New Mars Forums

I find it amusing that someone who is a member of a society which raises technology to the status of a religeon (so that space rockets stand like cathedrals, pointing to the heavens as they promise Earthlings salvation from their terrestrial toils if they just follow the scriptures of Zubrin!) has the gaul to label my careful eco-friendly exploration ideas as religious. let's face it--you Mars freaks are the zealots, I'm just a sensible voice.

I'm not out to pursuade you to believe there IS life on Mars. Plenty of models for subterranean life, volcanic life and polar life are produced by NASA biologists and geologists each year. I'm just out to convince you that humans going to Mars is an act of careless disregard for other species--an act which we should, having acknowledged all the other ecological stuff-ups we've made--NOT allow.

Just cos NASA endangered the lifes of yet-to-be-found native Mars bugs once doesn't make it okay to do it again. The Austrian empire killed and deported gypsy's by the millions in the 19th Century...does that make it not so bad that  the NAZI's debauchered Gyspy culture in the 20th?

And if we can't visit Mars without endangering Martian life...THEN DON'T VISIT! Mars bugs have no duty to sacrifice themselves in the name of our scientific curiosity (sending highly dcontaminated probes may be a acceptable alternative though).

Have you proof that life is dead? No. So leave it alone. I know it is not your life you are endangering, but stop being so callously by risking the lives of other species on unprooved human theories which say we can go to Mars and spread our muck with impunity. (This is not rationality I'm professing by the way, just interplanetary courtesy).

Space exploration is bad for the environment of the Earth becos of:

1) Much current spaceware is used in directly exploiting the Earth. Environmental satellites, for intance, guide eco-disasterous fishing and whaling fleets, oil exploration, mining investments, logging etc. These satellites may contribute to insightful knowledge that helps make environmental policy but more often than not they are used to exploit the environment. Other space technologies (eg weather, communications and military satellites) speed this process up. If this continues into the future, in the vein of Mars society plans, things will get worse because the exploitation will be much more efficient.

2) The launch sites of space vehicles are environmentally damaging. We can all cite the KSC to delegitimise this claim but consider the ESA launch center in French Guiana. A UCLA report has indicated that this space port has devasted both environment and community in the french dependency. The same fate will befall a myriad of other planned spaceports, esp some planned for us here in Australia. If this continues in the vein of Mars Society plans things will get even worse.

3) The terrafoming ideals of Mars developers promote a disposable-planet mentality.They encourage us not to care about the Earth cos there's always somewhere else to go.

4) If space expansion proceeds in the vein of Mars society plans then space industrialists are given more power to dictate the economic and ecological policies back on Earth. If industrialists (both of a space and non-space bent) on Earth are anything to go by, this will mean the massive implementation of anti-environmental policies here on Earth.

5) If space development does proceed in the vein of the Mars Society plans, it will inequitably distribute space benefits. This inequality in materials and power will widen the gap between rich and poor, thrust poor people into deeper poverty, and thus excacerbate their environmental woes.

6) Space exploration contributes to a technocentric, industrialist cornucopianism: the idea that science, technology and capitalist imperialism will solve all our problems. If space expansion proceeds in the vein of Mars Society plans this will get worse.

7) Space expansion, by promising the salvation of Earth and earthlings thru massive technotopian idealism, diverts attention away from the true causes of environmental degradation (on Earth or on Mars): poverty, industrialism, capitalist imperialism, inequality, technocracy.

8) Space expansion priviliges humanity's endeavours over any thing else in the universe. This grand anthropocentric hubris makes humans feel they are the only important thing in the universe and this, when fed back into Earth-based society, will promote anthropocentric policies on Earth that will disregard non-humans and their environments.

BUT Josh, I'm not out to stop people from peacefully exploring the universe, I'm out to stop techno-imperialists like you from destroying the space environment, appropriating public funds, spreading human trash throughout the universe (and then claiming they are doing humanity a favour--they are NOT!).

MARS EXISTS FOR ITSELF, NOT FOR SCIENCE!

I'm interested to learn that many of you appreciate the sense of not spoiling Mars before we learn more about it - but does not the planet (and more to the point, the potential lifeforms on the planet) possess more value than being just a great factory for scientific knowledge making? What's the use of learning about the secrets of Martian biology/geology if we have no recognition of the value of that biology and geology after it has supplied us with knowledge? What I mean to say is: Mars' value is more than just of an instrumental kind: its value is independent of the scientific use that humans can harvest from it. From this point of view we must consider that Mars - as a possessor of intrinsic, as well as instrumental value - might best be left alone, whether or not terraforming spoils its value for science.

Exploration=Exploitation=Terraforming (more or less) if you are a Martian.

Exploration of Mars will result in the infection of Mars with terrestrial pollutants (of both a biological and chemical kind). So will exploitation and colonization. And so will terraforming. If we are to respect the intrinsic value of Mars (and any potential mars life), we must be cautious about all three.

If you think the Mars bugs will be safe in the event of terrafoming that's all very well and good. However, it is not you that will suffer if you are wrong, it will be the Martian bugs. Any terraforming plan must distribute its risks equitably.

Terraforming is ethically corrupt. But so is landing humans on Mars since the bugs that humans carry with them could hurt the local indigenous bugs leading to Martian ecocide! We should leave Mars alone, ENTIRELY!!!

If one accepts that an environment and a non-human lifeform are of value, then one would do what one can to protect them. On Earth, this means not blowing up nuclear devices in such environments, not polluting such environments, not unnessarily killing the organisms in such environments. The same applies to Mars. IT IS JUST THAT TO DO THIS, WE MUST NOT GO TO MARS IN THE FIRST PLACE SINCE TO DO SO WOULD ENDANGER SUCH VALUED ENVIRONMENTS AND THE LIFEFORMS THEY CONTAIN!

Landing humans on Mars is the same ecological action as going to Yellowstone and spreading Agent Orange all over it, or going to the Lakes District and blowing it up with a nuclear device!

REALISE THIS: There's no special moral treatment I'm giving Mars, except that which the Martian environment requires for its own protection.

Now, my own intrinisic value means that I might undertake means to defend my own well-being to the detriment of the intrinsic value of other organisms. As I need to eat and clean and wash and defacate to survive, I can only apologise to those beings whose lives I destroy in these acts. I do not-- however--need to go to Mars to maintain my well-being--therefore it is unethical for me to endanger the intrinsic life of lifeforms that may exist there! And neither should you!

Aboard the Starship Enterprise there exists a cardinal rule governing the actions of the Star Trek crew as it gallivants gloriously around the galaxy, boldly going where no one has gone before. Labelled the 'Prime Directive', this ethical ruling states that humans shall not interfere with any life encountered lest the aliens, or their social and physical environment, be destroyed and irrevocably damaged.

The most notable medium for such interference is through the action of invasive microorganisms. The writers of Star Trek have invented a convenient piece of technology to handle such interplanetary transfer of germs. When beaming off to a new planet, 'biofilters' installed in the Enterprise's transporter supposedly filter out microbes accompanying the crew. Twentieth-century space exploration has no such biofilter technology and if recently-renewed enthusiasm to explore and colonise the planet Mars is not tempered with some restraint, humans may act to spread the spores of destruction for unknown numbers of Martian species. This would constitute the falling of the Prime Directive at its first hurdle.

The scientific and astronautic community has looked into the problem of the contamination of other worlds with Earth microbes, and there are policies in place designed to ensure microbial stow-aways are not carried through-out the Solar System aboard robotic probes. However, with human space exploration, prevention of contamination would be impossible. There is little chance of decontaminating a human to the same degree of sterility as is possible with a robot.

The discovery of what may be fossilised Martian life has rekindled the life on Mars debate. In the minds of many, the probability of extant Martian life is given a great boost if fossil Martian life is verified. Currently there are numerous exobiologists from around the world presenting credible models of extant Martian lifeforms. Microbes that dwell inside Antarctic rocks serve as one model of what Martian life may be like. Other models of life on modern Mars include: - Sub-regolithic life (that is life below the Martian soil: including life in subsurface water environments), - Polar life (life in the Martian ice-caps), - Geothermal or hydrothermal life (life associated with Martian hotsprings or volcanic vents), - Endoevaporitic life (life associated with evaporitic deposits such as salt pans).

Having announced such models for Martian life it becomes relevant to enquire 'What will be the consequences for such life if human exploration and colonization on Mars is undertaken?'

There has been an unfortunate experience in environmental history for once-isolated ecological communities to be irrevocably altered upon the reciept of invading alien species. This is most stark when considering the ecology of the islands of the world. From Mauritius to Hawaii to New Zealand and Australia, islands of all shapes and sizes have often had their indigenous landscapes altered to the detriment of many indigenous species. Mars exists as an extraterrestrial island and it too may be intensely susceptible to invasion by non-natives.

Studies aboard the Space Shuttle and other spacecraft indicate that terrestrial microbes are enviably capable of tolerating the extremes of the space environment. If a microbe finds its way to Mars via human exploration, it may impinge upon the native microbial species in a number of ways: -antibiosis\allelopathy (an invasive microbe may produce substances toxic to native species), -phagocytosis (an invasive microbe may predate upon a native species to obtain its carbon, water, nitrogen etc), - infection (an invasive microbe may invade the cells of a native species to facilitate its own reproduction), -competition (an invasive microbe may out-compete a native species for scarce resources such as water, light, shade or space), -ecological disturbance (an invasive microbe may alter the Martian environment in such a way that the change kills the native species).

While infection may be quite unlikely (as it relies on the specificity of a host-parasite relationship derived from historical association) the other threats are real. That the above threats can be contained at the point of initial contact may be a false expectation. Bacterial and fungal spores may be carried thousands of kilometres by the episodic Martian duststorms, and the wider the exploration activities of humans on Mars the wider will be the dissemination of Earth organisms. In the event of human settlement of Mars, no indigenous microbial community may survive untouched, particularly when human pollutants become widespread as that might work synergistically to enhance invasion by Earth microbes.

One might think that because Martian microbes have been living on Mars for billions of years they will be far better adapted to Martian conditions than any alien species which comes along and that this will confer upon them some degree of resilience in the face of invasion. However, this is not necessarily so. On the most Mars-like environment on Earth - the dry inland valleys of Antarctica - introduced microbes carried by scientific personnel have commonly grown and reproduced more rapidly and at lower temperatures than indigenous polar microbes. No matter how warily human explorers on Mars might tread they may still impinge upon the Martian ecosystem and promote the extinction of Martian lifeforms.

Some would-be Mars developers might believe that any indigenous microbial species will have their chances of survival actually enhanced by human activities (since Martian development might involve the moderation of Mars' harsh environment and the creation of diverse ranges of ecological niches for the native microbes to exploit)). While there is a tiny chance that human activities on Mars may help Martian microbes it may be even more likely that they will end up quite extinct. As is the case with many fastidious terrestrial microbes that like extreme environments, Martian bugs will probably only be able to survive under precise environmental conditions; those prevailing on Mars now. Alternatively , an indigenous microbial species that has its survivability enhanced may then proceed to alter its environment with the production of toxic wastes or gases so as to make that environment highly unsuitable for itself. Humans could thus be responsible for a Martian species poisoning itself to death.

Even if human activities on the red planet act to enhance the prospects of a individual Martian microbial species it can be argued that such an enhancement breaches the integrity of the natural state of the indigenous ecosystem. If there are several species of Martian microbes, then the balance of one to another may be altered by human actvities. One species may be enhanced by human activities and then proceed to conquer previously unsuitable areas to the detriment of others. This may be encouraged by the biological and chemical prospecting of scientists who may facillitate the cross-habitat spreading of Martians through the contamination of their suits and their scientific instruments. On Earth, such cross-habitat infection is acknowledged by many microbiologists as being a serious threat to the survival of unique microbial communities.

The scenarii for Martian destruction are many and various. Though it might be possible for human exploration upon Mars to go ahead without the death of a Martian species I think it unlikely. Certainly, there is no way that the ecology of the planet would ever be the same again. Unfortunately, for the microbes, the future expansion of humans into space may someday mirror the environmental consequences of past human expansion on Earth. Where now native Martians may proudly sift frozen carbon dioxide from icy rocks in great subterranean herds stretching from the north Martian pole to the Valles Marineris, they may someday be slain mercilessly in their trillions to give rise to sad isolated clumps that hang on to dear life amidst a great mat of advancing atmospheric and bacterial pollution.

So there may be life on Mars? And so human activities have the capacity to destroy such life? So what? Humans spend a considerable amount of time and money trying to rid themselves of microbes on Earth, why should we let microbes stand in the way of human space exploration? This is the same sort of attitude that Europeans have had in the past with regards to indigenous human populations during their colonial expansion. Indigenous peoples were thought of as being some kind of sub-level of humans who were not worthy of the moral consideribility afforded to Europeans. We have just about got over such brash racism - at least theoretically - but now the environmental movement challenges us to reject anthropocentrism. Just as the white man is not the measure of all things human, so humanity is not the measure of all things living. An ethic of biotic egalitarianism is emerging in environmentalism and it suggests that humans and microbes exist side by side on the ladder of moral considerability. Many people have certainly adopted this sort of view when contemplating the moral worth of such grand species as the Panda, the Blue Whale and the trees of the tropical and temperate rainforests but when it come to microbial organisms such as bacteria and algae it is somewhat different. Microbes are not cuddly like Panda, nor graceful like Blue Whales, or enchanting like the trees of a temperate rainforest. But these are human ascribed qualities and they often fall short of some of the less aesthetic species who have as much right to existence as humans and the lifeforms that we tend to favour.

In the past twenty-five years or so the emerging field within moral philosophy known as environmental ethics has dared to extend the concepts of justice, rights, respect and moral considerability beyond the human sphere to encompass all kinds of living things. Out of this field of environmental ethics there have tended to be three main ways of extending value to nature. The Conservation Ethic, Libertarian Extension and Ecological extension.

{A} The Conservation Ethic. The conservation ethic is the ethical approach that governs current extraterrestrial environmental views. The Conservation Ethic does not see any intrinsic value or rights in the various components of the Martian environment (be they biological or non-biological) but sees their value purely in terms of their being natural resources which have a use for humanity (or as often as not for a select or lucky few members of humanity). The conservation ethic is often labelled as an anthropocentric or shallow type of envionmental ethic since it does not recognise any intrinsic value in non-humans, be they large highly-intelligent quadruped mammals in the same room as us or tiny wee microscopic bugs on another planet. As you can see, according to the Conservation Ethic humans are firmly perched on the top of the pyramid of those things in nature to be valued. The conservation ethic primarily believes that we must conserve and manage environmental resources, such as the planet Mars, in order to ensure the integrity of scientific explorations or, in the long term, in order to secure a continued supply of resources so that humans may remain in the standard of living they have become accustomed to. Thus the conservation ethic is deficient when considering it as the only philosophical base in the drawing up of environmental policies to do with Mars, for it will not protect Martians so much as allow the management of the Martian environment to be enacted in an efficent manner for science and commerce. If the safety of Martians conflicts with the scientific curiosity or commercial programmes of humans, it will always be the humans that will win out. What we need then is a non-anthropocentic ethic to guide us.

The two generally accepted non-anthropocentric ways of valuing nature are Libertarian Extension and Ecologic Extension and it is some combination of the two that must be considered when trying to formulate ideas about ethical treatment of Mars and the Martians.

{B} Civil Libertarian extension. Civil Libertarian Extension involves the widening of rights to previously unconsidered members of the living world. One might trace in human history an uneven and sometimes sporadic evolution of such ethical extension which aims at promoting rights for every individual being. In the realms of environmentalism, Civil Libertarian Extension is most manifest in the works of animal rights activists who believe that animals (generally those with an advanced nervous system) hold the same rights and should be valued at some sort of parity with humans. If one carries Civil Libertarian extension beyond the narrow scope of animal rights then it could be thought of as being applicable to all organismal entities, including microbes. Such ethical extension tends to value the importance of individuals and when applied to Mars might be considered to recognize intrinsic value in each Martian microbe.

{C} Ecological Extension. Ecological Extension has evolved from the science of ecology and from facets of the environmental movement and it tells us how all the components of a living system, along with the non-living components, are interrelated and interdependent. Such an approach emphasizes the values of species, communities, ecosystems and biospheres more than the rights of individuals. Thus Ecological Extension applied to Mars would value the species and communities of Martian Microbes and would then seek to work out how to protect these entities.

If you choose not to buy into the biotic egalitarianism of extensionist environmental ethics, you may still wish to protect Martian life for what it could mean to science. The study of extraterrestrial life would be an unprecedented discovery for science. To jeopardize such an opportunity by putting humans on Mars would be to blaspheme the spirit of scientific research. Thus human space exploration can jolly well wait till we have thoroughly explored Mars with decontaminated probes so as to determine whether Mars has life or not. Unfortunately there is a paradox emerging here. It is probable that robotic probes will only ever deliver ambiguous results with regards to Martian biology. To really find out if there is extant life on Mars, scientists (and their accompanying microbiota) have to go there to do it; thus endangering the very life they seek to discover. It would be shameful to discover life on Mars and then cause the extinction of such life by its very discovery. The situation would be akin to that of an exploratory entomologist who discovers a small goup of unidentified butterflies and then promptly fixes them into a collection only to find out later that he has exterminated an entire species in the name of science.

Though the main risk to Martian microbial well-being will come from actual human presence upon Mars, it must be noted that sterilised robotic probes carry a risk too, though a much smaller one. Space Probes are not decontaminated to 100% sterility. In fact sterilization in the interplanetary science business usually means just the lowering of the number of microbial passengers from the millions to the hundreds. Any supposedly sterilized spacecraft is still the carrier of numerous living entities.

Although microbes are often thought of as primitive organisms with no moral worth we might like to ponder upon the situation, which has become a familiar theme in science fiction, in which an extraterrestrial visitor from another planet may look upon the Earth as an interesting or resource-full looking place and decide that we are not worthy of consideration because we are just primitive humans. The genre of science fiction has done much to make the western world paranoid about aliens where that alienism is often allied to percieved threats from other nations, other races, other cultures, other values or just plain otherness. But it is becoming clear that the best candidate for the label of alien invader (whether on Earth or on Mars) are the members of the western world. There seems to be a grand irony growing here with respect to recent representations of things alien. In a number of recent science fiction films we have been encouraged to fear alien invasion and to regard America (and sometimes the American president, himself) as the saviour of liberty. In one swift advance of cultural imperialism Independence Day, the movie, extends Independence Day, the American institution, beyond the national boundaries of the USA to universally encompass the whole world's supposed fight for freedom. However, with regard to Mars and its recent date with the Pathfinder probe, it seems that Earthlings - and in particular; American Earthlings - should really be the ones cast as the invaders.

Many of those people that propose to expand humanity into outer space do so under the enticing notion that it is a natural and inevitable process. Just as a tree casts forth its seeds to colonize a new piece of ground, so humans are seeking to expand their ecological domain. Such a naturalistic interpretation evades the social reality of space expansion. Space expansion is a social phenomenon and not a biological one. A dispersing seed acts according to genetically prescribed rules arrived at through millions of years of biological evolution. The entities that take part in space expansion (namely nations, space agencies and private aerospace companies) are social entities that act according to social forces arrived at through the course of social, political and economic history (processes quite different to biological evolution). Far from being part of our biological makeup, Twentieth-century space exploration is a demonstrable phenomenon of Cold War history. I doubt very much that Neil Armstrong, or Yuri Gagarin, , have specific genes coding for space exploration in the cells of their respective bodies.

The scientific investigation of Martian life is a romantic pursuit , full of exciting implications for Earthbound science. That Martian life is valuable for scientific reasons will to some extent ensure a preservationist attitude to Mars. But more than that, Martian life has an intrinsic value of its own, independent of its scientific value. Martian microbes have no obligation to contribute to human scientific knowledge, and the search for such knowledge should not threaten the intrinsic value of Martian lifeforms. That the exploration of Mars will inevitably produce environmental disaster for any extant native Martians is not neccesarily assured. But the danger it presents is not posed against us but against Martians. Any thoughts of exploring or settling on Mars must be aware of this point. We will not be the ones to suffer from a miscalculation of environmental policies or decontamination techniques; it will be the Martians who suffer.

Space exploration in general is also presented in a highly romanticised fashion. But we should not let the romance of human exploration and development in space blind us to the possibility that we are endangering the lives of extraterrestrial species. Next time you see Captain Kirk and his gallant crew zooming off from planet to planet in the corner of your living room, you may stop to contemplate how many extinct species he may have left in his wake, and whether such explorations of destruction are to be initiated in your life time with regards to the planet Mars.

Hah-- a sense of exploration....if you are so curious why don't ya explore making this world a nice place. Every one is curious and adventurous, just some express that curiosity differently and don't need to imperipusly roam around the solar system like space cowboys to do it.

It can be claimed that space resource development does not have to occur inn an imperialist way, and that provisions can be made so that space industrialization proceeds to benefit all the people of a nation and all the people of the globe. The US space writer William Hartmann expresses such a hope when he comments that space resource extracting companies might voluntarily pay for commercial rights to exploit extraterrestrial bodies.

Hartmann goes on to suggest that Solar System prospecting and mining rights might be sold to an international body. The finances gained could then be put into a World Bank type global fund which would be dedicated to projects that would encourage Third World development.

I do not share Hartmann's confidence in the World Bank to promote appropriate resource projects in the Third World. Nor do I share his confidence in voluntary payments by either space companies or nations to approximate any amount which is due to Third World nations. But more importantly, while the Outer Space Treaty calls for space exploration activities to benefit all of humankind the Treaty does not stipulate exactly how this is to be effected. This is no accidental quirk of legal history.

The Outer Space Treaty does not ignore defining the nature of space benefit distribution by mistake, something that can be rectified through international resource policy adjustment. Programmes aimed at correcting this very issue have been instigated by Third World countries through the medium of the United Nations but they have failed.

Of particular relevance here is the attitude of space-capable nations to the attempted introduction of a new space treaty and also their attitude towards Third World calls for the augmentation of the Outer Space Treaty.

In order to combat the holes and vagaries contained within the Outer Space Treaty a number of non-space-capable nations drafted another treaty under the auspices of the United nations. This new treaty, the 1979 Moon Treaty, utilized the concept of commonality of ownwership of space bodies to build upon the provisions vaguely hinted at in the Outer Space Treaty.

The Moon Treaty labels all extraterrestrial bodies the 'Common Heritage of Mankind', thus indicating that no one would be allowed to extract resources without the consent of the global community.

Throughout its lifetime the Moon Treaty has been continually criticised as deleterious to space development by those who seek to develop space. As far as prospective industrialists are concerned any regime that implies that resource use must somehow be regulated to ensure its worldwide sharing is a regime that discourages space expansion. How is development going to occur, say the space developers, if they have to share their profits? Within the space policy circles of space-capable nations and within the space departments of those companies with an interest in developing the space frontier, Solar System expansion is held to be eminantly compatible with the forces of the Free Market and virtually impossible under any regime with a tendency towards distributive justice. With such an attitude prevailing amongst the space-capable nations the Moon Treaty has remained devoid of support - and signatures - except for the small group of mostly Third World nations that originally drafted the Treaty.
Augmenting the Outer Space Treaty for Participation
Given the lack of success in convincing First World nations to sign up to the Moon Treaty the Third World nations tried another tactic: to augment the provisions of the original Outer Space Treaty. The most relevant part of the Outer Space Treaty of concern to Third World nations is Article I which states:

The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development.

The main issue of significance here for Third World nations has been the meaning of space benefit distribution. In order that the sentiments of Article I be respected Third World nation representatives in the 1980s and 1990s campaigned for a substantive written agrreement to be formulated so that it became clear to the nations of the world exactly how benefits from space use should be dispersed.

Fearing that they may be made to enter into a binding agreement that obligated them to distribute space benefits in a way that they did not like, the space-capable nations rejected any proposal to augment the Outer Space Treaty with another regime aimed at bolstering the meaning of Article I. In this vein, space-capable nations have decided that they themselves should be free to dictate how space benefit distribution should be undertaken. To do otherwise, these nations suggest, is to impose upon the sovereignty of a state to formulate and implement its own international cooperation and aid policies. Through such claims of sovereignty about running their own foreign affairs these nations have effectively asserted sovereignty over any resources that they may chance upon in outer space in the future since they may decide for themselves the best ways to distribute these resources. They may implement aid plans that fairly distribute the resources gained from other planets by dispersing them equally to the signatories of the Treaty or they may implement token benefit distribution plans that merely disseminate inspiring photographs of the conquered worlds of the Solar System throughout the globe. Understandably the non-space-capable nations are worried that space benefit distribution will follow more closely the lines of the latter rather than the former example, thus leaving them devoid of any substantial gain. While Third World nations have in the recent past been demanding that some real substance be attached to the sentiments of Article I the nations of the world that are actually in the position to use space resources would like to see the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty remain as skeletal and ambiguous as possible since it allows them to interpret space benefit distribution in as self-interested and miserly way as they desire.

The instigation of an authoritative and uniform regime that dictates exactly the manner that benefits from space use should be distributed might be considered somewhat extreme since not only would it attract little or no support from space-capable nations but it may also lock non-space-capable nations into inappropriate aid plans. The position taken by space-capable nations, namely that they should be free to choose how, and to whom, they distribute space benefits, is just as extreme, however, since it pays no heed to a Treaty whose ideals they confidently professed and willingly signed when the Space Age was young. What is needed is an intermediate approach that stipulates the very real obligations that space- capable nations have to space benefit distribution - given that the Solar System belongs to all - while allowing individual nations to negotiate their own plans of distribution. In short, there should be a formulation of guiding principles that lay down the focus and depth of space distribution for every nation; whether they will be primarily donors of space resources or recipients.

In procuring this advice it seems reasonable to be optimistic with regards to the successful negotiation of the focus of space benefit distribution since this refers to the particular areas of help that space-capable nations are able to deliver and to the particular problems that non-space-capable nations are facing. However, it seems equally reasonable to be sceptical when it comes to the issue of the depth of distribution as this refers to a quantitative view of space benefit dispersal. It seems unlikely, given their performance in both space and non-space related matters, that space-capable nations will ever agree to a scheme that places any emphasis on the amount of help that they should commit themselves to, unless that amount is piddlingly small.

When contemplating participation in space exploration and development we might like to consider how to answer the question;  'How did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the moon?'

We could answer this question by dealing with the specific technical details of the Apollo-Saturn V launch vehicle that they rode upon and the Newtownian physics that plotted their trajectory. Alternatively we could answer it by acknowledging the social conditions that enabled Armstrong and Aldrin to be the first humans on the lunar surface. Both were men, both were United States citizens, both were white, both were university educated aeronautical engineers and both had served as test-pilots for military aircraft.

When these two men landed on the moon however it was stated over and over again that they were merely representatives of humanity. "We come in peace for all mankind" was the declaration on the plaque that they unveiled upon the moon. Somehow we had all gone with them, whether we were black factory workers from Minneapolis, illiterate peasants from Mongolia or unemployed high-school drop-outs from Melbourne. Despite the fact that the moon landing enterprise had an inbuilt socio-structural bias for placing humans of Armstrong and Aldrin's ilk upon the moon it was claimed that everybody on the Earth participated in this great human feat.

This is how the space programme is sold: all participate in space exploration because its pursuit can be seen by all. Such participation is quite shallow of course. It is nothing but the one-way dispersal of the results of already determined plans. Most members of the human race have no way of being a part of the space effort.

Let's look at another example, this time in the future. Emanating from NASA's department of Advanced Concept Studies is a description by John Mankins about humanity's future in space. After an elucidation of the resource and energy potential laying in wait within the Solar System and after an elaboration about the possible technological spinoffs from future spaceflight, Mankins devotes a section of his article to 'Global Participation'. He says:
Perhaps as exciting from a public standpoint as all of the other technical innovations described above is the concept that in the future, the adventure and the thrill of discovery will be shared directly among millions of individuals across the globe. Combined advances in extremely high speed communications, high quality data compression and processing, virtual reality systems will enable global participation.

Again participation here is only one way. NASA does the exploring, you sit around watching the results trickle through on your TV or VDU - if you've got one. As inspiring as these discoveries may be, they are hardly the result of any significant participatory scheme.

There are a number of ways that space development may claim to be participatory in more than just the shallow, one-way sense. Space development is enacted by policies made by elected officials. Through the democracy of the ballot box you may make some choice about varying space policy plans. Apart from the fact that it is nigh on impossible to find in any particular nation a political party with any commitment to enunciating its space policy there is contained within this avenue a myriad of issues that may deflate its claims to deep participation. Do elected officials necessarily enact what they promise? Having found a political party that makes a policy statement on space issues that might significantly differ from competing parties it often the exception to the rule to see it fully implement its policies once elected. Similarly; can governments really claim a mandate for the implementation of all their policies on the basis of election wins? Governments ubiquitously claim the right to implement a huge variety of unrelated policies that were never subjected to specific democratic choice. Thus, if the electorate mainly base their votes on reasons to do with tax policy it hardly warrants the government to pursue a particular space policy. Thus governments may implement space policies with which very few that very few agree.

Another way space development might claim to be participatory is related to the ideals of meritocracy. If you want direct input into space development plans then you must educate and train yourself so as to be a capable player in the aerospace field. Whether you want to design rockets, formulate space law or conduct space experiments it is just a matter of studying hard and working well. Again this avenue is hardly a deep way for encouraging any great degree of participation. Even if all the members of the world's community were able to go to college to study engineering, law or science it is hardly practicable that they all get jobs in the space business. For this to be a real claim to participation there would have to be equal access to education for all humanity and then there would have to be some way for non-space people to interact directly with space people when policy decisions are made.

A third avenue for participation - and the one which is most visible when examining the space programme - is that of advocacy and activism. There are a considerable number of organizations dedicated to the task of campaigning for more state effort to be spent on national space programmes. However, one thing that may be noted here is that despite their continual efforts to galvanize the public towards pro-space plans in an effort to influence government policy, space advocacy groups consistently come up against a barrier of public indifference. It seems that not enough members of the general public actually care strongly about space to actually want to participate in making decisions about it. The existence of this non-participatory feeling within the public might be interpreted as a predictable consequence of the powerlessness that citzens feel with regard to any aspect of national policy-making. Or it may actually be regarded as a form of participation in itself, a negative participation whose existence might be linked to tacit disapproval of the space programme.

Sometimes allied to the advocacy avenue for participation is that of amateur astronautics groups. The people within amateur astronautics do not wish to just sit around waiting for their respective governments to implement space development they are interested in doing it for themselves. Some amateur astronautics groups are gradually building up to orbital rocket potential and are proposing Solar System colonization schemes already. Of course, one may wonder if these plans will ever come about. Even with the help of a few eccentric millionaires it seems unlikely that the resources will be near what a nation state can muster. Much of the time, though, it seems as though capital accumulation is only a minor programme for space advocates and amateur rocketeers. What they (as well as many professional space-workers) really like dealing in is ideology: the ideology of frontierism.

Frontiersmen never die, they just drift off into space. So may the bumpersticker of space expansionists read since for them space development is classed as the final frontier. It is the next and ultimate step in an expansionist saga that has seen Europeans sail to the shores of New World and then drift relentlessly and purposefully westward across continental North America. According to many space frontierists, just as the western frontier opened up new land, new resources, new ideas, new freedoms and new and better technologies during the first centuries of European presence in America, so the coming centuries of space expansion will do the same.

It is debatable that these people are basing their ideology upon sound premises. It can be argued, for instance, that at best intellectual, humanitarian and technological progress was quite independent of expansion across the Atlantic and across the West and that at worst such expansion only gave rise to and reflected the oppressiveness of European ideas and technology. An entrenched ethnocentrism is contained within the frontierist attitude to space expansion. There are two great modern stories of westward expansion. One is of glorious and civilised Euro-American discovery and settlement and the other is of imperialist victimisation of colonised peoples. It is questionable whether either of these two stories is adequate when dealing with the many local and enormously heterogeneous histories of North American people, but the point is that space frontierists only ever adopt one of these two great stories: that of grand and glorious European expansion.

In the many writings of space frontierists there is hardly a sentence acknowledging the plight of colonised peoples in the face of such expansion, except when it comes to rebutting the legitimacy of the alternative story. Space frontierists feel safe in reinvigorating the ideas of frontierism because there are no indigenes on the other planets. Thus imperialism can forever more be excised from the final frontier because there will be no victims in its pursuit. In this last point, however, they may be grossly mistaken.

More reasons for not going to Mars!

YES....I say: SAVE MARS FOR THE MARTIAN BUGS!

Critics of the 'Save Mars for the Martians' approach often suggest that because there is ample evidence of meteoritic cross-fertilization of life between Mars and Earth then Mars is in actual fact the original home of all terrestrial species including humans.

This 'WE Are From Mars' Argument would indicate that because Mars is, in some sense; our home, the practice of terraforming is just humans going back home. The 'We are from Mars' argument is, of course, scientifically questionable since the mere presence of interplanetary cross-fertilization does not determine the origins of terrestrial life to be either Mars or Earth.

The Martians, whom we could claim as our evolutionary parents, might themselves have evolved from an ancient terrestrial meteorite-passenger who themselves had evolved from a previous Martian meteoritic passenger and so on ad infinitum. With no way of precisely stating the Martian origins of our ancestors, humans must accept that we are hard-pressed to classify any planet as our original and home. As well as being scientifically questionable the Mars is our home argument is also ethically questionable. If we are from Mars, then we left it some 400-4000 million years ago. A lot has happened since then.

To say we can go back to Mars and proceed to do what we like with it because our origins lie there and Mars was once our home is like saying that we are within our rights to colonize Africa because humans - as a species - have origins there. Humans no more have the right to claim back Mars than do Europeans have the right to imperiously annex Africa.

The use of the term WE within the WE are from Mars argument is also highly problematic when discussing our supposed heritage with Mars. WE were not humans when WE left Mars; WE were only microbes. Like I say, a lot has happened since then so that any presumed heritage is awfully tenuous. It is tempting to claim such an honorable cosmic heritage for humans since it promotes us as a truly cosmopolitan species with a long and varied evolutionary history. However, if we choose to cast Martian microbes as our forebears the least we can do is protect the Martian environment that they helped to construct. And, ofcourse, we should also be inclined to respect the rights of those who are bound to be more closely related to these supposed forebears; the Martian microbes of today. In any case the the WE are from Mars home argument is an argument that takes a naturalistic stance: it is saying that humans going to Mars to terraform it is just a natural process of humanity going home.

But let's continue this naturalistic stance and stay natural when we go to Mars. Let's step out of our spaceship on to the surface of Mars and see how long we can survive naturally - without artificial help - in this environment that we supposedly call home. Having the air sucked from your lungs, having your eyeballs pop-put of your skull and having your skin sloughing off in burnt frozen flakes is hardly something that happens in your natural home, surely.

Am I an extremist? Or just someone who knows that humans going to Mars is ethically dubious.