MMM Classics Year 10: MMM #s 91-100 - Moon Society

e a loner, a recluse, a hermit.
On the Moon that will be much more difficult and
certainly less rewarding. For one thing, on Earth one leaves the
city and the town for rural and rustic areas to “get closer to
Nature”. On the Moon, Nature as life will exist only within
farm town biospheres. The larger the urban population, the
greater, more luxuriant and diverse its biosphere is likely to be.
This turns all terrestrial experience on its head, and the
cultural-spiritual implications will be profound. The larger the
“xity” [a community contained within its own biosphere], the
greater the numbers of opportunities to find rewarding work in
agricultural, pastoral, even “wild” settings. On the Moon we
will learn that we can “commune” with Nature with more depth
if we do so alongside our fellows, not apart from them.
Working with the antisocial
If the message of Tanstaafl is the soul of the frontier,
it is even more true that we can afford to lose no one’s
productivity to the luxury of righteous exile from society. To
lock up people “where they can do no harm” means as well
locking them up “where they can do no good”. On the Moon as
anywhere we will find the antisocial, the criminal, those
seeking to get their own at the expense of others instead of
along with them. But on the space frontier, rechanneling and
redirecting the self-fulfillment energies of such individuals will
be a much more productive thing to do. “Revenge is mine” says
the Lord. Maybe on the Moon we will finally decide to take
heed. In a society, when we excommunicate a member, we all
become less for it. Practicing apartheid for misfits is an
admission that we have all failed, not just the individual we
separate from ourselves. And repatriation to Earth will be a
doubly expensive option as the passage of a replacement along
with his orientation and training must be paid as well.
The very nature of the frontier means that there will
be a lot of jobs that are more difficult and more dangerous to
do. That does not make them any the less fulfilling or capable
of inducing a sense of self-worth. Such jobs can absorb a lot of
“hostile energies”. Opening new roads, pioneering new remote
settlements, exploring lavatube mazes, establishing outposts on
asteroids are all things worth doing.
“Misfits” and “offenders” can be given the choice of
signing up for such duty living in communities of their peers in
which they are given all the knowledge and tools to do the job
and tasks at hand - but no bars, no guards, no warden, thank
you. The assignees can elect and impeach their own leaders on
the basis of accomplishment and its consequent shared
rewards. Spontaneous justice will quickly purge those who
slack off at the expense of others. To survive, one must play
the game, and in the process learn how to be a citizen. [see
MMM # 35 MAY ‘90, p.3, “Ports of Pardon”]
In general, on the frontier, it will be to everyone’s
benefit that whatever help is necessary be given to bring out
the best in those who are, for one reason or another, showing
difficulty in playing a productive role. This means working to
integrate the handicapped, the injured, the aged, and the
developmentally challenged into activities that contribute to the
cultural commonwealth. The very fact of doing so and finding
effective ways to channel concern for others for whom “it
doesn’t come easy” is bound to have a significant effect on the
spirituality quotient of the settlement(s) as a whole.
The Space Frontier and Monasticism
We might define a monastery as an all male, or all
female recruit-replenished vow-celibate community in which
spirituality and meditation sublimate the needs for active
sexual life and compensatory creature comforts along with
dedication to yeoman work beneficial to humanity in exchange
for those material needs which they are not able to meet
through their own industry and resourcefulness.
In the past such duties have included scribe service,
and the maintenance of ancient documents. More recently,
monasteries have earned their keep by economic activities
which in themselves hardly set them apart, e.g. winemaking.
But on the space frontier, should enough men and
women heed the very personal call to set themselves apart from
all “the world” holds dear in order to dedicate themselves and
their lives to some higher service, monasteries could fill some
important needs. This will serve an even more valuable
purpose in locations with little appeal (if only for the total lack
of any place to spend “discretionary income”) or on tedious
tasks with little reward.
Some examples:
(1) Staffing a Farside Advanced Radio Astronomy
Facility [F.A.R.A.F.] dedicated to S.E.T.I., and/or serving as
support staff for a professional staff of astronomers and their
assistants. In this capacity they could do construction, raise
crops, catalog and examine data, etc.
(2) Building, incessantly adding to, and maintaining
some Grand Archives of all Humanity and Gaia in a lunar
lavatube secure for the eons against the ravages of cosmic
weather. Here would be stored all of the ever accumulating
mass of human knowledge: science, theory, religion, culture,
(literature, entertainment, religion and belief, performing and
plastic arts and crafts); knowledge of Earth present and past
(archeological finds and reconstructions, fossil traces) and
succeeding alternate visions of the future. Everything stored or
preserved on Earth is vulnerable to natural disasters (flood,
earthquake, tornado, hurricane, fire, dry rot, insect attack,
mold, and the sin of all sins, deliberate destruction as in the
burning of the Library of Alexandria or of the Mayan scrolls,
both by religious fanatics (may they burn in the hell of hells).
A successful transplant of monasticism to the Moon
could serve us well elsewhere; a) Crewing multi-year-long
supply runs to and from the outer solar system. It might take
four to seven years one way to run supplies from Earth to an
outpost on Iapetus (Saturn), much longer still to Uranus or
Neptune; b) Staffing remote observatories, for example a solar
polar observatory on Pallas with its off the beaten track 35˚
orbital inclination to the ecliptic; c) Or lifetime staffing of
exploration outposts in the outer solar system to and from
which regular crew rotation may always be quite impractical.
Conclusion
The Moon will be a life setting unlike anything in the
whole of previous human experience. The differences with
Earth, in so far as they will impact personal spirituality and
religious sensitivities are significant. For individuals and
human society as a whole the spiritual repercussions of lunar
settlement may be profound. PK
Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 10 - Republished January 2006 - Page 72