The Evolving Ethics of Space Exploration

The following is a guest post by Philip J Reed, on behalf of Exede,which specializes in high speed satellite Internet.

Space: the final frontier. As intoned by William Shatner in the opening scenes of the classic sci-fi show Star Trek all those years ago, it seemed like a peek into our future. As it turned out, it was just that. A mere three years after the USS Enterprise took flight on the television show, Americans were taking their first, weightless steps onto the surface of the moon. Today, with the promise of commercial space travel looming on the horizon, we take a step back and look at some of the deeper, ethical considerations involved in the exploration and colonization of space.

It’s nearly impossible to separate the future of space travel from the history of the United States. We are a country born out of colonization, and have never relinquished our spirit of exploration and progress. Of course, this was always confined to the ethical issues of conquering land here on Earth. While our history books may be slanted in favor of the conquerors, the issues that divide right and wrong are fairly well defined, for anyone who doesn’t keep their head wrapped in an American flag. But while our bloody history as a nation may hold things we can’t be proud of, it gives us few clues about how to move forward into this uncharted territory. There are, after all, no natives on Mars, as far as we can know now.

Environmental Concerns
Do we owe the vast reaches of space a more considered and measured approach than that which we’ve taken with our own home planet? Even those staunchly opposed to the theory of man-made global warming must admit that, in part, we’ve treated the planet like our personal garbage can for a very long time. In fact, some of the pressure to develop working solutions to space colonization is due to the possibility that Earth won’t always be inhabitable. Overpopulation, the depletion of natural resources and irreversible environmental damage may make our interstellar travel more than a flight of fancy; it may become a necessity. Do we repeat the process with our space station in the sky?

Patrick Lin, in his piercing exploration of the topic, says, “Preserving the pristine, unspoiled expanses of space is a recurring theme…” when discussing the ethical considerations surrounding work in space. Are our wars and lack of environmental concern a part of our basic nature, or are there things we can change about the way we conduct business?

The Pioneers
As much as history is written by the winners, it’s fair to say that the future is shaped by the pioneers. Is it their personal ethical values that shape what is to come when talking of our space-bound future? If so, there may be cause for concern. The late Jim Benson, founder of SpaceDev and the Benson Space Company was one of the foremost proponents of extra-terrestrial colonization. As David M. Livingston pointed out in his Space Future research paper, “The Ethical Commercialization of Outer Space”, Benson’s comments were often controversial and thought-provoking. Speaking at a conference in 1998, Benson said, “I think it is extremely important to create a precedent for private property rights in space.” This only reinforces the belief that the future of space travel and colonization will follow the same models we developed on Earth, i.e., the “what’s mine is mine” model.

Effects on Earth
Of course, even as technology continues to grow at an exponential rate, we are likely a long way from colonizing another planet. But there are more immediate ethical considerations when working in space. With natural resources beginning to dwindle, finding outer space alternatives is likely. Asteroid mining is but one example of this. According to Robert Lamb’s analysis on Discovery.com, the typical asteroid may contain as much as a billion metric tons of iron. The ramifications, as pointed out in his exploration of Guy J. Consolmagno’s lecture on the subject, could be significant. Yes, it is another source of an important resource, but what impact does harvesting it have on continents such as Africa that depend on the export of the resource for sustainability?

Human Safety
Concerns about pollution, future wars and even speculation about how asteroid mining might affect the global economy are, of course, secondary to the most immediate concern: the safety of the first humans to push our boundaries. Not everyone who signs up to work at NASA does so with the idea of becoming a human research experiment, as noted by the agency’s chief bioethicist, Paul Root Wolpe, in an interview with the New York Times. “They are covered by something called the Common Rule,” he notes when asked about the ethical issues. This rule gives any astronaut the opportunity to withdraw from an experiment without fear of repercussion. But, as Wolpe himself points out, big dollars are on the line with any manned space travel, as well as experiments performed in simulations on Earth. NASA has already proposed modifying their interpretation of the rule, perhaps to reduce the chances of a wasted experiment. How do we balance the need for human data with the importance of protecting safety? This, among other questions, will need to be answered as we move into brave new worlds.

For further reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/science/space/11conv.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.nanoethics.org/paper042406.html
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/the_ethical_commercialization_of_outer_space.shtml
http://news.discovery.com/space/the-ethics-of-planetary-exploration-and-colonization.html

James Cameron: Asteroid Miner?

Early last week the science community AND business community had rumor mills spinning at a violent clip as news spread that a mysterious new company was about to announce plans to change the world on Tuesday April 24th.

The company, dubbed Planetary Resources, is about as intriguing as it gets. Why? Simple:

Mission: “The company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources.’”

Woah, that’s some heady shit. But why should we believe them? Well…

Company Founders/Backers: Filmmaker James Cameron. Space god Peter Diamandis. Google CEO Larry Page. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Microsoft legend Charles Simonyi. NASA legend Chris Lewicki. International Space Station co-founder Eric Anderson. Ross Perot Jr.

Okay okay clearly they have money and connections going for them.

What are these guys gonna do? Asteroid mining (presumably).

What is asteroid mining? Asteroid mining is some shit straight out of science fiction films. It literally means sending a crew up to an asteroid, setting up a mining operation on the actual asteroid, and sending the mined precious metals back down to earth.

Why asteroid mining? Theoretically, some of these asteroids contain as much as $200 Trillion worth of precious metals. Also, these asteroids are abundant in outer space–we could access them all the time, indefinitely. Also, Peter Diamandis, the mastermind behind this whole thing, is a futurist. I believe he’s the head of Singularity University. And as he recently told Forbes, “since my childhood I’ve wanted to do one thing, be an asteroid miner.”

Okay, but is asteroid mining even possible? Well, according to the science community, not for another 20 years at least. BUT, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start trying–I mean, you have to start somewhere, right? Otherwise it won’t get done. Diamandis is doing this to to try and stir up attention and start a gold rush, which will only help expedite the process.

So what is this company gonna do for 20 years until asteroid mining is realistically within reach? Planetary Resources is a company. A company with a bottom line. They must make money. If they were just pouring all efforts into 20 years of crazy expensive R&D, then this wouldn’t be a business model. I believe that in the long term, Planetary Resources will strive for asteroid mining, but in the meantime they’ve gotta put together products that can generate some revenue while also being building blocks towards the ultimate goal of asteroid mining. The company hints at renewable energy as one of it’s main missions. I would speculate that the team’s catalyst for this Tuesday announcement is that they’ve had a breakthrough in some other area of renewable energy from outer space. Perhaps they’ve figured out an efficient way to harness solar energy in space and send it back down to earth.

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

3 Years Later, Entrustet Has Officially Been Acquired

As of today, April 17, 2012, Entrustet has been acquired by SecureSafe, a part of the family of the Swiss software security company, DSwiss. On a personal level, this officially marks the end of an era for me. Almost exactly three years ago, co-founder Nate Lustig and I could be found hopping between open classrooms in the UW business school, appropriating whiteboard markers and other miscellaneous office supplies along the way–a scene straight out of some stereotypical documentary on young aspiring entrepreneurs. But hey, our tuition was helping to pay for those markers. And those markers cost about $10/pack. And $10 saved meant another 3-4 drinks at the Kollege Klub to blow off some steam after one of our marathon brainstorm sessions.

The mission of Entrustet from the get-go was to open the world up to the concept of digital estate planning–in other words, the notion of protecting your digital assets (passwords and computer files) in a similar way to how we’ve been protecting our traditional assets in wills and trusts for centuries. We strived to build and market the premier SaaS (Software as a Service) product in this emerging web industry–an industry that just 3 years later consists of over 50 companies directly and indirectly involved in digital estate planning-esque services. We envisioned a product that securely and painlessly let the masses decide what will become of their most sentimentally and economically valuable online accounts and computer files when they die. And in doing so, hopefully offer these people some peace of mind.

After a couple of years building the product, marketing it to the public, partnering with several companies, and selling our software to attorneys, we decided that the Entrustet product as-is was great for helping people after they die but not so much while they were alive. We felt like the company that would provide the best product in the ‘digital death’ industry is going to be a company that provided one single software that added value to its users’ lives while they were alive just as much (if not more) than when they die. In other words, a software product that emphasized digital asset protection during a persons’ life, with the added ability to protect these assets when they die.

Enter SecureSafe. Perhaps our biggest international competitor, SecureSafe offers an Entrustet-like product with expanded features and an incredible reputation for security. SecureSafe is a part of DSwiss, a rather large software security company, which means in addition to incredible site security, they also likely enjoy a healthy financial situation. SecureSafe does quite well in Europe, but was looking to expand operations into the U.S. What Entrustet could offer most was both an enthusiastic userbase of common folk as well as estate attorneys, and arguably the biggest brand name in the still rather nacent ‘digital death’ industry.

This acquisition is a classic win-win. For Entrustet, we melt our site and users into the leading international competitor. It’s a company with software we respect, a profitable bottom line, good financial backing, excellent security, and an impressive management team–we could rest easy at night that our users were getting a top-notch alternative. On a personal level, we’re excited to help with the transition and then to explore other projects and experiences.

For SecureSafe, they get to acquire a leading international company with a similar product, a great reputation and strong brand name. Above all, this makes it obvious to the world that SecureSafe is serious about being the winner in this space. It remains to be seen how much press this acqusition gets, but there is a good opportunity to pitch this story as an indicator that the nacent digital death industry is beginning to mature. Entrustet also brings with it a dedicated userbase of people as well as estate attorneys–so SecureSafe is acquiring two much-needed sales channels.

I have learned so much over the past few years and I owe it to so many people, but mainly to Nate. We shared a lot of commonalities but also had very complimentary skillsets. This kid is a walking newsreel of information. I always admired him for that. I was so disinterested in politics that I never paid attention when he would go into his powerful and clever political discussions, but respected his ability to digest information and spew it out on demand nonetheless. This acquisition is largely due to Nate’s listening and vetting when companies began to knock on our door. I can’t thank him enough for his work over the past 3 years. It’s been quite a ride.

We also had so many complimentary interests, that our friendship grew tremendously over the years as well. In fact, despite all the moves that we made on a business front, I find myself looking back on the Entrustet experience and mostly remembering everything we did together outside the office. That’s where real partnerships are made.

And of course, I have so much love for all the family, friends, partners, advisors, investors and everyone who supported this entire project from the get-go. I’ll also specifically call out our lead programmer, Tommy Juszczyk. Tommy has been incredible. As the lead programmer, Tommy’s vision for the product was well beyond his years. His ability to learn and grow as a programmer and a businessman in front of our eyes was incredible to see. We’d not have been able to do this without you. Another huge thanks to Nathan Dosch and Joe Boucher, two of the finest and kindest lawyers a startup could work with–and two men who I’m proud to call friends. Allan Stern and Adaptive Engineering. Our advisers at Merlin Mentors, led by the inspiring Amy Kasper. Our 2010 intern class. Our 2011 intern class.

I first pitched the idea for Entrustet at a Northwestern University business plan competition as a first-semester senior. I was a runner-up. I was defeated. If it weren’t for all these incredible people supporting me along the way, I’d never had had this experience. If I’d never had this experience, I would have been missing out dramatically. The people I met along the way. Speaking at South by Southwest. Madison. NYC. San Fran. Austin. LA. Santiago, Chile. Raising money. Hiring employees. Building a product. Selling a product. A truly remarkable PR campaign. The list goes on.

I am feeling rejuvenated again. I am feeling lucky to be alive right now. I am feeling a lot of love all around. I am feeling supported by the universe. Thank you all.

 

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