There's dysentery, and there's vacuum-induced pressure differentials. Through the early to mid-19th century, trains of families, traders and their wagons sought out new lives and plots of land to claim down the Oregon Trail, risking a treacherous journey for a chance at success. It was a race where everything to subsist was huddled under the bonnet of a wagon, a road trip to unknown places.

Today, as politicians and economic entities start to see the industry of space as one of profitable minerals, resources, and perhaps valuable real estate, naturally the mythical heavens we once gazed upon will have the same dusty throb as that Great Migration. Humans may, with this gaining technology, disseminate themselves throughout the galaxies, like spores from a dandelion after a wind quickly kicks in. And as much as one would want the new frontier to center around curious exploration and innocuous adventures, we must consider and prepare for the possibility that space travel will only gain traction by commercial or contingent situations. Thus, the politics of space exploration will scale in the way that territory and borders, national or galactic, will beget some sort of policies to accommodate the application of theories such as Lockean property, if not derivatives. As of now, pioneering entities in the form of rovers and overhead satellites are relatively scarce in space, just as acres of land for one wagon did not require much regulation. These machine denizens find themselves independent of each other's immediate lives. If, as might be expected, more machines and explorers dock onto planets, comets, and asteroids, the population will grow closer and more interwoven, having to take account of each other--initiating in a code of conduct. Both machines and human settlers will have to develop thepolitics of outer space on a wider scale. It is important to ask questions: _______

Who owns a planet when the settlers have, thus far, all shared one together? Who has the right to the energy of stars? Is it as simple as planting a flag, or signing an earthly document? There are few things with a greater escape velocity than a well-entrenched bureaucracy.

If philosophically before the point of normalized peace, will nations soon send rovers and satellites capable of defending against illegal beachheads?

In alliance, will galactic and global harbors begin to export rare asteroids to other quadrants for commercial distribution? Thinking about globalized economy hundreds of years ago may have been as uncanny as thinking of an intergalactic economy today.

In spirit of the renowned and easily unbelievable Drake Equation, with at least 1000 to 100 million calculated civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy alone, the policies we implement may not be so amidst a blank slate after all. Just as past explorers conquered lands new only to their eyes, will we fall into the same manifest-destinesque mindset toward any places with life already present?

When we come to this point, we probably cannot use advanced technology or human bravado as a placeholder for thorough foresight and philosophy on how to make the universal vacuum into something that does not suck. These points are all things we can think about when considering the next era of expansion, assuming it comes. The age of the late 1960s space race saw who could plant a flag, but eventually we will see how they stay planted. Groups will see to risk toward new worlds (literally), to start new chapters, hurtling at relativistic speeds through blackness with resources in their cargo bays, hoping to find a fulfilling life. Marveling about space, we often see these ideas in a scientifically utopian light. Indeed, space exploration may seem like a simply fancy for daydreamers in the realm of what-ifs. However, realistically, social dynamics will still fly in those rockets, along with love, business hierarchy, entertainment, emotion, cities, music, artwork, families, and last but not least, politics. What is real and present now are people taking those what-ifs and finding solutions: beyond governmental initiatives such as China’s plans for missions to Mars by 2033, large private companies such as Musk’s SpaceX and Branson’s Virgin Galactic are effectively fronting the movement to take space travel into their own hands with logistics intact. And perhaps, when privatized space travel reminds people of what few hopeful minds can do, when the wind finally picks up to stir whole hopeful populations, we will find ourselves starry-eyed once more. Let’s be ready to handle that moment. This article was written by Michael Lukiman. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NASA