Asteroids, Geoethics and Planetary Protection in the uc3m (Spain)
Planetary Geology and Astrobiology are two significant subjects in the context of space exploration and research. In recent years, the interest of the scientific community in the study of asteroids has increased significantly. The reason for this interest is twofold, scientific and technological. Asteroid analysis has been identified as a key to unravel the unknowns about the origin and evolution of the Solar System. Furthermore, the possible devastating effect of the collision of an asteroid with the Earth has raised the study of methods to identify it in time and avoid this danger. Finally, exploration of asteroids is a useful and realistic intermediate step towards future exploration of the solar system, given the possible use of their resources. From this point of view, its exploitation for commercial purposes has been proposed, raising ethical questions about the use of space.
In this context, a multidisciplinary seminar was organized at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (uc3m) by the Instituto Gregorio Millán, Instituto de Geociencias IGEO (CSIC-UCM), Dept. Bioingeniería e Ingeniería Aerospacial, UC3m, Dept. Tecnología Electrónica, UC3m and Red Española de Planetología y Astrobiología.
One of the subjects was related to Geoethics, specifically the link between geoethics and planetary protection.
Talk
Title: Planetary Protection and Geoethics
by Jesús Martínez-Frías, IAGETH (affiliated to IUGS)
Further information can be found here.
Image: NASA
