The successes of Shuttle Discovery and Bigelow's Genesis-1 are good news to those who see human expansion into space as a vital way of providing for future generations. However, as Michael Huang points out in his Space Review article this week, there are some who not only see no human future in space but would prefer there be no long-term human future at all. Welcome to the bizarre world of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT).
Of course, the repulsion of VHEMT lies in the end of humankind: the loss of cumulative achievements in the arts and sciences, the elimination of countless future human lives, and the end of intelligent life on Earth. Of great consequence is the loss of a future for life itself.
Do we take the path of seeking the death of the human species or the path of expanding to welcome and provide for future generations of human beings? This question once again frames what Pope John Paul II so aptly described as a conflict between a culture of death and a culture of life.
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