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere; most of them felt he would fall off the edge of the world, and even the educated minority, who knew better, felt there was better use for their money. Even in that era, the most altruistic would no doubt have preferred to give Isabella’s jewels to the poor. There were some myths, travelers’ tales, about riches to be found in new lands; but just as in our time, rational, hardheaded skepticism ruled the majority.

Yet purpose as expressed in mythology is the opposite of rationally-derived purpose. Mythology reflects what we feel, not what we know consciously. Thus Space Age mythology shows us why we’d like to explore space, but not why the majority should be willing to pay for it. It shows our dreams, but not what science reveals as the concrete advantages. People who enjoy the mythology don’t need hardheaded justification (though even they are often unwilling to vote on the basis of their feelings), while those who don’t enjoy it are apt to judge the whole issue of space humanization on the basis of admittedly-impractical mythic metaphors.

It is true enough that we can’t solve the problems of Earth by setting forth in starships like the Enterprise, or by interplanetary travel at all. From an economic standpoint, a trip to Mars is not the best way to begin the process of expansion (though it’s certainly a later goal, and I support doing it first on the grounds of its effect on the public imagination—see “What About Mars” below). The basic ideas of space humanization are (a) to make use of extraterrestrial resources to supplement those of Earth; (b) to move heavy industry off Earth, where it pollutes the atmosphere and where energy is expensive, into orbit, where energy is cheap; and (c) to provide large areas of living space to which people can eventually move (not to “ship extra people into space,” which as critics are quick to point out, would not work, but to make room for new people to be born without increasing Earth’s population). Only in this way can we get the resources we need both for preserving Earth’s biosphere and for eventually building starships.

If you have not heard of this scenario before, it’s likely to strike you as impossible, impractical, or prohibitively expensive, if not all three. It certainly isn’t what mythology has thus far prepared us for. And yet, we had the technological capability to begin this process 30 years ago, and it’s not nearly as costly as the exploration of a planet without prior space industrialization. The key to it is that we wouldn’t try to lift the components of space habitats up from Earth. We would use raw materials from the moon and asteroids, and build solar power satellites in orbit. The power would then be beamed to Earth, where it would be cheap enough to lift the Third World out of poverty (many people in the Third World spend a large share of their time and/or income on firewood, and in so doing, destroy forests). Products of space-based industries would be shipped down to Earth, not lifted up out of its “gravity well”. Some scientists feel that enough food could be raised in orbit to ship food down, as well.

And meanwhile, the space-dwellers producing all these things cheaply for Earth would be getting rich, because they would not be citizens of Earth nations; they would be citizens of their own orbiting colonies, entitled to the full proceeds of their labor. Eventually, they would be rich enough to fund interstellar expeditions. And their living conditions would not be what you’re imagining if you’re picturing Deep Space Nine. Orbiting colonies—probably the most difficult concept to understand if you haven’t seen any of the artists’ renditions—would be little worlds built from extraterrestrial materials, with the living space on the inside of the sphere. They would be complete biospheres with trees and lakes and gardens, much less crowded and less sterile than New York City. Many of their advocates have said that having once lived that way, humans would never want to live on the surface of a planet again, and that if they traveled to a new planet, they’d go to its surface only to explore.

NASA did two studies of this orbiting colony concept. But of course, though it was entirely feasible from the technological standpoint, it was not feasible politically or financially, at least not in this country. Japan and India were more enthusiastic; I’m not sure what the status of their interest now is, but I once heard that Japan is aiming to have a space hotel in orbit by 2010, and I won’t be at all surprised if the first orbiting colony turns out to be Japanese.

Most space experts don’t advocate anything as ambitious as the orbiting colony concept. It’s not likely that space industrialization will proceed that rapidly. But we could do it in stages. We could build the solar power satellites (studies that have “proven” them impractical have been based on the assumption that materials would be lifted from Earth; use of lunar materials would make them cost-effective). And we could certainly start utilizing the too-long-abandoned moon. But the American people seem blind to the need to do so, and while private corporations could ultimately get rich by doing it, it’s a very long-term investment. So I get very discouraged, and fearful that our “window” (see Part I) will close.

Of course, I too am excited by the long-range possibilities of galactic exploration shown in Space Age mythology. Paul Levinson has a lot to say about the infinity of the universe and how, in principle, our species has access to its infinite resources and the infinite extension of intelligence this will make possible. I agree wholeheartedly (except that unlike him, I believe we will meet other intelligent species someday). But none of this can happen unless we survive long enough to make it happen. And we can’t survive that long, in my opinion, unless we take the necessary steps to get from here to there. This is why I believe the most crucial function of our new mythology, and the one with the greatest adaptive value, is expression of the idea that people belong in space.

Tasks:

1. Pick out the most important lexical units from the text and classify the vocabulary.

2. Make up 15 sentences for paraphrasing and translation from Russian into English.

3. Write out 10 statements that prove theImportance of Space Colonization.

4. What are the main issues of the text? Discuss the points in groups.

TEXT 7

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Colonies or Settlements?	\|	UNIVERSE

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