By Caleb Strom

On October 10, 2024, the Europa Clipper is scheduled to launch. Europa Clipper is a spacecraft designed to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa, a body suspected to have a habitable liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface. Thousands of people are expected to travel to attend the launch. They hope it will help us answer one of humanity’s oldest questions: whether there is life beyond Earth. 

Beyond its scientific significance, however, is the significance of the launch event itself. Historian Roger Launius, in his 2013 essay “Escaping Earth:Human Spaceflight as Religion,” talks about how spacecraft launches resemble religious ceremonies. The countdown sequence, for example, can be seen as a religious ritual. Before the launch of Apollo 10 in 1969, mission commander Thomas Safford is seen touching the nose of a stuffed Snoopy “mascot” for good luck, which could be compared to making the sign of the cross as one enters a church in the Catholic tradition. Another ritual is the distribution of lucky peanuts at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before the launch of an interplanetary spacecraft. In addition to rituals, Launius argues that the mission controllers and engineers function as priests with special knowledge. The astronauts are basically saints who are carrying on the sacred mission to expand humanity across the cosmos. The Europa Clipper mission is not a crewed mission, but in many ways the mission scientists take the role of the saints as they explore the universe through their robot avatars. Furthermore, the practice of people attending the launches from all over the country and the world resembles a pilgrimage.

Human spaceflight and robotic space exploration could be thought of as forming two sects of a space quasi-religion that space advocates, or devotees, follow even though they may also be adherents of a conventional religion. I will use the existing term cosmism to describe both. Human spaceflight advocates are often concerned about the long-term survival of the species, believing that humanity expanding to other planets will prevent humanity from being one giant asteroid impact away from extinction. In essence, establishing space settlements, for human spaceflight advocates, is a form of salvation or soteriology. It is how humanity will be saved, not from sin but from extinction. For those engaged in robotic (planetary) exploration, the motivation is less about human survival and more about a desire to feel a connection with the cosmos and know our origins. Carl Sagan is a prominent representative of this latter denomination of cosmism. In other words, human spaceflight advocates are the prophets that are warning humanity of their need for salvation. Advocates of planetary exploration represent the mystics who seek a personal connection with the divine.

Both versions of cosmism inspire technological innovation that is not motivated primarily by promoting economic growth, with which technological innovation is usually associated. The ideology of growth is becoming increasingly problematic as the connection between capitalistic economic growth and climate change, environmental destruction, and the impoverishment and underdevelopment of the countries in the global south is becoming clearer. Because economic growth and technological progress are linked in the minds of many people, critics of degrowth fear that slowing down economic growth will lead to a stagnation in technological progress or even a catastrophic decline. Is there another way to inspire technological innovation that is not necessarily about driving economic growth?

Traditional religions provide a critique of economic growth as the primary goal for technological progress by pointing out that simply creating more gadgets and wealth from technological innovation does not seem to satisfy human desire. Humans always seem to want more. Christianity and Judaism specifically explain this by pointing out that our true desire is a desire for God which technological innovation by itself cannot really give. Buddhism also highlights the folly of trying to satisfy desire and how it leads to suffering. The quasi-religion of space exploration, and similar quasi-religions connected to science and technology, can go beyond this critique by providing a positive vision of technology that is not focused on economic growth. The motivation for technological development among cosmists or space advocates is fundamentally wonder and compassion. They want to explore the universe and ensure the long-term survival and flourishing of humanity, respectively. Both of these motivations have been shown to inspire technological innovation without requiring profit motive or an adherence to an ideology of infinite material growth. 

Specific examples of initiatives that inspired technological development without being profit-based include the early years of the Indian space program, which was focused on space infrastructure that would improve the lives of every-day Indians rather than profit or national prestige, the primary motivation for the United States and the Soviet Union. A non-space example is the Cuban biotechnology sector, which focuses mostly on providing medical technology for the population of Cuba and beyond. Instead of being driven by profit, the Cuban biotechnology sector appears to be more driven by maintaining the welfare of the Cuban nation as well as “health tourists” who come to receive treatment from the relatively cheap Cuban healthcare system. Although the system is partly made possible by the influx of health tourists from wealthier capitalist countries, the profits from health tourism are still a means to an end for the biotechnology sector, not the primary motivation. 

A more explicitly religious initiative to promote technological innovation that benefits humanity and inspires a spiritual revival is the Mormon Transhumanist Association, which advocates for health-span extension to reduce suffering among the elderly and the development of AIs trained on Christ-like compassion and selflessness to avoid their use to promote greed or authoritarianism. Another example is the Russian cosmism of the Christian mystic Nikolai Fedorov, who inspired Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, father of the Soviet space program. Fedorov believed that science would one day allow for the resurrection of the dead and that humanity would fill the cosmos with life and consciousness as they spread across the universe through settling other planets and Earth’s oceans.

Degrowth advocates are often accused of being anti-technology, but degrowth actually requires significant technological advances, specifically in the development of an electrified grid system reliant on renewable energy to move beyond fossil fuels, high speed electric rail systems to reduce reliance on automotives, more energy-efficient cities, and biotechnologies that could aid ecosystem restoration including de-extinction and genetic storage. There is a need for technological innovation even in a degrowth world. Cosmism shows that wonder and compassion can be just as effective motivators for technological innovation as economic growth. Wonder and compassion may also allow us to go beyond these immediate needs. We may be motivated, for example, to automate the economy to allow people more time to spend with family, in nature, and in worship. We may also expand our exploration of the universe from the most distant galaxies to the depths of Earth’s oceans, reminding us of our connection with God and creation. In this way, a shift toward a more spiritual, non-acquisitive motivation for technological development may help us to get back on track towards utopia.

Caleb Strom is a PhD student studying planetary science who currently studies asteroids, icy moons, and dwarf planets. He also writes about science, faith, technology, their intersection, and how they can work together to create a better world.

Image credit: NASA