As space gets more commercial, how can it be governed ethically? | Aeon Essays

Earthbound exploration was plagued with colonialism, exploitation and extraction. Can we hope to make space any different?

Short answer to the above question... NO. H. sapiens have not even reached the point in their evolution where they can create and maintain a single world entity to guide and govern the daily lives of the 8 billion souls on this rock.

Until that happens, and H. sapiens learns to be a fully cooperative species rather than "us and them" groups of contending and competing animals, then their foray into the space travel and exploration will certainly follow the same trails that the Spanish Conquistadors and Vikings blazed hundreds of years ago.

It will be a free-for-all, kill anything that moves, #For_Profit enterprise across the galaxy. Hopefully, the intelligent beings in this galaxy and beyond will continue to avoid H. sapiens. It'll be best for them that way.