Nina Kojima

With the launch of the first satellite into Earth’s orbit, we turned the Archimedean point from our home planet towards the heart of the Universe. By the end of this decade, humans will live and work permanently on the Moon and, at the beginning of the next one, on Mars. Life outside our home planet, in lethal and challenging environments, will propel our civilisation into the extraterrestrial, to embark on an even greater – interstellar – civilisation. Some predict that there will be new generations of humans born and evolved into extraterrestrial gravities that will eventually lead to a ‘new’ human race. Extraterrestrial humans will no longer consider the Earth to be their home, but rather Mars. For creatures and humans who evolved on Earth to live on objects of our solar system and beyond it will only be possible with the support of technology and nanotechnology. This life will no longer be comparable with life as we know it now, and one of the major challenges we will face will be the ethical implications of that. There are many questions to be answered. The core one for this research is: are we going to conquer solar system objects as good citizens or as cosmic vandals? What kind of relationship will we establish with these planets we are not made of, in the case that these planets contain life? Are we allowed to contaminate planets we are not made of, even if they do not present any indication of possible life forms? Also – an important question – life as we know it on Earth is based on carbon, but could other objects in the universe evolve life forms based on silicon? Knowing our practices on Earth, how we assess all situations from an anthropocentric point of view, is it at all possible to acknowledge and even give priority to living creatures – if there are any – outside our home planet? This thesis will lead to more questions than answers, and the conclusions will be suggestions based on assumptions of how we could reach the best outcome when we start living our extraterrestrial life. The thesis has two parts. The first part introduces ethical questions and concerns related to the argument that we ought to leave our home planet; the second part will try to predict the possibility of ethics in our extraterrestrial human life, based on the heavy support of technology and nanotechnology and implementation of that on other objects, planets and moons in our solar system. This is a huge scale, so I will concentrate on human extraterrestrial life on Mars for two main reasons: Mars will be the first example of a planet where humans will live and work; and this will happen in the next 10 to 15 years.

Abstract Our advancing technologies should soon enable us to leave Earth and start a new, extraterrestrial life, perhaps on Mars. Although it has been suggested that it is unethical to go and conquer planets we are not made for, this can be avoided by implementing new ethical norms. It can also be argued that we can prevent ethically questionable methods of striving towards our new way of living by technological means, and also by building a new type of society. The main ethical dilemmas that humanity will face on Mars are discussed and a new concept that answers many ethical questions, and which could potentially make human life on Mars less vulnerable, is presented. This idea is for a Panopticon on Mars, an idea that started on Earth as a more ethical way to control prisoners. It seems reasonable that humans can practice virtue ethics on Mars and that an up-dated Panopticon concept can preserve humanity. The Panopticon provides a social mechanism for the very first Martian spaceship, a safe haven that complies with all the ethical considerations avoiding violation of autonomy, bodily autonomy, liberty, and freedom of movement. Consequently, this new social model could help prevent tyranny and other forms of injustice on Mars. Panopticon technology should also enable people who cannot afford to pay for a flight to Mars to participate. Keywords; Panopticon, freedom of movement, liberty, autonomy, tyranny, virtue ethics