The nutshell kings: Why is human space settlement controversial in the first place?

• Published in: Futures : the journal of policy, planning and futures studies planning and futures studies, 2022-10, Vol.143, p.103023, Article 103023
• Main Author: Ćirković, Milan M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0016-3287; 1873-6378
• DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2022.103023

Recent years have seen both a revival of space programs, mostly propelled by private industry’s increasing interest, but also the emergence of strong resistance to human space activities on several levels. This is partly a manifestation of a wider counter-Enlightenment Zeitgeist, as detectable in other sectors of public life in the West, and partly a reaction against the widespread engagement of the private sector. While it still does not dominate the discourse on space issues, space skepticism is surprisingly wide-ranging and decentralized phenomenon, gathering together heterogeneous strands of thought from pro-Enlightenment liberals to rabid “deep ecology” activists to philosophical pessimists to antiglobalists of all colors. There has been precious little in way of actively opposing this cultural trend so far, however. While space engineers and entrepreneurs conduct their “business as usual”, there are plethora of risks hidden in this cultural climate, esp. if one adopts much repeated (and rarely adequately understood) maxim that “politics is downstream of culture”. The present article will review major strands of thought within this “big tent” cultural movement, offer plausible counter-arguments to space skeptics, and outline important cultural and public-outreach work which needs to be done to balance the scales. •We review the arguments against space settlement proposed in the recent literature.•The cultural trend of space skepticism has already reached a rather shrill and hysterical tone in many circles.•There has been precious little in way of actively opposing this cultural trend so far.•Skeptical arguments either are too vague, fail to meet scrutiny, or are not opposed to the space expansion generally.•The fashionable “cosmic pessimism” is at best uninformed and misguided and at worst dangerous fot the future of humanity.