I agree with Rebecca Boyle. She argues in the New York Times that we ought to stop and think about what we’re doing before we just casually turn the moon into another piece of turf humans fight over for resources. Most people don’t realize what is about to happen.
Before this decade is out, if you have a powerful enough telescope, you may be able to see evidence of human construction or even habitation on the moon. In May of 2023, the accounting firm PwC estimated the global space industry was worth $469 billion and will top $1 trillion by 2030…“We are now at an inflection point, where ideas previously confined to the pages of science fiction represent attractive investment ventures,” PwC’s report read.
But of course we’re not capable of slowing this down, nor of thoughtfulness. We are far too busy trying to kill each other in Ukraine, in Israel, and Gaza and Sudan and Myanmar. Our world is full of flashpoints and arguments, and we are nowhere near the ecumenical one-world government represented by Gene Roddenberry’s United Federation of Planets.
Part of NASA’s present moon mission is to set it up as a slingshot for a Mars mission but I honestly don’t think humans are a fit species for interplanetary colonization. The Israelis crashed some tardigrades into the moon in 2019. What are those, you ask? They’re pretty cool, actually.
Tardigrades, as they are formally known today, are also sometimes called “moss piglets,” after their chubby, ho-hum appearance and lackadaisical demeanor. But their adorable nicknames and amusing features shouldn’t be mistaken for weakness—tardigrades are one of Earth’s most resilient creatures, possessing a near-immortality and a wherewithal to survive extreme conditions that has intrigued scientists for centuries.
Setting aside the willy-nilly way we’re introducing life to the lunar surface, I’d prefer tardigrades as space colonizers to violent apes like ourselves. I can’t think of one thing Mars has done to deserve us and the kind of murder we bring in our wake.
It’s like psychologists say, we have a lot of work to do on ourselves before we go around telling other planets what to do. I don’t want more of the same earthly resource extraction wars, but this time on the Moon or the asteroid belt.
I’m in favor of space research, but not space colonization. Maybe if can we figure out how to live together peacefully without destroying our own habitat, I’ll reconsider. But that’s not going to happen in any of our lifetimes.
I’ve always felt that humans have a moral obligation to down with the ship, as it were, but we are not a moral life form in aggregate, as you have written, Martin. Since this is already the obvious direction things were always heading, the only question to ponder is whether humanity will trash other habitats worse than what we’ve done to our own home, or will we show greater respect based on the error of the past?
I could see it going either way, but am a cynic, so probably worse.
There’s close to zero chance that humans do anything to the moon besides leave a few pieces of debris on it.
Societal collapse means we’re not going to have a functional electrical grid and clean water for a large portion of humanity. Never mind human habitation a quarter of a million miles away from anything remotely habitable by humans.