Space Exploration is Premature

Always when important discoveries or inventions are made,
those who make them, believe that
they do so under the stress of moral impulsion,
whereas often at bottom material motives are at work
(STEFAN ZWEIG)

People decided to conquer space. The idea is immeasurably bold if it were not so reckless. Without thinking about the fate of mankind on Earth, and not solving the pressing problems of our time, people decided to satisfy their ambitions without even thinking about their nature. You might think that they don’t know where to put the money.

There are many problems in our world and scientific minds do not doubt that it is always possible to find ways to solve some of them, being confident in the ultimate goal of the historical development of mankind. It would be more correct to talk not about the goal but about the meaning of existence, and the purpose of humanity. Studying space processes could help answer the question about this purpose, so space exploration makes fundamental sense. This is inevitable, but solving each problem begins with using what is already known and obtaining new information most simply. Understanding the meaning of existence will help us learn the processes occurring on Earth, which are much easier and cheaper to obtain than studying space. Moreover, the historical process on Earth study will help better understand the inherent features of time processes and, particularly, explain the “Fermi paradox”.

However, the matter is complicated in that the problem of the meaning of existence is replaced by the purpose of existence, which is much easier to formulate. The achievements of European philosophical thought will force us to follow precisely its course of development. It was in Europe that this substitution occurred. The dominant understanding in the West of the ultimate goal of historical development in the spread of liberal democracy has roots in the ideas of European enlighteners. This understanding is not only a philosophical but also a logical error. Democracy is only a form of government, the purpose of which is precisely to understand the meaning of existence, and this process took place under various forms of government. Any form of government that does not interfere with this process may have the right to exist, although some government forms may be closest to the ideal. In other words, liberal democracy has its shortcomings, which do not seem obvious, but appear during periods of crisis.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission captured thrilling footage of its rover landing in Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. It seems that far-reaching plans for space exploration are starting to come true. However, the purpose of these plans is not only unexplained but also unfounded. It could be popularized by philosophers but not engineers, however philosophers are silent. True, not even all engineers believe that the time for space exploration has come. When interested people seek to allocate huge sums of money or invest in preparing and implementing flights into deep space, it seems unreasonable and hopeless for many reasons. Scientists who have dedicated their activities to solving the practical issues of space exploration better than others understand the premature of such a grandiose human enterprise, nevertheless, their voices remain unheard [VOKIN G.G. 2015]. Their arguments are not abstract but follow the content of the set theory, stability theory, and reliability theory. First, the goals of space exploration should be defined more precisely. Metaphorically assessing the significance of the initial space exploration and its further significance, a Czech scientist writes the following:

Just space research would be the best candidate for the «Egyptian pyramid of our time», it would be the least harmful and most interesting embodiment of the «spirit of the conquistador», which somehow dormant latently in humans [KOMÁREK STANISLAV. 2020: 159].

Simple curiosity and personal ambition aside, goals can be socio-economic, existential-pragmatic, scientific, and political. If we talk about socio-economics, it should be recognized that at present on space flights we “must spend the already limited resources of the Earth, not receiving from Space in return at least an equivalent of energy or matter” [VOKIN G.G. 2015: 20]. In other words, hoping for the commercialization of space is nothing but a thoughtless waste of money. Moreover, the conditions for human existence, his «niche» exist only on Earth, and, at present, there is no need and prerequisites for gaining qualities that allow one to go beyond the boundaries of this area of existence.

Scientific goals of space navigation can be wide. We can talk about the origin and history of the development of such a space object as the Earth, the appearance of people on it, and also their spiritual and physical development in the process of human civilization in its various manifestations, that is about what the humanities study. However, the humanities are lagging behind the accelerated elaboration of technology, and this imbalance indicates that there is a large skewness in our worldview, which can lead to a situation where space will become uninteresting to us, the problem of survival will force us to do what we previously neglected. Such misfortune can be avoided by allocating funds for the development of the humanities commensurate with those spent on space exploration, attracting talented young people, and looking for new research methods. Their effective use would bring us closer to answering the fundamental questions of the world order and human existence. In principle, the imbalance between the natural and humanitarian sciences is determined by the internal logic of the development of science as a whole, and its state at present is described as follows:

This, then, is the span of time over which the conservative tendencies built in the structure of scientific careers act to retard the progress of science. Science is hard, and we scientists prefer to have as good an understanding of what we’re doing as possible; thus unless forced to do otherwise, we prefer to work with techniques and ideas we already understand well. Another factor is that the careers of young scientists are often controlled by senior people nearing retirement, who are in many cases no longer active and therefore unfamiliar with new techniques. Career-savvy graduate students, no matter how imaginative, hesitate to work on something not understood by the powerful men and women of their field [SMOLIN LEE, 2002: 5].

This state is most clearly expressed in the humanities. In addition, the specified features of the scientific process should include those purely human qualities of scientists that do not correspond to the principle of fair play and thereby inhibit the development of sciences. Space enthusiasts must admit that before taking on this difficult task, we must solve purely earthly problems requiring reason and conscience. In the humanities, a huge amount of factual data has already been accumulated and the increase in the volume of knowledge does not simplify, but, on the contrary, complicates the picture of the world, making it also more uncertain what is related to space research:

The results obtained in the natural sciences acquire true meaning only when the criteria developed in the humanities are applied to them [VOKIN G.G. 2015: 4].

Moreover, solving earthly mysteries can help explain cosmic phenomena. For example, historians do not understand the reasons for the emergence and flourishing of the Great Mongol Empire based on a country that lagged in development compared to its neighbors. This transformation is explained by the fact that the empire was created through the efforts of a person who had the necessary skills thanks to the evolutionary psychology factor. Genghis Khan was an Anglo-Saxon by origin, the formation of his character was largely influenced by his mother, who knew the basic principles of organizing the social life of the Anglo-Saxons [see Anglo-Saxons in Genghis Khan's Fate]. After the death of Genghis Khan and his immediate relatives, Mongolia returned to its previous state. Similar examples can be found in world history, and they say that human society cannot bypass certain stages of its development, ensuring the continuity of its traditions and culture. The absence of signals from more developed space civilizations to Earth has the same explanation too, called the “Fermi paradox”. They know that one must gradually come to the highest stage of development in one’s own way. External intervention will break the natural development course and not benefit lower-level civilizations. This is the universal law of the development of anything. Space exploration must also obey this law: There is a time for everything.

The political goals of space exploration during a systemic crisis as a state of the modern world can only be an ill-considered adventure calculated for an external effect without a convincing ontological justification, which is generally typical of international politics in general. It must be borne in mind that, at present, human society is experiencing a civilizational revolution, passing through a rite of passage.

In this process, there is a rethinking of the scientific and technological achievements of mankind, and plans for space exploration make us think about how much these achievements allow their implementation. In particular, for space flights, cheap and efficient sources of high energy are needed, which can provide a sufficiently high speed to spacecraft. Even in the middle of the 20th century, optimistic forecasts were imposed on the possibility of controlling thermonuclear fusion. As it turned out, this requires the creation of ultra-large focusing magnetic or electric fields, and high temperatures, which requires not only a large number of funds but also new materials with the desired characteristics. This is the technical aspect of the issue, but even more important is creating a reliable system for ensuring and preserving the moral, psychophysiological, and physical qualities of astronauts during long flights. Space medicine should be based on remedies and methods tested on Earth but effective methods of treating common and dangerous diseases have not yet been found even in terrestrial conditions.

Medicine is a science, developed by which remedies and means of treatment can be tested in practice, but to verify the truth of research results in other social sciences and humanities, decades of application are needed, and in historical sciences, there is no reliable criterion of truth in many cases at all. This led to the development of the virtual-simulative nature of many research works in the development and deepening of erroneous theories that arose at an early stage of the formation of certain scientific disciplines

As Francis Bacon noted 400 years ago, a person is inclined to believe in what he prefers, while truth cannot always be interesting or useful to him. This concerns especially the questions of the origin of nations and their early history. Mythic historiography can satisfy a person more than unusual and unrecognized results contradict traditional conceptions. However, the mistaken idea of the prehistory of nations disturbs the causal relationship between prehistoric and historical events and its scientific value will be zero. The state policy based on false ideas led to and can lead in the future to catastrophic consequences. A typical example is given by the policy of Nazi Germany, based on the superiority of the so-called Aryan race, even though such a race does not exist at all. Although the Aryans are known as an ancient people, the Germans have a very distant relationship with them [see The Placebo Effect in Science from a Moral Point of View]

The notion of the Aryan superior race is closely related to the widespread prejudice among Europeans about the superiority of Western civilization, generally called Eurocentrism. According to historians in other parts of the world, the emergence of the ideology of Nazism is associated just with the Eurocentric worldview [KARATAY OSMAN. 2003: 6]. In their opinion, a stable template prevails in European historiography defining relations between nomadic peoples and developed states of the ancient world. It is characterized as a constant struggle between barbarians and civilization [Ibid: 3]. Even if the nations of ancient high civilizations, as the modern Western world were superior in some way to others, from a philosophical point of view, it cannot be said that they were or are on the correct development path. The persistent political crises in ancient China and Persia, the decline of Greece, and the destruction of the Roman and later empires contradict this view.

We know about the achievements of nomadic peoples, which largely determine the course of history, such as the domestication of a wild horse, the development of horse and wheeled transport, highly developed metalworking, the improvement of weapons, methods of management, and others. The expansion of pastoralist tribes is due to the use of horses in the expansion and search for pastures. Horseback riding and raiding neighbors to steal cattle led to a redistribution of wealth, social stratification of society, and the formation of tribes under the leadership of leaders who were also high priests. However, scientists do not always know exactly the ethnicity of the tribes and use their assumptions. In search of the reasons for the leadership of the Europeans, they proceed from the position that the economic activity of the Indo-Europeans was focused mainly on animal husbandry, placing the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans in the steppe space to the east from the Lower Dnieper to the Southern Urals [PAVLENKO Yu.V. 2004: 229-230]. However, in science, there are other assumptions about the location of the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans [STETSYUK VALENTYN. 1998: 27-36, 42-44]. In the same way, the ancestral home of the Turks has been the subject of endless controversy for many decades with the prejudice of European scholars who pushed the Turks to the sidelines of world history:

When it was necessary to find an ancestral home for the Türks, some places in northeastern Siberia were deemed suitable, and it was clear that the Türks should be content with this and that they did not deserve more [KARATAY OSMAN. 2003: 6]

The localization of the ancestral home of modern nations is of paramount importance for their history restoration, since in ancient history many peoples have been looking for their greatness. When studying these problematic issues, European scholars are especially active and dictate to scientists from other countries to follow their research methods and the conclusions obtained with their help. This is seen from the outside in another controversial issue of the possible kinship of the Turkic and Mongolian languages:

The Indo-Europeanists dictated and continue to dictate to the Turkologists the ways and methods of studying ethnogenesis and other problems of the history and linguistics of the Türkic peoples [LAYPANOV K.T., MIZIEV I.M. 2010: 4].

On this topic, the struggle of opinions in the scientific world has been going on for many decades, and none of them have become generally accepted:

At present, this problem, like many others, results in a dispute between whole generations of scientists, neither of which can convince each other [CLAUSON G. 1969: 22].

50 years have passed since these lines were written, but the situation has not changed. Mutually exclusive views suggest that one of them is wrong. In this regard, there is doubt about the effectiveness of research methods in historical linguistics. When science is powerless to solve fundamental problems, erroneous theories can acquire a racial character, which does not promote balanced relations between peoples, undermines their peaceful nature, and is fraught with armed conflicts, when space can also be used. The inability of the humanities to arrive at the truth using existing knowledge leads to the idea of ​​​​a synthesis of the humanities and natural sciences using mathematical methods, long proposed by scientists:

It is important only that all sorts of human and world relationships are easiest to denote by numbers, volume, and position in space and time, as they can easily fit into the framework of mathematical symbols [SWIENCYCKYI I., 1927: 53].

However, unsuccessful attempts to mathematize the humanities lead to the conclusion that their possibility to do this is limited by the absence of a «quantitative measure for the overwhelming majority of concepts» [VOIN A.M. 2016] and the lack of necessary methods in mathematics itself.

This sad conclusion is somewhat far from the truth. Linguistics can process large volumes of units of language vocabulary and this opportunity is implemented. In particular, reliable results can be obtained by using the graphic-analytical method that allows to find the original places of settlements of ancient peoples and determine the ethnicity of archeological cultures, and according to them the peculiarities of the spiritual world of their creators [STETSYUK VALENTYN. 1998].

Unfortunately, the truth may not always seem useful for political reasons, and this is also a problem of political science and epistemology. Studying the background and relationships of modern people using effective methods can be as exciting and rewarding as space exploration if we are guided not only by reason but also by conscience. It is impossible to stop the process of space exploration, but its pace must be coordinated with the development of the humanities.

First, in the scientific world, it is necessary to come to a consensus about the purpose of human existence. The unity in opinion, even if it requires constant adjustment, will help to harmonize the paths of development of various branches of science. The theme of our conversation is answered by the assumption that God created man to spiritualize the soulless cosmos. However, we must agree that man is not yet ready for this mission.

Literature

CLAUSON G. 1969. Leksikostatisticheskaya otsenka altayskoy teorii – (In Russian) – Lexicostatistics of the Altai theory: Voprosy Yazakoznania #5.

KARATAY OSMAN. 2003. Iran ile Turan. Hayali Milletler Çağinda Avrasya ve Ortadoğu.– (In Turkish) – Turan and Iran. Eurasia and the Middle East in the Age of Imaginary Nations. Ankara. KaraM.

KOMÁREK STANISLAV. 2020. Yevropa na rozdorizhzhi – (In Ukrainia) – Europe at a Crossroads. Lviv. «Apriori».

LAYPANOV K.T., MIZIEV B.V. 2010. O proiskhozhdenii tiurkskikh harodov// Istoria Balkarii i Karacjaya v trudakh Ismaila Mizieva – (In Russian) – About Origin of Turkic Peoples// History of Balkaria and Karachay in Works of Ismail Miziev in three Volumes. Nalchik. Izdatelstvo M. and V. Kotlarovs.

PAVLENKO Yu.V. 2004. Istoria mirovoy tsivilizatsii – (In Russian) – History of Wordl Civilization. Kiev. «Fenix».

SMOLIN LEE. 1997. The Life of the Cosmos. New York. Oxford.

STETSYUK VALENTYN. 1998. Doslidzhennya peredistorichnikh etnogenetichnikh procesiv u Skhidniy Yevropi. Persha knyga – (In Ukrainian) – The Research of Prehistoric Ethnogenetic Processes in Eastern Europe. Volume 1. Lviv–Kyiv.

STETSYUK VALENTYN. 2023. Origin of Genghis Khan. Academia.edu.

STETSYUK VALENTYN. 2024. The Placebo Effect in Science from a Moral Point of View. Academia.edu

SWIENCICKYI I. 1927. Nauka nauk. Zb. «Matetmatyka sered nauk» – (In Ukrainian) – Science of Sciences.// Mathematics among Sciences. Lviv. «Dilo».

VOIN A.M. 2016. Filosofiya i global’nyy krizis – (In Russian) – Philosophy and the Global Crisis. Moscow-Berlin. Direct Media.

VOKIN G.G. 2015. Kosmos i chelovek. Priglasheniye k razmyshleniyam – (In Russian) – Space and Man. An Invitation to Reflection. Yubileynyy. ZAO «PSTM».