space colonization

Leaving Earth, in Search of a Better Home…

Vigneshwaran Krishnamurthy shares his ethics & society case study, which he completed as part of our Young Scientist Program. We, Earthlings have taken our planet for granted. We have come far from realizing that the resources here are limited and finite. From the air we breathe to the water we consume, everything here are perishable. And with the geometrically growing population and the pollution we caused, the day we run out of resources is not very far. We had pushed the Earth to its […]

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Ethics of Space Colonization

Julia Sullivan shares her ethics & society case study, which she completed as part of our Young Scientist Program. For many, the idea of space colonization may seem to be an inevitable fact, with Mars seeming to be within reaching distance, with our only obstacle being time, as our technological advances and scientific understanding no longer feel like limiting factors. This may be so, but one question that isn’t commonly considered is, should we? Yes, humans have explored and expanded across […]

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Talking Mars with The New Yorker

Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra was recently featured on the New Yorker Radio Hour in a segment titled “Why Do You Want to Go to Mars?” Archive editor Josh Rothman hosts a conversation with Dr. Haqq-Misra and Elizabeth Kolbert, a New Yorker staff writer, about the prospects and perils of attempting the human colonization of Mars. [listen to the segment at WNYC.org]

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New Paper: Sovereignty on Mars

Sara Bruhns and Jacob Haqq-Misra recently published a paper titled “A pragmatic approach to sovereignty on Mars” in the journal Space Policy. Sara performed this work during her participation in the BMSIS Young Scientist Program. Below is a short summary of this idea. National space agencies and private corporations have declared plans to send humans to the red planet, with longer-term planets of settlement and resource extraction likely to follow. Such actions may conflict with the Outer Space Treaty, which […]

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How to Colonize Mars

Several national space agencies and private corporations are eyeing the red planet as a target for eventual human settlement, but the language of the Outer Space Treaty creates some ambiguity about whether or not colonizing Mars is permissible. BMSIS Young Scientist Sara Bruhns discusses her ideas about “How to Colonize Mars” on the political science blog of the Guardian. Exclusive economic rights that forgo claims to sovereignty could be one approach, although revisiting the Outer Space Treaty may ultimately be […]

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