False Choices: Common Objections to Human Space Colonization

Abstract

We have seen how humanity’s adaptive trick of niche construction has allowed our relatively frail genus, Homo, to proliferate across the globe. We have also argued that this survival technique is a normal part of our evolution, and that to cease it now would be to move counter to evolution itself, a poor choice. Before describing some ways to better inform our adaptation to space it is necessary to dismantle some of the more common critiques of the concept of human space colonization. Inasmuch as wide public support will be necessary for human space colonization - and we argue that while that would be useful, it is decreasingly necessary as space is increasingly becoming privately accessible - then the usual argwnents against human space colonization will need to be defused. Our central point in this chapter is that while there are plenty of Earth issues to address, human space colonization would not be about abandoning Earth, but about adapting to space; two very different things.