Space Colonization A New Frontier - 1710 Words

Space Colonization: A New Frontier As the possibility of space colonization and development begins to loom large, more and more people are beginning to question how such development will be pursued and what effect it will have on humans and the environment. Scientists are considering the feasibility of space colonization and its worth of study compared to other fields. Ethicists and environmentalists wonder how ethical it is to change the space environment and what consequences come with doing so. Politicians face the question of governance and law-making in the space frontier. The viewpoints toward space colonization are not simple to categorize as pro and contra, rather they are multi-layered and based on several fields of study, in†¦show more content†¦Preservationism is problematic to space colonization because it requires that everything natural holds intrinsic value, including rocks and planetary surfaces (Fogg 209). If preservationism was the accepted ethical theory, it would rule space colonization as immoral. Fogg finishes his paper by formulating an argument against preservationism. Fogg’s first premise is that humans are just as natural as any other natural object: â€Å"Human consciousness, culture, creativity and the technological artefacts produced thereby are thus not unnatural. They have arisen from the same physics that gave birth to the cosmos and the same process of biological evolution† (Fogg 210). His second premise states that preservationism, by making it impermissible for man to change to planet, â€Å"amounts to saying that humans actually have the lowest degree of intrinsic worth of any class of formed object. Rocks are free to rust and crumble over the aeons, asteroids and meteorites free to batter the Martian surface [†¦]† (210). Fogg’s article serves two purposes in the discussion of space colonization. One, it makes it clear that there are certain ethical theories, like preservationism, that could in fact provide an argument against space development if supported. Second, the article offers a convincing