20 May 2020
Imagine this: you are standing in a rugged desert, looking around, with no GPS to assist you, for a supermarket to grab a bottle of water as you feel thirsty. That’s when it hits you – the nearest available water is frozen underneath the surface. You’d want to take a deep breath in to calm yourself down, but the air would feel a little different, given that it isn’t the oxygen you’re used to, but toxic carbon dioxide. Simultaneously, your body is turning into a mush of cancer, as outside the cocoon of the Earth’s protective atmosphere and magnetic field, radiation is pulling your DNA apart. You feel lighter though, without Earth’s gravity weighing you down, but you can’t comprehend whether this is good or bad.
Snap out. With this, I’m sure you’ve achieved a sense of the hostility (in terms of the environment) that awaits us in outer space. Yet, in spite of the fact that humans are likely ill-equipped to survive in outer space presently, it is certain that we will nonetheless reach there once day, given our knack for exploration. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the challenges that space colonization would pose for humans, so that we can overcome them appropriately in the longer run.
To begin with, as has been made almost obvious with the image you conjured previously, there are several physical and biological limitations of humans that one must overcome for space colonization. One must consider that beyond known limitations like radiation and toxic atmospheres, there is lots that we still don’t know. Nonetheless, we can make a start by working with the known limitations: consider turning to extremophile organisms to understand the art of survival in a hostile environment; for example, we have much to learn from the tardigrade, which can withstand 1000 times more radiation than other animals. Furthermore, keeping that in mind, in this age of genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9 and similar advancements, almost anything is possible – humans may be able to borrow traits from other organisms and modify their own genetic base. However, in this fight for self-preservation, we must maintain ethical boundaries by avoiding harm to extremophile organisms, which poses another challenge.
Economically, one must consider that the technological advancements, developed to better equip humans to survive in outer space, will be expensive. It is not like one device can achieve it all either ways (or at least that is what it seems like, as of now) – we would need multiple controlled ecological life support systems, launch systems, space manufacturing equipment, effective close-loop systems to replenish consumable resources, among others, to colonize outer space. Now, think about the extensive process required to ensure the workings of those machines. How much money will be invested? At the start of the previous decade (2010), the cost to send a pound of mass to space was $10000, and while we have achieved significant landmarks since then, space colonization still seems like a distant dream due to the cost.
Next, I’d like you to think back to your history classes to the discussions about colonization – has humanity had an extremely ethical track record with colonizing new territories? The answer is certainly ‘no.’ Let’s take a step back and understand that space colonization is ultimately an invasion, wherein we are the aliens and Mars the unwary planet, given that the other planets have no spokesperson for themselves yet. Therefore, there is an ethical onus on humanity to ensure the safety of an entire landscape beyond with space colonization.
Thus, while it is still controversial whether space colonization is moral or even feasible, one thing is for sure – it comes with its own set of challenges, which we must be ready to combat. While there are developments, there is still a long way to go.