Frank White, Anthony (AC) Grayling, And Kelly Weinersmith: What Does It Mean For Humanity To Become Multiplanetary?

30 Dec Frank White, Anthony (AC) Grayling, And Kelly Weinersmith: What Does It Mean For Humanity To Become Multiplanetary?

Posted at 03:00h in Podcast by Michelle Hanlon

Cohosts and space lawyers M.C. Sungaila and Michelle Hanlon kick off the Cosmic Counsel podcast with three celebrated authors, philosophers, and scientists — Frank White, Anthony (AC) Grayling, and Kelly Weinersmith. Together, they explore what it means for humans to become multiplanetary and what kinds of principles and laws should govern settlements on the Moon and beyond. Tune in as they discuss how the things happening in outer space impacts the people on earth, as well as it means to our survival as a race.

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Frank White, Anthony (AC) Grayling, And Kelly Weinersmith: What Does It Mean For Humanity To Become Multiplanetary?

We’ll be having some pretty broad discussions, I will say in the context of lunar exploration and lunar settlement in particular, but this very big preliminary question, should we be spacefaring and multiplanetary and what are the considerations that we should take into account if we when we do move forward in that regard. I want to introduce my host and my co-host, Michelle Hanlon who will introduce our amazing discussants.

Thanks, MC. I am so excited by this episode because we have three incredible thinkers who all think differently about space. I have been honored to interact with them several times over the past few years. I remained inspired by their words, their work and what they do. I am looking forward to a discussion which could go anywhere in space. We have with us Frank White who is authored or co-authored numerous books on topics ranging from space exploration to climate change to artificial intelligence.

His best-known work, The Overview of Effect: Space, Exploration, and Human Evolution is considered by many to be a seminal work in the field of space exploration. A film called Overview based largely on his work has had nearly 8 million plays on Vimeo since the first edition of his book on the subject was published in 1987. The Overview of Effect has become a standard term for describing the space flight experience. White considers himself to be a space philosopher and has long advocated developing a new philosophy of space exploration. We’re looking forward to hearing more about that.

Anthony Grayling is a British Philosopher and an Author. He was born in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, and spent most of his childhood there in Nyasaland, now Malawi. In 2011, he founded and became the first master of New College of the Humanities now Northeastern University London, an independent undergraduate college in London. Anthony is the author of about 30 books on philosophy, biography, history of ideas, human rights, and ethics. He wrote a book called Who Owns the Moon and what she asks, if anyone owns the moon or Mars or other bodies in your space and what do those superpowers and corporations owed to planet earth and its inhabitants as a whole.

The Impact Of Space Exploration For Humanity

Finally, but not least, Dr. Kelly Weinersmith, co-wrote A City on Mars. Can A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through for which she and her husband co-author received a Hugo Award and the Royal Society Trivedi Book Prize. Kelly is an adjunct faculty member in the Bioscience Department at Rice University, and is co-host of the show, Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe. Frank, I’m going to start with you. This Overview of Effect, I talk about it all the time. I bring it up. I believe in peace through space and I use your example of the overview of effect. Can you talk us through that? what does it say about the impact of space exploration for humanity?

Thanks, Michelle. You probably know this story, but not everybody reading the show will know it. The overview effect has come to be defined as an experience at astronauts, cosmonauts and other space travelers have when they see the Earth from space and in space. From space means low earth orbit, suborbital hop, and the moon. In space means seeing it against the backdrop of the cosmos or the universe. It’s a big part of it and it’s not always mentioned when we talked about it.

The other reality of it is that it didn’t originally have anything to do with astronauts. This is a little known fact about the overview effect. I was very involved in the ‘70s and ‘80s with Gerard K. O’Neill and the Space Studies Institute, and I just thought about it all the time, what would it be like to live in an O’Neill community or on the moon? As you know but again, maybe not everyone knows about this, an O’Neil community would be a human community built with extraterrestrial materials at a lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon.

I was thinking about it, flying cross-country, looking down at the Earth and what struck me was that, if you lived like that, you would always have an overview of the Earth. You would always see it as a whole system where everything is interconnected. The term overview effect came into my mind. I thought, “That’s a hypothesis. Where is your data, Frank?” There are no such people and they’re still aren’t. In our discussion, we’re going to be talking about people who don’t exist yet, how they’re going to act and what they’re going to do.

I decided to talk to astronauts as proxies and I discovered something that I hadn’t thought of, which was when I started talking to astronauts they said, “We know what you’re talking about. Yes, there is this change in your perspective that we experienced but I thought it would just be ordinary for people living off world. They wouldn’t be surprised to see the Earth that way.” I said that they would start at a different level of thought from people who live on the surface, but they might not even realize it was a different level.

We are at a different level of thought from pre-Copernican people but the astronauts had started out on the surface and it was shocking to them that this was a reality of our situation. The whole hypothesis shifted to the idea that this could be a beneficial experience to bring down to earth. There is a movement now to bring the overview effect down to earth. The whole idea is to shift the awareness of people on the surface on the planet.

We can talk more about that but basically, to some extent, I confirm my hypothesis about these future people because they will constantly experience the overview effect. It generated a new hypothesis, which is that space exploration changes your consciousness and your awareness. We can use that to shape Society in a positive direction. That’s what the overview effect has come to mean. This will be my last point about it. Interestingly enough, it has become a fairly well-known idea and a lot of people have ideas about that idea that are not correct.

Space exploration changes your consciousness and awareness to shape society in a positive direction.

However, it’s way beyond my control. It’s like a kid for the first years of their life, your totally responsible for them. You know where they are all the time and they become adults and you don’t know. They could be hanging out with the wrong crowd. It’s not something that that can be controlled. That’s probably too long response, but it is something that I find endlessly fascinating. Not only that the idea exists but that it has had such a widespread acceptance. I can talk more about why that’s important. There’s a lot to say about this idea and how it’s being disseminated and what the impact might be.

It’s become like, as you said, part of the zeitgeist and almost a pop culture aspect to it. That’s amazing. Sometimes, you can’t predict how different ideas will gain purchased like that and then they morph as they go through that. What is that overview effect mean to different people? They have different takes on it, which may not have been the original vision.

It’s exemplified. The astronauts and beyond talking about it, exemplify it, many of them when they come back to earth. I spoke to Nicole Stott a few months ago and a lot of her work on Earth was impacted by her experience, seeing the Earth from space, and causing that and wanting to bring people together, and protect the environment. That just exemplifies what you’re talking about, more evidence.

One thing we have to be careful of, when I first started working on it, I thought it would be a homogeneous experience. Everybody would experience it. That’s one thing that people say, every astronaut experienced it. I talked to Edgar Mitchell about this when I interviewed him and he said, “What if you learned so far?” It’s because I had interviewed a few astronauts before him. I said, “It’s not homogeneous. It’s different. It’s a different experience.” He said, “I would state it differently. Everybody does have the same experience but it’s processed and expressed through their own history, their own psychology. There’s all the idea that everybody has a religious experience. Everybody changes.”

I had one astronaut tell me, “My family was waiting for me to come back. They thought I was going to be transformed and they were disappointed I wasn’t transformed.” Now, some people are and they go off and do something completely different when they come back. Others have a different cognition of the earth. As you mentioned, Nicole has now gone into painting to express without words what she what she experienced. It’s a complex phenomenon.

It’s an important point too that you made about, who’s experienced it, who are the explorers, and what is their experience beforehand because that impact on them is going to be different. You bring yourself to the experience as well as the experience in itself. That point you made early about it would have a different impact perhaps on people who, to them, that’s always the view they’ve had as opposed to come from Earth to space and then always seeing that. I thought that was a good observation.

I’ve also thought about it in terms of the kind of people who go in the first instance would be a different type of character, a different type of person, and a certain type of adventurousness to them that later, if it were to become more frequent or more common, those types of people who will go later might bring different aspects to that and they might have a very different experience as well.

One last thing I would say, we’re entering the era of commercial space flight and it’s fascinating. I have a whole new body of experiences to talk to now. I was told that people going on Blue Origin couldn’t possibly experience the overview effect because it was too short and they weren’t far enough away. My response was, let’s just see what happens. Let’s find out. It turns out that the people I’ve interviewed on Blue Origin have had profound experiences. It’s something about the way the blue spacecraft is set up.

It appears that the rapidity of the experience may accelerate or amplify it. We should always try to take some version of the scientific method. We should have a hypothesis about what’s going to happen in the future and then we should gather information and find out. Again, I still have a hypothesis about future space dwellers. It’s yet to be confirmed or denied. That’s the approach I take.

It’s interesting too, though, the overview effect interview. You mentioned Blue Origin. Virgin Galactic also is involved in that endeavor. They’ve very prominently will say, “One of the benefits that you will get from this experience is this a-ha moment, this overview effect that you will feel this unity or whatever. They’re very focused on that in terms of preparing people for the experience and saying that’s part of what they’re hoping to bring through their commercial space. That’s an interesting thought to have about that impact.

I would just say, I’ve interviewed a few virgin astronauts. I think Virgin Galactic is so far fulfilling their promise.

Human Settlement Of Space And Moon Exploration

I think the readers should go and get the tape of William Shatner’s Returning to Earth. He personifies your theory but you also mentioned space settlements. I’m thinking about what those might look like and how those humans might feel. Kelly, you put a lot of thought into space settlements or human settlement of space. What are some of your thoughts there?

I’m excited about space settlements in general, but I’m a little bit concerned about some of the timelines that have been proposed lately. Elon Musk, in particular, says that we’re going to have a million people on a self-sustaining settlement on Mars in the next 30 years. That timeline makes me a little nervous. We don’t have good data yet to understand how human bodies respond to the space environment when you’re out past earth’s magnetosphere, which protects us from space radiation.

I’d say, we don’t have a good handle yet on whether or not women and babies can survive pregnancy and child birth. It seems to me you’re almost reaching the level of human experimentation if you send humans out to Mars before we get those data. One of the reasons I’m excited about the Moon is because the Moon is a great place for us to do research, to get some of the answers that we need to get before we, for example, move out to Mars.

The moon has one sixth of Earth’s gravity and Mars has about 40% of a gravity. If we can, for example, get rodent colonies to live for many generations on the lunar surface and they do fine, then we can have a pretty good sense that that would go well on Mars also. We can start scaling up our research and getting the answers we need. It would also be great if we knew a bit more about how to grow plants in space and how to recycle in space.

The International Space Station got life support systems but I’m under the impression that almost every six months something breaks and they need a resupply mission to get repair parts. When you’re on Mars, those resupply missions can only show up every 2 to 3 years. If we can get facilities that run for three years without breaking on the moon and do all of this great research on the moon. I feel like we’ll be in a better place to move on out to Mars. That was me being positive.

I’m going to then throw it right to Anthony. We have Kelly who’s saying, “Let’s use the moon as the starting point. Let’s support this but in its own time.” You wrote a book, Who Owns the Moon? Is it that easy let’s just put some humans on the moon and get started?

I certainly agree with Kelly that it would be a very good place to start the necessary data collection for anything further out in the solar system. My focus in the book was specific to the question of how we set the framework for this inevitability. The inevitability is that no matter what the time scale, the next chapter in the human story is going to be colonization of space, the moon and Mars, or perhaps even further. I don’t know the moon and the big planets.

We need to be thinking a little now about how we organize this. You can consider there are very relatively few rather weak controls on how people are going to behave up there in space. Space at the moment is regarded. It’s a bit of a wild west. It’s a bit of a terrorist, especially from the review commercial exploration. Mining on the moon, for example. Extraction of resources there at the asteroids and settlement of Mars. It will happen in the next 30 years, but when it does happen, the same questions will arise.

If there isn’t of any robust framework for how human beings again to relate to one another and relate to the space environment. If it’s left up to, let us say, private corporations like systems or the Chinese way of thinking about how colonies and space should be run, then we will be planting seeds for the much longer term development of humanity in space. That might not grow in ways in our most considered rational moments we would like to see. Again, talking about inevitability, if you look across the landscape of human history, you see what happens is, there a great adventures and great explorations.

Think of the early globalization endeavors of the 14th and 15th centuries and expansion of Europe and across the globe, colonizing, exploiting, and imposing on people’s abroad. Ultimately, the colonies become independent. Colonies on the moon and Mars and elsewhere in the solar system might, in the longer term, and we’re thinking now over the next few centuries, develop, establish and become independent.

Worst-case scenario is HG Well’s War of the World. We’re likely to get that worst-case scenario if we don’t just allow random developments. If some of the colonies out there in space are just authoritarian or autocratic organizations or just employment contract type gig economy organizations. Instead, are rooted in principle of human rights, peace, progress, corporation, and international law ways of resolving disputes. Coming back to the nearer term and thinking about the moon, hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in commercial exploitation of resources on the moon.

There’s water and ice there. There’s helium-3 in the regular on the moon surface, which may turn out to be very important if we crack the nuclear fusion energy idea. At the moment, they’re relatively few people and relatively few missions to the moon. Things go wrong and people will help one another and everybody cooperates. As soon as real competition kicks in and sharp elbows start to get into play. The risk of conflict, disagreement, and people wanting to claim sovereignty to bits of the moon because they’ve got their mining activities going on there or their research stations there, reminds us looking at history, most borders are drawn with the blood of conflicts or as a result of conflicts.

I have to think a little bit about how not always very charming human history is going to repeat itself in space unless we think carefully and prepare properly. The arguments in my book is, let’s try to work out a good framework. That’s develop what began with the ‘67 out of space treaty and tried to get something robust and get international agreement on it and make sure that as things unfold and develop, they will be many positives of it.

I’m sure many technological discoveries are broadening of the human imagination. I’m sure all sorts of very good things will come out of it, but let us try to avoid the bad things that might come out of it. If what happens is that the space race turns into a competition, a wild west and there are problems out there because the problem will stay in space. They’ll come back and kick us on Earth, so let’s do that. That is the essence of the of the book’s argument.

By the way, I want to comment on Frank’s point about the overview effect. We are witnesses of interested and enthusiastic, perhaps witnesses of a very early phase in the human story in space. I’m pretty sure that when some of the early explorers of Africa or South America or lands in the Pacific encountered strange animals. Think what it was like for you to see a kangaroo for the first time or a rhinoceros. It impact on psychology, wonder and sense of the strangeness, beauty, and diversity of the world. It would be very great but people do start to get used to things. They do start to take things for granted.

We are interested and enthusiastic witnesses of the very early phase in the human story in space.

I wonder a hundred years down the line, whether there’s been a lot of space tourism and all our grandchildren have gone to the moon on holiday a couple of times since and so on. Whether they impact, the psychological impact of the overview effect will be as powerful as it is now. That’s just a thought.

That’s a fascinating thought. I see your point but also, when I see a rhinoceros or an elephant, I’m still awed by it. Frank, what do you think?

I would go back to the original hypothesis that for future space rollers, the overview effect will be part of their psyche. It’ll be ordinary. I believe that will happen for people on earth but I think it’s okay. As was said earlier by MC, it’s part of the site guys. It’s fascinating to me that the experience was happening for 25 years before my book came out and nobody talked much about it. People were experiencing the overview effect for 25 years.

The biggest upsurge of interest was in 1968 when Apollo 8 went around the moon and took the picture of what came known as earthrise. It’s interesting what naming something does. Somehow, naming it and calling the phenomenon the overview effect and then writing a book about it has made a huge difference. As I said, in the short term, we can use it to improve life on Earth. I do think there’s an urgency about that. It will have less impact but if humanity continues to move further and further away from the planet or the home planet, we will see new shifts in consciousness.

If humanity continues to move further away from our home planet, we will see new shifts in consciousness.

For example, people living on Mars will not have the same experience as the astronauts and people on the moon because they won’t see the Earth in the same way. They’ll see it more as a point of light. I call that the Copernican perspective. It’s yet a different perspective. If we keep expanding outward, we’ll continue to have changes in awareness of our situation as conscious being in this infinite or near infinite universe.

I’m glad you mentioned that, Frank because I know we’re focusing on more near exploration on the moon and settling there. After the Overview Effect, you have your book, the Cosma Hypothesis and the different impact that might have and having that very different perspective not seeing earth right there but having this broader understanding of the vastness of the universe in a very visceral way and how that can also impact our perspectives and our actions on Earth as well.

One of the astronauts said to me, “There’s something called the astronaut secret.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “We come to know that we’re a member of the whole human family but it goes beyond being citizens of the Earth. We’re citizens of the universe.” Trying to expand our awareness into a concept like that it takes into account of the law, the ethics and everything about leaving planet Earth and how do we become a species that can say that with confidence?

That interacts and response to the very practical points that Anthony was making in terms of we’re still humans and we still have our various tendencies, which may not always be like our better selves and how do we balance that. That’s an interesting point, Frank. Who you are and all of these experiences could change where your natural barometer goes. Perhaps, we could be more often better angels than not. At least, that’s the hope.

Outer Space Treaty And Other Guardrails

I had a question for Anthony in terms of, what do you think a good framework would be? You mentioned we’ve got to talk and think about the framework, which I completely agree with it. That’s very important. When do you think some of the key ingredients are? You mentioned the outer space treaty and some of the principles there but I didn’t know if you had any particular thoughts about what we should put in place to put guardrails.

I do think we have models or there’s a models in question. Unfortunately, also inform us about some of the problems that it attempts to get good international agreements face. The models I have in mind are the Antarctic Treaty of 1961, so far only partly successful efforts of the UN to get a convention on the law of the deep seas. Now, I’m a huge admirer of the aspirations of the UN. The UN is ineffectual in getting some of these major treaties operative. Antarctic Treaty is not a UN treaty but still. It has so far managed to keep the Antarctic a fairly pristine environment just reserved to scientific research.

The treaty itself like the Antarctica itself is being chipped away at by a lot of pressures. A lot of tourists go there. On cruise line, they fly their drones over the penguin colonies. They produced the environment. The Antarctic treaty system doesn’t cover the Southern Oceans. Only the actual continental landmass and the Southern oceans are being terribly over fishing, which has an impact on the on the penguin colonies and so there are problems with. It has managed so far at any rate to a damp down the potential for conflict among those states that have sovereignty claims over the Antarctic.

Also, so far it is kept the pure there or relatively pure. However, I’m starting keep having to mention China but I’m afraid that the Chinese are sometimes not terribly good neighbors when it comes to things, so one has to be frank about it. The Chinese became a party to the Antarctic treaty system in the 1980s. They set up a science research station there. They now have five. Again, completely in contradiction to the Antarctic treaties and Sovereignty issues should be part.

The Chinese have claimed that the area, about hundreds of square kilometers around their research stations should be regarded as what they call Special Entry Zones, so China’s Special Entry Zone meaning nobody else can go there and it belongs to them. Now, this is a weasel way of getting sovereignty claims made without using that word. In that case, there’s a reason for it and that is that the moratorium on mining in the Antarctic comes to an end in the 2048, which is not very far away. Giving the hunger that there is in our world for those very rare minerals required for our advanced technologies.

You can batch that attempts to look for them and the Antarctic will be made. Similar problem with the convention on the law of the sea because the United Nation is not trying to stop people from mining the seabed. The seabed is environmentally incredibly damaging. Not only damaging the ecology of the seabed itself but polluting the water column above it generating noise that would travel thousands of miles and disturbed migration of wales and all sorts of environmental problems there.

The UN hasn’t tried to do that. What it’s trying to do instead is to find some ways of managing it so that it isn’t too damaging. Above all, it’s done something very interesting which it said the oceans outside territorial waters are in a sense the possession of no one. That’s getting oppression of ownership and things that aren’t owned by anybody are in fact owned by everybody and becomes the same thing. Describe the open oceans as the common inheritance of human kind.

This is interesting because the UN wanted to say, “If profits are made from commercial exploitation of the seabed in the open ocean, those profits should be shared with humanity in general.” What about those countries with no shoreline and with no marine industry? Why is it that they should benefit not at all from something, which as members of the human family they have a common interest in? This applies to the Moon.

You can see one reason why after 1967, a succeeding effort and to make more robust to the United ‘67 out of space treaty have been defeated in different states, not wanting to sign up to an international binding law about behavior in space because they don’t want to be hampered in their commercial activities. They don’t want to respected. If you look at the Artemis accords, the Artemis accords are a self-generated code of conduct by the members of the Artemis consulting and this is a familiar story.

Don’t pass the law about this. We’ll have our own code of conducts and we’ll be very good cats. We behave because we’ve got our own code of conduct, so you don’t have to make a law which will regulate how we behave. That is very well intentioned, what the Artemis folks are doing but that is the effect of it. Think of the UN effort to get a conventional on the role of the sea. The United States will make and won’t sign up to it because it does not want its own private marine industries to be hampered by international agreements.

Both the Antarctic treaty and the UN law of the sea are models for how one could have a treaty out there in space providing that they are maybe immune to the difficulties I’ve just described that these two model treaties face. It’s because people only be parties to treaties so long as it’s in their interests to be. I only have to mention the names on Ribbentrop and Molotov to tell you how good a treaty is and how long it will last just so long as the party find a convenient.

Whatever happens out there in space, it should be like one of those UN treaties which always start with saying, “We’re about peace. Where about progress. We’re about cooperation and working together. We’re about sharing the benefits as well as the burdens.” That has to be the assumption on which the future story of humanity in space because it’s inevitable. It’s now happening. It’s started. People in space is going to be commerce and commercial activity on the moon. They’re going to be colonies.

What we need is something which is good version of those treaties but such that they don’t get picked away at by selfish commercial interests or opening interests. Now, I know this is very utopian, but the fact is that if one didn’t argue for this and say, this is what is necessary. One just kept quiet, then it goes by default.

A good version of treaties must be implemented in space so they do not get picked away by selfish commercial interests.

Kelly, do you buy it? Can we do it?

I thought that was a beautiful explanation of some possible other ways of doing things. In our book, we also talked about the Antarctic treaty system and the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. Maybe if I could just take a second to talk about why it’s important that we figure a system out now as we’re moving out to the moon. The surface of the moon from the earth, it all looks the same but there’s parts of the moon that are the most valuable. Whether its collection of water or solar power and those places are the poles.

If you’re at the equator, you have a period of time equivalent to two weeks on Earth where you are in total darkness. Nighttime lasts a long time on the moon and the temperature swings in that area are extreme. That’s not going to be a great place for solar panels. Those environments might crack your panels and you’d have to have massive battery packs if you wanted to try to collect enough solar power to get you through the long lunar nights.

Also, there’s not a lot of water in the regolith. Technically, there’s some water in the regolith but concrete is wetter than the dirt on the surface of the moon. You’re probably not going to try to get your drinking water from there but if you go to the poles because of the way the light hits the poles and the tilt of the moon. If you are on these craters that are on the poles, you can put solar panels up and these solar panels get light, something like 90% of the time. These crater rims are called the peaks of eternal light. They should probably be the peaks of almost but not totally eternal life but about 90% of the time for some of them.

If you put your panels up even higher, you get a little bit more sunlight. Inside of those craters, they never see the light of the sun. Those areas where there’s water trapped in the form of very hard ice. If you want to go out there and you want to set up a company. Maybe you want to extract that water and break it so that you can use it as propellant and then sell it to people as like a lunar gas station or if you want to set up a research station or a settlement. You’re going to need that water.

I don’t remember the exact figures but it’s something like a handful of tennis courts worth of size, where you have both of these both these rims for solar panels next to the water. When we start heading out to space, these are the places we’re probably going to want to get to first. Indeed, both China and NASA have said that they want to go to these poles first. We are set up for a scramble for the best places in space.

It’s particularly important that we’d start having these conversations now about how we avoid increasing geopolitical tension between nuclear wielding superpowers. Also, I’d like to see the US get their first because I like the way we deal with human rights issues better. We need to think through these problems. I think Anthony did a good job of explaining where we are now and what some options are. What do you think, Michelle? You also have thoughts on how this could work going forward.

I am a skeptic of falling back on the Antarctic or the UN convention on the law of the sea because I thiknk they’re finite. We’re dealing with a very different expanse. For the record, I do share your concerns about China and it’s not just about Antarctica. The Chinese have a habit of claiming things around things that they’ve created thinking of the South China seas. Yes, we do need a governance structure. We do need a framework.

I don’t think we’re going to see one that blindly follows anything that we have on earth and I don’t think we should. We need to start something new. We need something from the bottom up. Something that will start with those communities because you know what? I’m a lawyer. I’m a good lawyer. I’ve structured a lot of big deals but I’ve never been to space. I’ve never set foot on the moon. I have no idea what it’s going to be like to live there, so how can I create a framework for that?

I think the best hope we have is to continue and the one hope that we have is the UN. I don’t think the UN should become the administrator of space. What the UN committee on the peaceful uses outer space does, the unique. It meets three times a year. Every space fairing nation goes and attends those meetings. Maybe they talk over each other but they’re all in that same room together. Even when one of them is at war against another and even when we’re in a cold war. We’ve been doing that since that 1958.

The Polynesian Phase Of Exploration

I have tremendous hope for space exploration and the human expansion into space. I’m a firm believer that once we get to space, we’re going to be reminded again. I’d like overview effect on steroids that we are all in this together. I wonder what you guys think because I also tell my students, we need to hold it together for like the next 100 years because we are all going to the same place on the moon. Once we get past that, once we learn how to get beyond the moon, then we’re much more in the Polynesian phase of exploration.

“I don’t like you anymore, so I’m going to get in my boat and I’m going to go to the next island.” In 100 years or maybe 200 years, we’re going to be able to do that. “I don’t like you anymore. I’m going to go to the next asteroid.” “You’re here already. Don’t matter. There’s another one right there.” Maybe I’m too optimistic about space but I’m curious, Kelly, what you think about that Polynesian model.

I’m a little skeptical of the, I don’t like you, so I’m going to go over here idea. Partly because I don’t like you, so I’m going to go over here is an expensive prospect and space. If you’re going to build a whole new rotating space station for your million people, that’s probably going to be expensive. If you’re like, “I don’t like you so I’m going to go join this other settlement.”

We don’t have open borders on Earth in an environment where you don’t have to worry about somebody like breathing too much of your oxygen. I feel like we’re probably going to be even less generous about having immigrants join our communities when we’re in space and I could be wrong about that. I hope I’m wrong about that, but it will remain complicated to say, “I’m just going to live in space.” Although, I agree there’s a lot of space out there.

I do agree with you that whatever arrangements to set up to manage things out there, we’ll have to be very sensitive to responsive to the situation’s out there. In fact, I’m suggesting that. I’m just taken off the shelves local and substitute moon for ocean or something and fact that way. If one thinks a bit as you do indeed in stages, so the first phase is going to be the moon. It is going to be the setting up of bases on the moon. Those bases may very well have human personnel and not just robots operating them. There will be commercial operations there.

As Kelly points out, the moon isn’t homogeneous. There are regions of it and geological formations and particularly the poles, which are of great interest. Not that they’re all that small but still, it might be such that they will be some competition for getting that. My focus is that what one needs is a constitution. We need to write you for the moon. The people to go there need to agree to observe the constitution. The constitution will be a set of principles of how people behave, how complex should be resolved, and so on.

The constitution itself has to have written into it. The way it can be modified on the basis of experience and the ways that it can be extended and adjusted for Mars, asteroids and for the moons of Jupiter, we go there and stop faces that. I agree with you that the arrangements have to evolve in response to the conditions because they will be different from Earth. The thing that won’t be different from Earth are the following two things, people and the prophet motive.

It’s those two things human nature and the desire for maximizing the bottom line that are going to drive quite a lot of what happens in interactions between people, whether it’s on the moon or Mars or anywhere else. I think it would be a mistake and I know you’re not suggesting that we just leave everything open-ended and try to get as far up the curve as we can after we see how the wild west on the moon were in a sense, why should have been later after the gunfighting is started.

I know you’re not suggesting that. We do need to have something in place because I keep repeating the word inevitable. It’s inevitable that all is just going to happen. It does seem to me that since none of us for one minute, would go on a long journey without preparing carefully our luggage and making sure to take up pills with us. W should be doing exactly the same thing for getting up.

Both the discussion that all three of you have been having highlights the importance. As you said, Michelle, the importance of the convening power that the United Nations has just having all of the concerned nations in one room, being able to discuss things, and cross-pollinate ideas. That’s important. This concept of constitution is resonant, Anthony, with the outer space treaty itself. The outer space treaty is viewed as somewhat of a magna carta or space constitution in itself. It doesn’t deal with particular issues we’re having now like, what do we do with space resources?

It does provide some broad pillars and boundaries and as well as aspirational comments about what we’re doing in space, what our purposes and terms of peace and exploration and all of that and putting everything in this context so that at least you’re starting with that mindset and general agreements in but your comments emphasize some of the debate going on now which we need something a little bit more specific or something to make sure that we’re covering the moon circumstance or things like that because we weren’t thinking about that specifically when we’re doing the outer space treaty.

That’s an important discussion. Also, both Anthony and Kelly talked about some of the pragmatic things. I love, Kelly, you’re comments are like, “Here’s the science. Here’s what happens. Here’s how this would work. How will that impact?” We have to think about that in terms of how we would react as people or as humans to different events and what is practical. I have a question for you, Kelly, in terms of that. You’ve talked nicely about the scientific practical aspects on the moon and settlements. What do you think about the impact of what we do there for people who never go to space and people who remain on earth? What do you think some of the impacts would be?

In terms of getting the science done, there’s probably a lot that we’re going to learn about human bodies along the way while we’re doing this research. Some of that might be relevant back to the rest of us. I know SpaceBorn United is doing some research in vitro fertilization in orbit around the Earth and they’re hoping to learn some lessons that will help us with IVF back on Earth. It’s hard to predict exactly what benefits will have back here.

If we do research on closed loop ecosystems, so ecosystems where you do a lot more recycling. The plants are used to scrape the carbon dioxide out of the air and generate oxygen while also feeding people. Learning to be more efficient with resources and recycle better in systems like that could be helpful back here on Earth. I also think implications for people on earth include things like what happens if there is a new space race between the US and China. There’s lots of different angles that we should consider this question along.

Why Do We Care About Space So Much

I’m cognizant of everyone’s time and we’re drawing to a close. I want to have a final question for each of you before we move into our signature lightning round which will be hosted by MC. The from all three of you, I’m going to use Anthony’s word, inevitable. I think that’s right. What I’m wondering is to the readers who don’t care at all, they’re just more interested in making sure they can get to work or their cars not going to break down. Why do we care about space so much? Frank, I’ll start with you.

First of all, I’d like to just say our language couples us a bit. I always say in every talk I give, we need to understand that we are in space. Space is the context in which we exist. In my mind, earth is the first space community. As we move out, and if we do create new communities, they won’t be the first space communities. They’ll be a sequence following this first one that we’ve created. Secondly, because of everything we’ve been talking about here, no matter what happens off world which is my way of avoiding and saying going into space. It’s going to come back to people who do not ever leave the first space community earth.

No matter what happens off world, it will come back to people who do not ever leave earth.

We ought to care because it’s going to affect every living thing as well. That’s the reason that we ought to care. I also think it’s one of the reasons the overview effect has got a broad audience because it speaks to people who don’t care about Space but they care about life on Earth. I want to say one last thing. At the end of writing Overview Effect, I propose that we needed a human space program transnational all of us working together.

Out of that, we have created a nonprofit called the Human Space Program. One of our primary projects is to create a computer model in which different parties can simulate different paths of world. We could begin to do some systems thinking and each participant could say, “I want to try a rapid departure from the planet,” or let’s take Kelly’s approach, which is a slow approach and we could try out different alternative scenarios. We’ve got a lot of data.

Instead of debating about how it ought to be done, since we’re all in this together, I would like to see people from different points of view and different countries come together and try out, what is the optimal way to do this? If we stipulate it, it’s inevitable then we’re not debating, are we going to do it or not, but what’s a good way to do it that benefits everyone. That would inform us and it would perhaps for those who say, “I’m never leaving this planet. I’m staying here.” That’s a way for them to get involved and to care.

Thank you, Frank. I’m so glad that you started out talking about being in space because I now start that a lot. I love your story. You told me, one of the first times we met that when you go into classrooms. You say, “Who here wants to go to space?” All the children raise their hands and you say, “Guess what? Congratulations. You already made it.”

We all made it. We’re all astronauts. They’re here.

Thank you. Anthony, what about you? Why do we care? My car’s broken down. I don’t care about space.

I could do is just second what Frank had to say. He’s put his finger on. It’s a bit like politics and war. You may not care about them but they care about you and this space or of earth. What happens there is not going to be without its impact on us back here in all sorts of ways. We’ve already mentioned the ways in which it might be very positive. Kelly has mentioned the scientific research that could turn out to be a great value to us back here.

What one should always be prepared to think about the negative consequences and conflicts in space, won’t stay in space. That’s the point that gives me some false concern, which is why I think that we shouldn’t be saying. As MC did, I nearly jumped on you there and see when you used to phrase the concerned nations, that is those space programs and those who are putting money into getting into the moon and getting this resources. I think it should be the whole of humanity. Everybody, including those who don’t have space programs.

The whole human family should be talking about the long term space because what happens out there will affect us back here and it would affect all of us. Not to be partied to the conversation and not to have any voice at all in the decisions made about how we structure it in that constitution. Michelle, you would be the ideal person to draw it up to draft a constitution for space for us.

I would love to and maybe I will. Maybe that will be my next research and my thoughts on what that constitution might look like.

To be clear, when I said concern nations I mean much more than currently spacefaring. Having just come from meeting at the UN where there were many different representatives from nations who want to be spaced learning or are looking forward to doing some something off world nations you wouldn’t think about and being involved in it. I had that in mind.

One of the reasons for this show in particular is to make space much more accessible to everybody and reminding people, even though you might not care, you should care. I love that image. I would also point out that space needs more than just engineers and scientists. Space needs lawyers. We need the framework. I’m delighted to do that first constitution, but if you want to get involved in space law, you know where to come. Ole Miss has the best program in the world. That little plug, Kelly, I will let you close this down before our lightning round about why we care.

It’s hard to go last because there have been two great answers. It doesn’t leave too much left to say. Space is always inspirational and exciting. I’m not a person who gets emotional and cries a lot, but the one time I cry for a decade was when perseverance landed on the Martian surface. It’s just humanity. When we come together to do space exploration and some of the best stuff that our species does, in my opinion. This is why I don’t get invited to the space parties anymore.

Coming together to explore space is some of the best stuff the human species have done.

I’m still concerned about the implications of geopolitical tensions that’s going to impact all of us if we have problems as we move out into space. I disagree with Frank a little bit. I don’t think we have all the data we need to figure out the possible options of what’s going to happen in space. There’s a lot we don’t know about how human bodies respond to things like the Martian or the lunar surface or about how to make these clothes loop ecosystems that we need. I’m also excited about all the research possibilities that we’ve got going forward.

Thank you, Kelly. I’m scribbling notes. I’m thinking and I love your idea that maybe one of the things that comes out of this limited show series is a constitution. Maybe we call upon our experts to help us draft that.

Speaking of the constitution. We originally had a chapter in the book on constitutions and we did a ton of work on how constitutions need to be made by the people who are going to be there and to get buy-in. You probably know everything you need to know about constitutions and there’s nothing I can teach you. We’ve thought a lot about this but we’d love to be part of that conversation if something happens moving forward.

That sound great, Kelly.

Lightning Round And Episode Wrap-Up

Now, we’re going to move into our lightning round. MC, over to you.

For a bit of fun, we do a little lightning round word association. I’m going to start with Kelly, Frank, and then Anthony, so that people know where we’re going in this order and talking over each other. When I say a word, I want the first word that comes to mind for each of them. The first one, Kelly. is space.

Inspirational.

Exploration.

Am I allowed two words?

Yes, you can have two words.

Exciting and risky.

Is two words now the standard because I would have gone with inspirational and prestige.

An amendment by Kelly to that. Sounds good.

Kelly, universe.

Expanding.

Amazing.

Beautiful.

Kelly, Mars.

Hostile.

I love the way you said that, too. The tone of voice is fitting with the word. I love that one. Frank?

Transformational.

Challenging.

Kelly, the Moon.

Beautiful. It took me four years to write my book. I’m not very quick on my feet.

Frank?

Friend.

Neighbor.

I like that, friend and neighbor. I have to ask this because we’ve discussed this so much in our talk with Frank. Kelly, the overview effect.

Can I go last on this one? I’m going to think a little longer.

We’ll start with Frank.

Perspective.

Frank’s pinched mine one. I was going to say that, too. I’ll say perspectival.

Can I just go with perspectives, plural? We can have a theme.

I love it, Kelly. I love I love the riffing off of that. That’s very good. It feels like a word test for like how many words can you name with perspective.

We’ll do Wordle next.

Kelly, humanity.

Amazing.

Evolution.

Hope.

Kelly, space settlement.

Not soon. We get two words, right?

Yes, you’re very quick, Kelly, despite your comment to the contrary. Frank?

Soon.

I see the debate is brewing. Anthony, where are you in those? Are you going to have two different words?

I’m going to say inevitable.

Law, Kelly.

Complicated.

Necessary.

Frank, you’re like a mind reader. Can I go before Frank?

He can go first next time before me.

I’m getting to say essential.

I like that. The lawyers liked that. We love that. Thank you for making us feel helpful and important. Ethics, Kelly.

Important.

Critical.

I get to repeat essential.

Got it. That’s important point, Anthony, in terms of its not a lot or ethics. It’s lot and ethics. I’m going to end with this, the future, Kelly.

Hopeful.

She stole mine that time, Anthony. Opportunity.

I’m going to say complicated.

It wouldn’t be as fun if it weren’t complicated, there you go.

There are kinds of fun.

Thank you so much. Thanks for being such good sports and participating in that. It’s always different and always interesting answers. It encapsulates rounds out our discussions that we’ve been having.

Thank you so much. Readers, these are all prolific authors. The books we talked about most were Frank White’s The Overview Effect, Anthony Grayling’s Who Owns the Moon and Kelly’s A City On Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space And Have We Thought This Through? I encourage you. I plug Ole Miss and all these books because they are all worth reading, insightful, and inspirational. Thank you very much for your time.

Thanks for the conversation and the invitation.

Thak you very much. What a tremendous pleasure and a great delight to meet you all, to see your faces and to hear you. Thank you for having me on.

You, too.

Thank you, everyone. We appreciate your discussion. I would say this session in particular, being a very quintessential public intellectual discussion which is fun.

Important Links

About Anthony (AC) Grayling

AC Grayling CBE FRSA FRSL is a British philosopher and author. He was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and spent most of his childhood there and in Nyasaland (now Malawi).[1] In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities (now Northeastern University London), an independent undergraduate college in London.

Grayling is the author of about 30 books on philosophy, biography, history of ideas, human rights and ethics. Grayling wrote Who Owns the Moon? In which he asks: who, if anyone, owns the moon? Or Mars? Or other bodies in near space? And what do those superpowers and corporations owe to Planet Earth and its inhabitants as a whole?

About Frank White

Frank White has authored or coauthored numerous books on topics ranging from space exploration to climate change to artificial intelligence. His best-known work, The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, is considered by many to be a seminal work in the field of space exploration.

A film called “Overview,” based largely on his work, has had nearly 8 million plays on Vimeo. Since the first edition of his book on the subject was published in 1987, “the Overview Effect” has become a standard term for describing the spaceflight experience.

White considers himself to be a “space philosopher,” and has long advocated developing a new philosophy of space exploration. His book on this topic, The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Overview Effect, has just been published. In it, he asks the fundamental question, “What is the purpose of human space exploration? Why has the evolutionary process brought humanity to the brink of becoming a spacefaring species?”

In the book, he shares the idea of “the Human Space Program” as a “central project” that will engage all of us in the process of becoming “Citizens of the Universe.”

About Kelly Weinersmith

Kelly Weinersmith is one half of a wife-and-husband research team, cowrote the New York Times bestselling popular science book Soonish, a Wall Street Journal and Popular Science book of the year. Dr. Kelly Weinersmith is an adjunct faculty member in the BioSciences department at Rice University.

In A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea.

Tags:

Astronaut Secret, Commercial Space Flight, O’Neil Community, Outer Space Treaty, Overview Effect, Space Exploration

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