Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration
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Chapter 2. Ethical critique on space exploration While living on planet Earth, in all its beauty and uniqueness, we still dream about new worlds and this is fine: curiosity was always inherent in people. But behind the dream about of a bright future in space there is also a really big problem: our home-planet started to change because of us and, instead of replacing our bad habits with less malicious ones, we choose to run away and look for a new planet as an answer. While reviewing space exploration history and current space missions, as well as studies on the topic, I have noticed some blind spots that exist in the field. These spots are either less explored or are not known enough by the broader audience. Nevertheless, it does not make these topics, concerns, or opinions less important. In this chapter, I will describe them and give some critique on the problem of space exploration from an ethical point of view. Linguistic Many people are convinced that linguistic problems in space exploration are the least essential to be solved. In my opinion, they are as important as the others. And here is why. The core of the linguistic problem lies in the language and word choice, which we are using when speaking about space exploration. The most common words we hear are: colonization, occupation, and exploitation. They usually stand in one row with neutral, scientific “exploration”. But are these words really synonyms?
