To whom do other planets belong? Who should benefit or profit from their resources? How should human settlements on other planets be governed?
What duty might humans have to life on other planets, even if it is microbial? In his new book “Sovereign Mars: Transforming Our Values through Space Settlement,” as well as in writings that have appeared in both academic and popular outlets, astrobiologist Jacob Haqq-Misra has thought about many of these questions quite deeply.
“They’re probably some topics that we think about in astrobiology that are really unique … that raise some philosophical questions that you wouldn’t get in other scientific disciplines,” said Haqq-Misra, an astrobiologist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, in a telephone interview with The College Fix.
