A Progressive Case for Space
Billionaires like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos are now launching themselves and other tourists into space atop rockets they built with their own hobby money. From the perspective of folks toiling to make ends meet, the double fist pumps in zero gravity and desert press conferences in flight suits are a departure from hard-scrabble reality.
The Martian (2015) 20th Century Fox
While humankind faces a global pandemic, the existential threat of a warming planet, poverty, hunger, war, and the backsliding of democracy, these billionaires are throwing their money at the vainest of vanity projects. With socioeconomic, racial, and environmental justice feeling as distant as ever, many wonder would all this money have not been better spent on fixing what ails humanity?
When it comes to space endeavors, there’s much more to offend progressive sensibilities than billionaire rocket adventures. For starters, NASA’s highest profile contractors have, for decades, also been the world’s leading weapons manufacturers. You have these companies proposing dreamy visions of moon bases and Mars landings while hawking precision-strike missiles to warmongers. Peace activists would be right to doubt NASA’s mission “for all mankind” when they enlist a company that’s also manufacturing internationally-banned cluster munitions.
At a time when humankind is racing to reduce carbon emissions in the face of the climate crisis, a single rocket launch will produce 25 to 50 times more greenhouse gasses than a commercial long-haul flight. What’s worse, much of that pollution is black carbon released directly into the stratosphere where it remains trapped for years. In 2022, humans successfully launched 180 rockets into space. SpaceX alone is targeting a cadence of launches every 2-3 days in 2023. This launch volume adds up to a lot of black carbon. Reaching out to new worlds should not cost us our home world.
My progressive allies then ask, “How about we fix this planet first before destroying other ones?” More commonly they ask, “Why should we spend money on space when there are children starving here at home?” These are actually not our options; they just seem to be because we haven’t bothered to have a nuanced conversation about what space exploration offers. The scarcity of resources and money is false, for example. Should we spend more on feeding the poor? Absolutely. At the expense of NASA? Why, when the defense budget is a bloated $800 billion?
I’ve stood out among my leftist friends as a rare supporter of space science, exploration, and colonization. To me, they are philosophically inseparable. As a leftist, I fight for a strong social safety net and human rights because I want to lift people up. And why would I want to lift people up? Because I believe in them. Every time I see a mother nursing her baby or two young lovers holding hands, I am faced with the deep love of humanity.
Some humans have some very bad traits; but this does not mean humanity is bad. Some of those with bad traits also have the wealth and power to influence our world, but most of humanity is kind or innocuous. Humanity isn’t a threat to space that we must get under control. It’s our bad traits - our greed, our jealousy - that we have to work on.
Humans should push farther into outer space and we should behave our very best when we do. In a solar system populated with flying rocks like the one that killed the dinosaurs, the more planets we inhabit, the more likely we will survive. And the more likely our trove of poetry and theater and great works of art – our unique reflections on the universe and existence - will survive.
How can we do so while being our best selves? How can we honor and respect our world, new worlds or even ourselves as we venture into space? We must go to space but, for once, can we do something big and brave without all the destruction and pollution – characteristics of our worse selves? This is all to ask, what could a progressive space policy promise?
We would, to begin with, address the two problems already mentioned. We can stop feeding the military-industrial complex with open-ended multi-million dollar space contracts by reforming NASA’s procurement policies. And we can prioritize the creation of climate-friendly rocket fuels and fuel-free means to space like the long-heralded space elevator. With human colonies and space mining imminent, we must go even further. Here are a few other ideas for a progressive space policy:
Creation of a world body that will write and enforce regulations that protect humanity and its new worlds from greed and abuse
Full autonomy and democratic rights for colonists
Guidelines for returning off-world minerals or processed goods to Earth
Regulation of human activity in the vicinity of potential exobiology and habitats
Regulation of excavation or defacement of planetary bodies
Honoring early space age landers as historic sites
As space technology and plans evolve in the coming years, this list will most certainly grow. We will see behaviors and trends in the space industry that will give us pause and force us to rethink what we want space exploration to look like.
Space science and exploration should not become politicized as so many aspects of our society have, but how we explore space should be. Indeed, with the imminent launch of SpaceX’s Super Heavy Starship, a vehicle that will completely transform humankind’s relationship with space, the time is now to make a progressive case for space.