First Space Colony: What Political System Could We Expect?

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First Space Colony: What Political System Could We Expect?

Schmidt, Nikola / Bohacek, Petr

Abstract The article argues that near-future space colonization missions exceeding a certain number of colonists raise new questions about social organization and colony governance challenges. Although small crewed missions can be governed by a mission commander, dozens of people living on another celestial body will naturally create a community, and hundreds will require intentional implementation of a governance model as such a colony will become a society. We assess in detail the possible implications of four theoretical approaches to space colony governance that reflect current debates in the spaceflight community: governance by science and engineering, libertarianism, national exceptionalism, and cosmopolitanism. Although we openly argue for cosmopolitan ideas to be part of any space-related governance questions, we build the argument on Ulrich Beck's thoughts that a cosmopolitan outlook should become part of our current territorially divided national identities, as both are mutually constituted. The article shows how each governance approach has certain drivers capable of proceeding with space colonization, while each of them is insufficient on its own to provide a sustainable future without a possible collapse of the colony. In the end, we introduce a consistent cloud of thoughts raising various dilemmas, to trigger a debate over particular models that space colonies could be governed by, rather than proposing a complex universal governance model. It helps us to demonstrate why cosmopolitan ideas are so important, while the energy found in business, national exceptionalism, and scientific ingenuity is also necessary.