Space Colonization: A Necessity for the Future?

Space colonization seems like a concept that only belongs in science fiction films. However, it is a very real and very possible idea that seems to be where humanity is heading. With the advancement of new technologies, there seems to be many proponents of space colonization. But there are two sides to every argument. There are a myriad of people who advocate against colonizing outer space because of various concerns regarding the uncertainty of what that kind of exploration might bring to humanity. One of the arguments against humans living in space is that there would be an increased interest in the monetization and selling of resources in space by power-hungry and money driven countries/governments. This is not a valid justification to present to support the idea that space colonization should not happen due to the laws that we would have in place protecting the environment and the current lack of interest in space settlement from entire nations.

Even though we are not quite there with technology, if countries were truly interested in the commodification of space resources, there would be more money, time, and manpower invested into colonizing space. Space exploration is already expensive because of the technology that humans need to go up into space. If nations decided to focus on being the first ones to colonize space, they would essentially go broke and be billions of dollars in debt. This would take resources away from the current problems we’re facing here on Earth. We would not be able to survive on Earth long enough to complete the colonization without money going to food, housing, education, and other components that keep a society moving forward. In addition, there are mostly individuals and private corporations that are calling for space colonization rather than entire countries and governments. Overall, there just isn’t enough push from governments that prove that they are interested in the potential monetary increase and gain in power that space colonization could have in the future.

If and when space colonization is to happen, who’s to say that any nation or group of people will even have the ability to have control over the resources of space? There would be laws and/or treaties put in place to prevent any one country or group from having sole access to the space materials. We would have a treaty or agreement signed between the existing countries to stop the commodification of space materials. If we all became one large society after moving to space, there would also be laws in place to block people from trying to profit off of the resources. This would mean that if anyone broke those laws or violated any agreements, there would be some sort of punishment or consequence.

In conclusion, the cons of space colonization should not be enough to cancel out the potential need for it in the future. There are ways around countries trying to increase their wealth and power with the resources of space, but there may not be any other options for humans if Earth becomes uninhabitable one day. Space colonization may be the only viable option for humans at the rate that the Earth is heading, so something like possibly creating power-hungry countries is not a reasonable argument to halt the efforts to make space colonization a reality.