essay on space settlement

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Future Space Settlements: Lessons from History (2024-2025)

Human beings are on the cusp of settling beyond Earth. While much attention is being focused on the aerospace engineering challenges of sending humans to outer space, less consideration has been given to how human settlements on the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies would be organized, sustained and governed.

In the fifty years or so since space exploration was a Cold War contest between the United States and the Soviet Union, space activities have become the business of many more governments and a rapidly growing array of private companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and more. Who, then, is responsible for managing the risks of space launches and space debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) or the human and ecological risks of potential encounters with extraterrestrial life? What law governs private property in space or travelers and settlers moving about the planets under the auspices of both nations and companies? How should relations and possible conflicts be coordinated and governed if multiple settlements off-Earth are made by multiple national governments and companies with differing interests, ideologies and social and legal systems? 

The questions posed by interplanetary exploration and settlement require interdisciplinary answers, raising technological, legal, economic, environmental, social, security and diplomatic issues for which the long history of human exploration, settlement and colonization can be a guide.

Project Description

This project brings together scholars and students from across the university to explore human expansion into space through the history of planetary exploration, settlement and colonization on Earth. The team will investigate what lessons past experiences on Earth may offer for future communities off-Earth, from Norwegians settling Iceland in the 870s C.E. through the Mayflower Compact in 1620. Team members will investigate whether the long history of company-led colonization, such as the East India or Hudson’s Bay Companies, might inform policy decisions by and about the ambitions of corporations like SpaceX or Blue Origin. The team will also consider the consequences of encounters with life on other planets in light of the legal, cultural, etiological and environmental impacts of past settler encounters with indigenous human, animal, plant and microbial life.

The project will collect and collate a digital archive of settler/colonial charters, laws, writings, records and histories. This archive will be a publicly available output and a foundation for subteams to follow up on. The team will convene a core course where undergraduates, graduate and professional students, and faculty will meet to discuss readings, hear from visiting speakers and practitioners and continue to build a primary and secondary source archive. 

Vertically integrated subteams will draw on the archive and other materials to develop “case study” approaches to the broader questions set out by the project and assess and compare what insights these past examples offer for future space settlements. The project will develop web-based outputs (essays, visual essays and videos) and a website to showcase these materials.

Anticipated Outputs

Digital archive; case studies; public-facing website; poster report; publication; connections with external partners

Student Opportunities

Ideally, this project team will consist of 8 graduate students and 15 undergraduate students interested in anthropology, astrobiology, business, economics, engineering, environment, ethics, history, law, medicine, philosophy, physics, political science, public health, public policy, psychology, religion, risk analysis, sociology and more. Graduate and professional students are expected to take leadership roles within subteams and should be excited about teaching and mentoring opportunities.

Team members will enroll in a weekly required course to organize, perform work toward project goals and hear from invited scholars and practitioners. Undergraduates will form integrated subteams led by a graduate student and faculty member to perform research on case studies. Chelsea Nielsen will serve as project manager.

Team members will establish core competencies in the history of exploration, expansion and colonization as well as core problems of space exploration and settlement. All students will develop research and writing skills. Team members will contribute to a final poster, written analyses, web content, proposals for future grants and projects and other products as appropriate.

Students interested in research or space-related careers will receive professional development opportunities by engaging closely with team members, visitors and potential external partners, such as NASA. 

In an optional summer component, 2-3 students will engage in collecting and collating primary and archival source material detailing the history of colonial exploration and settlement. This component is expected to run from early June to late July with students working 20 hours per week.

Summer 2024 – Spring 2025

• Summer 2024 (optional) : Create digital archive
• Fall 2024 : Complete shared readings; meet with visiting speakers and practitioners; build documentary and secondary source archives; start subteams for case study research; coordinate affiliated courses
• Spring 2025 : Perform subteam research; continue building documentary archive; synthesize web-based outputs; develop website; produce poster report; discuss publications

Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters; summer funding available

See earlier related team, DECIPHER: Going to Mars – Science, Society and Sustainability (2020-2021).

Team Leaders

• Chelsea Nielsen, School of Law and Nicholas School of the Environment-JD and MEM Student
• Philip Stern, Arts & Sciences-History
• Jonathan Wiener, Duke Law
• Giovanni Zanalda, Social Science Research Institute

/yfaculty/staff Team Members

• Daniel Buckland, School of Medicine-Surgery: Emergency Medicine
• Mohamed Noor, Arts & Sciences-Biology
• Siobhan Oca, Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
• Robert Pearson, Duke Rethinking Diplomacy Program
• Shitong Qiao, Duke Law
• Mara Revkin, Duke Law

Theme(s): 

• Bass Connections Open

Space Settlements

Spreading life throughout the solar system.

A billion years ago there was no life on land. In a phenomenal development, by 400 million years ago land life was well established. We are at the very beginning of a similar, perhaps even more important, development. Today Earth teems with life, but as far as we know, in the vast reaches of space there are only a handful of astronauts, a few plants and animals, and some bacteria and fungi; mostly on the International Space Station . We can change that. In the 1970's Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill, with the help of NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University, discovered that we can build gigantic spaceships, big enough to live in. These free-space settlements could be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, and great wealth. Subsequent discoveries have brought this dream much closer. In time, we may see millions of free-space settlements in our solar system alone. Building them, particularly the first one, is a monumental challenge. If this sounds exciting, read on.

• Who? Pioneers at first, billions of ordinary people later.
• What? Very large to gigantic rotating, pressurized spacecraft the size of towns or even cities.
• Where? In orbit; near Earth at first.
• How? Solar energy, lunar and asteroidal materials, and lots of hard work.
• Why? To Survive and Thrive.
• When? Good question, when do you start working on it?

National Space Society Space Settlement Contest

• Contest information .
• Teacher's page .
• Continuing Education . A list of colleges and universities where you can prepare for space colonization work.

Online Space Settlement Books

• NASA Ames/Stanford 1975 Summer Study .
• Space Resources and Space Settlements NASA Ames 1977 Summer Study.
• Space Resources Overview NASA-California Space Institute 1992 Summer Study.
• Space Resources Volume 1, Scenarios NASA-California Space Institute 1992 Summer Study.
• Space Resources Volume 2, Energy, Power, and Transport NASA-California Space Institute 1992
• Space Resources Volume 3, Materials Nasa-California Space Institute 1992
• Space Resources Volume 4, Social Concerns NASA-California Space Institute 1992
• CoEvolution Book on space settlement edited by Stewart Brand and published in 1977. This work contains arguments for and against space colonization, very interesting.
• Dr. Gerard O'Neill's space settlement testimony before Congress 23 July 1975. This lays out early thinking about the feasibility and value of free space settlements.
• The High Frontier by Gerard K. O'Neill. This is the classic free space settlement book.
• The High Frontier: an Easier Way by Tom Marotta and Al Globus.
• Entering Space by Robert Zubrin.
• The Millenium Project by Marshall Savage.
• Colonies in Space A complete online book by T. A. Heppenheimer.
• NASA Ames summer studies (1970's).
• Kalpana One space settlement images and video.
• Images of the moon from the National Space Science Data Center.
• Asteroid and Comet Fact Sheets .
• Bryan Versteeg's space settlement 3D and video art.

Other Space Settlement Web Sites

• Free-Space Settlements by Al Globus. This site holds a large number of papers by Al Globus and collaborators on free-space (orbital) settlements, asteroid mining, and space solar power. Al Globus is the head judge of the annual NASA Ames Student Space Settlement Design Contest .
• High Frontier Computer Game . Design and operate your own space settlements in this high fidelity game.
• NSS Space Settlement Journal . Peer reviewed, open access journal on all aspects of space settlement.
• International Space Station (ISS) . This is the closest thing we have to a space settlement, six people living and working in space rotating every six months or so.
• Space Studies Institute . SSI was established by Gerard O'Neill. It has sponsored important research towards space settlement and organized a premier series of conferences on the subject.
• National Space Society . Join the vision and put Space in your future.
• The Space Settlement Institute . Finding ways to make space settlement happen in our lifetimes.
• The Space Setlement Initiative . Founded by Alan Wasser, former CEO of the National Space Society proposes legislation authorizing lunar land claims recognition to help catalyze private sector investment in building permanent settlements.
• The Artemis Project to establish a self-sufficient lunar colony.
• Isaac Asimov on space settlement.
• Burning the Cosmic Commons: Evolutionary Strategies for Interstellar Colonization . A paper by Robin Hanson
• Mike Combs' Space Settlement FAQ.
• Mike Combs' space settlement page.
• Freeluna.com dedicated to the proposition that the colonization of outer space is critical for the long term survival of the human species, and that colonization of the moon and the exploitation of the moon's natural resources is one of the best first steps in that incredible journey off planet.
• Adaptation of Stereolithography to the In-Situ Construction of Lunar Basalt Structures A novel method of basalt casting with applications towards semi-autonomous robotic processing is presented by William Clawson.
• P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T. the P rojects to E mploy R esources of the M oon and A steroids N ear E arth in the N ear T erm.
• Space ColonyH . Try this psychologically-based, problem-solving leadership game set in space.
• Spaceflight or Extinction A civilization restricted to the surface of a single planet has inevitable threats to its long-term existence. Natural threats such as epidemics and impacts from space objects, and man-made threats such as nuclear and biological war, will be joined by new threats from emerging sciences and technologies.
• Space Quotes to Ponder What famous people (and some not famous) have said about why humankind must expand into space.
• The Space Frontier Foundation.

Miscellaneous

• A Futurist Perspective For Space by Dr. Kenneth J. Cox, ( [email protected] ), June 2001. (pdf file)
• SpaceSettlers . A site devoted to space settlement discussion.
• The Space Show . The Space Show focuses on timely and important issues influencing the developmentof outer-space commerce and space tourism, as well as other related subjects of interest to us all. These are highlights associated with the design contest that were reported to NAS management.
• Videos of weightless living.
• Annotated bibliography .
• Ringworld : a Java applet to interactively explore some aspects of living in a rotating environment, particularly jumping off high platforms and throwing balls.
• Links to solar sail web sites .
• Lewis One space settlement design: intended to improve on the 10,000 inhabitant designs of the mid-70s depicted in the artwork (see above). The new design features large shielded micro-g construction bays, low-g agriculture near the rotation axis to reduce the length of cylindrical settlements, large micro-g visitor and recreation areas, space viewing, and low-g recreation.
• Space Settlement papers
• Space playgound a zero-g playground designed by four, five, and six year olds at the Santa Cruz Children's School.
• General Public Space Travel and Tourism
• Related web sites.

Parting Words

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote that new ideas pass through three periods:

• "It can't be done."
• "It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing."
• "I knew it was a good idea all along!"

This site was hosted by the NASA Ames Research Center from 1994-2018 and is now hosted by:

Space Settlement

The space settlement ideas of Dr. Gerard O’Neill are at the core of the NSS’ vision for making humanity a space faring species. This vision did not focus on surface settlements, for example, on the Moon or Mars, but rather featured settlements in free space with settlers living inside huge rotating satellites orbiting around Earth at first and other planets and asteroids later. These settlements rotate to deliver 1g of pseudo-gravity to inhabitants so their children will grow up with strong bones and muscles.

But O’Neill’s works, such as “The High Frontier,” were published nearly 50 years ago. How have these been updated, and what will these new plans look like? How can we learn to live and work in a rotating environment? How does the discovery of a low-radiation region near the equator (ELEO) roughly 500 km from Earth change early settlement? Can we reliably grow Space Farms to feed settlers, provide oxygen, clean air and water? Can we recycle nearly everything? Is the surface gravity of the Moon and Mars (1/6g and 1/3g) acceptable for children and adults? These and many other areas of pressing concern are at the core of the Space Settlement track—and the NSS remains the most prominent archive and clearing house for cutting-edge developments and archival of existing work.

Board of Directors

National space society.

Al Globus worked at NASA Ames on space settlement, asteroid mining, Hubble, space stations, X37, Earth observation, TDRSS, cubesats, lunar teleoperation, spaceflight effects on bone, molecular nanotechnology, and space solar power publishing dozens of papers on these and other topics. He founded and has run the annual Space Settlement Contest for 7-12 grade students for over 25 years. Most recently, he found a way to build O’Neill-style space settlements with two or more orders of magnitude less mass and place them close to Earth, making launch from Earth practical.

Chief Executive Officer

 national space society.

Anita Gale co-founded events in the 1980s that became the International Space Settlement Design Competition. Her research for the Competition led to writing and presenting papers on triggering events for space settlement, space infrastructure, and economic justifications for space settlements. Her 40-year career with The Boeing Company included payload and cargo integration for reusable launch vehicles, proposals for future space vehicles, roadmapping space infrastructure development, and multiple R&D projects to improve space vehicle operations. Anita is an elected NSS Board Member, and currently serves on the NSS Executive Committee as Chief Executive Officer.

Greg Hunter

Vice president, national space society of australia.

Gregory Hunter is the Vice President of the NSSA, National Point of Contact for Australia for SGAC, and holds a number of positions in space-tech start-ups (Arlula, Moonshot). He is also Co-Founder of his own space-tech start-up, Arbiter. Over the last five years, Gregory has amassed over fifteen collective years of experience in high-level strategy on boards (with the NSSA and UNAA), and produced successful space summits with the aim of strengthening the Australian space industry.

Artificial Gravity Specialist

My day-job occupation is virtual reality software development and consulting. My weekend avocation is space architecture with a specialization in artificial gravity. I have B.S., M.Arch., and Arch.D. degrees from the University of Michigan. I emerged from the M.Arch. program in 1981 as a software developer for CAD and BIM and have evolved over the decades into VR | AR | MR | XR. My 1994 doctoral dissertation was on the “Architecture of Artificial-Gravity Environments for Long-Duration Space Habitation.” I’m a founding member of the Space Architecture Technical Committee (SATC) in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

NSS Board of Directors

St louis space frontier.

He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Engineering, and a graduate degree in Biology, and some time working farms. He also has an extensive engineering resume in a variety of aerospace and internet fields, and is regarded by some as an expert in space agriculture, fish stuff, software architecture, and other odd fields.

Space Infrastructure Specialist

Phil Swan has a track record of developing successful innovations while working on advanced multi-disciplinary projects including Starlink, Hololens, and XBox. He has been granted 38 US patents, including, most recently, a patent for the Tethered Ring. He is the recipient of three corporate recognition awards.

Chief Engineer, Lunar Surface, Human Exploration & Operations

Northrop grumman.

Currently Chief Engineer for programs within NG Human Exploration & Operations Operating Unit focused on robotic and human sustainment activities and solutions for the lunar surface. Has over 45 years of complex system development and design experience ranging from space, air, ground, and sea environments and covering concept through sustainment aspects of project lifespans.

Schedule for Space Settlement Session

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Space colonization.

BOOKS  –  E-BOOKS  –  ARTICLES AND REPORTS  –  WEBSITES

“Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.”

                                                                                    – carl sagan, cosmos.

Once the exclusive province of science fiction stories and films, the subject of space colonization has rapidly moved several steps closer to becoming a reality thanks to major advances in rocket propulsion and design, astronautics and astrophysics, robotics and medicine. The urgency to establish humanity as a multi-planet species has been re-validated by the emergence of a worldwide pandemic, one of several reasons including both natural and man-made catastrophes long espoused in the pro-colonization rhetoric.

The long-term habitation of the International Space Station by rotating teams of astronauts, scientists and medical professionals has provided us with a wealth of data to establish parameters for keeping humans alive and healthy for long periods in the harsh environment of space. Here on earth there have been several ambitious projects attempting to duplicate as close as possible the conditions of off-world habitation to test the limits of human endurance.

To be sure there are many daunting challenges facing prospective space colonists such as protection from exposure to deadly radiation levels, the impact on the human body while living and working in cramped, low-gravity environments for extended periods of time and the psychological toll of isolation, confinement and separation from one’s family and society. The benefits that await us as direct or incidental byproducts of space colonization could include advances in architectural design, alternative fuel production, 3D printing and low-gravity manufacturing to name but a few. The NASA Headquarters Library has many resources to assist policymakers, scientists, teachers, students and members of the public with a passionate or passing interest in these areas.

All items are available at the Headquarters Library, except as noted. NASA Headquarters employees and contractors: Call x0168 or email  [email protected]  for information on borrowing or in-library use of any of these items. Members of the public: Contact your local library ( https://publiclibraries.com ) for the availability of these items. NASA Headquarters employees can request additional materials or research on this topic. The Library welcomes your comments ( [email protected] ) about this webpage.

Benaroya, Haim.  Turning Dust to Gold: Building a Future on the Moon and Mars. Berlin; New York: Springer; Chichester, UK: published in association with Praxis Publishing, c2010. TL 795.7 .B46 2010 Bookstacks

Caprara, Giovanni.  Living in Space: From Science Fiction to the International Space Station.  Willowdale, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2000. TL 797 .C26 2000 Bookstacks

Damon, Thomas.  Introduction to Space: The Science of Spaceflight   3rd ed. Malabar, FL: Krieger, 2001. TL 791 .D36 2001 Bookstacks

Davenport, Christian.  The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos.  Public Affairs, 2018. TL 789.85 .A1 D38 2018 Bookstacks

Eckart, Peter.  The Lunar Base Handbook: An Introduction to Lunar Base Design, Development, and Operations.  New York: McGraw-Hill, c1999. TL 799 .M6 L88 1999 Bookstacks

Fogg, Martyn J.  Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments.  Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1995. TL 795.7 .F64 1995 Bookstacks

Halyard, Raymond J.  The Quest for Water Planets: Interstellar Space Colonization in the 21st Century.   Show Low, AZ: American Eagle Publications, 1996. TL 795.7 .H349 1996 Bookstacks

Harris, Philip Robert.  Space Enterprise: Living and Working Offworld in the 21 st  Century . Berlin; New York: Chichester, UK: In association with Praxis Publishing, 2009. TL 795.7 .H38 2009 Bookstacks

Harrison, Albert A.  Spacefaring: The Human Dimension.   Berkeley: University of California Press, c2001. TL 1500 .H37 2001 Bookstacks

Johnson, Richard D.  Space Settlements: A Design Study .  Washington: Scientific and Technical Information Office, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1977. TL 795.7 .S67 1977 Bookstacks

Krone, Robert M. Beyond Earth:  The Future of Humans in Space . Burlington, Ontario: Apogee Books, 2006. TL 795.7 .B49 2006 Bookstacks

Levine, Joel S.  The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet . Cambridge, MA: Cosmology Science Publishers, 2010. QB 641 .H86 2010 Bookstacks

OECD International Futures Programme.  Space 2030: Exploring the Future of Space Applications.  Paris, France: OECD, 2004. T 174 .S63 2004 Bookstacks

O’Neill, Gerard K.  The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space . Burlington, Ontario: Apogee Books, 2000. TL 795.7 .O53 2000 Bookstacks

Petranek, Stephen L.  How We’ll Live on Mars . New York, NY: TED Books, Simon & Schuster, 2015 TL 795.7 .P48 2015 Bookstacks

Schmitt, Harrison H.  Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space.  New York, NY: Copernicus Books, in association with Praxis Publishing, 2006 TL 799 .M6 S34 2006 Bookstacks Schrunk, David G., et al.  The Moon: Resources, Future Development, and Settlement . Berlin; New York: Springer; Chichester, UK: Published in association with Praxis Pub., 2008. QB 582.5 .S37 2008 Bookstacks

Wingo, Dennis.  Moonrush: Improving Life on Earth with the Moon’s Resources . Burlington, Ont.: Apogee Books, 2004. QB 582.5 .W56 2004 Bookstacks

Zubrin, Robert.  The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must . New York: The Free Press, 1996 QB 641 .Z83 1996 Bookstacks

Zubrin, Robert.  Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization . New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, c1999. TL 795.7 .Z83 1999 Bookstacks

The e-books listed below are available to the general public through National Academies Press.  ( https://www.nap.edu )

• The National Research Council.  America’s Future in Space: Aligning the Civil Space Program with National Needs.  2009
• National Research Council.  Fostering Visions for the Future: A Review of the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts.  2009
• The National Research Council.  NASA Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities: Restoring NASA’s Technological Edge and Paving the Way for a New Era in Space.  2012
• The National Research Council.  Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Human Space Exploration.  2014

ARTICLES AND REPORTS

The expert guide to space colonies –  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20141002-time-to-plan-a-space-colony

The future of space colonization – terraforming or space habitats?  by Matt Williams, Universe Today –  https://phys.org/news/2017-03-future-space-colonization-terraforming-habitats.html

RESOURCES AVAILABLE in NTRS ( NTRS.NASA.gov )

Currieri, Peter A. “A Minimized Technological Approach towards Human Self Sufficiency off Earth”, in:  Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) Conference , Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 11-15, 2007. (20070032685)

__________. “Optimized O’Neill/Glaser Model for Human Population of Space and its Impact on Survival Probabilities”, in:  Earth and Space 2010 Conference , Honolulu, HI, March 14-17, 2010. (20100017094)

__________., and Michael Detweiler. “Habitat Size Optimization of the O’Neill – Glaser Economic Model for Space Solar Satellite Production”, in:  Space Manufacturing 14: Critical Technologies for Space Settlement Conference , Mountain View, CA, Oct. 30-31, 2010. (20100041325)

Johnson, Chris. “Inflatable Structures: Test Results and Development Progress Since TransHab”, in:  Annual Technical Symposium 2006 , Houston, TX, May 19, 2006. (20060022083)

Purves, Lloyd R. “Use of a Lunar Outpost for Developing Space Settlement Technologies”, in:  AIAA Space 2008 Conference , San Diego, CA, Sept. 9-11, 2008. (20080041557)

Townsend, Ivan I., et al. “Performance of Regolith Feed Systems for Analog Field Tests of In-Situ Resource Utilization Oxygen Production Plants in Mauna Kea, Hawaii”, in:  Proceedings of the 40 th  Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium , NASA/CP-2010-216272, Cocoa Beach, FL, May 12-14, 2010.  (20100021942)

Smitherman, David V., Jr. “Pathways to Colonization”, in:  Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) Conference , Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 2-6, 2003.   (20030062017)

INTERNET RESOURCES

NASA:  https://www.nasa.gov/

National Space Society – Space Settlement:  https://space.nss.org/?s=space+settlement

The Mars Society:  www.marssociety.org

The Planetary Society:  www.planetary.org               

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

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WSU Philosopher Contributes to 'The Great Colonization Debate'

By Wichita Space Initiative

 Space might be the final frontier, but as China announces plans to build a moon base, NASA begins working on manned missions to Mars and spaceships continue to probe deep space, one group of scholars is asking: are human colonies in space ethical?

 “As long as space colonization was merely the dream of science fiction fans, serious questions about how and if we should do it were moot. However, now that colonies have become a near-term possibility, the question of whether and how we ought to build them becomes pressing,” says Kelly Smith, a philosopher and biologist at Clemson University and founding president of the Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology (SSoCIA).  Smith recently co-edited (with Keith Abney, a philosopher at Cal Poly) a special issue of the academic journal Futures devoted to exploring these issues.

Topics like the immediate and irrevocable impact humans will make in space were missing from the discussion until recently. 

“Now, astrobiologists are looking for fossil evidence of past life on Mars, and the possibility that Mars might host microbial life today is growing stronger,” says Linda Billings, a consultant to NASA’s Astrobiology Program and the Planetary Defense Coordination Office. “Once humans land on Mars, the environment will be contaminated for further scientific exploration.”

In the latest issue of Futures , Smith, Billings and 14 other scholars address space colonization from their a variety of disciplines: philosophy, communications, ecology, animal rights, anthropology, and religion. The essays are a collective call to “incorporate the ethical dimensions more explicitly in our decision making,” Smith says.

Billings says the essays “are intended to enrich the current dialogue about the future of Mars exploration.” She and Smith both hope NASA and other space agencies around the world take up the conversation.

“We need more study of the issue before we get too far ahead of ourselves,” Smith says.

The journal essays sprung from discussions leading up to the second biennial meeting of the Society for Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology ( SSoCIA) , an organization dedicated to interdisciplinary discussion of the many broader issues posed by astrobiology and space exploration more generally.

“Several SSoCIA members began an intense email exchange over the propriety of human colonization, which led to an intense panel discussion at the 2018 conference that was as stimulating as it was frustrating – stimulating because it involved an engaging exchange of radically different points of view, but frustrating because it barely scratched the surface,” Smith says.  “The special issue is an attempt to share the spirit of these exchanges with a wider audience.”

In an “interactive” essay, “The Great Colonization Debate”, all 15 contributors explore the broad contours of the debate in an informal, freewheeling, fashion, Smith says. It addresses six central questions:

• Is there a moral duty to preserve humanity through colonization?
• Is any such duty contingent on the good behavior of humanity?
• Is colonization, in the long run, a good or bad thing for Earth’s other inhabitants?
• Given this discussion, what goals should we be pursuing with respect to colonization right now?
• What alternatives to the traditional model of colonization should we pursue?
• Is it morally permissible to send humans into what is likely to be a hellish situation?

On one side of the continuum, some people argue that humans have no business in space until and unless they prove they can manage the Earth responsibly. They believe that public opinion concerning colonies is driven by a largely uncritical acceptance of ideologies of conquest and domination, which should have no place in the debate.   They also point to humanity’s abysmal environmental record on Earth and ask if we have the right to subject another world to our destructive presence.

Others counter that colonies in space may be the best long-term chance to save humanity, and non-human species as well, from ultimate disaster. If we have moral obligations to do anything , this group says, we have a strong obligation to preserve humans – the only beings known to be capable of moral reasoning.

“How much does ethics demand of us before we make humanity a multi-world species?” Smith asks. “A lot, since the bottom line is that no serious discussion of human colonization can proceed responsibly without careful and systematic consideration of these sorts of ethical concerns.”

The essays are:

• “The great colonization debate,” by all 15 contributors
• “Humanity is not prepared to colonize Mars,” by neuroscientist Lori Marino of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy
• “Politics of planetary reproduction and the children of other worlds,” by anthropologist Michael Oman-Reagan of Memorial University of Newfoundland
• “Biodiversity requirements for self-sustaining space colonies,” by ecologist Alan Johnson of Clemson University
• “A Hobbesian qualm with space settlement,” by philosopher Koji Tachibana of Kumamoto University in Japan
• “Homo reductio: Eco-Nihilism and Human Colonization of other worlds,” by philosopher and biologist Kelly Smith of Clemson University
• “Self-preservation should be humankind’s first ethical priority and therefore rapid space settlement is necessary,” by ethicist Brian Patrick Green of Santa Clara University
• “An obligation to colonize outer space,” by philosopher Gonzalo Munevar, of Lawrence Technological University
• “Alien attacks, hell gerbils, and assisted dying: Arguments against saving mere humanity,” by philosopher Adam Potthast of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota
• “Colonizing other planets is a bad idea,” by communications expert Linda Billings of the National Institute of Aerospace
• “Which humanity would space colonization save?,” by anthropologist John Traphagan of the University of Texas at Austin
• “An alternate vision for colonization,” by linguist Sheri Wells-Jensen, graduate student Brandie Bohney of Bowling Green State University and physicist Joshua Miele of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute
• “Getting off planet,” by mathematician Carl DeVito of the University of Arizona
• “Space settlement: What’s the rush?,” by philosopher James S.J. Schwartz of Wichita State University
• “Ethics of colonization: Arguments from existential risk,” by philosopher Keith Abney of Cal Poly State University - San Luis Obispo
• “The politics of settling space,” by freelance writer Greg Anderson

 A free copy of Dr. Schwartz's paper can be downloaded here (until July 14, 2019).

Blue Marble Space Institute of Science

Space exploration begins at home

Ethics of Space Colonization

Julia Sullivan shares her ethics & society case study, which she completed as part of our Young Scientist Program .

For many, the idea of space colonization may seem to be an inevitable fact, with Mars seeming to be within reaching distance, with our only obstacle being time, as our technological advances and scientific understanding no longer feel like limiting factors. This may be so, but one question that isn’t commonly considered is, should we? Yes, humans have explored and expanded across the globe since our very evolutionary beginnings as a species and this is deeply ingrained in our modern history. It appears to be a universally accepted part of our story that we are explorers, as we revel in the memory of those such as Columbus and Zheng Hu. But just because we’ve done it before, does that mean we should do it again? Is the argument “because we feel like we should” a valid justification for leaving our planet and coming into contact with another?

Starting from a purely pragmatic stand point, the justification required for space colonization is for the benefit to outweigh the cost. This sounds like a simple enough requirement, but it is incredibly difficult to quantify. If we want this requirement to be fulfilled economically then a space colony would need to export valuables back to earth, or the industry must create jobs on earth. Alternatively we could justify the potential of preserving the human race indefinitely as a great enough benefit. Already, the ambiguity of what aspect we are seeking to fulfill is muddying the waters.

Say we do come to the conclusion that colonizing Mars is beneficial to the human race, how is it going to be orchestrated in a social platform? How will it be decided who gets to be part of this colony? We could rank applications by suitability, prioritize diversity, leave it as a lottery draw, or simply allow the highest bidders to be the only participants. Each of these options raises its own issues, but they all are related to who is being left behind, who has to carry the cost of the expedition and who has to deal with the consequences.

After choosing the participants, can we ethically send them without fully knowing what the consequences may be? As of today, some fears for interplanetary or interstellar expeditions are radiation, the long term effects of zero gravity and the development of children, which will be inevitable if we plan for this group to take up permanent settlement where they are going. We may come up with solutions, but we will never know their capability until they are truly used and tested, which will take years, and humanity does not pride itself on it’s patience. Without knowing that these issues, and the plethora of others, are resolved, when we send a colony we can’t truly know if we’re sending them to Eden or sentencing them to death.

Then there’s a question of our ethical obligation toward alien planets. If we find a planet inhabited by life, it is not difficult to believe that our biologies will not be compatible, resulting in either our death or the death of the alien life, be it bacterial, vegetation or even animal. Is this powerful enough to dissuade us? The more likely scenario would be that we find a barren planet within a habitable zone, for instance, Mars. Now imagine that, even though there is currently no life, there is the potential for life to develop. All the chemicals and conditions are ideal, life just hasn’t come to fruition yet. Do we have an obligation to restrain ourselves and leave this planet to it’s own devices and allow life to have the chance to be. There’s even the argument for leaving a completely lifeless, barren planet with absolutely no potential for life to be left alone. On earth we normally reserve our ethical tendencies for living things, but should we leave barren lands as they are and preserve the universe. Essentially, why do we feel entitled to change anything other than our own immediate environment, Earth.

We may have answers for all of these problems, led by our own moral compass. This is good, and not uncommon, but leads us to the final issue: Whose ethics are we going to use? Our sense of morality is heavily influenced by culture and upbringing, meaning your ethical impulses may be vastly different to those of another on the other side of the globe. There is a strong argument to be made for traversing space as a species as opposed to as nations, but this will require us to have a universally accepted ethical code.

Problems would arise if a private company or nation were to colonize Mars on their own. There would be almost no incentive for them to not stake their claim. The fame and wealth to come along with this achievement would be difficult to ignore, or share. We may need to create an obvious incentive for us all to accept the accomplishment so as not to allow us to separate and disperse as a species. If we end up colonizing Mars as singular entities it is hard not to imagine a future not fraught with conflict. It would therefore be imperative, before any serious space colonization, to have global agreements in place, through the United Nations for example, that would determine the rules and codes of behavior. Such international agreements currently exist on earth for occupation of the Antarctic, which might provide a model to follow.

Creating a universal ethical code may not be at the top of the agenda right now, with steps such as the recently tested EM drive coming to fruition, but it cannot be ignored indefinitely.

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NASA doesn’t say the Boeing Starliner astronauts are ‘stranded’ on the space station, but it’s a word that a lot of people are using.

By Kenneth Chang

If you go somewhere expecting an eight-day trip and end up not being able to leave for eight months, most people would consider that “stranded.”

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Pro and Con: Space Colonization

To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether humans should colonize space, go to ProCon.org .

While humans have long thought of gods living in the sky, the idea of space travel or humans living in space dates to at least 1610 after the invention of the telescope when German astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote to Italian astronomer Galileo: “Let us create vessels and sails adjusted to the heavenly ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes. In the meantime, we shall prepare, for the brave sky-travellers, maps of the celestial bodies.” 

In popular culture, space travel dates back to at least the mid-1600s when Cyrano de Bergerac first wrote of traveling to space in a rocket. Space fantasies flourished after Jules Verne’s “From Earth to the Moon” was published in 1865, and again when RKO Pictures released a film adaptation, A Trip to the Moon , in 1902. Dreams of space settlement hit a zenith in the 1950s with Walt Disney productions such as “ Man and the Moon ,” and science fiction novels including Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (1950). 

Fueling popular imagination at the time was the American space race with Russia, amid which NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was formed in the United States on July 29, 1958, when President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law. After the Russians put the first person, Yuri Gagarin, in space on Apr. 12, 1961, NASA put the first people, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the Moon in July 1969 . What was science fiction began to look more like possibility. Over the next six decades, NASA would launch space stations, land rovers on Mars, and orbit Pluto and Jupiter, among other accomplishments . NASA’s ongoing Artemis program, launched by President Trump in 2017, intends to return humans to the Moon, landing the first woman on the lunar surface, by 2024. 

As of June 17, 2021, three countries had space programs with human space flight capabilities: China, Russia, and the United States. India’s planned human space flights have been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but they may launch in 2023. However, NASA ended its space shuttle program in 2011 when the shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 21. NASA astronauts going into space afterward rode along with Russians until 2020 when SpaceX took over and first launched NASA astronauts into space on Apr. 23, 2021 . SpaceX is a commercial space travel business owned by Elon Musk that has ignited commercial space travel enthusiasm and the idea of “space tourism.” Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin have generated similar excitement . 

Richard Branson launched himself, two pilots, and three mission specialists into space [ as defined by the United States ] from New Mexico for a 90-minute flight on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission on July 11, 2021 . The flight marked the first time that passengers, rather than astronauts, went into space. 

Jeff Bezos followed on July 20, 2021 , accompanied by his brother, Mark, and both the oldest and youngest people to go to space: 82-year-old Wally Funk, a female pilot who tested with NASA in the 1960s but never flew, and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old student from the Netherlands. The fully automated, unpiloted Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launched on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing and was named after Alan Shepard, who was the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961. 

The International Space Station has been continuously occupied by groups of six astronauts since Nov. 2000, for a total of 243 astronauts from 19 countries as of May 13, 2021. Astronauts spend an average of 182 days (about six months) aboard the ISS. As of Feb. 2020, Russian Valery Polyakov had spent the longest continuous time in space (437.7 days in 1994-1995 on space station Mir), followed by Russian Sergei Avdeyev (379.6 days in 1998-1999 on Mir),  Russians Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov (365 days in 1987-1988 on Mir), Russian Mikhail Kornienko and American Scott Kelly (340.4 days in 2015-2016 on Mir and ISS respectively) and American Christina Koch (328 days in 2019-20 in ISS). 

In Jan. 2022, Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE) announced plans for a film production studio and a sports arena in space. The module will be named SEE-1 and will dock on Axiom Station, which is the commercial wing of the International Space Station. SEE plans to host film and sports events, as well as content creation by Dec. 2024.

In a 2018 poll , 50% of Americans believed space tourism will be routine for ordinary people by 2068. 32% believed long-term habitable space colonies will be built by 2068. But 58% said they were definitely or probably not interested in going to space. And the majority (63%) stated NASA’s top priority should be monitoring Earth’s climate, while only 18% said sending astronauts to Mars should be the highest priority and only 13% would prioritize sending astronauts to the Moon. 

The most common ideas for space colonization include: settling Earth’s Moon, building on Mars, and constructing free-floating space stations.

• Humans have a right and a moral duty to save our species from suffering and extinction. Colonizing space is one method of doing so.
• Space colonization is the next logical step in space exploration and human growth.
• Technological advancement into space can exist alongside conservation efforts on Earth.
• Humans living in space is pure science fiction.
• Humans have made a mess of Earth. We should clean it up instead of destroying a moon or another planet.
• Space is inhospitable to humans and life in space, if even possible, would be miserable.

This article was published on January 21, 2022, at Britannica’s ProCon.org , a nonpartisan issue-information source.

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Space colonization and exonationalism: on the future of humanity and anthropology.

1. Introduction

2. the anthropology of space (so far), 3. the politics of space societies, 4. discussion: on space colonialism, ethnogenesis, and exonationalism.

Some might redefine the species designation Homo sapiens (wise human) in locative terms as Homo terrans (Earth humans) from the perspective of Homo ares (Mars humans). From Mars, Earth will be just another star, and one you could mistake for Jupiter or Betelgeuse; as Giovanni reminds us, it would have to be pointed out to you. It would not be the center from which to fix accounts of the human. Or perhaps others may emphasize not location but the more pressing ontological affordances of the gravity relation, so that those people on Earth and Mars may become distinguished equally as Homo pondus (mass-held humans) from the perspective of Island Three’s [an imagined “massive rotating cylindrical settlement” permanently suspended in space] Homo gyrari (rotation-held humans)” [ 31 ] (pp. 202–203).

5. Conclusions: Anthropology Post-Earth and Post-Human

have their own critical theories of the universal and specific, of difference and relation, of the human and nonhuman, or of (what on Earth may be distinguishable as) history, politics, ethics, kinship, Indigeneity, species, race, or society ahead of their framing in terrestrial terms, of whatever variety: critical, postcolonial, Indigenous, settler, or entrepreneurial (pp. 203–204).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Eller, J.D. Space Colonization and Exonationalism: On the Future of Humanity and Anthropology. Humans 2022 , 2 , 148-160. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans2030010

Eller JD. Space Colonization and Exonationalism: On the Future of Humanity and Anthropology. Humans . 2022; 2(3):148-160. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans2030010

Eller, Jack David. 2022. "Space Colonization and Exonationalism: On the Future of Humanity and Anthropology" Humans 2, no. 3: 148-160. https://doi.org/10.3390/humans2030010

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Are we alone? Intelligent aliens may be rare, new study suggests

"The fact that we don't see anything out there means that if they did exist, they vanished long ago and their signatures have decayed away."

The universe should either be crowded with life or harbor hardly any life at all, according to a new study that revamps the Drake equation using probabilistic logic.

A common axiom in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is that if we do detect technologically advanced aliens, there are probably many, many instances of alien life out there rather than there just being two cases (us and the new discovery).

In a new paper, astronomers David Kipping of Columbia University in New York and Geraint Lewis of the University of Sydney describe how this logic works, based on a probability distribution first introduced by the biologist and mathematician J. B. S. Haldane in 1932. Let's imagine a bunch of Earth-like exoplanets , all with similar characteristics. Given their minor differences, we would expect life to arise either on all of them or on none of them; there's no obvious reason why half of these near-identical planets would support life and half wouldn't, for example. 

We can then display the various outcomes in a U-shaped graph, with the probability on the y-axis and the fraction of planets with life on the x-axis. The two prongs of the U-shape correspond to none or very few planets with life, and lots of planets with life. The valley of the U-shape, which corresponds to a low likelihood, represents half the planets having life.

Related: Drake Equation: Estimating the odds of finding E.T.

Now Kipping and Lewis have ascribed Haldane's logic to the famous Drake equation . Developed by astronomer Frank Drake prior to the first-ever SETI conference, at Green Bank Observatory in 1961, as a means of providing the workshop with an agenda, the Drake equation has subsequently taken on a life of its own, being used to estimate the number of technological lifeforms in the Milky Way galaxy . 

The Drake equation is written as N = R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L, where N is the number of civilizations, R* is the star-formation rate, fp is the fraction of stars that have planets, ne is the number of planets that are potentially habitable, fl is the fraction of those potentially habitable planets that evolve life, fi is the fraction that develop "intelligent" life, fc is the fraction that have communicative life, and L is the average lifetime of civilizations.

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Astronomers know the star-formation rate (less than 10 solar masses per year in our galaxy) and the fraction of stars that have planets (almost every star has planets) very well. The number of potentially habitable planets is less well known, but astronomers are learning more about them every day as they probe exoplanetary atmospheres with the James Webb Space Telescope and characterize those worlds. The values of the other four terms remain a complete mystery, which renders any attempts to use the Drake equation less than satisfactory because so much of it is guesswork.

However, Kipping and Lewis point out that the first six terms in the Drake equation describe the "birth" of what they call extraterrestrial technological instantiations, or ETI. This is how they refer to technological alien life, neatly sidestepping terms such as "civilizations," "species" and "intelligence," which have not only proven problematic (for example, how do we define intelligence?) but may also be inaccurate when describing alien life. Meanwhile, the final term, L, relates to the "death," or otherwise the disappearance, of ETI. 

Splitting the terms of the Drake equation this way has allowed Kipping and Lewis to simplify the formula, to read: The time-averaged number of ETIs in the galaxy equals the birth rate of ETIs multiplied by their death rate. 

"The beauty of our approach is that it is totally general," Kipping told Space.com . This means that there is no need to have to worry about the terms of the Drake equation that we don't know. 

"We are not assuming any particular mechanism or means of birth," added Kipping. "The births could occur via spontaneous emergence, or panspermia seeding, or empire building or whatever else you want — there simply is a birth rate."

Kipping and Lewis assume what they call a steady state Drake equation, where there is a roughly equal level of birth and death rates in an equilibrium that is inevitably reached once enough time has passed. The two astronomers then relate this back to Haldane's prior (a "prior" is the name for a type of probability distribution, such as the U-shaped curve) by way of a characteristic called the occupation fraction, F. In the exoplanet example mentioned earlier in this article, a high value of F — close to 1 — would correspond to every planet having life, and a low value — close to or equal to 0 — would relate to no planets having life.

The problem facing SETI scientists is that, based on observations so far, F probably is not near 1; otherwise, we would have noticed by now that we are not alone, assuming that intelligent aliens are proficient at spreading across the galaxy, building megastructures such as Dyson swarms and beaming out radio signals. This means that, if we really are not alone in the universe, then the occupation fraction must be closer to 0.5, placing it in that unlikely valley of the U-shaped curve. Based on that U-shape, it is likely that we are relatively alone — that technological life elsewhere in the universe is rare. 

"These are instances of life who become obvious, firstly through the signals they produce and then through their colonization where they would be seen through megastructures," Lewis told Space.com. "If such an ETI had arisen in the life of the Milky Way, then they could have colonized the entire galaxy in 10 million to 100 million years, and even after they fall, then their debris would be around for a long time. The fact that we don't see anything out there means that if they did exist, they vanished long ago and their signatures have decayed away and we are back to our original premise — ETIs appear to be rare in time and space."

Related: The search for alien life

— Where are all the intelligent aliens? Maybe they're trapped in buried oceans

— Fermi Paradox: Where are the aliens?  

— SETI & the search for extraterrestrial life  

Yet Kipping and Lewis don't advocate giving up on SETI. If we ignore the lack of evidence for a moment, the steady state Drake equation predicts a crowded universe as being equally likely as one in which we are lonely. For a crowded universe, the occupation fraction must be close to 1, and perhaps this is still possible under certain circumstances. Maybe ETI stays in their own region, and our solar system just happens to be in a region that no one has spread into yet. That would mean the aliens are quite far away, and our strategy of searching for them around stars close by is the wrong one. These inhabited regions might be more clearly detected in other galaxies. "I certainly would advocate for extragalactic SETI," said Kipping.

Or perhaps interstellar travel and megastructure-building are too difficult, or maybe they are not even desired by an ETI living a more frugal, less colonial, existence. And with regards to a lack of a radio or optical signal detection, SETI has hardly had the resources to be particularly comprehensive in its search so far, and we could easily have missed a signal .

It's also possible that there is plenty of complex life, but that the development of technological life is rare.

There's also a chance that the birth and death rates of ETI have not reached a steady state after all, meaning that there would be still time for new ETI to arrive on the scene and increase the occupation fraction. Given the age of the universe and the finite lifespan of an ETI, however, this seems unlikely.

The research is currently available as a pre-print , and has been submitted to the International Journal of Astrobiology for peer-reviewed publication.

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Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor in the United Kingdom, and has a degree in physics and astrophysics from the University of Manchester. He's the author of "The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020) and has written articles on astronomy, space, physics and astrobiology for a multitude of magazines and websites.

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• Unclear Engineer I don't disagree with what is in the article, but I don't think it does much more than update us to what we currently know. At this point, I think we are close to finding out if life originates easily on many planets, or not. If it does, then the search for planets with intelligent life that has the potential to communicate with other planets would need to look for planets that have both water and rocky surfaces, etc. because a bunch of creatures confined to an ocean are not going to start transmitting radio signals, and probably don't understand fire. So, the search for the necessary type of planet would be the next major issue. Only with that information can we deduce whether the product of the probability that a intelligent and technologically communicative society will arise times its length of time in existence is rare or common, given the opportunity. And, we aren't likely to figure out that last pair of parameters separately unless we are able to find dead civilizations on other planets. So, the existential question for humans on Earth is whether we can keep finding our way through the problems we create for ourselves, or not. Even if we do survive as a technological society for the next few billion years, there is still the possibility that it is simply not possible for us (or any other technological society) to "spread across the galaxy" due to the limits imposed by physical reality of distance and speed limits. So, we can't use the apparent fact that no technological society has "spread across the galaxy" as evidence that there are no other technological societies in existence in the galaxy with very long periods of existence ("L" in Drake's Equation). Reply
• ChrisA THere is an easier way to figure this out. It also agrees with what we observe. If we assume that Earth is not rare or unique and that there are millions of Earthlike planets in the galaxy then if this were true what should we expect? How can we calculate what we would see. Not "guess" but "calculate" Lets build a simulated galaxy populated with exact copies of Earth but the key is each copy of Earth is made on a different year over the 4 billion years of Earth's existence. So our simulated galaxy has 4 billion earth-like planets and they all have different ages. What would we see? Out of the 4 billion Earths 1) about 100 of them would be humans who know how to build radios. So radio technology would be very rare. with one 2) most of them would have only microscopic life 3) A fair fraction would have multi-cellular life 4) one in a million planets would have mammals, like mice and monkeys and such Earth is the only data point we have but Earth has existed for 4 billion years, we can look at Earth one each of those billion years and get 4,000,000,000 data points This is actually VERY disappointing from a SETI perspective because it means that even of something like 1 in 25 plants has an exact copy of Earth we can expect only 100 planets with radio and perhaps zero that can transmit a radio signal over interstellar distances. So, bacteria-like life might be common, multi-cellular life would be rare, intelligent life would be a one-in-a-billion level rare and advanced technological life would be exactly zero (as we are not there yet.) I think this is the ONLY method of prediction that does not use extrapolation or guessing. It makes an impossibly optimistic assumption and then concludes that we should expect to hear and see nothing even in a galaxy teaming with "life". In other words, this theory predicts what to observe. If you want a theory that predicts that we will find ETs then you have to introduce guess and extrapolations like 1) High-tech societies do not destroy themselves be war or global warming or advanced AI. 2) As societies age they continue to care about the universe around them. We don't know. Perhaps they only play video games and live in simulations. 3) perhaps the biological people are peacefully replaced by some kind of hybrid AI and therefore required very small amount of resource for trillions of them to live and expansion is possible by simply building a one meter cube server room We have no idea about 1,2 or 3 and any answer is a guess. But if you assume only what we 100% know, we should expect a silent galaxy that is filled with simple life. Reply
• Unclear Engineer At this time, I don't think we really have the data to tell us even that we should not be able to detect a signal from another technological species on another inhabited world even within the range of detection that we currently have. We really don't know what planets are out there around relatively nearby stars. because we need transits or big planets close-in creating wobbles in their host stars. There are certainly more planets that remain undetected by us than the number we have detected so far. And, we really just have a lot of speculation about what it takes to have indigenous lifeforms, and more importantly, why intelligence develops. Do we really need a star similar to the Sun, with a guide planet similar to Jupiter, and an Earth-like planet with plate tectonics, a strong magnetic field, a large moon, an amount of water that creates oceans and dry lands, and a series of cataclysmic events that favor the development of intelligence over specialization to fixed environmental parameters? If all of that set of conditions is necessary, then life at the technology level we have already created could be quite rare in the galaxy. IF so, then the lifetime of such technological civilizations could be quite long, and we might still never detect one. The place where such speculation seems to go off-the-rails of logical scientific conjecture is when it is supposed that an intelligent species will eventually develop the capability to travel throughout the galaxy if not killed off while doing that development. We have no logical or scientific basis for assuming that we or any other technological society will ever be able to develop even interstellar travel, much less trans-galactic travel. There could be a sizeable population of planets inhabited by disillusioned beings who have realized that they are never going to reach the stars that they can see. But, they could certainly send signals farther than they, themselves, could ever travel. Reply

Admin said: A new interpretation of the famous Drake equation finds little reason to be optimistic about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Are we alone? Intelligent aliens may be rare, new study suggests : Read more

• billslugg In essence, the Drake Equation tells us the number of intelligent civilizations is equal to the number of planets there are times the percentage that have intelligent civilizations. It seems circular to me. Reply
• Unclear Engineer Agree, except that Drake did not intend his equation to be predictive. He introduced it to try to create some structure in the speculation about what it would take for there to be life that we can communicate with elsewhere in the galaxy. Frankly, unless the planet is within a few dozen light years of Earth, it seems unlikely that we could hold a useful interstellar conversation, just due to signal transit times. So, even finding a more advanced life form on another planet might not be useful to us for learning anything other than that we are not alone. Or, at least we weren't alone when they last transmitted. If their existence is as precarious as some of the pessimists on Earth say our own is, they might be gone before we get their last message. Reply
• Classical Motion If we ever find convincing evidence or even strong suspicion, it won’t matter. We will never be able to confirm it. And will always be in contention if it’s really evidence. Especially if we only find ONE. Reply
• Unclear Engineer And then there is the "theory" that the reason we can't detect 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is that the Klingons have it cloaked. ;) But, seriously, good point about lasers as communication systems that we would not detect. An advanced civilization might need to actually want to be detected in order for them to emit something that we can readily detect. Reply
• Manix The problem here is us. Humans have this ego of they're the pinnacle of existance. There could be many millions or even billions of intelligent species out there whom have advenced passe dour primitive radio signals. They could also "mask" or cloak their planet from detection, to hide them from being observed. We might just be starting out, trying to discover other intelligent life forms out there, but it is possible several scenarios exist A: the don't to be detected; either because like Hawkins said they believe it could be dangerous to them; or they have already had that encounter and it didn't turn out well and now out of self preservation are hiding themselves even in plane sight. Or B: they are so far advanced that they simply see us, but we are so primitive they truly don't want to communicate with us. Their technology maybe so advanced we simply cannot detect it with our own primitive equipment as advanced as we think it is. Until we start thinking out of the box, I feel we're going to keep seeing the same results over and over again with no real conclusion. Reply
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