34 | New Scientist | 21/28 December 2019
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the moon or from asteroids. Some
people believe we could recover
precious metals from asteroids
and bring them back to Earth.
There are clear ethical and
regulatory questions to be asked
about what the boundaries of such
activities should be. On a small
scale, they may be acceptable. But
it has been proposed, for example
by the former Apollo astronaut
and US senator Harrison Schmitt,
that the helium-3 isotope, a fuel
for futuristic fusion reactors
thought to be abundant on the
moon, could be recovered by
large-scale strip mining there.
In 2015, the US Congress passed
legislation informally known as
the SPACE Act, which promotes
the right of US citizens (and by
extension corporations) to engage
in the “commercial recovery
of space resources free from
harmful interference... subject
to authorization and continuing
supervision by the Federal
Government”. Such supervision
may not be enough. Earth’s
nations together preserve the
Antarctic; the case for global
regulation of efforts to alter the
landscape of other celestial objects
in a commercially motivated space
era becomes ever greater.
These issues will become more
acute if humans venture not just
back to the moon, but onwards to
Mars. Just how likely is this really?
Continuing advances will erode
the practical case for crewed space
flight. There will soon be few tasks
for humans in space that robots
can’t do better. Today, a trained
geologist on Mars could achieve
far more than NASA’s Curiosity
rover, which has been trundling
for a decade across a giant Martian
crater. But future geological
investigations of other worlds lie
with rovers elaborately equipped
with sensors, tools and a memory
superior to that of any human.
Given the risks inherent in
space flight, we might think
humanity is better off directing
affairs from the ground. Yet I hope
that some humans will follow
the robots – if only to inspire
a new generation, as the firstmoon landings did 50 years ago.
But we need to be honest about
the risks. NASA’s Space Shuttle,
which first launched in 1981, was
unwisely promoted by some as
“safe”. It failed catastrophically
twice in 135 missions – a level ofrisk that some thrill seekers would
willingly accept – but unrealistic
expectations meant that each
failure was a national trauma,
and led to costly delays and
increased risk aversion.
Private ventures such as
SpaceX and Blue Origin can
tolerate higher risks than
governments can impose on
publicly funded astronauts. It
is they who can and should
front future crewed missions.
But these missions should be
sold honestly. That meansnot as “space tourism”, with its
connotations of a routine, low-risk
activity, nor as serious scientific
activity, but as dangerous sport or
intrepid exploration that panders
to the human desire to fly higher
and further.
Some will be content with
one-way tickets. Musk himself
says he wants to die on Mars,
just not on impact. Such risk
takers may well establish bases
independent from Earth. But don’t
expect mass emigration. Here I
disagree with Musk, and with my
late colleague Stephen Hawking,
who often said that humanity
must seek its future in space to
avoid inevitable disaster on Earth.
It is a dangerous delusion to
think that space offers an escape
from Earth’s problems. We must
solve them here. Coping with
climate change is a doddle
compared with terraforming
Mars; there is no environment
in our solar system as clement
as even the Antarctic or Everest’s
summit. There is no “Planet B”for ordinary risk-averse people.
But those few who do dare leave
Earth will surely be starting a new,
very different future for humanity.
They will find themselves ill-
adapted to conditions there,
so will have a more compelling
incentive than those of us on Earth
to redesign themselves using
powerful genetic-engineering
and cybernetic technologies.
These techniques will, I hope, be
restrained on Earth, on prudential
and ethical grounds; but those on
Mars will be freer to experiment.
We should surely wish them
luck in modifying their progeny to
adapt to alien worlds. This may be
the first step towards divergence
into a new species – an evolution
via “secular intelligent design”
that proceeds on timescales of
technological advance, perhaps
thousands of times faster than
Darwinian selection.
If these post-humans one
day make the transition from
flesh and blood to fully inorganic
intelligences, they won’t need
an atmosphere. And they may
prefer zero-gravity environments,
especially for constructing
massive artefacts. So it is in deep
space, not on Earth, nor even on
Mars, that non-biological “brains”
may develop powers that humans
can’t even imagine. Earth, we can
surmise, would no longer seem
an alluring environment to
them, a reassuring thought,
as they would be likely to leave
our descendants undisturbed.
Humanity is an outcome of
4 billion years of Darwinian
evolution. Our sun will survive
6 billion more years before its
fuel runs out. The universe will
continue far longer still. So even if
intelligent life originated only on
Earth, it needn’t remain a trivial
feature of the cosmos: the next
stage of the space race could
ultimately spark a diaspora
whereby ever more complex
intelligence spreads through
the galaxy, perhaps via self-
reproducing machines or suchlike.
Interstellar voyages would hold no
terrors for such near-immortals.
There’s plenty of time ahead. ❚“ Leaving our planet may
be the first step towards
a new species that will
evolve faster than ever”