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While proposals for settling in the space frontier have appeared in the technical literature for over 20 years, it is in the case of Mars that the ethical dimensions of space settlement have been most studied. Mars raises the questions of the rights and wrongs of the enterprise more forcefully because: (a) Mars may possess a primitive biota; and (b) it may be possible to terraform Mars and transform the entire planet into a living world. The moral questions implicit in space settlement are examined below from the standpoints of four theories of environmental ethics: anthropocentrism, zoocentrism, ecocentrism and preservationism. In the absence of extraterrestrial life, only preservationism concludes that space settlement would be immoral if it was seen to be to the benefit of terrestrial life. Even if Mars is not sterile, protection for Martian life can be argued for either on intrinsic or instrumental grounds from the standpoints of all of these theories. It is argued further that a strict preservationist ethic is untenable as it assumes that human consciousness, creativity, culture and technology stand outside nature, rather than having been a product of natural selection. If Homo sapiens is the first spacefaring species to have evolved on Earth, space settlement would not involve acting 'outside nature', but legitimately 'within our nature'.

A new approach for the planning of government space activities is presented. The process-oriented planning approach models the priorities of different project alternatives rather than develop detailed plans that are difficult or cannot be implemented in a dynamic environment. Although the new approach is less detailed, it is still very useful as a guide for subsequent project implementation and is very adaptable to dynamic changes.

The US federal government is striving to enhance the nation's space program, which is of paramount importance to national security and in meeting the envisaged scientific, technical, commercial and foreign policy goals. The national space program's main goal is to provide easy access to space through advanced space transportation facilities.

It is logical to propose that if a human mission is flown to Mars, it should be composed of an entirely female crew. On the average, women have lower mass and take less volume than males, and use proportionately less consumables. In addition, sociological research indicates that a female crew may have a preferable interpersonal dynamic, and be likely to choose non-confrontational approaches to solve interpersonal problems.

Paris -- When European space scientists gathered in Geneva last week, they knew they were in for a rough time. They had the unenviable task of trying to fit too [...]

THREE YEARS AGO, FRANK PRESS, PRESIDENT of the National Academy of Sciences, issued a challenge to the scientific community: Set priorities within your disciplines or risk having politicians do it [...]

A panel of astronomers is urging NASA to follow up quickly on the field's recent successes. Convened by the National Research Council (NRC) at NASA's request, the 50-member panel, chaired [...]

Paris--The European Space Agency's (ESA's) current space science program, known as Horizon 2000, has more than a decade yet to run, and its next two key missions--a gamma ray observatory [...]

President Reagan has named the members of the long-awaited National Commission on Space. Mandated last year by Congress, the commission will, in Reagan's words, 'devise an aggressive civilian space agenda [...]

The good news is that after 18 months, some $400 million in cost overruns, and a heroic engineering effort by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its contractors, [...]