Êtes-vous un étudiant de l'EPFL à la recherche d'un projet de semestre?
Travaillez avec nous sur des projets en science des données et en visualisation, et déployez votre projet sous forme d'application sur Graph Search.
Concept
Space ethics
Résumé
Space ethics, astroethics or astrobioethics is a discipline of applied ethics that discusses the moral and ethical implications arising from astrobiological research, space exploration and space flight. It deals with practical contemporary issues like the protection of the space environment and hypothetical future issues pertaining to our interaction with extraterrestrial life forms.
Specific issues of space ethics include space debris mitigation and the militarization of space, but also more theoretical topics like space colonization, terraforming and space mining. The field also concerns itself with more fundamental moral questions, such as the ethicality of SETI and METI, the intrinsic value of extraterrestrial life, and how humans should treat extraterrestrial non-intelligent life (like microbes) and extraterrestrial intelligent life (and whether this distinction should be made in the first place).
Astroethical issues are often discussed as elements of broader issues such as general environmental protection and imperialism. Astroethics have been described as an emerging discipline gaining in attention, a "necessity for astrobiology" and a "true issue for the future of astrobiology".
Planetary protection
A guiding principle in astroethics is that of Planetary Protection (PP), which seeks to prevent the introduction of lifeforms from Earth to other celestial bodies (forward contamination) and vice versa (back contamination), and thereby possible adverse consequences on existing ecospheres resulting from such contamination. This principle is anchored in the UN Outer Space Treaty, which was established in 1967 and has since been signed and ratified by all space-faring nations.
Precautionary principle
The precautionary principle was defined in the 1998 Wingspread Conference on the Precautionary Principle. This approach is supposed to guide decisions in the face of a lack of scientific knowledge or consensus on a matter.
Source officielle
À propos de ce résultat
Cette page est générée automatiquement et peut contenir des informations qui ne sont pas correctes, complètes, à jour ou pertinentes par rapport à votre recherche. Il en va de même pour toutes les autres pages de ce site. Veillez à vérifier les informations auprès des sources officielles de l'EPFL.