Last Wednesday (24), NASA launched the Dart mission into space, with the objective of altering the orbit of a medium-sized asteroid (160 meters). The motivation is as clear as it is noble: to test a technology that could save civilization from future impact, should any of these objects be discovered on a collision course with Earth.
So far, we’ve mapped about 40% of the population of asteroids 140 meters and taller, and there’s none to threaten us. It remains to identify the other 60%, which should take place in the coming years, with the diligent work of professional and amateur astronomers, added to significant projects capable of mass detection, such as the future Vera Rubin Observatory, in Chile, which should start its operation scientific research in 2023.
What seems to be little discussed are the ethical implications of such a mission, probably because it is very difficult to sensitize the public on issues that seem to refer more to science fiction than to science (occasionally there is a pandemic, and people become remember that these things are all real and need to be widely known, at the risk of succumbing to misinformation).
In his 1994 book “Pale Blue Dot”, astronomer Carl Sagan highlighted the dilemma, noting that the same technology capable of deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with Earth can also point one of those objects that originally didn’t. would crash with us. This risk is usually dismissed with the argument “only a madman would do something like this”. Which Sagan recalls our own history. “Whenever I hear this (and it’s often presented in these debates), I’m reminded that crazy people really do exist. Sometimes they reach the highest levels of political power in modern industrial nations.”
Writing in the 20th century, the astronomer refers to figures like Hitler and Stalin to exemplify the drama. Moving into the third decade of the 21st century, we’ve seen that things haven’t changed that much in this regard since then. Even today, madmen come to power and, when they do, make decisions that are known to cause enormous human tragedy without any embarrassment or sign of empathy. You know what I’m talking about.
Dart itself is nothing to worry about. It’s in good hands and poses no risk to Earth (there’s no way its collision with the asteroid Dymorphic, at the end of 2022, could even put it in our direction by accident). But it is undeniable that we are bequeathing to the future an instrument that, in the wrong hands, may indeed turn out to be dangerous.
It is yet another reminder of the eternal dilemma that the development of science and technology imposes on us, since the first spears with chipped stone tips. If it is not accompanied by ethics and wisdom, it may end up doing more harm than good. It seems to be humanity’s destiny to struggle valiantly in search of a better path for itself while absentmindedly dancing on the edge of the precipice.
This column is published on Mondays in Folha Corrida.
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