Why are people fascinated with the idea of colonizing another planet or living in space?
For many of us (me included) we’ve always been fascinated with the idea of exploring and colonizing the unknown. In some ways, this idea of quest, and exploring, and conquering the unknown is part of what it means to be human.
Does this longing for quest fuel today’s new space race to colonize the stars?
But things are a bit different today: the desire to escape the Earth is now seen, by scientific and cultural elites, and more and more, by the public, as necessary for the survival of our species.
Elon Musk, the leader of SpaceX said the following:
“That’s one of the benefits of Mars, [it] is life insurance for life collectively. . . . So, eventually, all life on Earth will be destroyed by the sun. The sun is gradually expanding, and so we do at some point need to be a multiplanet civilization, because Earth will be incinerated.”[1]
But that is a fairly long-window of time for SpaceX to get that colony up and running in Mars! The problem is many think we don’t have that much time: something bad is likely to happen well before the Sun gets too hot: a global pandemic, climate related destruction, super-power nuclear wars, meteorites, maybe an AI takeover, and so on. So, a new space race is upon us today.
What are some of the scientific challenges that need to be overcome to settle on Mars?
There are significant scientific hurdles that need to be overcome to establish a permanent, self-sustaining colony on Mars. Here are five a wonderful book by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith called A City on Mars, a book with a wonderful subtitle: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?
- Suffocation
- Radiation
- Microgravity-related problems
- Sex and space babies
- The Soil: Norman Wirzba makes a powerful case that this vision for interstellar travel and colonization rests on a “fundamental confusion about what a huma being is, and what the inescapable ecosocial conditions for a human life are.”[2]
What is a possible theological challenge to the idea of settling other planets?
One challenge theologically might come from Genesis chapter one.
[1] https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/eventually-all-life-on-earth-will-be-destroyed-by-the-sun-elon-musk-explains-his-drive-to-colonize-mars.
[2] Norman Wirzba, This Sacred Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 43.
