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The rarest of roles among the engineers and rocket scientists: Space ethics advisor

On the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, Jacques Arnauld wonders, should the astronauts have risked their lives?

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Jacques Arnauld was once a Catholic priest. Earlier, he was a forestry researcher who studied the possible consequences of acid rain in Switzerland. He did two PhDs and specialized in Darwinism and Creationism. These pursuits changed when he helped write a report on the ethics of space exploration for the Centre National d’Études Spatiales, France’s space agency. In 2001, after the director received the report, he created a novel position for Arnould: ethics advisor.

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“You are not to wait for what is written for you,” says Arnould, who has held the title ever since. “Our ancestors tried to read our destiny in the stars, but today, we have to build our destiny in the stars. And it’s my story.”

Fifty years after humans made inroads on the moon, the Apollo 11 mission still raises unresolved ethical dilemmas — most immediately, should a space agency risk human lives to explore the universe? The three astronauts could have been injured by radiation or crippling bone damage. U.S. President Richard Nixon had a speech prepared to deliver if the men had died. Since a spacecraft could have reached the moon alone, should people have been on board?

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“Our minds were completely focused on the many tasks to be performed,” writes Buzz Aldrin in an introduction to Arnould’s book, Icarus’ Second Chance: The Basis and Perspectives of Space Ethics. “There wasn’t time to spare for asking too many questions about the ethical nature of our mission!”

What does it mean to engage three men to explore the moon?

Nearly 500 people have travelled to space since the first manned flight, and 22 have died during training or missions, Arnould writes. The 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster killed seven crew members, and the Columbia disaster, seven years later, killed seven more. After each incident, Arnould points out, American authorities appointed an inquiry, but they did not appoint an ethics committee.

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The Canadian Space Agency has a code of ethics, and NASA has an ethics committee to ensure researchers have informed consent from astronauts who volunteer for medical experiments. Still, most employees are trained as engineers, not philosophers, and the field of “space ethics” remains niche among academics. The moon could become a destination for space tourists, not to mention a subject of mining and pollution, and Arnould alone has the job of nudging a space agency to consider its duties in the vicinity and beyond.

To bring philosophy to astrophysicists and engineers, Arnould began by sharing a myth. The director of the French space agency appointed an ethics group after hiring Arnould. At the first meeting, Arnould told Ovid’s tale of Icarus, a character who was given a set of wings but fell from the sky after he flew too close to the sun.

“I am of course extrapolating,” Arnould writes in his book, but the mythological fears “raise questions concerning the outrageousness of humans and emphasize their lack of caution.”

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Arnould writes an article on ethics each month for his space agency’s magazine. In his book, he explains that, during missions of the European Space Agency and CNES in the 1990s, the probability of death of crew members was 0.001 per mission.

“In the case of Apollo, what does it mean to engage three men to explore the moon?” asks Arnould. “My goal is not to offer an intellectual (commentary) about Kant or another philosopher. It’s trying to take the occasion to offer some matter of reflection.”

Why was France the country to create his position? Arnould says the French have a tradition of interrogation (they raised Michel Foucault, René Descartes and Simone de Beauvoir), and he says the country fosters “a sort of lay ethics” distinct from religion.

“It’s a very good idea that they have that position,” says Isabelle Tremblay, director of astronauts, life sciences and space medicine at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

The CSA implemented its ethics code in 2013 after 18 months of consultations with employees and union members. The President of the CSA also appoints an executive to be “Values and Ethics Champion.” When astronaut David Saint-Jacques volunteered for seven Canadian medical experiments, among other tests, he and the researchers met with the NASA ethics committee in Houston, Texas, says Tremblay.

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“Astronauts participate in human research on a voluntary basis,” she says. “We cannot coerce them. It’s their choice, and the committee is there to make sure it is.”

The day we refuse to explore, I suppose, is the day that we refuse to be totally human

Regarding the risk of fatal disasters, Tremblay says, “We know that astronauts, they work very hard to make it in space, to have this privilege and opportunity, so it’s their desire, and they are very well-informed about the risks.”

During Apollo 11, the most likely disaster was a scenario in which the astronauts would become stuck on the moon and starve or take their own lives, writes Nixon’s speechwriter William Safire in his memoir, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House. Astronaut Frank Borman urged Safire to think about “what to do for the widows.” Safire did not initially respond, but he ended up writing a back-up speech.

“These brave men,” wrote Safire, “know that there is no hope for their recovery … they will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.”

To Arnould, the moon landing was important to the human spirit, which he says is open to the unknown. “The day we refuse to explore, I suppose, is the day that we refuse to be totally human.” Now 58, he remembers watching the landing from Paris ⁠— on a “very, very old television” ⁠— when he was very young.

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