MYTH | Space Exploration and Environmental Preservation cannot coexist.

Space exploration efforts are not going to pause while humanity attempts to mitigate and manage Climate Change. We can waste our time and energy trying to stop a rapidly moving train, or we help ensure that those efforts don’t come at the expense of the Earth’s vitality.

This is a call to all the space explorers and guardians of the Earth. If you care about the future (and present) of humanity and this precious planet we call home, we invite you to be part of the solution.

Humans have always been, and always will be, explorers.

It’s part of what makes us human. As our technology has advanced, those endeavors have often been detrimental to our natural environment, using fossil fuels for propulsion and causing significant harm to our atmosphere.

“We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

T. S. Eliot

Humans have been polluting our environment since the early 1800s during the Industrial Revolution. More recently, this destructive behavior is extending off the planet. The destruction to Earth’s atmosphere from fossil fueled rockets and the large amounts of space debris surrounding Earth are a powerful example of that.

This behavior has often been housed under the guise and perceived grandeur of “progress”, with little regard for the negative impact on our natural environment.

However, as our technology continues to advance, two things are happening.

1. Through Earth observation (EO) technology, we are now able to see how human behavior is affecting the Earth, allowing us to begin to correct that behavior through awareness and accountability.
2. We are figuring out new methods of propulsion that will eventually help us work our way out of dependency on the finite and destructive fossil fuels of this planet.

Some aspects of space exploration have certainly had a negative effect on our planet and others, and for that reason, appears to be antithetical to environmental preservation. However, that perspective simply perpetuates the problems. Until we agree that they are two sides of the same coin, the threats to space exploration and to Earth will persist.