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The ethics of terraforming has constituted a philosophical debate within biology, ecology, and environmental ethics as to whether terraforming other worlds is an ethical endeavor.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2021) |
The ethics of terraforming has constituted a philosophical debate within biology, ecology, and environmental ethics as to whether terraforming other worlds is an ethical endeavor.
On the pro-terraforming side of the argument, there are those like Robert Zubrin and Richard L. S. Taylor who believe that it is humanity's moral obligation to make other worlds suitable for Terran life, as a continuation of the history of life transforming the environments around it on Earth. They also point out that Earth will eventually be destroyed as nature takes its course, so that humanity faces a very long-term choice between terraforming other worlds or allowing all Earth life to become extinct. Dr. Zubrin further argues that even if native microbes have arisen on Mars, for example, the fact that they have not progressed beyond the microbe stage by this point, halfway through the lifetime of the Sun, is a strong indicator that they never will; and that if microbial life exists on Mars, it is likely related to Earth life through a common origin on one of the two planets, which spread to the other as an example of panspermia. Since Mars life would then not be fundamentally unrelated to Earth life, it would not be unique, and competition with such life would not be fundamentally different from competing against microbes on Earth. [1] Zubrin summed up this view:
Some people consider the idea of terraforming Mars heretical—humanity playing God. Yet others would see in such an accomplishment the most profound vindication of the divine nature of the human spirit, exercised in its highest form to bring a dead world to life. My own sympathies are with the latter group. Indeed, I would go farther. I would say that failure to terraform Mars constitutes failure to live up to our human nature and a betrayal of our responsibility as members of the community of life itself. Today, the living biosphere has the potential to expand its reach to encompass a whole new world. Humans, with their intelligence and technology, are the unique means that the biosphere has evolved to allow it to make that land grab, the first among many. Countless beings have lived and died to transform the Earth into a place that could create and allow human existence. Now it's our turn to do our part. [2]
Richard Taylor more succinctly exemplified this point of view with the slogan, "move over microbe". [3]
Some human critics label this argument as an example of anthropocentrism. These critics may view the homocentric view as not only geocentric but short-sighted, and tending to favour human interests to the detriment of ecological systems. They argue that an anthropocentrically driven approach could lead to the extinction of indigenous extraterrestrial life, or interplanetary contamination.[ citation needed ]
Martyn J. Fogg rebutted these ideas by delineating four potential rationales on which to evaluate the ethics of terraforming—anthropocentrism, zoocentrism, ecocentrism, and preservationism—roughly forming a spectrum from placing the most value on human utility to placing the most value on preserving nature. While concluding that arguments for protecting alien biota can be made from any of these standpoints, he also concludes with an argument, similar to Zubrin's, that strict preservationism is "untenable", since "it assumes that human consciousness, creativity, culture and technology stand outside nature, rather than having been a product of natural selection. If Homo sapiens is the first space faring species to have evolved on Earth, space settlement would not involve acting 'outside nature', but legitimately 'within our nature'." [4]
Strong ecocentrists like Richard Sylvan feel there is an intrinsic value to life, and seek to preserve the existence of native lifeforms. This idea is usually referred to as biocentrism. In response to these objections, weak anthropocentrism incorporates biocentric ethics, allowing for various degrees of terraforming.
Christopher McKay strikes a position between these two, what may be termed weak ecocentrism, proposing that an entire biosphere of alien life, even if only microbial life, has far more value than individual microbes, and should not be subject to interference by Earth life. However, he also proposed that it would be valuable and desirable to terraform a planet to nurture the alien life, to allow it to thrive as well as to exhibit a broader range of behavior for scientific study, and that such activity is ultimately justified by the utilitarian value to humans of being able to study and appreciate the still somewhat undisturbed alien life. McKay put his views in these words:
If we discover living or dormant organisms on Mars and these forms represent a different type of life than the life we have on Earth, then we should not bring life from Earth to Mars. Instead, we should alter the Martian environment so that this native Martian life can expand to fill a planetary scale biosphere. [...] [I]t is essential to maintain the categorical distinction between killing individual microorganisms and extinguishing an entire alternative system of life. There is no logical argument against killing microorganisms per se, either for research, medical, sanitary, or even casual reasons. However [...] it does not logically follow that destroying or displacing the first example of life beyond Earth is acceptable if the only examples of that life are microscopic. [...] If we terraformed Mars to allow the expansion of that life we would then reap the maximum benefits from the scientific study of that life form and its development into a full scale global biosphere. We would also enjoy the educational and [aesthetic] benefits of life in a biologically richer solar system. [5]
Even this "help" would be seen as a type of terraforming to the strictest of ecocentrists, who would say that all life has the right, in its home biosphere, to evolve at its own pace as well as its own direction, free of any outside interference. The impact of the human species on otherwise untouched worlds and the possible interference with or elimination of alien life forms are good reasons to leave these other worlds in their natural states; this is an example of a strong biocentric view, or object-centered ethic. [6] Critics claim this is a form of anti-humanism and they assert that rocks and bacteria can not have rights, nor should the discovery of alien life prevent terraforming from occurring.
Pragmatists argue that humanity on other planets is sociologically impractical. The basis is that being on another planet would not change human nature, so it would not be long until pollution and destruction by humankind began, and on a planet that has probably only known peace since its formation. Since life on Earth will ultimately be destroyed by planetary impacts or the red giant phase of the Sun, all native species will perish if not allowed to move to other objects.
Some advocates of animal welfare have pointed out the ethical issues associated with spreading Earth-based wild-animal life by terraforming. In particular, they claim it may be ethically objectionable to bring into existence large numbers of animals that suffer greatly during their often-short lives in the wild. [7] There are also concerns that even with full terraformation, distinct differences between Earth and Mars, such as gravity, lengths of the day and night cycles, and differing/lacking magnetic fields, would cause harm to many introduced species that have evolved for millions of years under Earth conditions. Though some species may survive, and others possibly could be adapted through genetic modification, if the introduced species were isolated on Mars and not frequently interbred with Earth counterparts, the species would eventually evolve through many generations in order to better suit their new environment, possibly leading to different evolutionary lines. Thus, the introduced life may eventually look and act very different from their Earthly counterparts and/or ancestors.
Another aspect of terraforming ethics deals with an opposing extreme in this debate. Terraforming could be seen as a potential waste of precious materials, in light of alternative uses.[ citation needed ] Critics[ who? ] believe that it would constrict the growth potential of humanity by encapsulating the material inside of an astronomical object. Once the surface is terraformed and people have taken residence there, all the interior material is needed to sustain the maximum gravity potential for those inhabitants. If all of the material were utilized to produce space habitation systems, a much greater number of lives would then be supported.[ citation needed ]
The contrasts between these arguments are fully explored in the field of environmental ethics. Debates often focus on how much time and effort should be expended on investigating the possibility of any microscopic life on a planet before deciding whether to terraform, and what level of sophistication or chances for future development alien life would deserve varying levels of commitment to non-interference.[ clarification needed ] Such debates have been engaged in live, between Zubrin and McKay and others, at various conferences of the Mars Society, which has made written and video records of the debates available. For example, a written account of some of these debates is available in On to Mars: Colonizing a New World , as a joint article, "Do Indigenous Martian Bacteria have Precedence over Human Exploration?" (pp. 177–182)
A fairly thorough non-fictional analysis of the ethics of terraforming is also presented under the guise of the fictional Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, particularly between the characters Ann Clayborne and Sax Russell, with Clayborne epitomizing an ecocentric ethic of non-interference and Russell embodying the anthropocentric belief in the virtue of terraforming. The idea of interplanetary colonization and its ethical implications are also explored by C.S. Lewis in the first book of his Space Trilogy Out of the Silent Planet published in 1938.
The plot of the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is based around the use of the so-called "Genesis Device" to create the conditions and organic building-blocks for life on previously lifeless planets. In debating the ethics of the device, Dr. McCoy, Spock and Admiral Kirk reflect on the Device's ability to replace any existing lifeforms with "its new matrix". McCoy describes the ethics of the Device in the following terms: "According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now watch out - here comes Genesis! We'll do it for you in six minutes!" The technology is shown to be flawed in the 1984 sequel, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
Star Trek: The Next Generation dealt with terraforming. In the episode "Home Soil", terraformers are causing harm to the native lifeforms on Velara III, with disastrous consequences.
In the novel Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, there was a political dispute in the human colony of a fictional planet called Resurgam between a faction who were in support of terraforming the planet and another faction of archeologists who were against terraforming due to the discovery of the remains of an extinct alien civilisation on the planet and due to the fear that any attempt to terraform the planet would destroy the valuable artifacts that still might be buried underground.
The ethics of terraforming, as well as deep space colonization, are recurring themes in Firefly , in which they are compared to the issues of expansionism and imperialism in the American Old West.
The biosphere, also known as the ecosphere, is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on Earth. The biosphere is virtually a closed system with regard to matter, with minimal inputs and outputs. Regarding energy, it is an open system, with photosynthesis capturing solar energy at a rate of around 130 terawatts per year. By the most general biophysiological definition, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning with a process of biopoiesis or biogenesis, at least some 3.5 billion years ago.
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside of Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might range from simple forms like prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humankind. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology.
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as the Moon was evidently lifeless. At the time, the predominant genre depicting Mars was utopian fiction. Contemporaneously, the mistaken belief that there are canals on Mars emerged and made its way into fiction, popularized by Percival Lowell's speculations of an ancient civilization having constructed them. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells' story of an alien invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, was published in 1897 and went on to have a large influence on the science fiction genre.
Robert Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human exploration of Mars. He and his colleague at Martin Marietta, David Baker, were the driving force behind Mars Direct, a proposal in a 1990 research paper intended to produce significant reductions in the cost and complexity of such a mission. The key idea was to use the Martian atmosphere to produce oxygen, water, and rocket propellant for the surface stay and return journey. A modified version of the plan was subsequently adopted by NASA as their "design reference mission". He questions the delay and cost-to-benefit ratio of first establishing a base or outpost on an asteroid or another Apollo program-like return to the Moon, as neither would be able to provide all of its own oxygen, water, or energy; these resources are producible on Mars, and he expects people would be there thereafter.
Space colonization is the use of outer space or celestial bodies other than Earth for permanent habitation or as extraterrestrial territory.
Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on.
In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resources." The main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism, physiocentrism, and theocentrism. Environmental ethics exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.
The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must is a nonfiction science book by Robert Zubrin, first published in 1996, and revised and updated in 2011.
Planetary engineering is the development and application of technology for the purpose of influencing the environment of a planet. Planetary engineering encompasses a variety of methods such as terraforming, seeding, and geoengineering.
The zoo hypothesis speculates on the assumed behavior and existence of technologically advanced extraterrestrial life and the reasons they refrain from contacting Earth. It is one of many theoretical explanations for the Fermi paradox. The hypothesis states that alien life intentionally avoids communication with Earth to allow for natural evolution and sociocultural development, and avoiding interplanetary contamination, similarly to people observing animals at a zoo. The hypothesis seeks to explain the apparent absence of extraterrestrial life despite its generally accepted plausibility and hence the reasonable expectation of its existence. A variant on the zoo hypothesis suggested by the former MIT Haystack Observatory scientist John Allen Ball is the "laboratory" hypothesis, where humanity is being subjected to experiments, with Earth being a giant laboratory.
Planetary protection is a guiding principle in the design of an interplanetary mission, aiming to prevent biological contamination of both the target celestial body and the Earth in the case of sample-return missions. Planetary protection reflects both the unknown nature of the space environment and the desire of the scientific community to preserve the pristine nature of celestial bodies until they can be studied in detail.
Colonization or settlement of Mars is the theoretical human migration and long-term human establishment of Mars. The prospect has garnered interest from public space agencies and private corporations and has been extensively explored in science fiction writing, film, and art.
Ecocentrism is a term used by environmental philosophers and ecologists to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centered, system of values. The justification for ecocentrism usually consists in an ontological belief and subsequent ethical claim. The ontological belief denies that there are any existential divisions between human and non-human nature sufficient to claim that humans are either (a) the sole bearers of intrinsic value or (b) possess greater intrinsic value than non-human nature. Thus the subsequent ethical claim is for an equality of intrinsic value across human and non-human nature, or biospherical egalitarianism.
Terraforming is well represented in contemporary literature, usually in the form of science fiction, as well as in popular culture. While many stories involving interstellar travel feature planets already suited to habitation by humans and supporting their own indigenous life, some authors prefer to address the unlikeliness of such a concept by instead detailing the means by which humans have converted inhospitable worlds to ones capable of supporting life through artificial means.
Europa, the fourth-largest moon of Jupiter, is a subject in both science fiction and scientific speculation for future human colonization. Europa's geophysical features, including a possible subglacial water ocean, make it a possibility that human life could be sustained on or beneath the surface.
The terraforming of Mars or the terraformation of Mars is a hypothetical procedure that would consist of a planetary engineering project or concurrent projects, with the goal to transform Mars from a planet hostile to terrestrial life to one that can sustainably host humans and other lifeforms free of protection or mediation. The process would involve the modification of the planet's extant climate, atmosphere, and surface through a variety of resource-intensive initiatives, and the installation of a novel ecological system or systems.
Dr Christopher P. McKay is an American planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, studying planetary atmospheres, astrobiology, and terraforming. McKay majored in physics at Florida Atlantic University, where he also studied mechanical engineering, graduating in 1975, and received his PhD in astrogeophysics from the University of Colorado in 1982.
Mars to Stay missions propose astronauts sent to Mars for the first time should intend to stay. Unused emergency return vehicles would be recycled into settlement construction as soon as the habitability of Mars becomes evident to the initial pioneers. Mars to Stay missions are advocated both to reduce cost and to ensure permanent settlement of Mars. Among many notable Mars to Stay advocates, former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been particularly outspoken, suggesting in numerous forums "Forget the Moon, Let’s Head to Mars!" and, in June 2013, Aldrin promoted a crewed mission "to homestead Mars and become a two-planet species". In August 2015, Aldrin, in association with the Florida Institute of Technology, presented a "master plan", for NASA consideration, for astronauts, with a "tour of duty of ten years", to colonize Mars before the year 2040. The Mars Underground, Mars Homestead Project / Mars Foundation, Mars One, and Mars Artists Community advocacy groups and business organizations have also adopted Mars to Stay policy initiatives.
An Earth analog, also called an Earth analogue, Earth twin, or second Earth, is a planet or moon with environmental conditions similar to those found on Earth. The term Earth-like planet is also used, but this term may refer to any terrestrial planet.
Interplanetary contamination refers to biological contamination of a planetary body by a space probe or spacecraft, either deliberate or unintentional.
