The Church and Space Colonisation

[Cadellin]

There’s a group in the Netherlands who plan setting up a colony on Mars by 2023. mars-one.com/ They plan sending four people, selected from around the world, in 2023. Four more will be sent every two years after that. There’s no return flight; if you go you’re there for the rest of your life.

Nevertheless, I’d like to go. I don’t suppose there’ll be any priests in the crew of four, so where would that leave me with regards to the sacraments? I would never hear Mass again, receive Holy Communion, have my confession heard and when I die no Last Rights or a proper Catholic burial. And I won’t ask what happens if I fall in love with a fellow colonist and we wanted to get married?

It’s not the same as the colonisation of the New World where people went in ships loads of hundreds with priests among them. They even sent a priest with Christopher Columbus, but people then knew the importance of religion which they don’t do today. So we can’t really look to the New World colonists for a precedent.

Perhaps such colonising of Mars should be left to non-Catholics.

OK, so I’m too old and sick to go, but it does raise questions I think the the Church will need to address very soon.

 

[GEddie]

There’s a group in the Netherlands who plan setting up a colony on Mars by 2023. mars-one.com/ They plan sending four people, selected from around the world, in 2023. Four more will be sent every two years after that. There’s no return flight; if you go you’re there for the rest of your life.

Nevertheless, I’d like to go. I don’t suppose there’ll be any priests in the crew of four, so where would that leave me with regards to the sacraments? I would never hear Mass again, receive Holy Communion, have my confession heard and when I die no Last Rights or a proper Catholic burial. And I won’t ask what happens if I fall in love with a fellow colonist and we wanted to get married?

It’s not the same as the colonisation of the New World where people went in ships loads of hundreds with priests among them. They even sent a priest with Christopher Columbus, but people then knew the importance of religion which they don’t do today. So we can’t really look to the New World colonists for a precedent.

Perhaps such colonising of Mars should be left to non-Catholics.

OK, so I’m too old and sick to go, but it does raise questions I think the the Church will need to address very soon.

I imagine once the human colony took hold, and a few ten-thousands of people were there, the Church would follow. It would not send a priest, however until a) the colony established it could survive and b) there were a large number of people. Priests are short enough on Old Earth.

Marriage would not be an issue. I imagine that someone among the colonials would be, or become, a Protestant minister ( they can do it by radio – no apostolic succession); and Protestant marriages are valid.

In all other respects, this would resemble the Church in Japan ante-1845.

ICXC NIKA

 

[edwest2]

It is not a pressing issue. I grew up with the space program and it was once said we’d have a human presence on Mars by 2010. Space colonization is a very complex matter. You don’t just send a ship and what, live off the land? The conditions on Mars are very similar to Antarctica. We are unaware of any microbes in the soil that might be harmful to humans or plant life.

Colonizing space would require a faster than light drive on the order of 10 times the speed of light. As far as I know, such a drive is many years away. Why couldn’t the Church send a priest through Astronaut training?

Peace,
Ed

 

[Andre1000]

I think that really soon a priest would say that he wants to go there.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I think that really soon a priest would say that he wants to go there.

Because just his wanting to go will make it happen!

 

[GEddie]

Because just his wanting to go will make it happen!

If it was going to happen for anybody.

To Mars in 11 years? I do not think so. It took eight years to get to the moon; as it will take the better part of 1 year to make the journey, I hardly think 10 years is enough to prepare for Mars.

ICXC NIKA

 

[ThinkingSapien]

If it was going to happen for anybody.

To Mars in 11 years? I do not think so. It took eight years to get to the moon; as it will take the better part of 1 year to make the journey, I hardly think 10 years is enough to prepare for Mars.

ICXC NIKA

I hardly think that some one could reliably take enough resources to live out what would have been the rest of one’s life.

 

[GEddie]

I hardly think that some one could reliably take enough resources to live out what would have been the rest of one’s life.

They would not attempt to. The goal would be to achieve a self-sufficient community.

This would still be the ultimate in idealism though, to give the remainder of one’s life to be part of extending human life beyond the Earth.

ICXC NIKA

 

[ThinkingSapien]

They would not attempt to. The goal would be to achieve a self-sufficient community.

I’m sure. But wouldn’t that limit them to making a biosphere (to try to contain their resources, which they would need to bring with them) or finding some way of extracting what they need from the soil (which would require continual power of some type).

 

[GEddie]

I’m sure. But wouldn’t that limit them to making a biosphere (to try to contain their resources, which they would need to bring with them) or finding some way of extracting what they need from the soil (which would require continual power of some type).

Human life cannot survive off-planet without power of some kind. That would be needed to circulate and purify air for breathing, to purify water, to maintain a livable temperature, etc. In some situations, power would be needed for light to grow food.

Mars is still near enough to the Sun that solar panels can be used (they will be half as efficient as on Earth). However, no-one has ever tried to live long term depending on such a system. Nor has a successful enclosed-loop environment ever been successfully built. Biosphere 2 was a flop.

I still say that the necessary engineering cannot be done in ten years.

ICXC NIKA

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I still say that the necessary engineering cannot be done in ten years.

I’d agree. Life can be hostile enough on earth at times. But to go on a one way trip to a barren wasteland that hasn’t breathable air? I can’t yet see people cutting their umbilical cord from Mother Earth.

 

[tabycat]

If we had not gotten cold feet with the Apollo program in the early 1970’s, we would have space colonies on the Moon and Mars.

 

[GEddie]

If we had not gotten cold feet with the Apollo program in the early 1970’s, we would have space colonies on the Moon and Mars.

Apollo was too expensive to maintain. It was always a one-shot publicity effort.

Where we really lost it was all the corner-cutting with the shuttle and not developing a real orbital laboratory that could then be used to dock deep-space ships.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Colonizing space would require a faster than light drive on the order of 10 times the speed of light. As far as I know, such a drive is many years away. Why couldn’t the Church send a priest through Astronaut training?

We will never travel even 1% the speed of light, let alone 10 times the speed of light. Cryogenics is more likely the answer–though it would be terrible to travel that way because by the time you reached your destination, everyone you knew back home would be long dead.

I think that eventually the Church would find its way to the Moon or to Mars. I would not be willing to go until I had confirmation that a Priest was either already there or traveling with me.

 

[GEddie]

We will never travel even 1% the speed of light, let alone 10 times the speed of light. Cryogenics is more likely the answer–though it would be terrible to travel that way because by the time you reached your destination, everyone you knew back home would be long dead.

I think that eventually the Church would find its way to the Moon or to Mars. I would not be willing to go until I had confirmation that a Priest was either already there or traveling with me.

We do not know whether FTL travel is doable. Remember, at one time, it was thought physically impossible for steamships to cross the ocean.

FTL may be one breakthrough away, or it may indeed be undoable . We just don’t know yet.

ICXC NIKA

 

[TheDoors]

Here I am. Send me.

 

[irishOntarian]

In regards to the original question, Catholics have had to go exploring and journeying all through history, sometimes with a priest, sometimes not. I think that would fall under “extraordinary circumstances” though I certainly wouldn’t give up my connection to the Catholic community to go live on a barren red rock for the rest of my life!

 

[ThinkingSapien]

…]though I certainly wouldn’t give up my connection to the Catholic community to go live on a barren red rock for the rest of my life!

I wouldn’t give up my connection to my community of friends and family to risk drifting across the void to a hostile environment that would become my grave. The more I think about the , the lower the number of incentives there seem to be (for both myself and future generations should some ever be born there). But there’s no shortages of deincentives

 

[GEddie]

I wouldn’t give up my connection to my community of friends and family to risk drifting across the void to a hostile environment that would become my grave. The more I think about the , the lower the number of incentives there seem to be (for both myself and future generations should some ever be born there). But there’s no shortages of deincentives

The advantages would accrue to humankind as a whole inndeveloping an interplanetary infrastructure, and in not being confined to one rock. Only by becoming interplanetary would human life be assured of surviving the next planet-busting asteroid or comet.

For that purpose, however, a large number would have to sacrifice their personal life. It might conceivably be compared to a secular version of martyrdom.

And living permanently in physically hostile areas is not without precedent in human history.

ICXC NIKA

 

[ThinkingSapien]

The advantages would accrue to humankind as a whole inndeveloping an interplanetary infrastructure, and in not being confined to one rock. Only by becoming interplanetary would human life be assured of surviving the next planet-busting asteroid or comet.

I suppose my problem is more with this method of going about doing that. Sending people there with supplies just sounds like a pathway to death by starvation, asphyxiation, or some other demise that could come about from some resources running out. If I were seriously considering this people would be among the last things I would send. For reasons of resource and psychological needs there is going to need to be non-human life on the planet too. To me it makes more sense to make Mars first an environment on which life could be sustained before sending people there. This is probably something that could not be done in a single generation or a single century.

Among our basic needs are water and oxygen which are in extremely short supply on Mars. If every one that went took all the water they needed and if there were some method for ensuring that absolutely no water escaped into the atmosphere or environment we would still have a scenario in which there are not enough resources to support any significant population growth.

If there were some way to get a massive amount of water added to the planet without depriving earth (and assuming that what ever removed the water that is thought to have once existed on Mars is no longer a threat) then from there I think there’s a starting point. But at that point I wouldn’t make humans the first ones there. I’d seed the planet with other simple forms of life such as algae or some type of photosynthetic bacteria to get the first part of an oxygen cycle started. I don’t know what nitrogen levels are like on Mars, but we’ll want to have some of that released into the atmosphere too along with finding some way of raising the surface temperature. As the temperature on Mars gets higher I would then start to send plants that live in warmer and warmer temperatures. Preferably plants that can reproduce both sexually and asexually and once the climate permitted sending over some form insects like bees (note: this would be a huge change in environment for the bees. It might be necessary to breed some bees on earth that are better suited for the Martian environment before sending them).

The environment would need to be gradually built up. It would not need to be a perfect replication of earth (Ex: humans can live off of lower oxygen levels than we experience on earth). But sending people to a red dusty rock that doesn’t provide their basic needs for life sounds like a plan for failure.