Technological Delusions

On making humans an interplanetary species

The SpaceX Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, will send humans to the Moon first, and later to Mars, making humanity an ‘interplanetary species,’ as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk likes to put it. It could change astronautics, astrophysics, astronomy, the world economy, and the way we think of our place in the universe. On April 20^th 2023, Starship made its first full test, with mixed success: It (literally) cleared the launch pad but shortly after went off course and had to be blown up by an emergency procedure. Exploding rockets and failed orbital maneuvers are not unusual situations for rocket prototypes in their test phase. On the contrary, it was expected, and SpaceX was prepared for this eventuality.

What was much less expected was that the 32 extremely powerful Raptor engines pulverized concrete and sent material up to 4 kilometers from the launch site, hurled hundreds of meters away large concrete chunks, steel sheets, metal, and other objects in a sensitive natural environmentally protected habitat. Fortunately, except for the rubble, the damage to the landscape was limited. However, it became amply clear that things could have gone much worse: if the 3500-t propellant of liquid oxygen and methane would have gone off in the first seconds (not an unusual situation either), the damage to the surrounding area could have been apocalyptic. For this reason, five environmental groups sued the Federal Aviation Administration over its failure to assess the real potential risks connected with these rocket launches. It is unlikely that another Starship will clear the pad soon, not so much for technical reasons, but for environmental and safety concerns.

This raised some, not entirely new, but serious questions about how much environmental impact we are prepared to accept in order to become this interplanetary species. Should we prioritize the environment and eventually postpone technological progress, or should we go all in with the rocket launches independently from the potential consequences?

I’m an astronomy and space travel freak and favor all space-related adventures and believe that private or government-funded research in this field should have no ideological barriers. On the other hand, the kind of reactions and lines of reasoning I read in this regard after Starship’s explosion, were quite revelatory about our hyper-technological illusions, and how we always have a bit of this instinctive tendency to rationalize reality allowing us to indulge repeatedly in the same attitude.

The rationale sounded more or less as follows.

“Space travel should proceed no matter what the risk and cost. The future of a single planet species is finite, and since we will have to grow exponentially, humanity and the life surrounding us must spread, as far as possible, as much as possible, to every planet of the solar system, to every moon and every planetoid and every asteroid if possible. And humans must do this first and foremost for humanity, and secondly for the ecosystem. And once our foothold is set firm to many other planets, and humanity has made home to so many other places, maybe Mother Earth will be declared a huge eco-park. Moreover, let us recall that there are substantial deposits of minerals on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. Space mining on a huge scale, and with much more efficient technologies will lead us to become an abundant civilization. Eventually, all mining on Earth is banned forever. No more huge holes everywhere. No human activities except in some big cities. No oil pumping, no polluting with huge industrial buildings. It sounds hard, and maybe it will take some 300 more years, but this is the bright future awaiting us. So, yes, we can sacrifice a natural park, take whatever risks, and let us send to hell all those ‘eco-bureaucrats’ that hamper the technological progress of our space age.”

To some, this might sound very reasonable and technologically feasible, right?

There are two standpoints with which one can reply to this seemingly rational and materialistic outlook on our future. One is to take another equally rational and logical standpoint, while another goes beyond the technicalities and embraces a spiritual worldview. Let me begin with the former one first.

First of all, there is always this idea of unlimited expansion and growth that should never be questioned or challenged. There is always this belief in the background that the desire to spread and grow limitlessly, no matter what, shouldn’t be questioned, it is just part of our intrinsic human nature. If the GDP doesn’t grow every year, we feel on the brink of bankruptcy. Unlimited demographic growth is rarely questioned. Our unlimited and uncontrollable ever-growing energy demand is all right because nuclear power and future nuclear fusion will furnish us with limitless power supplies. And, of course, money is never enough. The world is not enough, we must expand, expand, expand… It is in our genetic code.

Well, maybe. But in Nature, there is only one thing that grows exponentially without self-limitation: Cancer. And I sincerely hope that we are not going to become an ‘interplanetary cancer.’ This mindset is at the very basis of the environmental disaster we now become aware of and was even the justification of the worst colonialists and genocidal ideologies (gentle reminder: Hitler justified his expansionism with the necessity for ‘Lebensraum’, i.e. a ‘living space.’) It is time to question what and for whom an ideal of unlimited expansion is really good for.

Secondly, there is too much unjustified optimism regarding our technological potential. Indeed, it will take centuries until a commercially viable space mining industry can replace present terrestrial mining. Until then we simply cannot continue to barbarously exploit and destroy the environment for another 300 years. There will be nothing left to be declared as an ‘eco-park’ in the first place.

But this was only an answer based on a technocratic view. A standpoint where one evaluates the pros and cons from a technological and commercial point of view. If humanity wants to avoid apocalyptic and potentially self-annihilating behaviors, it will have to learn to take a spiritual view of itself, Nature, and all of reality. ‘Spiritual’ means everything that goes beyond the mere material, technological, and even political and sociological context, embracing a deeper psychological, existential, philosophical, and even metaphysical perspective of the human with its inner reality and deeper dimensions in an evolutionary context. It should have become clear now that sooner or later (I guess it will have to be pretty much soon) we will have to learn that the inward, psychological, and spiritual progress of humanity will have to complement the outward material and technological progress. We can not see the expansion of the human species from a terrestrial to an interplanetary one only from the standpoint of technological progress. Because, the point is that if we will not learn to face and transcend our inner shadows, and will remain utterly unable to progress towards a less selfish, less violent, and less animal species, we will only export our barbarism throughout the solar system. If we will not learn our lesson on Earth today we will only export the same destructive and self-destructive species into space tomorrow. We must grow morally, ethically, but especially spiritually, to become able to handle more powerful technologies. Otherwise, we will end up like parasites of Nature that, sooner or later, will be cleared up by Nature itself. All our sciences, and technological marvels that will allow us to colonize Mars, will not prevent us from perpetuating, all over again, our primitive desires, exploitation of humans and Nature, and creating space colonies that, from a social and psychological point of view, will only repeat and multiplicate all the terrestrial barbarism on an interplanetary scale. We cannot escape our shadows and the dark side of the soul by jumping into a rocket, no matter how powerful it is. Our past will always follow us if we will not confront it, no matter what, and wherever we go. All those transhumanists who believe that our evolutionary future will converge towards a technological singularity and that we will become perfect and immortal by uploading our consciousness into a computer, don’t know themselves and aren’t able to go beyond the 19-20^th-century paradigm.

Thus, we will have to grow and progress our inner spiritual dimension together with our outer material achievements. We will have to dive into internal frontiers first, before being ready to discover new space frontiers. We will have to learn to fix our Earthly problems first before traveling elsewhere and infecting other planets like a deadly virus. This human instinct to look for a solution in outer space to fix its earthly problems, struggles, and strives, is only a reflex and symbol of its refusal to look inside, to face its inner shadows, and to grow from the inside out. Only a less barbaric and psychologically mature species will be able to spread, not like a metastasis but as a new conscious and wise civilization that does not self-measure its achievements in terms of unlimited growth and consumption but in terms of self-aware and compassionate unity and identification with diversity and Nature.

Only then it will become self-evident and completely spontaneous to see how we are one with Nature. It will be not just poetry but an intimate contact with us in Nature and Nature in us. You will no longer need a Ph.D. in environmental sciences to know what technology is good or harmful to the environment. You will know it almost immediately, intuitively, and spontaneously and the idea to transition from one lifestyle to one another will not be seen as a burden but as an exciting new adventure. The idea that we must first and foremost save humanity and secondly the ecosystem, is a sure sign of a lack of inner wisdom. We will recognize that there is no such separation between us and Nature and that conceiving of any progress that destroys Earth in the name of human salvation is an utterly ignorant conception of Nature and, especially, of ourselves. Space mining is not the solution, soul mining is.