Planetary Society Does Not Want Humans on Mars
NASA’s Mars Announcement: Present-day transient flows of briny water on steep slopes, Planetary Society
“This is one of many reasons I’m glad that The Planetary Society is advocating an orbit-first approach to human exploration. If we keep our filthy meatbag bodies in space and tele-operate sterile robots on the surface, we’ll avoid irreversible contamination of Mars — and obfuscation of the answer to the question of whether we’re alone in the solar system — for a little while longer. Maybe just long enough for robots to taste Martian water or discover Martian life.”
More Vaporware From The Space Advocate Community, earlier post
“In April 2015 the Planetary Society held an invitation-only “Humans Orbiting Mars” workshop wherein they unveiled their idea for a mission to Mars. At a quick press conference after the event (no media were allowed to attend the workshop) the Planetary Society promised more detail would be made public – later. It has been 6 months. Nothing but crickets from the Planetary Society.”
Keith’s note: Now it is becoming clear what is really behind the Planetary Society’s “Humans Orbiting Mars” plan. They don’t really want to have Humans On Mars. Indeed, they never really have wanted them there at all. And their unreleased plan (as much as is known thus far) involves defunding the International Space Station as well thus cutting another human spaceflight effort. And what would Humans Orbiting Mars do? They’d drive robots on Mars.
They can be a good source for space news but have environmentalist leanings that get in the way at times.
They’re much more specifically exploration focused rather than tied to any sort of nebulous vision of space as the “final frontier” or “future of humanity”. And they are right to be concerned about potential contamination on Mars that might make it impossible to tell whether life actually did independently evolve there.
The contamination issue is serious, and needs to be investigated thoroughly before humans contaminate the planet. This is one of the more important reasons to do our homework carefully first, with robotic instruments on the surface, controlled by humans nearby on Phobos. There the robotic latency problem can be solved, and Phobos provides what we will need to manage the cosmic ray problem (massive cheap shielding) and a reasonable place for the big centrifuge/habitat that will probably be needed for the long-term micro-gravity issue.
To really settle the scientific question of the ultimate origin of any life on Mars, we are going to need to study it’s genome in detail, which will only be possible if it still survives, or has (by some miracle) been preserved. If it is radically different than Life-As-We-Know-It, that will answer great scientific questions, but leave the problem of how to keep it, and us, safe from one another. If it is similar enough to us to even have a similar genome, then the micro-biologists will have to resolve the question, based on the genomes. ( Eg, do essential molecules have the same chirality [left/right structure), etc.] ) All of this would be of terrific interest to biologists re the origin of life, the likelihood of life arising spontaneously in earth-like environments, the likelihood of our meeting such life in the future, etc. (I think this information would be worth billions, but maybe not enough for the folks who want to ‘strangle government in the bathtub’.)
Look at the lessons from other historical exploration missions. The European explorers brought smallpox and other diseases to the new world because of their ignorance of biology. The Apollo missions were quarantined after return to Earth because while we were “pretty sure” the moon was sterile, we wanted to do proper scientific studies before declaring that it was.
In the off chance that there is indigenous life on Mars, we best spend a few years studying it with sterile robots before we send the dirty humans down to the surface. To screw that up in the name of a feel-good flags and footprints mission would be a crime against science, and we would not get a do-over on that. And it would give NASA and the other space agencies a legitimate mission to perform while we Earthlings try to come up with the budget to build the manned Mars lander vehicle.
Actually the goal was to protect the Earth, not the Moon. There was no planetary protection based sterilization of hardware going to the Moon, or interest in, it given the bags of human waste products left at the Apollo sites 🙂
http://www.popularmechanics…
As a side note, testing how well the various microscopic organisms survived while on the Moon would probably be of value to understanding the risks of contamination of Mars landing sites.
It is not a question of which planet we are trying to protect, but an acknowledgement that we don’t know everything and we ought to proceed cautiously in the face of the unknown.
You seem to misunderstand the purpose of science. Manned missions aren’t a ‘crime against science’, because science’s sole reason to exist is to deliver fundamental facts about reality so as to advance the existence and prosperity of humanity.
We’re sending robots to Mars because ultimately one day we want to live there (and elsewhere). if it wasn’t for that reason we simply wouldn’t bother, because we’d just lay down and wait to die lest another human bends a single leaf out of shape.
If you’re a scientist that’s lost sight of that purpose and wish to keep the universe hermetically sealed for you to scrutinise at your leisure, then you should probably reconsider your career interests in space.
Why are micro bugs on Mars more important than the more complex/intelligent creatures we are driving into extinction here on earth?
They are not.
The noble Martian
Read your post after my reply 🙂
Seems you answered my question
Back to the water boarding tub. Die you bastard die!
Because they are unique. They would be the first non-terrestrial life ever discovered. Scientifically invaluable.
If we later discover such life all over the solar system, and all stemming from a similar “family” line, then they’re like Earth extremophiles, just one amongst billions. But until then, they would be more valuable than all the platinum mines in the solar system.
“Scientifically invaluable.”
Science exists to enrich the human species as a whole.
Colonizing Mars secures our own specie’s survival chances, the industrial and economic activities from that colonization enrich us, two human worlds broadens our horizons so we spread further. Oh and humans have a habit of bringing life with us. On Earth that means invasive species, on a sterile desert that means making them bloom.
If humanity values life, then we should take our responsibility to spread it seriously. Some martian extremophile microbial hold-outs are nice, but seeding is nicer.
I’d hate to think the one place in the universe we know harbours life runs the risk of being snuffed out due to the misplaced sensitivities of space scientists who pay too much attention to the Earth-mother vein of environmentalism.
You wanna know why we exist, what makes up for all the suffering and death we endure? To ultimately spread life through the cosmos.
So join the team. As noble a pursuit as anything I can think of.
You would have a point if Mars was the only possible way of expanding humanity off-Earth. But it’s not. It’s not even a particularly good option on the list.
Plenty of very smart people seem to disagree with that assessment but since you mention alternatives I’m genuinely interested to hear them, after all making humanity an Earth + elsewhere species is the goal.
“Here we are at the bottom of a hole which is 4,000 miles deep. We’re a little bit like an animal who lives down at the bottom of a hole. And one day he climbs up to the top of the hole, and he gets out, and here’s all the green grass and the flowers and the sunshine coming down. And he goes around and it’s all very lovely, and then he finds another hole, and he crawls down to the bottom of that hole. And if we go off and try to get serious about colonizing other planetary surfaces, we’re really doing just that. It’s kind of atavistic but there really isn’t any other excuse for it.” – Gerard O’Neill
(As for other options, keeping reading sites like this, the debate comes up often enough in the comments. I really don’t want to spend a lot of time in a thread that’s nearly a year old.)
An evocative poetic quote to be sure, but not really what I asked for, although I will answer it’s main point being that if we do in fact live down “dark holes”, it’s because we’re evolved for them.
In this sense the quoted passage seems to invert the problem. There is no green grass and flowers in the void of space. Resources to utilize, science to be done, but not really anywhere for humans to live.
Humanity can certainly stands a better chance of creating a self-sustaining colony in a desert (even if it’s the worst we’ve ever experienced) than the prohibitive cost and problematic limiting nature of orbital habitats or asteroid colonies.
The other planets are simply too hostile to consider.
Which is why ideally I would have liked to hear from yourself what the realistic alternatives are.
I will read about though as I always have and always will so you no concerns there. Thank you for your response. 🙂
If this line of thinking has influence up to the next President and Congress and gets implemented in some type of policy, then what’s the reason for NASA’s current “Journey to Mars”? I am not aware of a study that has yet shown that tele-operating robots on Mars by humans in Mars orbit is worth the extra cost vs. just operating the robots from Earth (the way we currently do), if that’s all humans will ever do in relation to Mars. I think the Planetary Society is risking alienating members who actually do want to see humans on Mars someday soon, and even colonies and long-term terraforming. If that’s their game plan and, as I said, ultimately gets implemented as a hands-off approach in future space exploration policy, that will be a bad day for the prospect of expanding humans into the solar system. To me, that’s a big raison d’etre for the entire purpose of space exploration: human expansion (to at least avoid extinction), in addition to just pure scientific exploration.
Maybe there ought to be some regions of Mars that are treated extra-special in terms of robot-only visitation (once or if we discover present life in those areas), but it seems to me we then should invest in better planetary protection techniques for both robotic and human visitors. If we are to keep our human spaceflight program viable (and I vote to keep it so, since other nations will continue to invest in that and develop their own programs), humans on Mars has to be a horizon goal. If not that, then surely we should lead an international project to put humans back on the Moon (again assuming we don’t have some suggesting to forever keep humans off that world also because some unliked President from an unliked party proposed it), and keep it bi-partisan. In an ideal world, we should be able to fund (through public and private means), development of both the Moon and Mars.
Regarding the lack of study that demonstrates the benefits of Martian telepresence, look no further than the Evolvable Mars Campaign study by NASA: “Starting in 2014, NASA’s Evolvable Mars Campaign has acknowledged the potential for LLT from Mars orbit to enable highly productive Mars exploration. Such LLT-enabled exploration can be performed sooner, with less risk and for lower cost than landing humans on Mars.” Source: http://spacenews.com/op-ed-…
If it cuts the cost in half, can get done in our lifetimes, kills fewer astronauts, and still solves the interplanetary radiation problem, it might not be a bad avenue at least as a starting point.
It could definitely be done in our life-times, or in the next 10 years if they allocated the annual funding for it. I think you could probably do it with three heavy-lift launches – an Earth Return Vehicle, a robot resupply/equipment “freighter”, and a crew habitat – while adding more launches if you want to build up some infrastructure or send extra supplies. You’d also want a rotating hab (or hab on a tether), because you’re going to be out there in space for nearly three years total round-trip.
Which complicates things a bit. The best way to minimize radiation exposure on a Mars orbital only crewed mission would be to have them land on Phobos or Deimos in a Mars-facing crater – Stickney Crater comes to mind. But then simulating gravity becomes harder, and you might not have as much access to solar power.
In the longer run, of course, you could eventually start packing material off of Phobos or Deimos around a spacecraft/base to shield it. It wouldn’t take a lot, either.
Stickney does not face the right way, alas. But all we need is a small, but deep, crater near the sub-Mars point. Because Phobos is so small, I think we can put our solar power array on the north or south pole, and run a cable to the lab, wherever it is.
It isn’t? Wikipedia says that Stickney is on the Mars-facing side of Phobos.
The option you describe is good as well. Although I wonder whether you’d want to put a base directly on Phobos – if you want to generate some artificial gravity for part of the mission (and it’s a long mission, so that might be a good idea), I’m not sure how you’d do that on Phobos short of building a giant train track and running something on it fast enough to generate it.
The problem is anything going fast enough to generate a decent level of gravity would exceed escape velocity, so you would need a well anchored tube, or a tunnel with a strong roof, to make it work.
A station built of material from Phobos, or even better Deimos, would probably be the best bet.
I was going to suggest anchoring tracks in a loop on Phobos, then running a “train” on it that would move fast enough to generate some artificial gravity. We’d need to do a drill test on Phobos first before doing that, though, to see how sturdy the “ground” is there.
Do you really think Congress is going to spend billions of dollars to *almost* land people on Mars?
As part of a logical, systematic program to settle the Solar System, probably yes; for academic science, maybe not. It depends on clarity about the larger objectives. Despite numerous claims to the contrary, the public is intensely interested in space. Not as much as in their next pay check of course, but still the excitement runs deep, and crosses normal political boundaries.
If the larger objectives are spelled out, clearly and convincingly, then I think the people will instinctively support it, and if they do, Congress will too.
If you sold it (truly or falsely) as a stepping stone to Mars that’s cheaper and more achievable in the near-future, then maybe – especially if it generates infrastructure that Congress and NASA can then get loss averse about.
I personally don’t think it’s a “stepping stone” to Mars – the only thing it has in common with a Mars landing mission is the capability to get humans to Mars and put them in orbit around it after aerobraking, and it has a whole set of different hardware needs that might not be any less expensive. But it’s easier to see how you’d do it with near-future hardware.
An orbital-only mission really isn’t worth it unless you have some pretty robust driving robots with a good power supply on Mars for your Orbital Mission to remotely control. If your rover has to drive slowly anyways, then it’s just not worth the extra expense versus sending more landers/rovers – and it will probably become less worth it as we get better resolution images of Mars and more capable rovers (ideally one that could navigate obstacles between check-points).
That’s not to mention that an orbital-only mission has its own challenges that a Mars landing mission wouldn’t have (as much, at least). If you’re 2-3 years out, you pretty much can’t ignore the microgravity issue – you’re going to have to simulate gravity by spacecraft rotation for at least part of it. You’re also going to have to find some radiation shielding, probably by putting your spacecraft down in Stickney Crater on Phobos.
Of course, if you do have good rovers to drive, then it definitely is much cheaper and less complicated than landing humans there. After you put your rovers down on the ground on Mars, you send out three heavy lift launches – one puts an Earth Return Vehicle in a parking orbit around Mars, another puts a “robot freighter” in orbit around Mars with extra supplies/equipment/etc, and the third takes the crew there.
That’s not really a surprise. Lakdawalla has said before on Twitter and one of the Planetary Society chats that a human presence on the surface of Mars is almost certainly going to contaminate the Martian surface with Earth life, and I think she’s right (whether or not that life actually survives on Mars’ surface is a good question). And if you can’t tell whether life on Mars is of Martian-origin or Earth-origin with any degree of reliability, then you’ve squandered a massive scientific discovery.
All that said, my view on this is that we should land a bunch of drilling probes in an area where we’ll have potential human landing missions, and have them look for life signs in the soil and downwards to about 10-20 meters. If they can’t find anything indicative of life in the area where humans will be exploring, then I say send the humans – you can probably dismiss any surface signs of life you find on Mars as Earth travelers in that situation.
> And if you can’t tell whether life on Mars is of Martian-origin or
Earth-origin with any degree of reliability, then you’ve squandered a
massive scientific discovery
Not everyone agrees with this assessment, although it has unfortunately become dogma in space science. Frankly, I myself could barely care less if Martian life exists or what it looks like. With modern molecular tools it is entirely unlikely that Earth life would eliminate all reconstructible traces of Martian life, and there are far more important things to do on Mars.
But alas that is an impolitic thing to say, as space exploration for reasons other than pure, basic research is frowned upon these days 🙁
I’m not a fanatic about it. I mentioned either in this thread or another one that I think we should do a survey with several robotic probes of a landing site on Mars, to see if there are any signs of life at the surface or within several meters of it below. If we don’t find anything there, then I’d be fine with doing a crewed mission to Mars with some precautions (suit locks for outside activity, on-site sterilization, sterilization of any vented material from the habitat).
I think Martian life has turned many scientists and people in NASA into Captain Ahabs. So set on that one goal they’ve lost sight of the bigger picture.
Right now as far as evidence is concerned we’re alone. Whether Martian or Earth contamination we can (relatively) easily answer the question of “are there more than one life-bearing planets in the universe that we know of?”.
Yes. The answer would be Earth + a colonized Mars.
Humans shouldn’t be carefully and gingerly scraping around sterile deserts for tiny signs of life, we should be making them “bloom”. Bringing life and planting it where we can.
And if and when we find alien life (Mars, or elsewhere) we can take measures to protect it’s existence. But ultimately we should be spreading life along with us, not developing an institutional OCD over the hypothesised final meagre remnants of Mar’s final extinction, if it ever developed life to begin with.
I think, just scientifically, there is very little that can be done by humans on Mars that cannot be done robotically by humans on Phobos, much quicker, cheaper and at less risk. I have been advocating humans on Phobos as the next logical step to Mars for several years now, for any number of reason. But only as a logical stepping stone, a base camp if you will, for human exploration, and eventual settlement, of Mars.
A huge divide here is between folks who are primarily interested in academic space science, and those who advocate human expansion into the space environment. I believe this issue needs to be discussed and clarified in the community, because the issues are quite distinct. They should reinforce and support each other, but if they become adversarially opposed, it could potentially do great harm to the attainment of either goal.
One big problem is that no one really knows for sure if human expansion into the space environment is possible, practical, or sensible. I have believed (in my heart of hearts, since the 1952 Colliers series on space exploration, that our human destiny lies there, but of course I was only 10 at the time, so one may reasonably doubt. Since then, Gerry O’Neill and the eminent planetary chemist John S Lewis (1997 book, “Mining the Sky”) have convinced me that the promise and potential of space as an attractive, and even a necessary, habitat for intelligent life demands exploration and development.
The fundamental point is that all life is dependent on free energy, G, in the technical sense of physics and chemistry. to overcome the limits the Second Law imposes on our ability to protect and reproduce our information kernel and continue to stay ahead of entropy’s continual degradation of our efforts to organize our surroundings. Although perhaps not quite infinite, space offers the opportunity of breaking the limits (energy, materials, room to grow) that threaten us here on Earth so radically that we simply must explore the opportunity it offers as an existential necessity, until is is definitively shown to be a dead end, or other, better, solutions to our problems can be demonstrated.
I’m a little worried that a Mars orbit-and-moons-only crewed mission could eventually turn into a dead end that slows down or stops landings on the surface itself. We know that ISS had cut-backs that limited some of its capabilities, and the space advocacy community would have some loud voices arguing for delays on any landing mission to just give them some more time to look for life on Mars with robots.
That is the problem with any goal linked to a specific destination. We need to focus on capabilities not destinations and the destinations will take care of themselves as the capabilities are available.
This is more of the Planetary Society’s catering to the “look but do not touch” crowd. For this specific reason, I sadly have never been able to support them. However, there is a perfectly valid rational for an initial (single) orbit only mission, to find a really good landing site for a base, with good science objectives but also vital resources like near surface ice deposits to make propellants from. The same kind of search would be needed before a colony site was chosen but with ground truth to prove the resources. The orbit only position, taken to an extreme, could evolve into a program similar to the moon only proponents.
What we really need now, as our highest priority, is a big SEP mission to orbit Phobos, land at several spots. look for ice and other elements and minerals, and maybe bring home samples for study here on earth. This is what we need to seriously plan for a human base camp there, with details of design, costs, etc.
In addition to the composition, I’d like to know how tightly held together it is. Can we safely secure ourselves on it, or is loosely held together like some asteroids?
Take a look at Stickney Crater and then consider that present-day Phobos is what’s left after that puppy was gouged out by an impactor. I think Phobos is pretty damned solid.
This is why space settlement that focuses on Mars, like Mars One and Elon Musk goals, are non-starters. It is not just the money. It is not just the technological challenge. It that they will not get the necessary permission or licenses to be allowed to go forward because of the fear of contamination of it.
Even if no life is found on Mars in the next decade, the possible presence of it somewhere will prevent simple prevent any settlement. If you see this much objection to a science mission imagine the opposition to a settlement mission. The only reason there is no opposition now is because one really takes any Mars settlement plans serious.
That is why it makes more sense to focus on lunar development. It is possible, not only in terms in money and technology, but politically since there is almost no possibility of there being any life on the Moon. So you are able to build what you want there with no one caring about it.
Lunar development is an answer looking for a question, though – at least for anything beyond a research base. And even then, the Moon’s so close that telepresence and robotics are potentially very effective, especially since you don’t need to bring them back.
I’m in agreement with you on Mars One and Musk, though. They’re going to have to jump some pretty big hurdles to prove that they will cause minimal contamination, something which Mars One at least will never be able to prove because they’re planning to live there indefinitely.
Actually that is how I feel about Mars.The only argument for going there is science and that is best done with telebotics, so Mars settlement is basically a science fiction dream looking for a real world reason.
In terms of the Moon, it is simply because telepresence is so much easier that makes development of it more practical since much of the work, perhaps 95-99%, would be done from Earth with humans only needed for specialize functions. Add to that it would be easy to rotate humans back to Earth to prevent any negative aspects of the Moon’s low gravity, and to fill in gaps in supply until technology for self-sufficient facilities is developed and you have additional points in its favor.
In terms of development, it will indeed start out as a research facility, but would expand as new opportunities present themselves, as they would once humans are on site. And that is the other great advantage over Mars, the Moon could be developed using a evolutionary approach. The first “settlement’ could be nothing more that a Bigelow Aerospace habitat for a 4-6 person crew on rotation and then be expanded based on demand because of the proximity to Earth.
Recall the justification for the settlement of Jamestown was mining gold and silver, but once on site they found the real business model was for tobacco, timber and tar. We don’t know what the business model is for the Moon because we have spent so little time prospecting the Moon.
So lunar development is not really a solution looking for a question but the critical next step to human expansion throughout the Solar System. But as with all frontiers, it is a process, not a plan, where the outcome, or even intermittent steps, not known in advance, which is why I think the aerospace industry is so uncomfortable with it since they are rooted in the Program Management paradigm of picking an end goal and working backward from it.
Instead it is like most new start-up models where you simply move from one intermittent step to another, as with Facebook that started as a simple system of networking at Harvard.
I’m not sure I agree. To be possible, settlement would require a very large number of people in favor of it, not just the people going, but the ones investing time and money in the project. Planetary protection is a legal and treaty requirement. Laws can change and treaties can be renegotiated. That’s a political issue. If we ever get to the point where settlement is a real possibility, I suspect the people involved would have more political influence than the scientists in favor of prohibitive planetary protection.
Except that the environment community is much better organized and funded than the space community. Given there is also the weak argument for settling Mars and its clear who would win.
I think if we could realistically colonise Mars, there’s not much the ‘environment community’ could do to stop it.
With the means and the arguments on the colonist’s side (“You’re arguing for the protection of a sterile desert”), the planetary ‘protectionists’ would quickly be silenced by the critical mass of public opinion.
“filthy meatbag bodies” – good grief; it sounds like somebody has body image issues! With that mentality, I guess we should only reproduce via petri dish! I think it will be a long time before any meatball bodies are exposed to the Martian environment – if ever. Meanwhile, compared to the challenge of getting to Mars alive and back, biological isolation is a probably a lot easier.
The labels were invented a long time ago, and are even part of space policy literature by now. Saganites, von Braunians, and O’Neillians. Shouldnt be too hard to put together which is which .. Oh, there is also something called Grahamian vision, which is a bit more obscure
ISBN: 978-1-4766-1773-2 for the book reference
Paul Spudis even bothered to draw a picture of this a while back. Although slightly skewed and lacks a few axes, its a good start
http://www.spudislunarresou…
I don’t think the US government should pay for settlements off-world. If people can raise the money and make a go at it themselves, fine, but there’s no overwhelming merit for the US government (or other governments) to underwrite it.
If the question of whether or not life exists elsewhere is the reason you don’t want your “meatbags” to land on Mars, then that’s a pretty lame reason indead. Logic and reason dictate that the life certainly exists elsewhere. It’s absurd to use that as a rationale for NOT exploring Mars with Humans. Humans are the best tools we have to explore the surface of the planet. No robot or rover can make the real time decisions that humans can to go there. I see little benefit to sending humans into the orbit of Mars.
The bigger deal, who CARES if there are microbes on Mars? Yeah, it’s an interesting question, but does it really matter? It doesn’t matter at all. Unless they pose a threat to human life on Earth, there’s no reason to let that stop us explore. I give two big thumbs down to the notion that we let potential microbes stop us from exploring the planet with people. Men on Mars is the next logical step for humans in space. We must do it if we hope to go further in space. I find it astonishing that people who are interested in space would advocate NOT sending humans to Mars. It’s bizarre to me. I think this is an example of the editor of Nasa Watch playing the part of Devil’s Advocate too far.
Ok, lessee.. 15 Terran objects have already landed or impacted on Mars, 4 of these are mobile/have mobile components (6 if the Russian mini-rovers deployed and we don’t know about it) and potentially could spread contamination over larger areas, and another 9 objects in various orbits have the potential to enter and possibly survive (whole or in pieces), not to mention various aeroshells, heat shields, parachutes, air bags, sky cranes, and ejected ballast..
And we think Mars isn’t already contaminated? Right…..silly humans.
It definitely is, but the contamination should be minimal. The idea is to keep it minimal, and that’s what the COSPAR guidelines are for.
Well, you asked for the labels, and these three or four labels are non-nuanced way of looking at things. Of course the individuals behind the names wouldn’t probably easily subscribe to this, but they cant argue.
Its worth nothing that both the von Braunian and Saganite camp have obvious accomplishments in space to point to, whereas the O’Neillian side has not accomplished much of anything
The Planetary Society is just a liberal think tank with no desire to empower discovery. Everything they think and do is skewed by progressivism.
Sagan’s legacy is carried on by pretty much everything that JPL has done, and von Braun’s is NASA human spaceflight program. O’Neill didnt leave much of a legacy in space
I never got the “space environmentalists” who want to keep ‘nasty’ humans away, and keep the rest of the planets and asteroids pristine when they’re all just variations on sterile deserts.
I think we have to look past the slim chance of life on Mars and see the bigger picture: Humans will inevitably bring life to places where there is none, ensuring it’s survival as we know it.
Seems that there’s too many people who for various reasons subscribe to the environmentalism that envisions humans as an aberration, to be kept in check on Earth until we go extinct, as if there’s something tangibly ideal and important about keeping things as we find them. As if space colonization would be an affront to some universal deity that would disprove of us meddling with his affairs.
It’s superstition.
Space is there to be explored and used as we see fit. If we find life we should of course protect it’s existence, but otherwise I have no problem whatsoever with Mars or the moon being colonised.
Perhaps when everyone can see human cities on the moon, they’ll feel a little less inclined towards religious superstition and have a bit more faith in humanity, and it’s ability to prosper and ascend without some sky-man holding our hands.
…On second thought it’d also allow religious fanatics to fly off to create their own ideal socieites so overall it’s a win-win.