Future Space Generations: Policies for Humanity’s Long-Term Future in Space

The long term future has recently been positioned as a key moral consideration for our actions in space by philosophers such as Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord, as space is a potential for space as a habitat for trillions of future people. Opening up that long term future is a common mantra among new space companies like iSpace, SpaceX, and REDWIRE. But with such a rapid rate of technological development by these companies, international space policy can sometimes lag. And if agreements cannot be put in place to protect the long term future, then bad norms may set our long term future on a bad trajectory. However, as the first human settlements in space are being planned is an important time to put in place foundational policy. Space policy can only become more politically charged as the future unfolds, so now may be our best shot to set our long term future on a good trajectory. 

There has been past work to address policy that focuses on the long term future. Some books outline and address those risks, such as “Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity” and “The Meaning of Liberty Beyond Earth”. Organisations have also been founded to specifically address the long-term risks, such as the Space Futures Initiative and the Center for Space Governance. Their activities focus on positively influencing the long term future in space, addressing areas such as space conflict, Mars governance, space sustainability, biological contamination, and resource allocation.

In our approach to building on this work, we can imagine futures made worse by present-day activities, such as by unsustainable use of resources or space (e.g. Earth or lunar orbit), destruction of cultural heritage like the Apollo landing site, or contamination of planetary surfaces, denying valuable scientific knowledge to future generations. We can also imagine bad scenarios that might occur in the long term future. This can involve existential risks arising from space expansion, such as asteroid weaponization, interplanetary warfare, or large-scale engineering projects gone wrong like runaway von-neumann probes or a stellar engineering disaster. Then linking those bad scenarios back to the present, we can look at risk factors that might contribute to a bad future in space. For example, having little agreement over claiming locations in space, as is the case now, sets a bad precedent to build a peaceful expansion into space. And an inability to implement an international framework for space resource activities might increase the probability of risky asteroid orbit interference in the future. Overall, there are a range of policy areas and activities in space that will have a disproportionate impact on the long term future, and many of them remain neglected. 

The SGAC’s Space Safety and Sustainability project group has recently started a new project to address our impact on the long term future. The project is made up of 17 members from around the world, including philosophers, scientists, engineers, and policymakers. SGAC serves as a perfect international hub for the next generation of space leaders to discuss safeguarding our long term future. The new project will provide a platform and hub of activity to discuss the very long term implications of our actions in space. We are currently conducting independent research on a range of topics to generate policy recommendations, which will be published through articles or presented at conferences. 

Overall, the long term future is a neglected but potentially extremely important area of the space sector. The beginning of humanity’s long term future in space seems like no better time to start investigating these future risks, and the SGAC is a perfect organisation to do this. 

If you’re interested in helping us reach that aspiration or are keen to find out more, please reach out to [email protected]. We are always open to new potential project members and partners to work with.