And an environment that should be protected.
With growing interest of terraforming other planets, like Mars, and these opportunities becoming more realistic for companies worldwide, we still need to think about the implications of reshaping environments that could host human life. According the European Space Agency there may be over 120 million objects orbiting the Earth. This is waste over the course of 60 years. However, it is possible that these estimates are skewed against the rapid growth of rocket technology in the last twenty years. We can therefore expect that the rate at which space debris increases in volume will correlate with advances in technology and ambition to send more materials into space.
The key issue here is about the infrastructure on Mars and the legislation over how human waste is managed. But it is also about the impact of the human presence; are we ready to take responsibility?
