Why should we colonise Moon, Mars and beyond
By: Peter Dicky
Tags: Moon, Mars, Space, Technology

Render of a conceptual Chinese lunar base. Credit: CAST

There is an age old debate about whether the money should be used to feed the malnutritioned children or explore the space. This is a strawman argument that does not bring real value to the discussion. The reason this argument is invalid is that the money is not taken from the mouth of the hungry children and used to build rockets. There are organisations and government departments that specialize in feeding the underprivileged children. The essential problem with this argument is that it is too shortsighted, this is equivalent to arguming whether to eat the seedlings when you are hungry and disregard the needs to plant next year.

The budget of space is taking up a minuscule amount of the total GDP and government spending. In terms of budget, the US military budget is exceeding 700 billion dollars, meanwhile NASA’s budget is 22.6 billions dollars. It will bring tremendous advancement in space science even if we put a small portion of the world’s military budget, such as 20% into the exploration of the universe. In an idealistic world, there would be no military conflicts between nations, and the national defense budget will be less bloated. Hungry children will be fed and space exploration will take place at an unprecedented rate. However, due to factors such as nationalism and imperialism, the world is still engulfed in many conflicts and arm races, which waste tremendous amounts of resources and brings little benefit to humanity as a whole.

Some opponents of space exploration might say we should hold off the development of space technology and wait for other technological advancement to dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration. This argument has some truth to it in that space exploration would indeed benefit from the advancement in material science, software and electronics advancement. For example, the iphone you hold in your hand nowadays has more processing power than the Apollo capsule which sent humans to the moon. However, the direction of scientific and technological development is not always linear. If one aspect is underdeveloped, its growth would be foreverly stunt. No amount of development in one area can completely replace the development in another area.

I have read a comedy novel that provides a fresh perspective on things. It told a story about space faring Teddy bears. They were able to develop capacity to travel at light speed, even though their technology is very primitive. They arrived on earth with the muskets and they tried to conquer earth. Of course, with our advanced weaponry, humans defeated them with ease. Humans also discovered that traveling light speed in space is actually very easy and simple. It is so simple that no one ever thought of that before. Technological advancement is dependent on time. If we stop the development of space faring technology, we may never be able to discover how surprisingly simple and elegant space travel is and become the mirror opposite of the space teddy bears, advanced in other technology but primitive in space.

There are many practical reasons to go to the frontier of space as well, exploring the space will be immensely beneficial, especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence (intelligence which can be programmed and scaled). The advanced AI is more robust, less fragile, unlike humans. The machines will require less resources to keep working. It only need the sunlight or nuclear reactor as a source of energy. In contrast, humans need an environment with dedicated temperature, pressure and moisture level, and a whole lot of it. We need gravity, otherwise our bones will shrink and break down, we need a diverse range of food options, otherwise we will get depressed and we need equipment to produce oxygen and drinking water. Advanced robotics would easily be an excellent alternative to humans when exploring Mars and asteroids. The reward of such undertaking is the unimaginable richs. The precious metal in the asteroids can easily dwarf the totality of resources found on the earth. Space construction opens up the frontiers and the boundary of imagination. With building of resources extraction facilities, humans gain access to more resources to build them. It is a chain reaction. Although the argument might have been developed by scientists and engineers who are trying to justify the economical feasibility of space exploration, the view might be skewed in a way that underplays the difficulty and cost associated with such daring feats.

There are also issues with the fair distribution of the resources among the world’s population. In the infant phase of space mining, the gain would barely cover the setup cost of the operation. However, as the technology progresses relentlessly, the profit will eclipse the cost. How would we ensure that the profit will benefit the mass instead of selecting a few ultra rich people or conglomerates? Tax is a good way for the government to redistribute the wealth to the mass. The Nordic government is a good model. The company should be public owned and work to enrich all the citizens and provide a good social welfare system for all.

The other benefit would be that the raw resources will become cheaper, which would result in cheaper products.

In terms of the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people, the consideration should expand to evaluate the benefit to all future human generation as well current generation. If space colonies are successful, the universal capacity to support the lives of humans will be greatly expanded. We will have more capacity to provide more humans with higher quality and more decent lives.

If however, the world is able to organise itself to become more peaceful and cooperative, the human focus would be shifted from waging war to the development and betterment of the whole society. A good model of this world view is the European Union, where they formed a united front based on their recognised identity as Europeans instead of the identity of each individual country. As a result, many benefits are realised for the EU members, and the quality of life is dramatically increased as a result of it. The world needs to follow the EU’s steps. We need to recognise that we are all from the same species, have similar dreams and desires for a better life, and have similar views on what a good world should look like. With more understanding and tolerance, we will achieve much more than what is possible under the current world order.

The US is still unquestionably the most advanced space faring nation. Its technology and engineering capacity is unparalleled and possibly several decades ahead of other competing countries. However, there is so much unpredictability in the future, given how the powershift currently taking place in the world right now. Countries need closer collaboration ties with each other. Collaborations between countries can make the most use of the science budget. Mutual exchange of technology will save on the individual development costs of novel technology. An agreement can be reached between countries such that when two country will agree to develop one piece of technology each. The technology will involve similar development costs. When the development is finished, the two countries will exchange the technology developed with each other. As a result, the two countries will acquire 2 pieces of technology for the price of 1. The agreement can even be extended such that there are certain reward points associated with each technology, multiple country can develop for the reward points so that each will gain access to the technology developed. These agreements will also help the limited budget of space exploration to go a long way.

From the perspective of human endeavours, the wealth inequality has its charm. Bill Gates, for example, used his fortune to fight malaria in Africa. Elon Musk leverages his technological genius and wealth to lay the groundwork to colonize Mars. Without the billions of dollars and the influence at their disposal, they will not achieve those results to such an extent. Because of the pursuit of these individuals, we are seeing dramatically progress in the front of technology and society progress. However, these specific individuals are not a good representation of the wealthy people, many of them sabotage the society for their own gains (lobbyists, capitalists). For example, the coal and fossil fuel industry lobby the government to lax pollution regulation. The mass should be more self aware, and not depending on the good will of the wealthy people to expand the frontier of our exploration.

Current issue with space exploration still revolves around race, culture and nation. We are trying to compete with each other for military supremacy. However, the people involved failed to see that space exploration is the final destination of the human race as a whole.