Space exploration under capitalism will only magnify inequalities—see Blade Runner—the alt is the only hope for equitable space travel

Society is increasingly humanizing the cosmos. Satellites have for some time been central to the flow of information, to surveillance, and to the conduct of warfare. As these examples suggest, however, the humanization of the cosmos is primarily benefiting the powerful. These include major economic and military institutions. Furthermore, the forthcoming commodification and colonization of the cosmos is again likely to enhance the interests of the powerful, the major aerospace companies in particular. The time has come to consider alternative forms of cosmic humanization. These would enhance the prospects of the socially marginalized. They would also allow humanity to develop a better understanding of the cosmos and our relationship to it. Humanizing Outer Space The 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing is often seen as the high point of society’s relationship with outer space. Nothing quite so dramatic or exotic seems to have happened in outer space since. But nearby, parts of the solar system (including the moon, some asteroids, and Mars) are now being routinely circled and explored and analyzed by robots. Furthermore, President Obama has recently made important announcements regarding a new U.S. space program that involves manned missions to Mars by the mid-2030s. But the NASA-based Constellation program to the moon and Mars has been cancelled. Instead, NASA will undertake a long-term research and development program aimed at supporting future forms of propulsion and exploration programs. Even more significant in the short-term is a proposed $25 billion being allocated to NASA to kick-start commercial manned spaceflight over the next five years. New forms of transport to the International Space Station will be funded, this time using innovative forms of “space taxis” designed by private sector space companies. These plans entail new relations between the private and public sectors in the United States. Meanwhile, a presence in outer space is being developed by other societies. This is partly because such a presence is seen as an important symbol of modernization, progress, and social unity. The Indian government has announced a manned mission to the moon in 2013, the European Space Agency envisages projects to the moon and beyond, and the Chinese government is planning a similar project for 2020. This last development has caused some consternation over Obama’s plans. One suggestion is that the United States may after all be the next to send manned missions to the moon, because China’s space project is seen by some as a military threat that needs forestalling. Yet among these plans and proposals, it is easy to forget that outer space is already being increasingly humanized. It has now been made an integral part of the way global capitalist society is organized and extended. Satellites, for example, are extremely important elements of contemporary communications systems. These have enabled an increasing number of people to become part of the labor market. Teleworking is the best known example. Satellite-based communications have also facilitated new forms of consumption such as teleshopping. Without satellite-based communications, the global economy in its present form would grind to a halt. Satellites have also been made central to modern warfare. Combined with pilotless Predator drones, they are now being used to observe and attack Taliban and Al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This action is done by remote control from Creech Air Force Base at Indian Springs, Nevada. The 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program, aimed to intercept incoming missiles while facilitating devastating attacks on supposed enemies. A version of the program is still being developed, with the citizens of the Czech Republic and Poland now under pressure to accept parts of a U.S.-designed “missile defense shield.” This is part of a wider strategy of “Full Spectrum Dominance,” which has for some time been official U.S. Defense Policy. Using surveillance and military equipment located in outer space is now seen as the prime means of protecting U.S. economic and military assets both on Earth and in outer space. Less dangerously, but still very expensively, a full-scale space-tourism industry has for some time been under active development. Dennis Tito, a multi-millionaire, made the first tourist trip into outer space in 2001. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has now sold over three hundred seats at $200,000 apiece to its first tourists in outer space. The program is due to start in 2011, with spaceports for this novel form of travel now being built in Alaska, California, Florida, New Mexico, Virginia, Wisconsin, the United Arab Emirates, and Esrange in Sweden. Excursions circling the moon, likely to cost the galactic visitors around $100,000,000, are now under development. Since the Renaissance period of the sixteenth century, the word “humanization” has been used to connote something beneficial, especially to human beings. As we will now see, humanizing the cosmos is regarded in just these terms by some influential proponents of space travel and space colonization. The Space Renaissance Initiative One response to cosmic humanization is to welcome it as an early stage of a wholly beneficial cosmic human society, one eventually encompassing the solar system and beyond. Such is the view of the Space Renaissance Initiative, an international group of over seventy private organizations now promoting the expansion of society into the cosmos. The aims and ideals of the Space Renaissance are made clear by the Initiative’s manifesto published in 2010. It reads: Help the Space Economy Revolution! The global economy is entering a deep crisis, the worst since 1929. This is the second act of the “Crisis of Closed-World Ideologies”, which has been developing throughout the 20thcentury. In 1989 the fall of the Berlin wall was the Crisis of Collectivist Ideology. The recent massive failure of the financial system is the Crisis of Neo-Liberal Ideology. Both these ideologies failed because they are based upon a closed-world, terro-centric philosophy. There are now almost 7 billion humans making massive demands on planet Earth: we urgently need to open the frontier, and move to a wider vision of our world, so as to access geo-lunar system resources and energy. In short we need a new “Open World Philosophy”. The alternative would be the implosion and collapse of our civilization. In short, the Space Renaissance Initiative argues, society is undergoing massive social, environmental, and population crises because it is thinking too small. The energy of the sun can, for example, be made into a source of clean power from outer space, which would solve society’s energy shortages at a stroke. The Initiative argues that opening up the cosmos to humanity—colonizing the solar system, and opening up resources in the moon, Mars, and the asteroids—could be central to social and environmental salvation. The progress made by the private sector in developing technologies and efficiencies for space tourism means that commercial enterprise can now start planning to venture still further afield. The philosophical roots of the Space Initiative are no less than the sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance and the Enlightenment. With the enlightened patronage of such families as the Medicis, an unprecedented new age of development took place: arts knew a wonderful age of innovation, culture took on some essential principles of classical Greek philosophy, and modern science was born, with men like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and later Copernicus and Galileo leading the way. This movement led to the Age of Enlightenment and its most famous offspring: the American and French Revolutions. The manifesto also praises the writings of Descartes, Voltaire, and Jefferson. The belief of these philosophers in the enterprising individual, in freedom, in liberty, and in reason all mean that political power should be vested in the common person and not in states, kings, and nobility. The Space Renaissance Initiative believes in these concepts, seeing them as the basis of a new, progressive, liberating, humanization of the cosmos. But there are surely major problems here. For example, any claim that the Medici family (and similar families such as the Borgias) helped overthrow feudalism is far-fetched. The Medicis were bankers and merchants who made their money at the center of an emerging global mercantilist capitalism, one based in Northern Italy. They used this money to enhance their position within their feudal societies. Members of the Medicis even made themselves into popes, thus further enhancing their wealth and that of their many illegitimate offspring. Another of the Medicis was made the Queen of France. The language used by intellectual elites of the day was Latin. This appealed to scholars across Europe but not to the great mass of individuals living in Florence, Milan, or Venice. The Medicis and individuals such as Leonardo are often celebrated as examples of “The Renaissance Universal Man,” one capable of spanning every kind of human practice such as art, music, and politics. This “Man” is perhaps best symbolized by Leonardo’s famous image of a male human being, stretched over the circle of the cosmos, his head in the heavens and his bowels located in earthly regions. But this Renaissance Man—or Woman—can also be seen as prefiguring the self-centered, narcissistic individualism of our own day, one seeing the whole of the cosmos at his or her command. This kind of modern human identity has since been enhanced by consumer-based capitalism and, given the problems it creates both for ourselves and our environment, there seems rather little reason to celebrate or restore it. The general point is that the vision of the Space Renaissance Initiative, with its prime focus on the power of the supposedly autonomous and inventive individual, systematically omits questions of social, economic, and military power. Similarly, the Initiative’s focus on the apparently universal benefits of space humanization ignores some obvious questions. What will ploughing large amounts of capital into outer space colonization really do for stopping the exploitation of people and resources back here on earth? The “solution” seems to be simultaneously exacerbating social problems while jetting away from them. Consumer-led industrial capitalism necessarily creates huge social divisions and increasing degradation of the environment. Why should a galactic capitalism do otherwise? The Space Renaissance Initiative argues that space-humanization is necessarily a good thing for the environment by introducing new space-based technologies such as massive arrays of solar panels. But such “solutions” are again imaginary. Cheap electricity is most likely to increase levels of production and consumption back on earth. Environmental degradation will be exacerbated rather than diminished by this technological fix. A simplistic and idealistic view of history, technology, and human agency therefore underpins the starting point of the Space Renaissance Initiative. Humanization in this shape—one now finding favor in official government circles—raises all kinds of highly problematic issues for society and the environment. What would an alternative, more critical, perspective on humanizing the cosmos tell us?