Talk:Space colonization

Space colonization by non-human life-forms

This article describes human colonization of space, though it doesn't mention the possibility of colonization by microorganisms ("directed panspermia.") Could this article be expanded to describe this topic? Jarble (talk) 18:25, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I would say no, since "colonization" in this articles sense isn't about the term of colony in biology. You could though link in the "See also" section to for example Panspermia.Nsae Comp (talk) 10:04, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

"Colonization of the Sun" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Colonization of the Sun. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Regards, SONIC678 18:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, there's always the joke about going at night... Double sharp (talk) 08:26, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

and David Brin's novel Sundiver. —Tamfang (talk) 05:13, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Other giant-planet moons

I regret having to leave this out of the article, because I cannot find it discussed in RS's focused on colonisation, so it would be a SYNTH. But I cannot resist putting some stuff out here, since we do mention the smaller moons briefly in the article (thanks to Universe Today mentioning Enceladus and the radiation belts' location). :D

Mimas, Enceladus, and Tethys orbit within the radiation belts; the outer moons escape that fate. Electron flux on Mimas is apparently 1/40 that on Europa. If we apply that 1/40 fraction to the total Sv dose (possibly naively, but at least a first approximation), we arrive at something a little harsher than Ganymede, which is still quite nasty.

Then again, Mimas is not too useful resource-wise, being essentially a dead iceball with very little rock. The same is even more true of Tethys. Enceladus, however, would be extremely useful. Thankfully Dione is a backup option (another ocean world), but at some point it seems useful to go down the geysers on Enceladus' south pole, where likely there are fissionables (very important in the outer Solar System!). Dione probably lacks this. Radiation will still be milder on Enceladus than on Europa.

Rhea and Iapetus are likely undifferentiated, which may make them quite useful for finding rocks without digging too deep (the yield would be low though, given the low densities). Iapetus is far enough out of the way that it should make a useful location for the Saturn system's spaceport and industry. Unfortunately none of them quite make it to 0.03g which seems to be about the minimum threshold at which some people can start sensing a "down", though they're close.

Although given Iapetus' density, come to think of it, there shouldn't be that many rocks there... Double sharp (talk) 21:02, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

(Yes, inspired by ToughSF's look at the moons too.) Double sharp (talk) 11:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Triton has been mentioned in passing in some serious sources, mostly to complete the set of seven planetary-scale satellites. I left that out of the article, since it is only a passing mention. It also doesn't seem that they were thinking about it that much, since no one seems to be mentioning the elephant in the room: the surface is solid nitrogen which will explosively sublimate when a space-suited colonist walks on it. (For this reason I also suspect Charon is more suitable for colonisation than Pluto.) I suspect that most RS's on this simply consider Uranus and Neptune as too futuristic for serious speculation at the moment. :) Double sharp (talk) 13:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

OK, so there is some Uranus and Neptune content after all! Here, here, and here. I probably missed it the first time because I was looking for stuff about their moons, rather than the planets themselves. :) Double sharp (talk) 03:43, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Image Lunar Gateway

Hi everyone,

a while back this image with its caption was taken out:

The logo and name of the Lunar Gateway references the St. Louis Gateway Arch, associating Mars with the American frontier.

I am for reintroducing it, because there is a clear real life contemporary linkage to colonialism here. It would give the article more reference to real life space programs and their colonial outlook. The edit note was stating that the source doesnt mention colonialism, but I would argue that it doesnt have to, since the Gateway Arch in St.Louis is clearly a settler colonial symbol, and is also as such discussed in the literature about the Getway Arch.

I am eager to hear what you think, because as I said it would give the article a nice real life texture, that can also highlight "colonization" in its historically more important socio-political dimension, away from the very technical utopian/futurist ideas of space colonialism in this article. Nsae Comp (talk) 10:19, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I provided an extra references and a more nuanced text. Reintroduced therefore the picture. Nsae Comp (talk) 11:50, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Criticism section needs to use clearer language

A lot of the paragraphs in the criticism section begin with unclear language like 'Critics say,' and 'other objections include.' These claims should be tied to the specific people making them (eg. 'Author John Appleseed says in his book ...').

Just to be clear I am not calling for their removal, these facts are clearly well cited 2A0C:5BC0:40:1008:12E7:C6FF:FEB1:BEE1 (talk) 11:55, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

space colonization

humanity has a space habitat the iss(international space station) is a basic habitat we are the able to explore space the iss is humanity current habitat we can affect earth and extinct life we are rising technological species we are able to destroy asteriods very soon there could be space tourism we have missions to the moon after that maybe we will move to mars — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.89.32.93 (talk) 14:23, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

ISS is already addressed in the History section. The rest of this comment is speculative. Abbey.thorpe (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Crime

On the matter, the internationally binding Outer Space Treaty states the following:

States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities;

States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and

States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.

And Article IX of the OST explicitly prohibits any form of (microbial) forward contamination that leads to harm:

In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of cooperation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty. States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose. If a State Party to the Treaty has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by it or its nationals in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities of other States Parties in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, it shall undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding with any such activity or experiment. A State Party to the Treaty which has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by another State Party in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment.

Irrefutable proof of space colonization being a crime:

1. Evolution of life unfolding on exoplanets (or any of the 200+ solar system ice moons) morally is a BIG DEAL.

2. Evolution can unfold in millions of very different ways.

3. The window between best and worst versions in terms of well-being or suffering to come from it surely is astronomically gigantic.

4. Any near-future microbial contamination of planets at most will lead to an abysmal version (and likely negative, for octillions - namely quintillions at any time for billions of years - of animals, since according to evolutionary biologists, wild animals mainly suffer on average).

Conclusion: Even by current risk assessment response measures or standards applied in other cases, humanity must at the very least have discipline and hold itself back for many years from risking interplanetary and interstellar forward contamination, and so space ports must be locked down, or otherwise, humanity loses the moral justification for its continued existence, since in the utilitarian sense it then can be better to have ended sooner, before and without such contamination event having happened.

This condition is also known as the great filter.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.192.195.234 (talk) 07:04, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

[1] and this is not the place for it. —Tamfang (talk) 18:54, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles summarize what reliable, published sources say about the topic. The opinions of random, anonymous people on the internet have no place in articles. Cullen328 (talk) 19:17, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

First of all, I'm far from a 'random' person, as I'm an expert in space law, secondly, my above argument applies either entirely or with the exception of humanity dying out or losing technological long-term control capability over the solar system, then third, recently bioethicist Asher Soryl and Dr. Anders Sandberg followed up with their take on the matter largely agreeing with me ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652500181X ) and to cite them, they "[We] propose a temporary moratorium on the development of panspermia technologies.", and fourth and last of all, here is yet another important type of violation of the Outer Space Treaty, namely of its Article IV, which provides further legal support of my standpoint on the topic:

Proof of the applicability of Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty, based on the definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction in 1977 by the General Assembly of the UN through its resolution referred to as "A/RES/32/84-B":

https://www.unrcpd.org/wmd/

"Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) constitute a class of weaponry with the potential to:

[...]

• Disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants;"

Interplanetary space probes carrying microbes are a means by which those microbes can be disseminated, and microbes are a form of organisms capable of causing disease, and therefore they are disease-causing organisms, as specified in the above official declaration in the defining context of WMDs. Microbes can kick-start evolution causing animal suffering for eons. 195.192.195.234 (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Contamination of existing biospheres with Terran pathogens is a crime, therefore space colonization in general is a crime, got it —Tamfang (talk) 21:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

No, you apparently are not understanding the argument, because this is (mainly) not at all about the contamination of pre-existing biospheres, but instead it is about the creation of biospheres out of previously sterile, pristine celestial worlds that had no own microbes on them before the introduction of microbes by humans. And the crime almost entirely is not of scientific nature at all, but it's instead about the over up to around a billion years then emerging wild animals that would suffer greatly, which otherwise wouldn't have happened. And this danger is also the topic of Asher Soryl's and Dr. Anders Sandberg's scientific paper ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652500181X ) from 2025, titled "To seed or not to seed: Estimating the ethical value of directed panspermia". In it, they propose a moratorium on technologies capable of panspermia for this reason.

And for reference and orientation on what to expect if such wild animal biosphere were to be created, I'll cite the wild animal suffering Wikipedia page on that:

"Wild animal suffering is suffering experienced by non-human animals living in the wild, outside of direct human control, due to natural processes. Its sources include disease, injury, parasitism, starvation, malnutrition, dehydration, weather conditions, natural disasters, killings by other animals, and psychological stress. An extensive amount of natural suffering has been described as an unavoidable consequence of Darwinian evolution, as well as the pervasiveness of reproductive strategies, which favor producing large numbers of offspring, with a low amount of parental care and of which only a small number survive to adulthood, the rest dying in painful ways, has led some to argue that suffering dominates happiness in nature. Some estimates suggest that the total population of wild animals, excluding nematodes but including arthropods, may be vastly greater than the number of animals killed by humans each year. This figure is estimated to be between 10¹⁸ and 10²¹ individuals." 195.192.195.234 (talk) 02:54, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

You are apparently not understanding that Wikipedia is not a venue to advance or promote novel arguments. See WP:NOR, WP:NOTFORUM, etc. MrOllie (talk) 03:06, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

You are apparently not understanding that these aren't novel arguments. You're not up to date. Also stop making this a personal discussion. Others already complained to the wrong person about it by now. 195.192.195.234 (talk) 04:40, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

References

Brought here by citation hunt for a different section of this article but. What is up with this citation in the intro?

Many arguments for and against space settlement have been made.[5]

...

5. For example, The Space Show Archived 2020-05-23 at the Wayback Machine, an online radio program, has had on average 16 shows per month going back to 2001, many of which discuss space settlement.

I'm new here but my instinct is to just remove the citation since this is a summary/intro sentence... Abbey.thorpe (talk) 13:00, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Moriba Jah

That said simple satellites occupying orbits has been identified by Moriba Jah as colonial when treated as controlling the orbit through them instead of through a broader stewardship.

What does this even mean? In what sense to satellites "control" the orbits they "occupy"?

Does a ship exert colonial control over its path? —Tamfang (talk) 23:44, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I think I could address your valid point. Nsae Comp (talk) 23:12, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

SpaceX in the lede

SpaceX is given some (in my opinion) unwarranted prominence in the lede. Currently, the paragraph seems to be set up to talk about the future and strategic implications of colonization. Naturally, after talking about current Moon base plans, it would make sense to talk about current Mars base plans. However, would it not make more sense to add official and/or detailed plans instead of non-existent SpaceX plans?

Currently, SpaceX has little prominence in the rest of the article and is only discussed when relevant (economics and partnering with governments). If the lede is meant to be more of a summary, would it be better to talk about general corporate interest in space colonization (and then perhaps mention SpaceX there)? Sr Desayuno (talk) 18:48, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, don't think it's due for the lede especially since it concerns future plans. Symphony Regalia (talk) 00:25, 8 November 2024 (UTC)