Giant Leaps for Humankind: Outer Space & Intergenerational Ethics

Humankind has already established a firm and growing presence outside the boundaries of planet Earth. Moreover, it is likely that major actors are currently creating path dependencies that will determine the conditions of long-term future, often unknowingly and unintentionally. The following decades will presumably set a space future, but what kind of future is still up for grabs. What can it be like and what should it be like are both questions that need addressing urgently, because decisions made over the next few decades are likely to affect the lives and futures of many generations to come. This makes humanity’s space future an issue of justice and ethics.

A human future in space requires humanities research. Humanities is best equipped to question whose space future these activities represent, and to identify and voice out a multitude of narratives and perspectives that must not remain hidden, lest humankind risks repeating old tragedies on new stages. For example, romanticized frontierism, ideas of manifest destiny, and underlying colonial attitudes need to be identified, analysed, and critically examined for the space future to have a chance of becoming relatively just and morally decent.

What kind of future we owe for the humans and non-human entities inhabiting the Solar System? How do current space activities and plans for exploring and exploiting outer space shape the future? And, ultimately, what is our relationship to our home planet Earth, and is leaving it a great mistake or a wondrous opportunity? Our workshop tackles these and many other pressing space ethical issues by bringing scholars from different fields of space research and philosophy to discuss humanity’s future in space from an intergenerational point of view.