![]() What’s most troubling to you about Elon Musk leading the charge to Mars? Your book Astrotopia likens the corporate space race to a “dangerous religion.” And it had a connection to an external power source. The one time we tried to establish a full-fledged sealed-off habitation- Biosphere 2-it failed spectacularly. We’ve sent rovers, but it seems to be an absolutely awful planet in terms of human habitation. Not only has nobody ever lived on Mars, nobody has set foot on Mars. Because of the way that charismatic techno-prophets like Musk talk about them, they feel somehow possible and palpable. The more near-term goals tend to be obscured by these lofty humanitarian goals of saving humanity, or spreading consciousness to the stars. I am worried about the way in which SpaceX is getting there, the day-to-day operations. Under many conditions, a future where humanity is out exploring among the stars is a perfectly admirable future to aim for. ![]() What do you think of SpaceX’s mission “to enable a future where humanity is out exploring among the stars?” In fact, she thinks the leaders of the space race could benefit from considering “ pantheistic mysticism.” SPACE FOR CAUTION: Mary-Jane Rubenstein, author of Astrotopia, believes we should be careful not to disrespectfully colonize space the way we did Earth. I started tracking the way that the natural sciences themselves generate new ways of understanding the world that, a couple centuries ago, we would have called religion.” But that’s no criticism of religion. ![]() And conjure characters who are heroes, gods, and monsters. But in the process, they tend to generate these big stories, big mythologies, about the origins and the ends of the world. “Because sciences tend to think of themselves as something as far away as possible from religion, as having freed themselves from God. “I started realizing that religion shows up in the natural sciences and the contemporary world in a funny and alarming way,” Rubenstein said. Rubenstein also explained, among other things, the religious underpinnings of the United States’ space program, and how even modern science is still hostage to imperialistic Christian ideas. We discussed the danger of how unregulated space remains for nations and corporations, which risks stoking strife and violence. We talked about the company’s mission of enabling thousands of people to live on Mars, and the ethics of terraforming the planet to be more like Earth. I spoke with her last week, ahead of Starship’s flight test, to understand what concerns her about the technical strides and aspirations of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. She’s the author of the recent book Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. That worries Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a professor of religion and science in society at Wesleyan University. The one time we tried to establish a full-fledged sealed-off habitation it failed spectacularly. “It began with a bang, as big things often do. “Welcome to the Starship era, humanity,” tweeted Eric Berger, author of Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX, who was at the scene. It wasn’t long before it disintegrated (a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”) with a puff of smoke, like a magician disappearing from the stage. But that surreal sense gave way when Starship began cartwheeling in the clouds. As if the engineers found some loophole in the physics of reality to get this 390-foot tall spacecraft off the ground. Liftoff! I’ve watched so many CGI renders of Starship launching, it was uncanny witnessing the real thing. At 30 seconds on the clock, they were cheering or shrieking with unhinged glee. The SpaceX employees at the Hawthorne, California, headquarters sounded rapturous. I dropped in with the launch countdown at … three minutes! My heart began racing knowing those 33 engines might actually ignite, with double the thrust of the Saturn V (the rocket that took NASA’s Apollo crews to the moon). Millions had tuned in to watch it, excited by the uncertainty of what would happen. There was SpaceX’s livestream of its latest spectacle: the orbital flight test of its gargantuan new spacecraft and rocket, Starship, designed to take dozens of humans or heavy cargo to the moon, Mars, and the rest of the solar system. My alarm rang me awake at 6:25 AM, and I drowsily yet eagerly tapped my way to YouTube, blinking my bleary eyes to see clearly.
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