As you may have seen, SpaceX has successfully caught a super-heavy booster returning from a launch.
SpaceX, already dominant in the US space launch arena, is now poised to rapidly scale up their launch capacity, with their goal of multiple Superheavy launches perday looking more and more realistic.
Elon Musk is spearheading this effort as part of his obsessive focus on getting humanity to Mars. He claims that SpaceX will land a vehicle on Mars within 5 years, and prediction markets show a 50% chance that humans will be on Mars within the next decade.
This will not be the first time that humanity leaves the planet of course; we did that in 1969. But unlike the moon landings, Elon’s plans call for a permanent Mars colony, eventually growing into a full civilization. And he’s not alone in this; due to the costs of bringing people back from Mars, many if not most people working towards Mars colonization are proponents of “Mars to stay”; the idea that the first people to go there will do so with the plan to stay there for years, building up infrastructure until return trips are eventually feasible.
SpaceX is not alone in their plans. NASA has announced their intention to build the Lunar Gateway, a habitable space station in lunar orbit, which can then be used to assist in NASA’s plans to take humans to Mars in the 2030s. Components of this space station have already been built and are currently being tested for launch.
In short, this is happening. Mars colonization is not a faraway sci fi dream anymore; it is being actively worked on by the United States government and the most advanced space launch company in the world, with billions of dollars of funding and significant real progress towards the goal.
The exact timeline is uncertain of course; Donald Trump announced in 2020 that NASA would take humans back to the moon by 2024, and that’s clearly not going to happen. Elon’s estimates for everything are similarly known to frequently not pan out quite on schedule. But unlike certain other companies, NASA and SpaceX’s poor estimates are not an indication of unseriousness. As Scott Alexander put it in his Elon Musk book review:
The end result never quite reaches the original goal, but still happens faster than anyone except Elon thought possible. A Tesla employee described his style as demanding a car go from LA to NYC on a single charge, which is impossible, but he puts in such a strong effort that the car makes it to New Mexico.
On Earth, billions of animals are tortured every day, and hundreds of millions of humans live in poverty. Almost nobody actually wants this outcome; pin people down on the matter and they’ll say that both things are bad. And at our current level of technological sophistication, both problems are easily solvable if a decent fraction of humanity put their minds to it. But they don’t.
The reason this state of affairs persists is simply apathy and status quo bias. Most people derive the set of actions they consider acceptable not from their conscience or moral reasoning, but from observing what those around them are doing. Normality is more important than morality.
This presents an opportunity any time a “new normal” is being established. Set people on the right course, and they’ll happily continue down the path they’re on.
Interplanetary expansion is therefore a pivotal point for ethical concerns. Access to other planets will be very limited for the foreseeable future, with a tiny number of people getting to exercise control over who goes and what they do there. Entirely new systems of governance will be set up, and due to the long communication delays, the immense travel time and cost, and dramatically different societal compositions and constraints, their social and legal systems will likely remain pretty separate from those of Earth.
There is a decision to be made. Will we export our misery to the stars? Or will we use this opportunity to turn over a new leaf in human history? Those who lead the settlement cannot fix all the sins of Earth, but they can avoid committing them anew; avoid multiplying Earthly suffering by a thousandfold for their own convenience.
Simply put, interplanetary colonization is an S-risk. But it’s also an opportunity to set a new standard for everyone to follow; a standard that may eventually serve as a positive role model for those on Earth.
This decision is going to be made within the next decade or two, and it will be extremely hard to change after it is made. But affecting the outcome before it is made may be deceptively easy due to the outsized influence of one person: Elon Musk.
NASA is involved as well, but their bureaucratic incompetence means they rely on SpaceX for many of their launches, and likely will continue to do so for a long time. And most other countries with space programs have shown little to no interest in remote human colonies; some of them signed on as partners for Lunar Gateway, but their involvement is minimal. Trump has also expressed particular enthusiasm for increased investment in space, but his focus seems more on local US supremacy than interplanetary colonization, and due to the realities of his age, he’s likely to cease being politically relevant in the near future. Elon is the one driving the push towards Mars, and Elon is the one with the technology to make it happen.
Elon is not a vegetarian, but he clearly harbors many charitable and humanistic sympathies, having signed the giving pledge in 2012, and recommending What We Owe the Future as a good match for his philosophy.
A first step towards good outcomes here could be something like a “declaration of cosmic rights”, setting out an unambiguous commitment to respect all sentient life and never to harm them for personal gain nor let them needlessly suffer. Phrased correctly, this would match up well with Elon’s “traditional sci fi” vibes, and he might be willing to have SpaceX commit to it. This would of course be primarily a publicity stunt, but it could help set the stage for later decisions.
Ultimately the most important thing is going to be the people who are actually going to the moon and Mars, and how they decide to structure those societies. There has already been a lot of good work done on space governance, and I won’t rehash that here. Rather my point is that:
Other than the potential development of superintelligence, space colonization is by far the highest impact cause area in the medium-term, with the potential for creating both astronomical harm and astronomical value.
This is happening now. Various EA philosophers have written about a “long reflection” before humanity expands to the stars, but the reality is, that just isn’t going to happen. The values that we will be propagating are likely going to be decided on within the next decade or two.
The number of people involved in this is low. The owners of space companies. The bureaucrats in charge of national space organizations. The astronauts who will actually be going. That’s… pretty much it. This gives each of them enormous power to do good, and they might only need a small nudge in that direction to affect their decisions.
Not only is this the most important century, but there’s a good chance that these next few decades are the most important part of that century. We should ensure we don’t squander the opportunity.
Value lock-in is happening *now*
As you may have seen, SpaceX has successfully caught a super-heavy booster returning from a launch.
SpaceX, already dominant in the US space launch arena, is now poised to rapidly scale up their launch capacity, with their goal of multiple Superheavy launches per day looking more and more realistic.
Elon Musk is spearheading this effort as part of his obsessive focus on getting humanity to Mars. He claims that SpaceX will land a vehicle on Mars within 5 years, and prediction markets show a 50% chance that humans will be on Mars within the next decade.
This will not be the first time that humanity leaves the planet of course; we did that in 1969. But unlike the moon landings, Elon’s plans call for a permanent Mars colony, eventually growing into a full civilization. And he’s not alone in this; due to the costs of bringing people back from Mars, many if not most people working towards Mars colonization are proponents of “Mars to stay”; the idea that the first people to go there will do so with the plan to stay there for years, building up infrastructure until return trips are eventually feasible.
SpaceX is not alone in their plans. NASA has announced their intention to build the Lunar Gateway, a habitable space station in lunar orbit, which can then be used to assist in NASA’s plans to take humans to Mars in the 2030s. Components of this space station have already been built and are currently being tested for launch.
In short, this is happening. Mars colonization is not a faraway sci fi dream anymore; it is being actively worked on by the United States government and the most advanced space launch company in the world, with billions of dollars of funding and significant real progress towards the goal.
The exact timeline is uncertain of course; Donald Trump announced in 2020 that NASA would take humans back to the moon by 2024, and that’s clearly not going to happen. Elon’s estimates for everything are similarly known to frequently not pan out quite on schedule. But unlike certain other companies, NASA and SpaceX’s poor estimates are not an indication of unseriousness. As Scott Alexander put it in his Elon Musk book review:
On Earth, billions of animals are tortured every day, and hundreds of millions of humans live in poverty. Almost nobody actually wants this outcome; pin people down on the matter and they’ll say that both things are bad. And at our current level of technological sophistication, both problems are easily solvable if a decent fraction of humanity put their minds to it. But they don’t.
The reason this state of affairs persists is simply apathy and status quo bias. Most people derive the set of actions they consider acceptable not from their conscience or moral reasoning, but from observing what those around them are doing. Normality is more important than morality.
This presents an opportunity any time a “new normal” is being established. Set people on the right course, and they’ll happily continue down the path they’re on.
Interplanetary expansion is therefore a pivotal point for ethical concerns. Access to other planets will be very limited for the foreseeable future, with a tiny number of people getting to exercise control over who goes and what they do there. Entirely new systems of governance will be set up, and due to the long communication delays, the immense travel time and cost, and dramatically different societal compositions and constraints, their social and legal systems will likely remain pretty separate from those of Earth.
There is a decision to be made. Will we export our misery to the stars? Or will we use this opportunity to turn over a new leaf in human history? Those who lead the settlement cannot fix all the sins of Earth, but they can avoid committing them anew; avoid multiplying Earthly suffering by a thousandfold for their own convenience.
Simply put, interplanetary colonization is an S-risk. But it’s also an opportunity to set a new standard for everyone to follow; a standard that may eventually serve as a positive role model for those on Earth.
This decision is going to be made within the next decade or two, and it will be extremely hard to change after it is made. But affecting the outcome before it is made may be deceptively easy due to the outsized influence of one person: Elon Musk.
NASA is involved as well, but their bureaucratic incompetence means they rely on SpaceX for many of their launches, and likely will continue to do so for a long time. And most other countries with space programs have shown little to no interest in remote human colonies; some of them signed on as partners for Lunar Gateway, but their involvement is minimal. Trump has also expressed particular enthusiasm for increased investment in space, but his focus seems more on local US supremacy than interplanetary colonization, and due to the realities of his age, he’s likely to cease being politically relevant in the near future. Elon is the one driving the push towards Mars, and Elon is the one with the technology to make it happen.
Elon is not a vegetarian, but he clearly harbors many charitable and humanistic sympathies, having signed the giving pledge in 2012, and recommending What We Owe the Future as a good match for his philosophy.
A first step towards good outcomes here could be something like a “declaration of cosmic rights”, setting out an unambiguous commitment to respect all sentient life and never to harm them for personal gain nor let them needlessly suffer. Phrased correctly, this would match up well with Elon’s “traditional sci fi” vibes, and he might be willing to have SpaceX commit to it. This would of course be primarily a publicity stunt, but it could help set the stage for later decisions.
Ultimately the most important thing is going to be the people who are actually going to the moon and Mars, and how they decide to structure those societies. There has already been a lot of good work done on space governance, and I won’t rehash that here. Rather my point is that:
Other than the potential development of superintelligence, space colonization is by far the highest impact cause area in the medium-term, with the potential for creating both astronomical harm and astronomical value.
This is happening now. Various EA philosophers have written about a “long reflection” before humanity expands to the stars, but the reality is, that just isn’t going to happen. The values that we will be propagating are likely going to be decided on within the next decade or two.
The number of people involved in this is low. The owners of space companies. The bureaucrats in charge of national space organizations. The astronauts who will actually be going. That’s… pretty much it. This gives each of them enormous power to do good, and they might only need a small nudge in that direction to affect their decisions.
Not only is this the most important century, but there’s a good chance that these next few decades are the most important part of that century. We should ensure we don’t squander the opportunity.