Earth in Human Hands

by David Grinspoon

  Throughout the early years of the twenty-first century, Zaitsev and his Russian colleagues continued their occasional series of messages from the Crimea to the stars. In addition to the Teen Age Message, they sent Cosmic Calls I and II, which were constructed along principles similar to those behind Drake’s original Arecibo message, but contained significantly more information. Unlike Drake’s broadcast, these were aimed toward relatively nearby Sun-like stars. So, if anyone wishes to extend the courtesy of a reply, we could expect it in the next century or two. Between May 24 and July 1, 1999, Cosmic Call I was transmitted four times to four different stars, each between fifty and seventy light-years away. Each transmission lasted for four hours. On July 6, 2003, Zaitsev’s team broadcast Cosmic Call II to five Sun-like stars at distances between thirty and forty-five light-years, some of which have recently been shown to have planets orbiting them. Cosmic Call II was expanded to include a number of items that will probably be puzzling to any alien interceptors but are meaningful for present-day and future humans studying the broadcast, such as pictures by Russian schoolchildren and the song “Starman,” by David Bowie.

  Despite these efforts, nobody has really blown our cover yet. Zaitsev and Drake, and a handful of jokesters, stunt broadcasters, and self-appointed interstellar deejays, have, a few times, called out indecorously toward the stars in a stage whisper. Yet nobody is going to get Drake’s original message. Even if we were actually worried about triggering a response that could come as soon as fifty thousand years, it turns out that, in reality, in twenty-five thousand years, when the radio waves reach that far, the targeted stars of M13 will no longer be where they were when the broadcast was made. For all practical purposes that message was aimed at nothing. Zaitsev, so far, hasn’t given us away, either. His messages were so brief that residents of these planets would notice them only if they had already been continuously and intensively monitoring Earth. The only listeners who could conceivably pick up these targeted blasts are nearby, tech-savvy, and already regarding us with curiosity. They would already know about us and if they are there then the universe is so densely crawling with curious technological minds (a possibility that seems incredible but has not yet been ruled out) that it matters little what we do because our presence is already noted.

  To date, all of these messages to aliens are really messages to Earth. They remind us of our tiny place in a big universe, demonstrate our latent ability to start reaching beyond our terrestrial nursery, and also subversively call attention to our common humanity in implicit contrast to whoever else might be out there.

  Who Speaks for Earth?

  After talking it over with all the main protagonists, I wrote an article for SEED magazine summing up the conflict. Entitled “Who Speaks for Earth?”* it was published in late 2007 and concluded:

  Even if no one else is out there and we are ultimately alone, the idea of communicating with truly alien cultures forces us to consider ourselves from an entirely new, and perhaps timely, perspective. Even if we never make contact, any attempt to act and speak as one planet is not a misguided endeavor: Our impulsive industrial transformation of our home planet is starting to catch up to us, and the nations of the world are struggling with existential threats like anthropogenic climate change and weapons of mass destruction. Whether or not we develop a mechanism for anticipating, discussing, and acting on long-term planetary dangers such as these before they become catastrophes remains to be seen. But the unified global outlook required to face them would certainly be a welcome development.

  I began to see this as a series of dilemmas nested like Russian dolls. Can today’s SETI community agree on a policy about active SETI? Even if collectively forged and broadly ratified, would such an agreement actually control or change global behavior, as perceived from the outside? How would you get everyone to go along? Can human society in some sense agree on active SETI? Should we, as a species, cautiously try to hide our presence, or hopefully announce ourselves to the universe? Beyond the scientific politics, there is a deeper story here, of humanity struggling to find its coherent voice, its place, and a sense of self strong enough to survive local and self-imposed threats, let alone those that come from other star systems.

  The question of how we should present ourselves to the cosmos hinges on what kind of behavior we expect from our brothers from another planet. We filter this question through our ideas about human nature and our suspicions about the universal nature of sentient life: Do we have any basis from which to predict the ethics of advanced technological aliens? That depends on where you think moral and ethical principles come from. Can they be derived from universal logic? From the laws of thermodynamics? From evolutionary theory? Or do morals come from God? We may not have any answers, but in thinking about the possible morals of alien species we consider these questions from a wider perspective.

  Is it incumbent upon us, as would-be participants in the interstellar chat room, to stop lurking and to reveal ourselves? At some point, some wise species must break the silence. Yet are we anywhere near that point? If not, what do we have to do to get there? The question forces us to consider where we are in the potential spectrum of advanced technological, intelligent life-forms.

  I was gratified when, after my SEED piece was published, the partisans on either side seemed pleased with it, and remained friendly to me. When Brin, Shostak, Zaitsev, and others all praised my summation, it furthered my sense that common ground could, in fact, be found. In this piece, I expressed hope that the impasse could soon be resolved, and pointed out the many areas of agreement.

  Unfortunately, people get entrenched and divisions tend to solidify. After Valencia, nothing much seemed to happen. No agreements were made, and the community was left in an unhappy standoff. Brin tried several times to create a forum for wider discussion of the issue, beyond the narrow boundaries of SETI insiders. “As newcomers in a strangely quiet Cosmos, shall we shout for attention?” he wrote,

  Or is it wiser to continue quiet listening? We propose an interdisciplinary symposium, to be the most eclectic and inclusive forum, by far, to deliberate the METI issue. It is not too much to ask that METI people hold back until the world’s open, scientific community can get a chance to examine their proposal.

  He pushed for a plenary session at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This is the world’s largest general scientific society, and the huge annual gatherings always highlight, in addition to new scientific results, discussions of societal and policy issues related to science. Despite the name, it is increasingly an international meeting, and would make a good forum for starting global discussions. For several years Brin’s proposal went nowhere. The organizers of the meeting did not feel that a discussion of sending messages to aliens was worthy of such an august gathering of serious scientists.

  Planetary Protection

  After several years of stasis, this conflict has recently flared up again. Doug Vakoch, a social scientist, has stated his intention to initiate a new program of active SETI broadcasts using the powerful Arecibo antenna. For sixteen years Vakoch was at the SETI Institute, with the job title of Director of Interstellar Message Composition. Recently, he left to direct METI International, a nonprofit dedicated to preparing and sending messages to extraterrestrials. It’s not clear if Vakoch will get the support and permission he needs from the National Science Foundation, which controls the telescope, but he has kicked the hornet’s nest, riling up the opposition and sparking a new round of intense debate. Vakoch argues that his plan is really just an expanded kind of SETI search, a way to find those civilizations that may be merely waiting for a signal from us to begin a dialogue. We might need to prompt a response from them, initiate contact ourselves. Unlike Zaitsev’s moral arguments for the necessity of sending messages, Vakoch’s are pragmatic. He regards the initiation of systematic broadcasts as a useful strategy to help achieve the goal of SETI. It is, after all, possible, that the Great Silence would end as soon as
someone received a poke from us. It might be up to us to get this started.

  This reminds me of something Art Bell described when I was on his radio show, Coast to Coast AM, a few years ago. Bell, an avid ham radio enthusiast, told me a frequent experience is to tune in and at first hear just long stretches of complete stillness. After listening for a while, though, it sometimes becomes apparent that there is a whole crowd there, just waiting for somebody to break the silence, at which point, suddenly, everybody chimes in at once. It is conceivable, I suppose, that interstellar radio could be in that state, full of lurkers who are shy or not convinced we are ready for conversation. In this case, someone needs to break the ice. Vakoch believes it is worth a try.

  Given the resurgent controversy, Jill Tarter proposed that the AAAS hold a public debate on the question. With her gravitas in the scientific community, her proposal was successful. The symposium, Active SETI: Is It Time to Start Transmitting to the Cosmos? was held at the AAAS meeting in San Jose, California, on February 13, 2015. I was pleased to be invited to speak, along with Brin, Shostak, Vakoch, and U.S. District Court judge David Tatel, with Jill Tarter presiding. Holding the symposium at the AAAS was something of a victory for David Brin, who had been trying for years to get such a hearing at this or some equivalent highly visible professional venue.

  The day before the symposium, we all spoke at a press conference organized by AAAS (and also attended by Frank Drake) that generated a large number of articles about the controversy. What science writer could resist a debate about the dangers of communicating with potentially hostile aliens? Taking advantage of the fact that we were all in town, a daylong workshop was arranged at the SETI Institute for the day after the symposium, where we could involve more people and hash things out less in public and more in detail.

  When I was invited by Jill to participate in these events I was heavily immersed in this book, reading, thinking, and writing daily on the Anthropocene and its cosmic dimensions. I began to see the METI debate as emblematic of many of the dilemmas we are facing as part of this planetary transition in which cognition is starting to play a central role in the workings of the planet.

  As the reluctant carriers of those inchoate global cognitive processes, we have some choices to make. Changing Earth’s visibility in the galaxy is one of many actions that could affect every inhabitant of Earth (not just the human ones). These are discussions we can’t really have without considering ourselves as long-term global actors responsible to the planet as a whole. We’ll have to act without ever completely understanding the risks, so how do we decide whether it is worth it? Who is “we”? Who gets to decide? Even if we’re able to choose what seems a wise course of collective action, what is to prevent some individual or group from acting alone? In all these dimensions, the active SETI debate is similar to questions about other technologies with global consequences that can open doors to dangers and/or opportunities. In my AAAS presentation, I tried to draw upon a few useful analogies.

  The first of these is “planetary protection.” This is the term we use at NASA for our efforts to guard against inadvertent interplanetary contamination. It seems like a very long shot that our little spacecraft could end up being the vector bringing some horrible infection between worlds. Yet, given our ignorance, and the very high stakes of being wrong, it is appropriate to exercise caution. From the very beginning of planetary exploration, NASA has taken this responsibility seriously.

  Though the opportunity to explore space came on the coattails of a Cold War that threatened planetary devastation, the scientists designing planetary craft on both sides acted with great sensitivity to possible threats to Earth’s biosphere—and other potential biospheres. Early in the space age, international committees were formed and guidelines adopted. NASA and the Soviet space agency both instituted policies of sterilizing spacecraft intended to impact, or even pass near, other planets. They did so even when it meant increasing costs or compromising mission goals.

  In 1967, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom ratified the UN Outer Space Treaty. The legal basis for planetary protection lies in Article IX of this treaty:

  States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose…

  This treaty has since been signed by almost all nation-states, including all the current and aspiring space-faring countries. Additional recommendations adopted in 1997 require that when Mars samples are returned to Earth, they should be contained and treated as hazardous until proven safe. Further, it is agreed that if sample containment cannot be verified en route, the sample should not be returned.

  Are these real threats that we need to take seriously? It certainly doesn’t seem like it. Diseases and parasites on Earth have evolved in close concert with their hosts, and the same should be true of evolution anywhere. The chances that a streptococcus bacterium could infect a truly alien life form seems to be zero, and it’s likely that our cells would be hostile environments to alien germs. Rather than a home, a host, or a food source, we would seem like poisonous monstrosities to be avoided by any creatures that evolved with their own unique biochemistry.

  Yet it would be wrong to be overconfident here, for two reasons. One is the possibility that our learned opinions could be false. To the modern, scientifically informed mind, it seems incredibly unlikely that Martian organisms could infect humans or other terrestrial organisms. Yet how unlikely is “incredibly,” and is this good enough when we are talking about the possibility, however remote, of destroying life on Earth? Our ideas about life are both highly informed and based on complete ignorance. Biology and its subdisciplines and related sciences have made wondrous progress in understanding the rich biota and natural history of Earth. Yet we are in the dark about life elsewhere and how separate biospheres may interact with one another. So, while it seems that there should be no danger to us from Mars bugs, do we really want to bet the entire farm on our being right about this? I, and many scientists, strongly doubt that it would ever be a problem, but we do not know.

  The other reason to err on the side of caution is the issue of public trust. Policy is guided by, but not only by, expert opinion. We are exploring the solar system, extending our grasp beyond Earth “for all humankind,” and we owe it to our planetary compatriots to do so responsibly and with appropriate humility.

  We astrobiologists have had to face the possibility that, through our science and exploration, we could bring about low-probability events with horrible consequences. We look at our designs for curiosity-driven exploration and ask: what levels of risk are acceptable, and what is the right way for us to behave with respect to possible unknown life? We’re not just wondering about these questions in an abstract sense, or discussing them in seminars, but implementing policies and making real decisions about how to build and operate hardware based on the answers we reach, balancing our curiosity with responsibility.

  In the case of planetary protection, I think we’ve done things correctly, and I’m proud of my community for the way this has been handled. We have protocols in place to guard against both “forward contamination,” the possibility of carrying some harmful biological agent to other worlds, and “back contamination,” bringing back something dangerous from another planet that might contaminate Earth. To enact these, we have NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection, and there is even someone with the wonderful job title “planetary protection officer.” Since 2006, the job has been held by biologist Catharine “Cassie” Conley, who has worked diligently to guard Earth and the other planets from inadvertent contamination. Cassie comes across as serious and studious, but once, after dinner in Washington with a group of NASA people, I asked her if her job title invited a lot of Men in Black quest
ions. With little provocation, she suddenly reached into her purse, donned a pair of sleek black sunglasses, frowned seriously, and flashed a very official-looking “Planetary Protection Officer” badge at me.

  The fact that NASA has such a program makes me feel very good about working so closely with the agency for which I have sat on innumerable review panels and advisory boards, and that has funded most of my research throughout my career. I am well aware of the intertwined histories of warfare and space exploration, of how the moon rockets that got NASA off the ground and gripped me as a child were motivated by the dangerous nuclear arms race and largely designed by Nazi scientists who “aimed for the stars, but sometimes hit London.” Yet, after the Cold War ended, we kept on going, investigating the solar system with smaller budgets and greater international cooperation. These continued efforts required ingenuity and clever technology to do more with less, but were driven more by curiosity and less by deadly competition, and so carried less of a moral deficit. Given this history, I love that NASA is now a scientific agency with an ethical wing, the Office of Planetary Protection, meant to ensure that we not only do good science and exploration but that we also “first, do no harm.”

  Planetary scientists in general take this responsibility very seriously, and I regard this as a credit to our profession, a hint of maturity, a sign that when push comes to shove, we humans can rise to the challenge of melding ethics with science and do the right thing. Of course, implementing these principles always involves making educated guesses about what is safe, which carries with it all the gaping uncertainties in our knowledge about life in the universe.