New book questions the ethics of human space travel

 Human exploration of deep space is unethical, given extensive research revealing the overwhelming hazards of radiation, weightlessness, disease, toxic chemicals, and psychological trauma, charges the new book Earthbound: The Obstacles to Human Space Exploration and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence.

“Imagine if a pharmaceutical company began giving an experimental drug to people without any clinical trials. The company had only done a few very limited studies of the drug on cell cultures and animals. Those tests had revealed dire effects of the drug. Would the drug company’s actions be considered ethical or even legal?” wrote author  Dennis Meredith. “Substitute ‘NASA’ for ‘pharmaceutical company’ and ‘deep-space travel’ for ‘drug,’ and you have precisely the situation with regard to future human deep-space missions.”

“. . . In fact, it is quite likely that a clinical trial of human deep-space exploration would have been terminated before any launches, given the known damaging effects of radiation and microgravity on cells, tissues, animals, and humans. Those known effects would have made such a clinical trial ethically indefensible.”

Earthbound cites hundreds of scientific studies on organisms from cells to humans revealing profound hazards of the deep-space environment, beyond the protection of Earth orbit. NASA itself has recognized the severe, unsolved “Red Risks” of deep-space travel, including radiation health impacts, vision problems, cognitive decline, and inadequate food and nutrition. And, researchers have conceded that they cannot reliably estimate the medical risk of deep-space exploration missions.

 “In trying to understand space travel’s biological effects, scientists are trapped in a cosmic catch-22,” wrote Meredith. “They cannot be sure that humans can survive in deep space until humans are sent on deep-space missions. But they cannot confidently send humans on deep-space missions until they know that they can survive.”

Meredith also pointed out that, “the profoundly traumatic psychological impacts of a Mars mission . . . could be deemed cruel and unusual punishment under any rules governing imprisonment of convicts, treatment of prisoners of war, or just about any other such humanitarian situations.”

While astronauts do give informed consent to undertaking space missions, “. . .  astronauts may not really be ‘informed,’ in the sense that NASA has downplayed the true hazards of space travel . . . [and] astronauts may well be under coercion in some sense. Their own ambition and dedication may compel them to risk their lives on missions that are hazardous, even lethal.”

What’s more, wrote Meredith, there can be no truly informed consent when “deep-space missions, including lunar and Mars missions, have never been carried out before and could not be simulated. Thus, they present hazards that have never been experienced by astronauts and cannot be anticipated. So the analyses of the hazards of deep-space travel can be no more than limited, educated guesses—not an ethical basis for risking lives.”

The inspirational, economic, and other rationalizations for risking lives on human deep-space exploration are deeply flawed, wrote Meredith. “They are generally vague, hand-waving arguments; and when their merits are closely examined, they lack substance. One might compare them to hollow chocolate Easter bunnies—appetizing on the outside, but with nothing on the inside.”

“Given all these issues, a key ethical question is: At what point does exploration become exploitation, in which the advocates of human deep-space travel become willing to sacrifice the lives of astronauts for scientific, political, and economic gain?”