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Lunar, Martian, and future missions to the outer planets: edited by Konrad Szocik, Cham, Springer Nature Switzerland, 2020, 296 pages, 140 US$ (Hardback), ISBN 978-3-030-42035-2 Fiction, thought experiments, hypotheses, options: modern science and technology are not lacking in subjects that can lend themselves to these different registers of human thought. The authors do not bring their voice to the controversy about HE and its possible therapeutic applications, but rather about its possible use in the context of the exploration and colonization of the Moon, Mars and other planets. [Extracted from the article]

Space appears today as one of the major limits of human knowledge and experience. It offers a challenge for philosophy and theology to offer answers to the questions of the other, of origins, of faith, of image of God. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Jacques Arnould thanks Stephen Hawking for his warning, but then quickly moves on to contend: the present moment provides an opportunity forHomo sapienson Earth to rediscover the virtue of discretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction and development of space techniques, three types of remote reality, or tele-reality, have emerged: (1) the Earth, its environments, and its inhabitants have been brought closer to each of us; (2) the planets in the solar system are now “at hand's reach”—a robotic hand, that is; and (3) deep space is brought to our screens in three dimensions. But remote reality raises questions: What connection does it make between the perceptible and the intelligible; and what confusion does it maintain between what is real and what appears on the screen? New practices are challenging the way we handle the relationship between seeing, knowledge, and power, and questioning our ethical values. It is time and essential that we redefine the conditions and boundaries of our “tele-techniques.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endeavoring to conquer space—a domain once reserved to gods and spirits—is not always a denial of the existence of divinities and the human practices devoted to them. On the contrary, many examples of religious attitudes can be seen in the space venture of the past 50 years or so, such as lighting candles before launching a rocket or blessing a team of cosmonauts. To say that such behavior is an expression of the sacred dimension means recognizing that the space venture goes beyond the usual borders of human existence but, at the same time, does not reveal everything about mankind. There must always be a place forterrae incognitae—for unknown and uncharted lands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Astrobiology, as its prefix suggests, is inextricably linked to space exploration. From the onset of the space age, space agencies discovered the need to take into account the question of protection: protection of planetary bodies; protection of the samples brought back from space; protection of spaceflight crews; and the extent to which spaceflight crew members should be treated as samples. Astrobiology also provides for the renaissance of space exploration and serves as a manner for our societies to confront a fundamental unknown of the cosmos: how we can prepare for encountering extraterrestrial life forms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

I plead here in favor of more frequent recourse to and input from theologians, in debates about the creationist crisis, not only in order to develop new aspects of theology concerning creation, but also to undertake a real theological diagnosis of this crisis. The task of theology is not simply to write catechisms or Summae, but it is much more to do with incompleteness, light and shade. Theologians must confront themselves with reality-like secular theology at the seventeenth century, but also natural theologies-without forgetting to pose limits: absolute power of God, reality of the evil, scientific discoveries that are negative for theology, etc. Theology is a work of revelation (apocalypse). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article tries to answer this question: Does extraterrestrial intelligent life threaten religion and philosophy? It analyzes the place occupied by imagination in the awareness of the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life, as the apprehension of UFO phenomena. In addition, it introduces the question of the influence the imagined alien might have on our ideas about ourselves as earthbound human beings. Finally, it shows that the Christian tradition, far from the hesitations and the scientific debates in connection with the extraterrestrial question, has always shown interest in this question in an open way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights from the article: Late 1273, brother Thomas Aquinas is in Naples. On this April 15th, at the sight of the roofs of Notre-Dame de Paris on fire, I thought of the incredible lucidity of brother Thomas, who, at the time of the construction of the cathedral, had also built one of the most daring theological monuments of the Christian tradition, his I Summa theologica i .