Search

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]

«The Creator of Heaven and Earth». Christian faith and the birth of astrobiology. The birth of astrobiology has put new questions and challenges to the Christian tradition and to its theology which professes God as the Creator of Heaven and earth. This contribution highlights a number of steps the Church and the theological research have performed in a century and a half of debates, academic disputes, censures and refusals together with cautious advances. The sciences of the living and consequently this new science - astrobiology - acknowledge a finality, a teleonomy. 01-Abstract 1-2015.indd 7 11/03/2015 10:02:30 8 StPat 62 (2015) 1 It owns an essential and well-known heuristic quality but it is unable to go beyond the horizon of our knowledge and of our reality. Only faith whose message is revealed and not discovered by any scientific learning can cover this gap and reach the sacred. Evidence and support are not needed otherwise faith would be reduced to a firm belief, a learning but it would never correspond to a free and voluntary step which faces darkness and hopes to meet the Unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is time to think about the rationales of space exploration, more than 50 years after the beginning of human space flight. Between J.F. Kennedy words (“landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth”) and the Mars One, what means today the dangers of exploration, or the concept of “representative of mankind” applied to the astronauts? Beyond the financial, technical and human risks, exploration, and today space exploration, belongs always to the human identity, the way to confront human nature (especially imagination) to the reality of time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

During the Jewish celebration of Passover, the youngest of the assembly has to request: "When these events did take place? " The oldest one answers: "It was tomorrow." A manner of affirming the singularity of the human being which, to survive and grow, must unceasingly cross new passages, without disavowing its past. But is a future still possible, when reality was desacralisee, when the threats are increasingly precise, when also we think of being able to create a new humanity? We should not hesitate to pose the thresholds of sacred where our ignorance starts, in order to reserve a space of freedom to us. Without it, our humanity would be likely to disappear, without a future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Abstract: The French space adventure started more than 40 years ago. Its rich and long scientific and technical tradition made France able to occupy the place which is hers today. But what does happen to the world of arts, to which the French culture brought so much? Beyond some French artists belonging to the community of the space artists, do arts constitute a true dimension of the French space activity? Conversely, did space influence the national artistic culture? This paper proposes to tackle these questions according to a retrospective historical glance and to offer some prospective reflexions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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]

Abstract: What hazards might biological contamination pose to planets, comets and other celestial bodies visited by probes launched from Earth? What hazards might returning probes pose to Earth and its inhabitants? What should be considered an acceptable level of risk? What technologies, procedures and constraints should be applied? What sort of attitude has to be chosen concerning human crews, who themselves could become both contaminated victims and contaminating agents? The vast issue of planetary protection must, more than ever, spark ethical debate. Space treaty, COSPAR recommendations offer borders and context for this reflection, which has to be introduced in the actual humanist: never has been anthropocentrism so practical and concerned, in the same time, by the next generations, because of the historical character of life. At least an ethics of risk is necessary (far from the myth of zero-risk) for all the three types of contamination: other celestial bodies (forward contamination), Earth (backward contamination) and astronauts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The next time humans set foot on the Moon or another planet, will we treat the crew like we would a sample return mission when they come back to Earth? This may seem a surprising or even provocative question, but it is one we need to address. The hurdles and hazards of sending humans to Mars – for example, the technology constraints and physiological and psychological challenges – are many; but let us not forget the need to protect populations and environments from the risk of contamination [United Nations, treaty on principles governing the activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies (the “Outer Space Treaty”) referenced 610 UNTS 205 - resolution 2222(XXI) of December 1966]. The first hurdle is the size of crew modules. It is hard to envisage being able to decontaminate a crew module as thoroughly as we can interplanetary probes at launch. And once a crew arrives on Mars, it will not be easy either to break the chain of contact between their habitat and the Martian environment. How will astronauts avoid coming into direct contact with Mars dust when they remove their spacesuits in the airlock? How will they avoid bringing it into the crew module, and then back to Earth? At this stage, it would seem vital to do preliminary research on unmanned exobiology missions to identify zones that do not, a priori, pose a contamination hazard for astronauts. However, this precaution will not dispense with the need to perfect methods to chemically sterilize Mars dust inside airlocks, and quarantine procedures for the return to Earth. While the technology challenges of protecting astronauts and their habitat are considerable, the ethical issues are not to be underestimated either. They must be addressed alongside all the other issues bound up with human spaceflight, chief among them astronauts’ acceptance of the risk of a launch failure and other accidents, exposure to cosmic radiation and so on. For missions to another planet, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether the slightest sign of fatigue or faintness exhibited by returning astronauts might be interpreted as a possible symptom of extraterrestrial contamination. How should we handle such an eventuality? What precautions should we take? What checks should we perform? If a crew was infected, what would we do? Might they have to stay in space ad vitam aeternam if no treatment could be found? In other words, what would be the status of astronauts as both contaminated victims and vectors of contamination? How would we avoid turning such “envoys of mankind” into human guinea pigs? We do not claim to have all the answers, but we think the questions should at least be clearly aired. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since the earliest ages of humanity, the contemplation of the starry sky has invited the human being to ask: “Who am I? Where is my origin? What is my destiny?” The revolution introduced by modem astronomy has affected how humankind understands itself, and the development of aeronautical and then astronautical techniques introduced a new experiment for humanity—that of being citizen of the sky. By carrying out the dream of Icarus, has humanity realized the attempt of Prometheus? Would we take the place of the gods or God? Do religions have to fear the conquest of space? Despite modern science and the knowledge we have accumulated, space still holds its share of mystery, nurtured by its vast dimensions and startling beauty. Space continues to raise the issue of meaning. [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 .