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The Dimming of Starlight
The Dimming of Starlight
The Philosophy of Space Exploration
GONZALO MUNÉVAR
Professor Emeritus Lawrence Technological University
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© Oxford University Press 2023
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Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.
CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress
ISBN 978–0–19–768991–2
eISBN 978–0–19–768992–9
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197689912.001.0001
To my beloved son, Ryan, who has been asking me
questions about space since he was a very little boy
Contents
1. Why Philosophy?
2. The Standard Case For and Against Space Exploration
3. The Philosophy of Exploration
4. Comparative Planetology and Serendipity
5. Cosmology and Fundamental Physics
6. Space Biology
7. Humankind in Outer Space
8. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
9. Space Technology and War
10. Survival and Wisdom
Index
Foreword
One night almost four hundred years ago, Galileo turned his
telescope to the sky, and the sky grew immense and crowded (see Fi
gure 1.1). Since then, we have explored the heavens with telescope
and mind, in the spirit of wonder and adventure. In our own time,
through space exploration, we can touch where Galileo could only
see, and we can reach where he could only dream. Our spaceships
are beginning to realize a perennial longing made explicit by the
great astronomer Johannes Kepler when he wrote to Galileo:
There will certainly be no lack of human pioneers when we have mastered the
art of flight. . . . Let us create vessels and sails adjusted to the heavenly
ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes. In the
meantime, we shall prepare, for the brave sky-travelers, maps of the celestial
bodies—I shall do it for the Moon, you, Galileo, for Jupiter.1
Transcriber’s Notes.
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Some of the illustrations have been moved to be closer to their descriptions.
4. In this eBook some illustrations have been moved to other pages. The text
has been changed where necessary.
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