In some cases, curiosity is very much costly. Human beings always try their best based on their ability, and affordability to fulfill any curiosity. Some people become very aggressive to satisfy their curiosity. Exploring space, discovering new planets, galaxies, solar systems, landing on the Moon or other planets are the costliest curiosities of this electronic and ICT-based civilization starting from1960s when Yuri Gagarin traveled in the Vostok-1 capsule completed one orbit of Earth for the first time on 12 April 1961.
The Cold War was at its peak during that period. To prove their might and supremacy Russia and the USA started another war of space exploration alongside the Cold War. As a result, the USA landed on the satellite, the Moon on 20 July 1969 which was a giant leap for the whole of mankind as described by Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the Moon.
Afterward, a couple of robots landed on the planet Mars. Within the next couple of years which may be some time in the 2030s- the first human, a 20-year-old Alyssa Carson, is going to land on Mars’ red surface. Human beings are waiting for that super thrilling moment.
Our universe is ever-expanding and spread over trillions of light-years. If a spacecraft even run multiple times faster than light, it will take billions of years in most of the targeted galaxies. However, none can stop the curious mind and it will continue forever. After a certain height from the earth, the gravitational force becomes zero. Any object becomes weightless beyond the gravitational force line. The taste of weightlessness usually was experienced only by scientists. Feeling weightlessness was just a dream for ordinary people but has become a reality for rich people. With the combination of courage, curiosity and affordability many rich people, like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and many more to come.
Now space tourism is going to become a Trillion Dollar industry and in this way, outer space is becoming a space for capitalism. It can be defined as a new era of the commercialization of space, propelled towards generating profits from satellite launches, space tourism, asteroid mining, and related many other ventures. Now only with the cost of 5 to 10 lac Dollars, anyone can feel the weightlessness in the zero-gravity only for a couple of minutes.
This era of commercialization of space is being driven by private corporations such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins. It has been labeled by industry insiders as ‘NewSpace’ marking the arrival of capitalism in space- in contrast to ‘Old Space’ during the Cold War-era mode of space relations. Their capitalistic visions differ slightly where Musk has the preference in colonizing Mars as well as making humans a multi-planetary species. But Bezos has more interest in building space colonies in orbit.
Their enterprise might seem very much humanistic, and universal; however, this is very much obvious that ‘NewSpace’ does not benefit humankind but rather a specific set of wealthy entrepreneurs. They are just capitalizing on human curiosity, dreams, enthusiasm and costly entertainment of some wealthy individuals fueled by the hyper ambition of expanding capitalism towards endless space. This may be described as complex as a typical capitalist attitude. Now it is time to reformulate Neil Armstrong’s famous statement and might be said that space will not be the site of ‘one giant leap for mankind’, but rather ‘one giant leap for the space capitalists’.
By looking into the motivation behind their trillion-dollar curiosity for space exploration, we would find that there has been a vision that serves the narrow interests of the typical capitalists. But we do not want a new look of colonialism and capitalism. We want exploration, such as solar exploration, establishing wireless communication, setting up communication satellites in the orbit, monitoring weather, climate change, ensuring weather forecasts that would benefit humanity as a whole, and contributing to modern ICT-based civilization. At the same time, existing social relations must be transformed and should not be extended into the stars as part of a new colonial project.
But if we analyze the cost and benefit of hundreds of space missions conducted so far where trillions of dollars have been spent, we would find that the outcome was not as significant as was expected by the curious scientists and ordinary human mind.
Recently, the director of the United Nations World Food Programme, David Beasley has asked for a donation of just 2% of Elon Musk’s fortune which could save 42 million people from dying of hunger. According to Beasley a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals could help solve world hunger with just a fraction of their net worth. He also added that $6 billion to help 42 million people who are going to die if we do not reach them and it is not complicated.
Moreover, combating illiteracy, climate change, malnutrition in third-world countries, and fighting unpredictable pandemics or epidemics should be prioritized. When the whole of humanity is posed with a giant threat of existence then every curiosity and expansion of space capitalism would be stranded. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved that reality. When the pandemic was the pic panic seized the whole world, the world economy and GDP drastically fell overnight, people would run away even from their Corona infected family members, many senior doctors decided to quit their profession, and most of the dead bodies could not receive any formal funeral rituals and services. Every individual would think of him or herself as lucky just to be able to fulfill their basic human needs. So the whole world must remain prepared for many more unpredictable disasters in the coming days.
Some may think that we are propagating negativity against space exploration. But we are always in favor of the collective interest of humanity which is served by learning more about the solar system and the universe beyond. So the goal of such missions must be driven by gaining scientific knowledge and enhancing global cooperation, but not by enhancing hyper-capitalism as well as extreme nationalism.
The Daily OBSERVER 18-03-2022
