Abstract

Lessons from Antarctica. For an ecology of the Solar System It seems plausible that the near future will see an ever greater expansion of human presence in several environments of the Solar System, such as the Moon and the planet Mars. This expansion will have multiple goals, of a scientific, exploitative-commercial, and perhaps military nature. This raises a series of ethical question, made even more pressing by the possibility that some of the extraterrestrial environments affected by human activities may host indigenous life forms. This article is meant to underline parallels and divergences of a future, hypothetical expansion of humanity in space with a process in many ways similar: human expansion in Antarctica. We intend to schematically describe the “Antarctic model”, i.e. the approach adopted so far by mankind as a whole towards the continent, highlighting its collective ethical, ecological and socio-political commitments and implications. Finally, on the basis of ideas taken from the literature on the philosophy of ecology, we will attempt to outline an “ecological mentality” that can be applied to the ethical problems relating to interaction with an extraterrestrial environment, be it entirely devoid of life or hosting a native biosphere.