History of a concept. Colonize space to save the human species. This is one of Elon Musk’s projects, probably the one closest to his heart. Beside, Twitter is just a hobby. The billionaire is also the boss of SpaceX, a company specializing in space flight and astronautics, whose slogan is clear: “Mars and beyond, the path to make humanity multiplanetary”. We are not very far from it, according to Elon Musk. In 2022, he hinted that SpaceX would send a manned flight to Mars in 2029. And he’s not the only one aiming for the stars: Google, Amazon, or even Peter Thiel, a billionaire who made his fortune in tech, are investing to escape the Earth.
This dream is widely shared in Silicon Valley. It translates some of the values specific to California, where a fusion of cultures takes place, in a mixture of creativity and opportunism. The colonization of space as imagined by the world of high technology has an astonishing history, which even allows itself detours via Russia.
The project is in fact based, in part, on a reinterpretation of Russian cosmism, a current of thought that appeared at the end of the 19th century.e century. “Philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov [1829-1903] launches this movement on the basis of an idea: technological development will finally make it possible to realize Christianity, whose ambition would be to overcome death. Russia then lived through a difficult period, marked by famine and numerous wars. Fiodorov wants us to bring back to life all the dead, whose particles would be everywhere around us. But the Earth will not be able to accommodate all this population, so it will be necessary to colonize other planets.explains the physicist Rudolph Biérent, author of The Cosmic Imperative. The 19th century Russian avant-gardee century (Publishroom Factory, 2019).
The Universe to survive
Elon Musk likes to quote a scientist who rubbed shoulders with Fiodorov during his youth. Considered the father of astronautics, Constantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) left a formula today appreciated by the boss of Twitter: “Earth is the cradle of humanity, but you can’t spend your whole life in a cradle. »
Tsiolkovsky fears the extinction of the Sun and the disappearance of the Earth as a habitable planet. The eternity of the Universe offers man the possibility of survival. He therefore also considers that it is necessary to explore the cosmos.
But how did these ideas reach California? “The West Coast is a place where people pride themselves more on doing and less on reading. A distinct culture has been built there, made up of shared representations, which everyone takes up without really knowing their origin. The conquest of space is one of the dominant narratives of Silicon Valley”recalls Fred Turner, professor at Stanford (California).
You have 50.03% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.