Can we look forward to living in space? – RTE.ie

Opinion: sci-fi capitalists would have us believe that outer space is just another empty space waiting to be turned into a tech utopia

By Aidan Beatty, University of Pittsburgh

A number of prominent thinkers on the Left, from Mark Fisher to David Graeber, have argued that we live in a world where we no longer enjoy utopian visions of any kind of better future to come. In an age of climate breakdown, pandemic and the return of overt white supremacy, it can be hard to have a positive sense of the future. Yet one small remnant of utopianism lingers in an unusual place: the fantasies of tech billionaires, from Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, that they will one day launch privatised expeditions into the cosmos.

On the surface, these claims are often poorly thought out or even absurd and seem more like publicity stunts than realistic attempts to launch actual extra-planetary flights. Branson once promised that his Virgin Galactic company would become the first commercial spaceline, with flights starting in 2007 and flying 3,000 people in the first five years.

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From RT Radio 1's Morning Ireland, space commentator Leo Enright on Richard Branson's flight into space in July 2021

In the mock-up of Virgin Galactic's spaceship, there were ergonomic seats alongside large and numerous windows. The windows are themselves a give-away that this rocket would never exist; spaceships require tiny windows, and only a few of them. as a heat-saving mechanism.

In October 2021, Bezos invited Star Trek actor William Shatner on a flight with his Blue Origin company. The journey took all of 11 minutes and went no higher than 100km off the ground, the border line between a sub-orbital aeronautical flight and a full astronautical orbital flight.

Musk has promised full Martian colonisation, via his SpaceX company, but he has a tendency to ignore the harsh realities of conditions on Mars. The surface of the planet is covered with a toxic cocktail of chemicals that would wipe out living organisms. The ultraviolet light that hits Mars would sterilise the upper layers of any agricultural soil development. Carcinogenic radiation would indeed be an inescapable, perhaps fatal, problem.

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From 60 Minutes Australia, Elon Musk on his plans to colonise Mars

The lighter gravity on Mars would also have large-scale, probably detrimental effects, on the bone structure of long-term residents. Calcium degradation and muscle loss would be highly likely, as would a swelling of the optic nerve that already affects astronauts on the International Space Station. There is also a risk of infection from as-yet undiscovered Martian microbiological organisms. It could take 15 to 20 years for any viable food production systems to be operational. Martian dust-storms, which regularly reach up to 70 miles per hour, would prove hasardous for any construction efforts.

The absence of water on Mars would cause obvious problems, probably only solvable through urine recycling. Human feces would be the primary (or perhaps only) source of fertiliser. As one frank observer noted, there is a large remove between Musk's attractive fantasies of a fun life on Mars, and the only possible reality in which settlers would almost certainly have to "eat their own shit" (which is perhaps answers why Musk never seems to want to go there himself!). All this is aside from the basic fact that no technology yet exists that would allow for manned flights to Mars.

These tech billionaire space fantasies, couched in outlandish claims, are also inextricably bound up with the low-tax and pro-privatisation regimes of neoliberalism. These fantasies are only possibly with accumulated fortunes that would, in an earlier time, have been taxed at higher and more equitable rates. Indeed, the chances of privatised space companies sending a manned flight to Mars are probably lower today than in the era of large-scale Soviet and American investments in the 1960s and 1970s (though both SpaceX and Blue Origin receive heavy funding from the US government).

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From RT News, Star Trek actor William Shatner's short trip to space onboard Blue Origin

But it would also be a mistake to simply dismiss these endeavours outright. As the political theorist Jonathan Crary has stressed, these fantasies of sci-fi capitalism still do important work shaping and regulating our contemporary imagination, despite being absurd and unrealisable. In this case, they reinforce the idea that outer space is just another empty space awaiting its takeover by global capitalism. For true believers, it is the outlandishness that matters, serving up a soothing vision of a capitalist tech utopia just around the corner that counters the bleak futures we face here on Earth.

The spectre of climate change haunts these fantasies, with Musk describing his supposed Martian colony as a "back-up drive" for humanity and an escape from mass extinction. He has also said that travel costs could be in the range of $10 billion per passenger, though this can eventually be brought down to "only" $100,000.

For those who can't afford the fees, Musk suggested they could travel for free and pay off their debts with unpaid work when they arrive

As one commentator described it, Musk's Martian endeavour "looks a lot like joining a country club or gated community or any other model of private access to space for those who can afford it." With ever increasing numbers of climate refugees, outer space becomes an extreme way to avoid the dangerous mobs at home. Indeed, Mars might well be the ultimate gated community - or an off-planet version of Baghdad's Green Zone.

For those who cant afford the fees, Musk has suggested they could travel for free and then pay off their debts with unpaid work when they arrive. Such a scheme is eerily reminiscent of the indentured servitude practiced in the English colonisation of the New World. It is worth remembering that the (often equally utopian) colonisation of the Virginia Territory quickly ran into labour shortages, ultimately "solved" through racial slavery. An outer-space tech utopia would, at best, be a kind of sci-fi kibbutz. More likely it would be a postmodernist company town, one that controls its residents oxygen supply.

Dr Aidan Beatty is a Scholar Mentor and historian who teaches at the Pitt Honors College of the University of Pittsburgh. His new book, Private Property and the Fear of Social Chaos, will be published later this year by Manchester University Press.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RT

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Can we look forward to living in space? - RTE.ie