Gerald Sanders, a 35 year NASA veteran, said developing access to resources on our natural satellite is a critical step in cutting costs and creating a circular...
There’s an argument to be made here about the relative harm done by conducting mining activities on Earth or the Moon, while assuming that humanity’s hunger for resources won’t abate. The Earth is home to everything we know, while the Moon is a lifeless rock. We lose something poetic if we mar the Moon’s face with human-pox; but perhaps it’s less than what’s broken at home by similar actions.
What right do we have to go and mar another planet? I can see the arguments that might is right, nobody else is claiming it, etc., but this is deeply parasitic behavior at the end of the day.
Well… nobody is there to care or be harmed. Nobody has the right, or even lack of it. It’s less “might makes right” and more “those who can (feasibly, technologically, etc.), will” , I think. Who gives a tree the right to grow somewhere it can? The arguments look very different if it’s another planet capable of supporting life that can notice the human activities. But, the Moon? Mining on the dark side likely doesn’t get noticed by anyone.
There’s an argument to be made here about the relative harm done by conducting mining activities on Earth or the Moon, while assuming that humanity’s hunger for resources won’t abate. The Earth is home to everything we know, while the Moon is a lifeless rock. We lose something poetic if we mar the Moon’s face with human-pox; but perhaps it’s less than what’s broken at home by similar actions.
What right do we have to go and mar another planet? I can see the arguments that might is right, nobody else is claiming it, etc., but this is deeply parasitic behavior at the end of the day.
Well… nobody is there to care or be harmed. Nobody has the right, or even lack of it. It’s less “might makes right” and more “those who can (feasibly, technologically, etc.), will” , I think. Who gives a tree the right to grow somewhere it can? The arguments look very different if it’s another planet capable of supporting life that can notice the human activities. But, the Moon? Mining on the dark side likely doesn’t get noticed by anyone.