Does Space Need Environmentalists? (noemamag.com) 104
Does space need environmentalists, asks the headline from a new article in Noema magazine. "As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson notes, the first trillionaire will be made in space.
"But amid such promising developments are worries among some scientists and environmentalists who fear humans will repeat the errors that resource extraction has wrought on Earth..." If we have mining in space, do we need a preemptive anti-mining campaign to protect our solar system from rampant exploitation before it is too late? Earth-bound environmental advocates and astrobiologists alike have concluded that, indeed, we need an environmental movement in space... [Daniel Capper, an adjunct professor of philosophy at the Metropolitan State University of Denver] is part of a small but growing chorus of intellectuals who argue that we must carve out protections sooner rather than later — backed by a concrete theoretical and legal framework — for certain areas of the solar system. The United Nations has convened a working group on the use of space resources, and the International Astronomical Union has set up a different working group to delineate places of special scientific value on the moon.
Some researchers have proposed creating a planetary park system in space, while others advocate for a circular space economy that minimizes the need for additional resources. The nonprofit For All Moonkind is advocating for the protection of space sites of cultural importance, like the Apollo 11 landing site. And the Astra Carta, backed by Britain's King Charles, advocates for making sustainability a key component of space activities... [Martin Elvis, an astronomer with the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution] proposed setting aside 7/8ths of the solar system as wilderness, in a paper published in 2019 in Acta Astronautica that he coauthored with King's College London philosopher Tony Milligan...
[T]he lack of norms — clear rules and regulations around space — is one of the most pressing threats to the space environment, advocates say. What might happen, for example, if the United States simply began scooping up asteroids for platinum, or if Blue Origin established a mine at the lunar South Pole without securing consensus from others? "We do not have good answers to those questions right now," Hanlon said. "This is something that I'm really concerned about." Much of the legal basis for the space environmentalism movement is currently contained in just one article of the Outer Space Treaty (OST), said Christopher Johnson, the director of legal affairs and space law at the Secure World Foundation. Article 9 of the OST contains the harmful contamination language and says actors must pay "due regard" to the interests of others. It also stipulates that "harmful interference" with the activities of others must be avoided. Those phrases could be interpreted in multiple ways and have yet to be meaningfully tested.
The article cites two concrete proposals moving forward:
"But amid such promising developments are worries among some scientists and environmentalists who fear humans will repeat the errors that resource extraction has wrought on Earth..." If we have mining in space, do we need a preemptive anti-mining campaign to protect our solar system from rampant exploitation before it is too late? Earth-bound environmental advocates and astrobiologists alike have concluded that, indeed, we need an environmental movement in space... [Daniel Capper, an adjunct professor of philosophy at the Metropolitan State University of Denver] is part of a small but growing chorus of intellectuals who argue that we must carve out protections sooner rather than later — backed by a concrete theoretical and legal framework — for certain areas of the solar system. The United Nations has convened a working group on the use of space resources, and the International Astronomical Union has set up a different working group to delineate places of special scientific value on the moon.
Some researchers have proposed creating a planetary park system in space, while others advocate for a circular space economy that minimizes the need for additional resources. The nonprofit For All Moonkind is advocating for the protection of space sites of cultural importance, like the Apollo 11 landing site. And the Astra Carta, backed by Britain's King Charles, advocates for making sustainability a key component of space activities... [Martin Elvis, an astronomer with the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution] proposed setting aside 7/8ths of the solar system as wilderness, in a paper published in 2019 in Acta Astronautica that he coauthored with King's College London philosopher Tony Milligan...
[T]he lack of norms — clear rules and regulations around space — is one of the most pressing threats to the space environment, advocates say. What might happen, for example, if the United States simply began scooping up asteroids for platinum, or if Blue Origin established a mine at the lunar South Pole without securing consensus from others? "We do not have good answers to those questions right now," Hanlon said. "This is something that I'm really concerned about." Much of the legal basis for the space environmentalism movement is currently contained in just one article of the Outer Space Treaty (OST), said Christopher Johnson, the director of legal affairs and space law at the Secure World Foundation. Article 9 of the OST contains the harmful contamination language and says actors must pay "due regard" to the interests of others. It also stipulates that "harmful interference" with the activities of others must be avoided. Those phrases could be interpreted in multiple ways and have yet to be meaningfully tested.
The article cites two concrete proposals moving forward:
- "The Artemis Accords, a set of principles for exploring and using resources in outer space established by the U.S. in 2020, argues that resource extraction does not constitute national appropriation, and is therefore allowed by the OST. It's an initial step toward securing a consensus on space regulations, and one that's to date received the signatures of 47 nations including Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Germany (though China and Russia are notably absent). Signing the Artemis Accords allows nations to participate in the Artemis program, and also play a role in shaping future norms in space, Johnson said, a potentially lucrative incentive... "
- "The UN's COPUOS, the same one responsible for the OST and the Moon Agreement, published a working paper in 2019 that laid out voluntary guidelines for the long-term sustainability of outer space activities. Recommendations from the committee's working group on principles for the use of space resources are due in 2027, and Johnson said draft guidelines are likely to emerge in early 2025."
"One day, our descendants might live among the stars," the article concludes. "But we must ask ourselves, what kind of place will they inherit?"
Elon Musk wants to die on Mars (Score:4, Funny)
And I for one don't see why we should stand in his way. If we all put in like $20 we could buy a Falcon Heavy trip to send him there next week.
Re: Elon Musk wants to die on Mars (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re: Elon Musk wants to die on Mars (Score:2)
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No, you misunderstood. Earth is hopeless. Our saviours need to start with a blanc slate. They will make it all better on mars. Just leave the trash on earth. They selec who joins them. It will be great! But tickets will be pricey.
Musk has already proposed indentured servitude for "low class" tickets. So they won't all be pricey. After all, he and his ilk will need servants and worker bees to keep them living like kings. He's not so simple he missed that little detail.
Re: Elon Musk wants to die on Mars (Score:2)
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Oh, yeah, I hadn't really thought that through had I ...
Obligatory "No" answer to the headline's question (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the principle is much older.[1][2] It is based on the assumption that if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a question, they are not accountable for whether it
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Good FP joke, but should the sig specify which emacs? I'd recommend army emacs. (Of course.)
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There's no need to verbally bash Trump, its redundant.
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There's no need to verbally bash Trump, its redundant.
Sure there is. Trump verbally bashes everybody else with complete impunity and he needs to learn the simple lesson that: "He who dishes it out out needs to be able to take it." ... instead of constantly whining about what a victim he is every time somebody gets tired of his shit and bashes back.
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Fantasy Land (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Fantasy Land (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly the right line of thought: calculate the effort we should expend protecting conditions of this small planet which sustains us and is unique in the universe and fragile, and calculate the effort we should spend protecting the cold dead vastness of space that will kill us in a second. As an environmentalist the whole idea is bizarre. Save the planet actually refers to life on the planet and conditions for it, nothing we can do will harm the stone of the earth. Thereâ(TM)s nothing to protect in space, unless ruins of alien civilization or similar.
Re: Fantasy Land (Score:2)
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Current evidence is based on specks of electromagnetic radiation from systems up to billions of light years away. The nearest galaxy other than the milky way is 33,000 light years away and the estimates of how may galaxies (not stars or planets) is between 100 billion and 200 billion galaxies.
The evidence is very weak and old. We can't even count the galaxies let alone determine if there are ones with life on them.
The milky way has 100–400 billion stars, we can't even count those. So that is between 1
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Save the planet actually refers to life on the planet and conditions for it
More precisely, it refers to our life on the planet and conditions for it. We protect other life because it contributes to our lives and their quality, directly and indirectly, including in ways that we don't know about or don't understand.
At least, that's what the phrase means when sensible people say it.
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We already expend considerable effort to keep space somewhat pristine, at least when it comes to visiting other worlds. We sterilise as best we can, try to avoid crashing stuff we haven't cleaned there.
Even Earth orbit satellites are supposed to have extra fuel to dispose of themselves.
Saving weight and money aren't the be-all and end-all in space. Novelty stuff gets sent up regularly. Curious Marc on YouTube posted a video about the teletype on the Shuttle, a heavy and bulky item that ended up there becaus
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> effort will be expended to non-essential tasks
Isn't that exactly the point? If you'd asked a Victorian if keeping the ocean clean was an "essential task", they'd likely have said "no". We now know better than that, and I suspect most people would say it was pretty essential, although they may differ in their views about how to achieve it.
Taking space as an example, making sure your rocket bodies either burn up or go into a 'safe' orbit isn't really seen as an "essential task", yet we now know that not
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Why not drop your garbage in the sun?
Just a nudge, and will fall down and burn...
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It takes more Delta-V (aka fuel/thrust/etc) to push something towards Sol than it does to push it out towards the Oort cloud. Even if you don't care how long it takes to be disposed of, it still costs more to go inward that it does outward in our solar system.
So it is really about power (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument for terrestrial environmentalism, when you criticize the fact they have never once been right about anything and quickly jump from one shoddy scientific paper to another if it makes their case, is that even if they are wrong, someone has to do something because we only have one home, and if we screw it up, we are toast.
The argument for space mining is that you really donâ(TM)t have that problem. To quote Douglas Adams: Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Now the fact they want environmentalists in space just in case you screw up an imaginary utopia that may or may not evolve there at some point in the future is just giving away the game: environmentalism is about power, the power to regulate what you do, how you make money and what they should impose you to pay them for imaginary damages.
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when you criticize the fact they have never once been right about anything you actually sound like an idiot.
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Environmental science has been mostly right for decades, especially about pollution and climate change.
Where it's possibly needed in space is where it can cause problems, like filling LEO with crap that then pollutes the upper atmosphere when it gets dumped there. We are going to have thousands, maybe tens of thousands of these things de-orbiting every year. Some percentage will be uncontrolled too. Not enough is known about the effects, but what is known isn't promising.
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Can you perhaps cite a peer reviewed paper published in a reputable journal which claimed that the hole in the ozone layer was going to kill everyone with radiation?
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Remember the hole in the ozone layer was going to kill us all with radiation from space. Acid rain was going to eat our houses, burn our skin and salt the land.
We actually took steps to counter these: the Montreal Protocol [wikipedia.org] and the Acid Rain Program [wikipedia.org], It's not "crying wolf" if you go and shoot the wolves before they eat you!
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environmentalism is about power, the power to regulate what you do, how you make money and what they should impose you to pay them for imaginary damages.
Nope, it's about preventing the cancer on Earth from spreading and fucking up any place that might be of little comfort, after the cancer finishes fucking up Earth, long before we could even try to get there.
But like all cancers your only concern is how much you can grow next month. You don't give a rats ass about whether or not such growth is going to kill you and everyone else next year, and damn be anyone who tries to save themselves, or anyone else, from you taking them down with you.
Seriously? (Score:2)
Given the infinite number of astral bodies out there, even in our relative proximity, do you really think we'll have any moral dilemmas regarding their exploitation?
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Many of the celestial bodies in our solar system are unique examples for light-years. We should show some restraint and act conservatively until we get to a point where we can bring human beings to other star systems with equivalent objects.
P.S. I will declare war on any tech bro that attempts to deface the Moon. This is the only warning you will receive.
You know it's only a matter of time before we see a corporate logo on the Moon.
Scope, timing, and shared wealth (Score:1)
Space ain't the backwoods. Nobody goes there and builds an industry solo. Getting to space is a such a monumental achievement that I will never accept any claim that it shouldn't be considered a shared achievement of almost our entire species.
So nobody should be able to profit from exploiting space to the point that all its resources end up under the control of a few of us. That's the scope and shared wealth issue.
As for timing - there's so much out there it'll be a thousand years before even the 'low ha
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Its simple logistics. Earth cannot logistically receive the entire industrial output of an overpopulated solar system. Earth will in fact hardly matter at all.
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Well fuck, that'd be an awesome point if it was at all related to my post.
I was talking about my descendants not living in a Solar System owned by Musk Corp.
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It’s simple logistics. Earth cannot logistically receive the entire industrial output of an overpopulated solar system. Earth will in fact hardly matter at all.
Hardly matter? Please. We haven’t even managed to get back to the only other rock we’ve set foot on as a species. Your logistical issues are for your great-great-grandkids to solve. Assuming they survive World War 3 and 4 first.
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Earth will in fact hardly matter at all.
And yet it's the only place in the solar system where we can grow food at civilization scale.
Earth is going to matter quite a bit when everywhere else requires some form of industrial capacity to create an environment that just exists for almost-free here (water, air, soil capable of growing things, sufficient sunlight for growing things, etc.)
Good luck scaling up hydroponics and grow lights to a planetary scale.
Send Greenpeace to Mars (Score:2)
At least they won't be causing disruption here on Earth.
Betteridge's Law? [Re:Does anybody?] (Score:2)
Re: Betteridge's Law? [Re:Does anybody?] (Score:2)
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No, environmentalists protect life, not rocks (Score:4, Informative)
Does Space Need Environmentalists?
From the dictionary: "Environment - the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates."
So the answer is overwhelmingly no, environmentalists protect life, not rocks. We will encounter almost exclusively, if not in our entirety, lifeless rocks.
Now consider the number of rocks in the asteroid belt or ort cloud. Mining would be insignificant. Having less of an impact than the normal bumping and grinding these lifeless rocks are engaged in.
However if we find life, or the potential to support life, environmentalism would be needed.
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Does Space Need Environmentalists?
From the dictionary: "Environment - the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates." So the answer is overwhelmingly no, environmentalists protect life, not rocks. We will encounter almost exclusively, if not in our entirety, lifeless rocks. Now consider the number of rocks in the asteroid belt or ort cloud. Mining would be insignificant. Having less of an impact than the normal bumping and grinding these lifeless rocks are engaged in. However if we find life, or the potential to support life, environmentalism would be needed.
Logical question: What if we exploit something before we discover life or the potential to support life? And don't tell me we'd be too careful to avoid that. We don't avoid it down here. We come to a new area and bulldoze our way through it, wiping out native populations as we go without a thought. We've done that the entire time we've been a species, and we aren't the only species to have behaved that way. Can we overcome our animal nature enough to escape that tendency as we move outward from our birth pl
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Logical question: What if we exploit something before we discover life or the potential to support life?
I say it's an honest mistake. Now I did not arrive at that opinion due to uncaring, rather due to the unlikelihood of that. I think that the environments we would be mining, asteroid belt or ort cloud, would be in such a hostile environment that life exceeding unlikely. Lunar mining, very unlikely too. Mars mining, maybe check carefully first, although here I think things would be more microscopic and paleontological in nature, if anything. If nothing else, such a historical record would be worth preserving
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Logical question: What if we exploit something before we discover life or the potential to support life?
I say it's an honest mistake. Now I did not arrive at that opinion due to uncaring, rather due to the unlikelihood of that. I think that the environments we would be mining, asteroid belt or ort cloud, would be in such a hostile environment that life exceeding unlikely. Lunar mining, very unlikely too. Mars mining, maybe check carefully first, although here I think things would be more microscopic and paleontological in nature, if anything. If nothing else, such a historical record would be worth preserving for science and surely inform future exploration of the universe.
It's a fair take, considering what we know of life today and how we project "what we know" into "all that could possibly exist." However, humans are exceedingly short-sighted when it comes to discovery, and are forever looking for things to match what is known. We don't know what we don't know, and we seem to be exceedingly reckless with what we don't know. I would hazard a guess, even based on what we do know, that life on Earth was single-cell for a *VERY* long time before it started to develop into multi
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I would hazard a guess, even based on what we do know, that life on Earth was single-cell for a *VERY* long time before it started to develop into multi-cellular and beyond
I'd say we have a lower bound on that, the time taken to change our atmosphere from effectively no-oxygen to today's 20%'ish level.
the chances of us noticing life somewhere out there before we've tainted it are nearly nothing.
Sterilizing probes landing on goldilocks zone or other agreeable environments would be a prudent requirement. But I think with respect to mining the planets and moons that might fit such environments are unlikely to be mining targets, Mining more naturally gravitating to asteroids and such, the low hanging fruit.
what about claim rights to that mining? (Score:2)
what about claim rights to that mining?
First to "dig" on site (Score:3)
what about claim rights to that mining?
First to "dig" on site. Claim ends a certain time period after "digging" ceases. Time period somehow proportional to amount of material removed.
Rage-bait title (Score:2)
Re: Rage-bait title (Score:2)
Cart before Horse - Kessler Syndrone (Score:5, Insightful)
The article doesn't mention the Kessler Syndrome, which is when orbital debris collisions cascade resulting in limited ability to use satellites and/or leave the planet safely.
That's the biggest risk if you ask me.
The articles concerns are irrelevant at this time. Space debris is an active ticking time bomb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Most Active Risks:
* Number of satellites is increasing very quickly mostly due to Starlink.
* Space is being weaponized - I believe an event of aggression will cause Kessler Syndrome in not too many years.
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I believe an event of aggression will cause Kessler Syndrome in not too many years.
I'm sure certain pilots will see this as a challenge, and they will be boasting about making the shortest Kessler run.
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Last I checked (Score:2)
7/8ths of the solar system (Score:2)
You could strip-mine every planet down to the bedrock and still have 3/8ths of the Sun itself you could siphon off and sell off to any passing Class II Civilizations that somehow managed to survive the Great Filter.
Re: Environmentalists: why we can't have nice thin (Score:2)
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We aren't pumping sewage into your living space so have the common courtesy to keep your toxic sewage out of ours.
Maybe we should start? It's not like he cares about doing the same to us.
Ãont know if "environmentalists" is the right (Score:2)
Stop pollution like the SLS (Score:2)
only about the door handle of the SLS capsule could be re-used in the next flight.
The rest is all space junk, as far as it doesn't come back to earth.
That is a lot of waste considering SpaceX can reuse their rockets over and over again.
Very much yes (Score:2)
First trillionare (Score:2)
Re: First trillionare (Score:2)
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TL;DR: Be careful of what you wish for, because you just might get it.
Prevent space mining before it even started? (Score:1)
The problem is billionaires (Score:2)
Bounty (Score:2)
there is likely nothing alive (Score:2)
"Space needs environmentalists (Score:2)
Let's make a moon-sized banner... (Score:2)
...advocating for the moon-landscape's rights to exist and plant it on the moon.
Yes and the Position will Evolve (Score:2)
Yes, for both Deep and Shallow reasons. In terrestrial ecology, we can usually divide people, plans, and principles into two main campus: Deep Ecology and Shallow Ecology.
Shallow Ecology can be summarized as maintaining and preserving an environment for the benefit and experience of humans. Examples:
* We should replant a forest that has been cut down for building timber so that we can harvest it again in the future.
Deep Ecology can be summarized as maintaining and preserving an environment for the intrinsic
Deface the moon (Score:2)
If there were just 10 people on earth (Score:2)
Then it wouldn't matter where those 10 people took a dump, or tossed their peach pits, or made a path through the forest, or started a fire. Even if one of those inhabitants started a fire that turned into a wildfire and burned a large area of land, it would still make no meaningful difference for the earth's ecosystem, especially considering that thousands of wildfires per year are started naturally by lightning.
It's scarcity that makes environmentalism on earth necessary. There are so many people, that we
"Education" is the solution (Score:1)
I think technology is evolving for too quickly.
This could be really good. But "Human Beings" are not evolving at the same speed. As a result, most people simply do not understand how to use this technology and just think about their immediate own well being, without thinking about the consequences.
It does not help to make laws with the hope that these "primitive" people will follow them. They will find a way to short-cut these laws and will continue as they like.
What we crucially, urgently need is to educat