Going Green: On Earth and Beyond

On Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, surface temperatures are so cold that any water remains frozen. However, the competing gravitational forces of the giant planet and its other moons causes Europa's core to twist and scientists think this generates enough heat to maintain underground oceans of liquid water. Could these dark oceans support similar life to Earth's deep oceans?

Common ground?

Despite the compelling links between environmentalism and space exploration, they were not made soon enough. Any spacecraft that survives its risky lift-off must take its chances against a myriad of man-made space debris in orbit around the Earth – much of it the remains of exploded rockets. The U.S. Space Surveillance tracks the 11,000 pieces of debris greater than 10 cm to avoid collisions with the 700-800 active satellites. But it is not possible to track the tens of million of smaller pieces which, at average speeds of six miles per second (ten times faster than a speeding bullet!) can still do considerable damage. Codes of conduct are now in place to prevent further sources of space debris, but ridding the orbits of existing junk is not an easy task. Had pollution issues, so important to environmentalists, been higher on the agenda of early space explorers, such a situation might have been averted.

Credit: NASA Orbital Debris Program Office

A close-up of the impact caused by a piece of space debris on the window of a spacecraft

Even when links do exist, the information is meaningless unless acted upon. Space scientists knew that hurricane Katrina was on the way and environmentalists knew the damage it could do to New Orleans' levee system but the communication between them and with the policy makers was not enough to prevent the loss of lives.

As space exploration progresses, ethical dilemmas will become rife. What if scientists were to discover a planet or moon that could be altered to support human life? Is this ethical? As resources run out on Earth, is it acceptable to raid the asteroid belt for its rich iron and nickel content?

If space exploration and environmentalism are to go hand-in-hand, then we must apply what we have learned on Earth, such as minimising pollution, recycling waste and valuing our resources in our efforts to look after space - to explore and protect rather than simply exploit. After all, if we acknowledge that the Earth has a finite lifetime then the future of our race may ultimately depend on how well we look after space.

For more information:

Earth and Space Foundation http://www.earthandspace.org/

NASA Spinoff Technologies http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/