1. The Ethics of Space Expansion: impact and damage.
Space Resources: Promising and Problematic: October 15-16, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
The Ethics of Space Expansion: impact and damage.
Tony Milligan,
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London

2. There is no clear-cut justification for space exploration.
Typical Appeals
A duty to extend life/human life.
The value of space science.
The need for a shift in perspective that space activity is uniquely placed to bring.
We have an innate urge to explore which should not be frustrated.
We must back up the biosphere.
Space can relieve resource or population pressures on the Earth.
There are major economic spin-offs.

3. There is also no knock-down argument against space exploration.
Ethical arguments geared to an in principle rejection of all space activity face a problem of realpolitik: this is going to happen. If such arguments draw upon an understanding of human action as unavoidably or inherently bad, then they could also carry implausible implications for how we live now, here on Earth.

4. Ethical discussion of these matters may best be thought of as a concern about how best to expand our presence.
‘doing things in a suitable way and with appropriate constraints’ ‘minimising repetitions of past mistakes’ ‘framing the expansion process in a socially beneficial way’

5. The focus below will be upon some of the potentially damaging impacts that an expansion of our activities in space might have.

6. Damaging impact
Launch sites

7. Damaging impact
Launch sites
Space debris (at GEO and especially at LEO)

8. Space debris Both an issue of environmental harm and justice.
Typical problem of environmental injustice: the burden is likely to be carried, in the future, by a significant number of launch states but the problem has been generated by a much smaller number of launch states.

9. Damaging impact
Launch sites
Space debris (at GEO and especially at LEO)
Asteroids

10. Asteroids
Should we worry about damage to asteroids?

11. Asteroid Mining
As long as we are talking about asteroids in the restricted sense (not minor planets in the asteroid belt like Vesta or Ceres) terrestrial grounds for environmental protection (e.g. protecting integrity and/or diversity) are unlikely to carry over effectively. There is little talk about the need for ‘asteroid protection.’
Ethical examinations of asteroid mining are not likely to focus upon in situ damage but may focus upon its sustainability, and about how best to contain the impact of such mining elsewhere (on our terrestrial economy, on the minor planets and on Mars).

12. Damaging impact
Launch sites
Space debris (at GEO and especially at LEO)
Asteroids
Lunar strip mining for 3He

13. Lunar Mining
Given the variability of 3He deposits, their concentration in the upper regolith, 3He mining could require extensive surface disruption.
This makes such mining a far strong candidate for an environmental ethics critique.

14. Ethical Problems of Lunar Mining
Lunar ‘integrity’ may be placed at risk by extensive mining for 3He, or extensive regolith use for habitat construction. The moon is ‘inherently important’ or else it is a culturally significant object, part of our common heritage.
Future science may lose important opportunities.
Future generations may lose important experiential opportunities.
Such change is unwelcome and irreversible.

15. Impact of asteroid mining-1
Asteroid mining for 3He, although technically more demanding than lunar mining, could relieve pressures towards lunar mining. This may help an ethical case for asteroid mining.

16. Impact of asteroid mining-2
Extensive asteroid of any sort (e.g. for platinum group metals) could, however, bring a problem of containment. A sustaining mining industry would require access to the Main Belt, and a base of operations for the latter…somewhere with a shallow gravity well. Mars fits the bill. This would give ground for reasonable ethical concern.

17. Unless we restrict ourselves to a specialised theory which holds that ethical concern is appropriate only where there is sentient life (sentientism) or an existing ecosystem (e.g. a ‘Land Ethic’) then various environmental ethical considerations which apply in the case of the Earth will also apply in the case of Mars.

18. Unless we restrict ourselves to a specialised theory which holds that ethical concern is appropriate only where there is sentient life (sentientism) or an existing ecosystem (e.g. a ‘Land Ethic’) then various environmental ethical considerations which apply in the case of the Earth will also apply in the case of Mars.

19. Note: in each case of damaging impact above, ethical constraining can also be seen (plausibly) as enabling …it keeps open future opportunities which might otherwise be lost.

20. At least some of the issues above also pose a dilemma about how we run ethical arguments in space.
Do we:
A) Go metaphysically deep and talk about ‘value’ and ‘inherent value’ of places and of possible microbial life?
B) Stay more pragmatic and appeal to universally accepted considerations: human interest, future generations, sustainability and distributive justice (who gets to own or to appropriate things)?

21. ‘precursor-apt’ or ‘policy-apt’?
This might not be an ‘either’/’or’ story.
In precursor discussions, we may want to draw upon matters of depth (and so include various perspectives on ‘value’ or ‘inherent value’).
In policy discussions, we may want to draw upon insights from precursor discussions, but in a way more likely to yield a workable consensus.