Should Humans Colonize Other Planets? No

Theology and Science ISSN: 1474-6700 (Print) 1474-6719 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rtas20 Should Humans Colonize Other Planets? No Linda Billings To cite this article: Linda Billings (2017): Should Humans Colonize Other Planets? No, Theology and Science, DOI: 10.1080/14746700.2017.1335065 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2017.1335065 Published online: 25 Jun 2017. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rtas20 Download by: [University of Newcastle, Australia] Date: 26 June 2017, At: 16:58 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2017.1335065 Should Humans Colonize Other Planets? No Linda Billings ABSTRACT KEYWORDS In certain segments of the space community, the idea of colonizing other planetary bodies has been popular for decades. Disproportionate attention to this idea in the mass media, and lip service from key U.S. government officials, may convey the impression that the goal of space colonization1 and exploitation is universally embraced. This author will argue that this is not the case, and, further, should not be. Given the current state of humankind’s overall ethical and moral development, humans should clean up the mess they have made on their home planet and learn how to take care of one another here before they go off into space. Ideology; colonization; space exploration; exceptionalism Nothing in the natural world … has any intrinsic value to men. All is worthless, utterly dispensable unless we discover some benefit to ourselves in it … . Men behave as overlords. They decide what will flourish and what will die. I believe that humankind is evolving into a terrible new species and I am sorry that I am one of them.2 Annie Proulx’s novel Barkskins documents the real-life, systematic deforestation of North America from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. Charlie Duke Breitsprecher, descendent of a long line of men and women who grew rich by exploiting the natural resources of the continent, including its native people, looks back at the devastation his ancestors have wrought and decides to change direction, dedicating himself to environmental preservation. Though Breitsprecher is a fictional character, his words resonate in the current cultural environment. Is it possible that humankind is evolving into “a terrible new species,” one more destructive than ever before? And should a species like ours spread itself to other planetary environments that can be exploited for human gain? At a workshop in September 2016 on social and conceptual issues in astrobiology, the author and other participants considered these (among other) questions: “Should humans seek to exploit and/or colonize space? If so, how should this be done?” The author’s position is no. It should not be done. This article is an attempt to explain why. Ideologies of conquest and exploitation The foundations of U.S. space policy are the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act and the 1967 United Nations Treaty on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The NASA Act states that “it is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to CONTACT Linda Billings billingslinda1@gmail.com © 2017 Graduate Theological Union (CTNS Program) 2 L. BILLINGS peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind,”3 and the 1967 Treaty establishes that outer space is a domain to be used for the benefit of all humankind, preserved for peaceful purposes, and protected from sovereign claims.4 These foundational laws are devoid of references to frontier conquest, colonization, and exploitation. Yet these themes are dominant in American space exploration rhetoric and in public discourse about the human future in space. With U.S. government officials as well as space enthusiasts advocating for colonizing the solar system and mining the asteroids, it is useful to consider not only the practical but also the moral and ethical aspects of such endeavors. The idea of colonizing another planet likely appeals to a small fraction of humankind and suggests an inevitably elitist enterprise. Would it be ethical to enable people with enough money to buy a ticket to leave our troubled Earth behind? Would it be ethical for government(s) to subsidize such an enterprise? As space policy analyst Marcia Smith has observed, billionaire space businessman “Elon Musk has made no secret of his passion to make humanity a multiplanetary species by creating a self-sustaining society on Mars as a backup plan in case Earth is destroyed in a cataclysmic event.” Last year Musk said he intends to take colonists to Mars for “a price of $200,000 per person initially, dropping to half that over time. His spacecraft would transport 100–200 people at a time, with the Mars population growing to 1 million residents over 40–100 years.”5 The Mars One enterprise, headed by businessman Bas Lansdorp, is also planning to take colonists on a one-way trip to Mars.6 Mars One is not discussing costs. Given the technical challenges of such missions and the astronomical cost of meeting them, it is not likely that either Musk or Lansdorp will be able to execute their plans in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, such proposals prompt this author to wonder how many poverty-stricken Bangladeshis, how many sub-Saharan Africans, how many permanently displaced Syrian refugees, how many disabled and unemployable workers could come up with $200,000—or $2,000, for that matter—to move to another planet and start a new life. What are the ethics of giving the rich yet another advantage over the poor? In 2015, then-NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden addressed the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) about plans for human exploration of the solar system: We are going farther into the solar system, except this time we’re going to stay. This is not about sending a man to a body and bringing them safely back to Earth. This is about moving humanity farther into the solar system and establishing a foothold where we can remain … . It is the story of the journey West, you know, of the early pilgrims and other people landing on the shores of the United States, but then just not being satisfied and continually moving west and exploring, and so, we’re now trying to get off this planet and farther out.7 Garrett Reisman, director of crew operations at Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, told PCAST, “Mars, as Charlie mentioned, is the ultimate goal of the agency, [and] also is the ultimate goal of our company. Really, [SpaceX] was founded to make humans a multi-planetary species.” Examining the history of the U.S. space program reveals an underlying ideology of space exploration that has at its core a rationale for conquest and exploitation. This ideology is deeply rooted in a durable American cultural narrative of frontier pioneering, free THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 3 enterprise, rugged individualism, and a right to life without limits.8 It is a pastiche of many ideologies, drawing on American exceptionalism, neoliberalism (and its more extremist cousin, libertarianism), the doctrine of manifest destiny, the belief in the necessity of “progress,” and even Russian cosmism.9 A fundamental goal of U.S. space policy since the establishment of NASA in 1958 has been to establish, maintain, and strengthen U.S. leadership in space exploration and the global space community, and the influence of the narrative of American exceptionalism has remained strong in official space rhetoric into the twenty-first century, promoting the message that the United States of America must be Number 1. The rhetoric of U.S. space policy and advocacy advances a conception of outer space as a place of wide-open spaces and limitless resources—a space frontier. Though the contemporary cultural environment is vastly different from that of the Cold-War era in which human space flight began, the twenty-first century narrative of U.S. human space exploration to date is still intimately intertwined with what feminist critic Susan Faludi has called “security myth” and “nationalist fantasy,” a story of cowboys on the space frontier.10 In the early twenty-first century, the trend in the U.S. space community, energized during Ronald Reagan’s administration and reinvigorated during the George W. Bush administration, has been to view the solar system as an environment to exploit, as we have done with our own planetary environment. From this “dominionist” or “manifest destiny” perspective, our home planet, and our home solar system, are seen as resources here for humans to use as they like. The Obama administration embraced this way of thinking and advanced the cause of colonization and exploitation. Though at this writing the Trump administration has not issued any official guidance on the future of human exploration, it is reasonable to assume we will see no change in ideological direction. Does this American image of the Wild West extended to off-Earth locations justify cowboy colonization of other planets? My answer is negative. American exceptionalism at blast off As to American exceptionalism, political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote: The United States is a country organized around an ideology which includes a set of dogmas about the nature of a good society. Americanism … is an ideology in the same way that communism or fascism or liberalism are isms … . The nation’s ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire. With the exception of the former Soviet Union, he noted: “other countries define themselves by a common history as birthright communities, not by ideology.”11 The idea of American exceptionalism as it appears in space exploration rhetoric looks bright and shiny on the surface—it’s about the United States leading in space exploration for the benefit of humankind. Beneath that shiny surface, though, lies neoliberal/libertarian ideology, an embrace of space as a wide-open frontier, open to exploitation and colonization, ripe for so-called commercialization unfettered by government oversight. It promotes capitalism and development, whenever and wherever possible, according to the principle that those who get there first get the most. Economist Milton Friedman, an inspiration to the Reagan administration, was a leading ideologue of twentieth-century American liberalism, which inspires today’s 4 L. BILLINGS economic neoliberals and their more extreme libertarian cousins. Friedman, author of Capitalism and Freedom, among other things, dismissed the idea that businesses have any responsibilities other than making money: In a free-enterprise, private-property system, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to [them] … to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible … . The doctrine of ‘social responsibility’ involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.12 Anthropologist David Harvey observes that “neoliberalism has … become hegemonic as a mode of discourse in the global political economy … . It has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become incorporated into the common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world … . The process of neoliberalization”— deregulation, privatization, and withdrawal of the state from many areas of social provision—“has, however, entailed much ‘creative destruction’ … of prior institutional frameworks and powers … .”13 Does belief in American exceptionalism provide sufficient justification for off-Earth colonization? My answer is negative. Manifest destiny: from religious belief to political ideology Behind today’s American exceptionalism lies a specific religious vision of manifest destiny. Historian Anders Stephanson has explored the premise that the idea of manifest destiny, which he calls an “institutionally embedded” ideology, “is of signal importance in the way the United States came to understand itself in the world and still does.” He writes, “The world as God’s ‘manifestation’ and history as predetermined ‘destiny’ had been ideological staples of the strongly providentialist period in England between 1620 and 1660,” the period when English Puritans migrated to North America, bringing their beliefs with them. The related belief in “right”—that is, that white Europeans had been “chosen by the finger of God to possess [America]”—is at least as old. These beliefs came to underlay a U.S. national narrative of “prophecy, messianism, and historical transcendence.”14 Political journalist John O’Sullivan, who is said to have coined the term “manifest destiny,” wrote in 1845 that the United States of America had “the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government.”15 Is this near three-centuries-old version of manifest destiny propelling the present generation to colonize other planets? If so, does manifest destiny provide sufficient justification? My answer is negative. Progress and necessity Historian J.B. Bury said progress is movement “in a desirable direction”—but he also noted that “it cannot be proved that the unknown destination towards which man is advancing is desirable.”16 In their histories of the idea of progress, both Bury and political scientist Robert Nisbet called progress a dogma. Historian Christopher Lasch contrasted THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 5 the pre-modern, Christian idea of progress—“the promise of a secular utopia that would bring history to a happy ending”—with the modern idea—“the promise of steady improvement with no foreseeable ending.”17 Nisbet traced the roots of the idea of progress to ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and documented how it evolved to take on the qualities of destiny and “historical necessity.”18 Nisbet credited nineteenth-century natural philosopher Herbert Spencer with melding the ideas of progress and freedom, in declarations of “the rights of life and personal liberty,” “the right to use the Earth,” “the right of property,” and “the right to ignore the state”—declarations that align with libertarian thinking. From the seventeenth through the twentieth century, the western scientific worldview —itself a cultural narrative of sorts—“elevated technological progress … to the level of moral imperative.”19 Science and technology became the means of American progress, and conquest and exploitation became the morally imperative end. Ultimately the accumulation of material wealth became a measure of progress in the western world. Coming from the East, some threads of Russian cosmist philosophy are also woven into the web of beliefs propagated by advocates of space colonies—the belief that humans are destined to conquer the planets and the stars, to populate the universe, to evolve to a higher form in space.20 While Russian Orthodox cosmist philosopher Nikolai Fedorov (1828–1903) is not often cited by space colonization advocates, his disciple Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) often is, especially for his avowal that, while Earth is the cradle of humanity, humans can’t stay in their cradle forever. Is this near three-centuries-old version of progress propelling the present generation to colonize other planets? If so, does progress provide sufficient justification? My answer is negative. Ideology in action: the advocates The rhetoric of advocacy for colonizing other planets and exploiting extraterrestrial resources does not vary much from group to group. This article will highlight two representative groups. The Mars Society21 is an advocacy group dedicated to promoting the human colonization of Mars. Its founding declaration, adopted in 1998, offers reasons why “we must go” to Mars: . . . “For the challenge. Civilizations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The time is past for human societies to use war as a driving stress for technological progress. As the world moves towards unity, we must join together, not in mutual passivity, but in common enterprise, facing outward to embrace a greater and nobler challenge than that which we previously posed to each other. Pioneering Mars will provide such a challenge.” “For the opportunity. The settling of the Martian New World is an opportunity for a noble experiment in which humanity has another chance to shed old baggage and begin the world anew; carrying forward as much of the best of our heritage as possible and leaving the worst behind.” “For the future. Mars … [possesses] all the elements that are needed to support not only life, but technological society. It is a New World, filled with history waiting to be made 6 L. BILLINGS by a new and youthful branch of human civilization that is waiting to be born. We must go to Mars to make that potential a reality. We must go, not for us, but for a people who are yet to be.” Mars Society founder and leader Robert Zubrin has written extensively about why “we must go” to Mars, which he calls “America’s new frontier.”22 Lutheran bishop James Heiser, a co-founder of the society and a member of its steering committee, has also written extensively about the necessity of colonizing this new frontier.23 According to the society, Bishop Heiser was ordained into the ministry in 1996 and has served in central Texas since 1998. In 2006 he was called to serve in his current capacity as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America. Bishop Heiser’s other responsibilities include holding the office of President of the Center for the Study of Lutheran Orthodoxy and Dean of Missions of The Augustana Ministerium. Though his name no longer appears there, Heiser was recently listed as a speaker on the web site of the John Birch Society, whose mission is “to bring about less government, more responsibility, and—with God’s help—a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles,” by “preserving individual rights & national independence” and “restoring the Constitution.” The Space Frontier Foundation24 is another advocacy group promoting colonization of the planets and exploitation of extraterrestrial resources. The foundation’s “credo” states: “Our purpose is to unleash the power of free enterprise and lead a united humanity permanently into the Solar System.” Its “frontier enabling test” is this: “Our definition of a “frontier enabling” technology or policy is one which has as its effect the acceleration of the creation of low cost access to the space frontier for private citizens and companies, enables or accelerates our use of space resources, and/or accelerates the rate at which wealth can be generated in space. In other words, is the project or policy going to provide a return on the national investment, if we define ‘return’ to be the economically sustainable human habitation of space?” The Mars Society and the Space Frontier Foundation are members of an alliance of space advocacy groups formed in 2015. This Alliance for Space Development25 claims to be “advocating a citizens’ space agenda in Washington, D.C.”26 A “pioneering space declaration” issued after the alliance’s 2015 “pioneering space national summit”27 asserts that “the long term goal of the human spaceflight and exploration program of the United States is to expand permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and to do so in a way that will enable human settlement and a thriving space economy.” A stated objective of the alliance is “incorporation of space development and settlement into the NASA Space Act.” Lest readers might think these advocacy groups are operating on the fringes of the space community, it should be noted that NASA and other U.S. government officials use their meetings as platforms for promoting human space flight28 and that the U.S. aerospace industry sponsors many of their activities.29 Does the exuberant excitement generated by the Mars Society or the Space Frontier Foundation justify space colonization? My answer is negative. THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 7 Religious beliefs and views about the human future in space Theologian Ted Peters has identified the human colonization of Mars as one of a number of “ethical issues prompted by space exploration within our solar ghetto.”30 How much do we actually know about how people’s religious beliefs intersect with their thinking about space colonization? Two small studies have been published in recent years that shed a little light on the matter. Mark M. Gray, editor of a research blog for Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), recently wrote about the results of a public opinion survey conducted for CARA by the polling firm GfK Custom Research.31 Respondents (about 2000 U.S. adults) were asked: 1) “Do you believe the Earth’s demise is ultimately something we can understand and predict scientifically, or something in God’s hands and therefore unpredictable?” 2) “Do you believe that the destiny of human life is somewhere other than Earth or here on Earth?” 3) “How important, if at all, do you believe human exploration of space will be in the future?” Gray reported that more than 6 in 10 respondents said they believe Earth’s future “is in God’s hands.” He also noted “a big divide in opinion between Christians and those of other religious affiliations or no affiliation.” Six percent of evangelical Christians, 34% of Catholics, and 82% of those with no religious affiliation said they believe Earth’s end is something science can understand and predict. As to question #2, it came with some background: Scientists believe that in 4.5 billion years the Sun’s lifecycle will come to an end. Much earlier, in about 1 billion years, the sun will have become hotter and increased Earth’s temperature beyond a level where life, as we know it, is possible. Therefore, the long-term survival of humans may depend on space exploration and colonization. Do you believe that the destiny of human life is somewhere other than Earth or here on Earth? Gray reported that 28% of respondents said they believe human destiny is on Earth, 27% said it is in space, and 45% said they do not know. The author’s opinion is that survey results are, at best, indicators—not measures—of public opinion. That said, the results of this survey, for those who place weight on such things, do not provide any credible evidence that the U.S. citizenry is in favor of the human colonization of space.32 University of Dayton political scientist Joshua Ambrosius has also studied “religious influences on public support for U.S. space exploration policy,” producing findings similar to Gray’s work. According to Ambrosius, evangelical Protestants in the United States, “who account for one-quarter of the U.S. population, are the least knowledgeable, interested and supportive of space exploration, while Jews and members of Eastern traditions were most attentive and supportive … . Among Catholics, there is more openness to space exploration.”33 Again, and with no intent to discount this work, it does not provide any evidence that the U.S. citizenry is in favor of space colonization. 8 L. BILLINGS Where does this leave us? It leaves us with a responsibility to explore more deeply how taxpayers think and feel about the prospect of human colonies on other planets and the cost of inevitable taxpayer subsidies of such enterprises. (While Elon Musk may claim that his plan to take people to Mars will be privately financed, it must be noted that Musk built his space business on direct and indirect government subsidies and that government contracts now constitute more than $1 billion of his company’s annual revenue.34 Conclusion The belief system perpetuated by the rhetoric of advocacy for colonizing other planets and exploiting extraterrestrial resources, as described here, is a variant of nationalist ideology —an American spirituality or even American orthodoxy—which excludes or rejects as unenlightened those who do not agree.35 In this sense, space advocacy can be viewed as a cultural ritual, performed for the purpose of maintaining social order, with its lopsided distribution of power and resources perpetuating the values of those in control of that order—in this case, primarily the military-industrial complex. In short, economic injustice is tied to space colonization proposals. In order to survive as a cultural institution, space exploration needs an ideology. It needs to have some connection to widely held beliefs. It needs a role in a cultural narrative. But a new narrative is warranted to replace the outdated and counterproductive nationalistic expansionist story. Some broader perspectives have been offered over the years. In 1965, the visionary economist Kenneth Boulding said our planet had already become a space ship, not only in our imagination but also in the hard realities of the social, biological, and physical system in which [humans are] enmeshed … . Man is finally going to have to face the fact that he is a biological system living in an ecological system, and that his survival power is going to depend on his developing symbiotic relationships of a closed-cycle character with all the other elements and populations of the world of ecological systems … . It is clear, he concluded, “that much human behavior and many human institutions … are entirely inappropriate to a small closed space ship. We cannot have cowboys and Indians … or even a cowboy ethic … .”36 Rhetorical critic Janice Hocker Rushing once made the case that the post-Apollo-era focus of space exploration on the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life was a product of a widespread understanding that humankind exists in a universe, not only on planet Earth. The narrative of space exploration thus might better reflect this understanding by telling a story of “a spiritual humbling of self” rather than “an imperialistic grabbing of territory.”37 Cultural studies scholar Constance Penley has observed that, while “the WASP space cowboy version of spaceflight” has persisted from the Apollo era into the present, at the same time NASA “is still the most popular point of reference for utopian ideas of collective progress.” In the popular imagination, she said, “NASA continues to represent … perseverance, cooperation, creativity and vision,” and these meanings embedded in the narrative of space flight “can still be mobilized to rejuvenate the near-moribund idea of a future toward which dedicated people … could work together for the common good.”38 THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 9 Roman Catholic theologian and self-described “space buff” Rev. Theodore Hesburgh (1917–2015) gave a talk at a “space roundtable” in 1990 in which he hoped that space exploration could lead us to a better human future here on Earth. “I take as our most compelling symbol” pictures of Earth taken from space, he said. What do these images “say to us?” First, they show no differences or divisions among nations or people. Is not this vision laden with other philosophical and theological implications: that, like Planet Earth, humankind is one and potentially more beautiful than our past history has indicated; that we survive together or we perish together in this unitary habitat, sharing the same hospitable climate, the air, the water, the land, and, more significantly, those spiritual yearnings for knowledge, freedom, peace, development, a civilization marked by justice, not the wars that injustice spawns? “The challenge here,” he said, “is to create a human spiritual unity of understanding and a justice that matches the physical beauty of this planet that is a pure gift to us, and to use it together and not to abuse it separately.” Other space-faring nations capable of sending humans into space—that is, China and Russia—are also believed to be advancing plans for further human exploration and exploitation of the solar system. There is every reason to assume that Russia and China are intent on keeping up with the United States in claiming territories and resources. For hundreds (if not thousands) of years, human societies have tried and failed to create “new worlds” on Earth, beginning “anew” and “leaving the worst behind.” The current state of human societies gives no indication that we are any better equipped today than they were 500 years ago to accomplish such goals. In its current state of moral development, the author finds humankind unfit to engage in the colonization of other planets and the exploitation of outer-space resources. Rhetoric aside, advocates of colonization and exploitation present no evidence for their claims that human societies will be able “start anew” off Earth, free of the problems we have created for ourselves and others here on Earth. The idea that only a select few, who can afford to pay a high price, will be able to escape the nest we fouled on Earth, leaving the poor and disadvantaged to live in the mess, is morally and ethically suspect. Except for the threads of Russian cosmism, the ideology of space colonization and exploitation is largely western, and Christian, as noted above. It appears to be some interpretation of Christian dominion, or dominionist, theology that drives colonization advocates to declare that humans are destined to fill the universe, that humans “must” colonize Mars, that outer space resources are there for the taking. The author identifies as a humanistic Unitarian Universalist and, as such, affirms and promotes the seven UU principles as a moral guide. Among the UU principles guiding this critique of the idea of space colonization and exploitation are the inherent dignity and worth of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; and respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. More than 40 years after Kenneth Boulding told us we had to get the message, space exploration is enabling people on Earth to understand that we are biological systems living in an ecological system. This competing narrative may be a site within which the ideology of space exploration might rejuvenate itself—where the vision of a human future in space becomes a vision of humanity’s collective peaceful existence on Spaceship 10 L. BILLINGS Earth and the need to work together to preserve life here and look for life out there. This competing narrative co-exists with the now-dominant narrative of conquest and exploitation. It remains to be seen how these competing narratives play out in the dominant social order over the next few decades. Notes 1. Though some advocates now eschew the term “colonization” in favor of “settlement” when advocating for human expansion to other planetary bodies, the author makes no distinction between the two terms in this particular case and will use the term colonization. 2. Charley Duke Breitsprecher at the beginning of the 20th century. Annie Proulx, Barkskins (New York: Scribner’s, 2016). 3. https://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html 4. https://www.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm 5. Marcia Smith, “Musk shares technical details of his dream for Mars colonization, Space Policy Online, 27 September 2016. 6. www.mars-one.com 7. Michael S. Henry, “PCAST discusses new frontiers in human space exploration,” FYI: Science Policy News from AIP, 24 July 2015. 8. Linda Billings, “Ideology, Advocacy, and Space Flight – Evolution of A Cultural Narrative,” in Societal Impacts of Space Flight, eds Steven J. Dick and Roger D. Launius (NASA SP-20074801), 483–500, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC, 2007. Available online at http://history.nasa.gov/sp4801.pdf. 9. Cosmism is “a constellation of attitudes and beliefs, anchored in religion and culture, that help nations define themselves and their place in the universe, motivate activities in space, and proclaim national values to the world. Historically and specifically, cosmism is associated with Russians, but parallel elements in American space philosophy hint that cosmism is an overarching phenomenon, anchored in the distant past, but with Russian and American versions moving along different tracks.” Albert Harrison, “Russian and American Cosmism: Religion, National Psyche, and Spaceflight,” Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Politics & Policy 11:1–2 (2013), 25–44.: 26. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. 1080/14777622.2013.801719; accessed 5/18/2014. 10. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women (New York: Doubleday, 1991). 11. Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996). 12. Milton Friedman, “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits,” The New York Times Magazine, 13 September 1970. 13. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 14. Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995). 15. Ibid., p. 42. 16. J.B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth (New York: Dover, 1932, 1960). 17. Christopher Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991). 18. Robert Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress (New York: Basic Books, 1980). 19. Walter A. McDougall, … the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985). 20. George M. Young, The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers (New York: Oxford, 2012). 21. www.marssociety.org 22. See for example, “The significance of the Martian frontier, Ad Astra, September/October 1994, http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-frontier.html; “Mars: America’s New Frontier,” THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 11 http://www.viewzone.com/mars.html; (with Richard Wagner) The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must (New York: Free Press, 1996, 2011). See, for example, A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (Bynum, Texas: Repristination Press, 2012); Virtue and the Settlement of the New World (Bynum, Texas: Repristination Press, 2010), Civilization and the New Frontier: Reflections on Virtue and the Settlement of a New World (Bynum, Texas: Repristination Press, 2010). https://spacefrontier.org http://allianceforspacedevelopment.org/alliance-groups/ Other members of the alliance are the National Space Society, Lifeboat Foundation, Mars Foundation, Space Development Foundation, Space Development Steering Committee, Space Tourism Society, Students on Capitol Hill, Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, Tea Party in Space, and Texas Space Alliance. Participation in the summit was by invitation only. The Space Frontier Foundation’s 2016 “NewSpace” conference featured NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Program Manager Michele Gates and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineering manager Adam Steltzner. For more information, see: https://newspace2016.rostrum-cms. com. The Mars Society’s 2016 convention featured NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green, NASA Astrophysics Division Director Paul Hertz, NASA Mars Exploration Program director Jim Watzin, and several other NAASA scientists. For more information, see: http://www.marssociety.org/conventions/2016/. See, for example, https://newspace2016.rostrum-cms.com/sponsors/. Ted Peters, “Astrobiology, astrotheology, and astroethics,” International Society for Science & Religion, http://www.issr.org.uk/blog/astrobiology-astrotheology-astroethics-ted-peters/. Mark M. Gray, “Leaving Earth?” Nineteen Sixty Four, 2 December 2016, http:// nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2016/12/leaving-earth.html. On question #3, Gray reported that 70% of respondents said they believe human exploration of space will be “very” or “somewhat” important. The survey results do not shed any light on how and why those respondents believe it’s important. http://ecommons.udayton.edu/pol_fac_pub/38/ http://www.fi-aeroweb.com/Top-100-US-Government-Contractors.html The author has experienced this reaction first-hand and often. For example, in response to a September 2016 blog post arguing that the human colonization of Mars was a bad idea (https://doctorlinda.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/humans-to-mars-a-deeply-disturbing-idea/), advocates responded with dismissals and ad feminem attacks (https://doctorlinda.wordpress. com/2016/09/29/humans-to-mars-the-dialogue-is-on/), such as: “You cannot explore the universe when your head is stuck in the sand”; “If anything I want to go to Mars to get away from you, personally, and people who think, act and talk just like you”; “I hate to be the one to say all those people in other countries should not be my problem our government had made them my problem”; “Crab-bucket mentality at it’s finest.” Kenneth E. Boulding, “Earth as a space ship,” Washington State University Committee on Space Sciences, 10 May 1965, https://bertaux.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/boulding-earthas-spaceship-1965.pdf Janice Hocker Rushing, “Mythic evolution of ‘The New Frontier’ in mediated rhetoric,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 3:3 (1986): 265-296. Constance Penley, “Spaced out: remembering Christa McAuliffe,” Camera Obscura 29 (Jan. 1992): 179-213; pp. 207-208. Acknowledgements Thanks to Kelly Smith for the opportunity to participate in the September 2016 workshop on social and conceptual issues in astrobiology and to Ted Peters for inviting the contribution of this paper to this journal. 12 L. BILLINGS Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. Funding This work was supported by NASA cooperative agreement NNL09AA00A. Notes on contributor Linda Billings, PhD, is a social scientist and consultant to NASA’s Astrobiology Program and Planetary Defense Coordination Office. She has worked in the space community since 1983.