Space colonization just another opportunity for oppression
By Ljudmila Petrovic
Image by Mark Burnham
In 2005, Michael Griffin, the NASA Administrator at the time, announced that the ultimate long-term goal of NASA’s spaceflight programs was space colonization.
“The goal isn’t just scientific exploration… it’s also about extending the range of human habitat out from Earth into the solar system as we go for- ward in time,” he announced. “If we humans want to survive for hundreds of thousands or millions of years, we must ultimately populate other planets.” Basically, what Griffin was acknowledging was that humans were overpopulating the planet, but overusing the resources at such a rate that we would someday render Earth useless — and then we’d move on. Yes, we as a race are so entitled as to believe that not only is the Earth ours to pillage and then discard, but that we have that same authority over the rest of the solar system: if its atmosphere can support human life, then that planet is a free- for-all, right?
A prime example of this at- titude is the Cold War-era Space Race: outer space was used as a battlefield for the power struggle between the USSR and the United Space. The question was not whether the moon was ours to put a flag on, but rather which country’s flag would be the first on the barren land.
It can be argued that it is not space colonization so much as space exploration. It can be argued that we’re doing this for knowledge, or that humanity is gaining something from it. Many points can be argued, but ultimately, we are undeniably taking an entitled approach to how we tread into the universe.
Our libraries are filled with tomes upon tomes outlining the entitled approach that the colonizing nations took when landing upon what they saw as the virgin shores of their conquests: the Romans in ancient times, then the Spanish and Portuguese, later the British Empire, and currently the United States all had the same approach to the countries they were conquering that we have to Mars and the moon.
Just as the aforementioned colonialists did not think to consider what was already there — the natives of the lands that were already established societies — so, too, does NASA not consider that life on these planets could potentially confound these space colonization plans.
It’s true, we have yet to find life on these planets, but would finding this life stop us from setting up camp there? Based on historical precedents, it doesn’t seem likely. After all, we don’t have to look further than our own country’s history to know that even an established society with a rich culture is subject to assimilation attempts, let alone if we were to find mere traces of life on another planet.
“What we normally think of as ‘life’ is based on chains of carbon atoms, with a few other atoms, such as nitrogen or phosphorous,” said Stephen Hawking in his famous lecture “Life in the Universe.” He goes on to mention the possibility of silicone-based life. Again, our egotistical and entitled approach to the universe becomes apparent with our assumptions of carbon- based homogeneity; humans are made of carbon and therefore all forms of life that are worth anything must also have a basis in carbon.
The levels of oppression that have occurred in our histories based on mere shades of skin colour are obscene; what kind of oppression could we possibly expect if the life whose territory we were invading was not even made of the same element as us? “I’m not an elementist, I just don’t like those damn silicone-based ones. Taking all our jobs.”
Would we try and assimilate this life — whatever form it may come in — to be carbon like us? Would we try and enslave them?
If history has shown us anything, it’s that we’re perfectly capable of setting up camp on another planet and then pushing our institutions on them. Hell, we’d probably try and segregate them while we were at it, perhaps establishing separate doors for those made of carbon and those that are silicone-based. Better yet, we’d take away “rights” that weren’t even concepts for these creatures before we landed: want to vote on what we do with the terrain of your planet? Sorry, you’re silicone-based. Only carboners can vote.
Just because we don’t understand this hypothetical life and its possible intelligence, it doesn’t diminish it; yet one of the main qualities of colonialism is the refusal to admit that maybe those that you are colonizing may know things that you don’t. It is more likely than not that we would try and force them away before our big colonization.
We have yet to communicate with other creatures, and Hawking offered several possible explanations as to why in the same speech. He acknowledged that it could be because no intelligent life exists, but his personal view is that there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that they have simply not acknowledged Earth. In fact, he expressed more concern for the well- being of us Earthlings rather than those we might think we’re invading.
“Meeting a more advanced civilisation, at our present stage, might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus,” he speculates. “I don’t think they were better off for it.”
