ETHICISTS GENERALLY HAVE LITTLE TO OFFER, AND THAT INCLUDES ASTROPHYSICISTS ACTING AS ETHICISTS: Are we ethically ready to set up shop in space? I mean, there are red flags here: “Nesvold is an astrophysicist. She worked at NASA; she can easily run the equations to calculate how much fuel we need to get people, life support, and mining equipment to Mars. But at some point, she realized that was the easy part. Her extensive education had not trained her to do what she was really interested in: building a just, equitable, sustainable, and lasting human society in space.”

UPDATE: In the comments, a reader suggests that I’m being excessively snide here and judging Nesvold based on language in the report, not on her own work. That’s a fair criticism, and I’ll try to take a look at her actual book.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This, from the book description on Amazon, doesn’t sound promising, though: “Any such venture, Nesvold contends, must be made on behalf of all humanity, with global input and collaboration. Off-Earth thus includes historical and contemporary examples from outside the dominant Western/US, abled, and privileged narrative of the space industry. Nesvold calls on experts in ethics, sociology, history, social justice, and law to launch a hopeful conversation about the potential ethical pitfalls of becoming a multi-planet species—and, ideally, to shed light on similar problems we presently face here on Earth.”