Greetings, JustSpace Alliance readers and followers. It continues to be a difficult time to think about humanity’s future in space, when the present here on Earth has no shortage of violence, cruelty, and injustice. Lisa Grossman’s recent piece “On moonshots and Minneapolis” poignantly captures this contradiction, describing the author’s challenge in mustering excitement for the possible return of humans to the lunar surface while living in the U.S. city of Minneapolis during a violent immigration enforcement deployment by federal agents.

Even during today’s struggles for justice and peace on this planet, efforts continue to work for a more ethical future in space and on Earth. This month, we spoke with George Profitiliotis about his work as a futures studies researcher considering astrobiology-related problems. George is particularly interested in planetary protection, the efforts to avoid cross-contamination of biological matter and life between Earth and the space environment. The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

Q&A with George Profitiliotis

Can you tell me about your current positions?

I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. I’m also a research scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. I’m a SETI Institute affiliate, and I am a member of the coordinating committee and an international affiliate of the SETI Post-Detection Hub at the University of St. Andrews.

An impressive list! Can you tell me more about your career path and how you ended up in these positions?

I’m actually an engineer. I studied electrical and computer engineering in Greece. I was interested in astronomy and space science; however, getting into astronomy or space science in Greece is pretty much a dead end, because there are no career prospects. So, when I was applying for universities, after the examination that we have after high school in Greece, I targeted engineering schools, because of the career prospects.

I entered the National Technical University of Athens, in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and then I tried to get as interdisciplinary of a background as I could. I selected four specialization tracks that were pretty diverse: networks and telecommunications, energy systems, industrial applications, and biomedical engineering. Then after I finished my engineer’s degree, I was applying for master’s degrees in aerospace engineering, but it was a tough time in terms of scholarships available, so I made a trade-off, and I entered a master’s program on environment and development at the same university, the National Technical University of Athens, which was focused on sustainability issues. But it was pretty interdisciplinary, which was what I needed back then to start pivoting towards space exploration through the long path.

Then it was through that master’s program that I started engaging more with space sustainability matters. For example, I started looking into the orbital debris situation from a sustainability perspective, space-based solar power, closed ecological life support systems, or bioregenerative life support systems, and things like that.

This is how I discovered planetary protection, and I was sure that this is what I needed to look into in more detail with Ph.D. research. So I started preparing a couple of proposals for Ph.D.s, specifically on planetary protection. It was impossible to secure funding [for experimental research in planetary protection] during that period of time, so I then shifted my topic again into planetary protection policy. The good thing is that my master’s degree prepared me for that, because it was interdisciplinary enough to also cover matters related to policy, governance, economics, environmental economics, the environmental humanities, environmental psychology. And I also had some interdisciplinary courses when I was in engineering school, so I could make that pivot work.

So I started working on the environmental economics aspects of planetary protection policy, because I realized back then that nobody had done that before. I mean, there have been some discussions about the environmental ethics of planetary protection and planetary protection policy, but nobody had attempted to see whether environmental economics might be applicable.

I finished that part of my work, the theoretical and also empirical investigation of applying environmental economics to the problem of planetary protection. And I used a future, imaginary planetary planetary policy at the national level as a case study, which is standard in policy evaluations in environmental economics. So this is how I started getting more into the research of working with the future. I had been working with futures studies in general ever since I started my master’s degree: territorial foresight, regional foresight. But during my PhD, I understood that this is one of these cases where economics also enters the field of futures studies, so I thought that delving more deeply into futures studies could essentially help me find other theories and methods that I could then bring into the field of space exploration and astrobiology.

And that was a long way of entering the field of futures studies in astrobiology and space exploration. I have worked as a strategic foresight expert for several years in Greece, and I’ve done two postdocs applying strategic foresight on different things. One of them was astrobiology. And this is my third postdoc now, where I’m doing the same for floating solar power production in the Netherlands.

And then the other positions, like the affiliations with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and the SETI Post-Detection Hub, gradually emerged through discussions and collaborations with people working in these organizations. It took several turns and shifts in my career, and also several conferences, and a lot of work that other people thought might be interesting for these fields that led me to these positions.

What is it about planetary protection that made you want to focus on it so much?

I think it is a very neglected matter, in terms of space policy, and in terms of space exploration in general. It’s not common for people to actually be aware of planetary protection. Sometimes they are aware through speculative fiction works, like TV series or movies or books, but not through the research, unless they are specifically interested in that because of prior exposure to the concept itself. I mean, I didn’t even myself know the concept existed before I accidentally discovered it when I was researching bioregenerative life support systems and their potential for contaminating the outer space environment.

Which is why I find it very interesting in terms of its practical implications, if we start seeing more and more human-grade missions on the Mars surface, or perhaps even on the lunar surface, although the Moon is not one of the priority targets for applying planetary protection. Consensus on planetary protection can change, but it might be too late to change after you have discovered something that’s worth protecting, right? So I’m a little bit cautious in terms of expanding the human microbiome beyond Earth, and I think that we should put as much effort as possible into making sure that no irreversible damage is done. Especially when we have really no clue about what might be there, and we’re just making theoretical predictions based on the incomplete information that we have.

As far as the forward contamination aspect of planetary protection is concerned (contaminating other celestial bodies with terrestrial biological material), I think that it’s worth considering not contaminating them. Even that consideration is not really something that crosses people’s minds, so there’s a need to start talking about that more broadly, because when people hear about that, then usually they stop and think about that for a little bit. And then they can evaluate that as: “Well, [avoiding contamination] is my priority,” or “My priority is to have humans on Mars.” But the fact that they [initially] didn’t know that there is a potential risk posed to the extraterrestrial environment of Mars by having humans there means that we need to be proactive for them, as well. We must not assume that people are just completely fine with damaging potential extraterrestrial ecosystems, or remnants of them.

So that is one part. As far as the backward contamination part is concerned, preventing backward contamination [of the terrestrial environment] should be part of a comprehensive biohazard prevention strategy and biosecurity policies. These fields are also, unfortunately, experiencing governance voids. For example, the readers might want to look into the Biological Weapons Convention. This is a really problematic situation right now. I think that preventing backward contamination is just being prudent, if you come from a strategic foresight perspective. It is never a cost, it is always an investment. We should invest in bringing the prevention of backward contamination into standard biosecurity policies, even if it is just a wildcard event. We will thank ourselves later if something happens.

I really liked your point about forward contamination and how most people haven’t considered it. I run into this so much in different space ethics topics: The pessimistic part of me thinks that people don’t care, but in fact, most of them just haven’t thought about these issues before. And once they think about it, it turns out they do care.

Yes, that is true. I’ve found that, at least in Greece, there’s only a very small number of the population that actually, economically speaking, doesn’t care (i.e., they economically prioritize other topics as more important than that). But there are others who are willing to pay for planetary protection, or would be willing to pay if they could actually afford an additional expenditure. If I can recall that correctly, I think only something like 15% of the Greek population (who are vastly uninformed about these matters) are economically uninterested in supporting the prevention of forward and backward contamination, especially for Mars.

So I would say that it would be to the best of our interest to start spreading the word about planetary protection again. The more people hear about that, the more they will start thinking about it, and that might lead us to much better outcomes in the future.

Do you have any advice for students in STEM who might be interested in transitioning to this kind of policy or foresight work?

I would advise them to, first of all, prepare themselves for a pretty long and difficult path. They might need a lot of patience in the duration of these transitions.

The things that are absolutely important are, first of all, taking interdisciplinary classes. For example, technology ethics or science ethics, if you have that, or sociology of technology, or any sort of social sciences crossed with science or technology. Also any sort of economic classes, unless you already have them in your curriculum, would be great.

Otherwise, you would have to do all the reading yourself. This is also not a problem! Most of the things that I’ve been doing research on, I have been studying myself, because I didn’t have these course offerings in any of my degrees. For example, I’ve worked a lot on monster theory and monster studies. There are very few places in the world where people are actually teaching that, and you need to have a background in other things to be able to take these classes. So I just decided, “Well, I’m going to create this background myself.” I was auditing other classes in the psychology and philosophy departments next door, and I found it very rewarding to audit and follow these courses, and then go back and study these matters, even if I didn’t have access to such interdisciplinary courses in my own degrees.

Another thing that I did was take a lot of these massive online courses. These are really no-cost, significant contributions to one’s knowledge. For example: neuroanatomy. I would never have the opportunity to have a class in neuroanatomy without actually being a medical doctor or a neuroscientist. I had to sacrifice a lot of time, but these were free offerings that academics made possible for us, and I really thank them for this service they did for all these students like myself who could not access this sort of knowledge otherwise.

So I would advise people to self-study topics that they cannot find in the curriculum, or take interdisciplinary classes if they can find them. Take any opportunity for scholarships for interdisciplinary master degrees. If your other option is a single disciplinary master degree, prefer the interdisciplinary one or the transdisciplinary one, especially if you have the opportunity to apply academic knowledge to policy areas.

Are there any particular fiction stories from novels or television or movies that inspired your work or your interest in space, or your work on planetary protection?

Implicitly, I’m very much interested in monsters, in how different cultures conceptualize monsters. I think that extraterrestrial life is a pretty good candidate for monsterization, if it is ever found. Now that I think several decades backwards, I think this is what actually guided me in having an interest in space exploration and astrobiology. It’s not the vastness of space, or the potential for doing stuff in space, not in an engineering sense. It is more about what a discovery of life might mean there, and how this might be connected to the things that interested me at a young age. I was very much interested in mythological monsters, folklore, and this is still a fundamental academic interest of mine. I’m also actually writing folk horror and speculative fiction based on folklore, especially Greek folklore. I was always interested in why monsters were conceptualized in the first place, and I think that extraterrestrial life as a candidate for monsterization actually pulls me in that direction, not science fiction. I’m surprised to think about that myself, now.

That’s a fascinating way to find your way into the world of astrobiology! What is your ideal vision of humanity’s future relationship with space?

That’s also pretty difficult to capture, but let’s start with, let’s say, a peaceful presence. Nowadays, this is not just an add-on or an extra thing to say. It has to be the fundamental thing to say: We should have a peaceful presence that is not solely focused on satisfying human interests, but has some sort of a multi-species component.

It’s also quite difficult to pin down, because in the case that we take other terrestrial life forms with us for instrumental use, we might accidentally increase the sheer amount of suffering possible, by expanding the presence of sentient species that can actually feel suffering beyond Earth, while not significantly caring for them. We are already doing that on Earth. We are massively expanding the scope of non-human animal suffering with the animal farming industry, especially intensive animal farming. That’s why I find it pretty difficult to think about that: The human future in outer space requires careful and prudent and responsible planning in the sense of “What do we owe other terrestrial lifeforms?” and whether we could actually harm them if we take them with us.

For example, a lot of research that is currently done in biogenerative life support systems involve fish as a fantastic, protein-rich food source. Fish are sentient animals, and they can suffer a lot. There is work pointing towards the sentience of decapods, like shrimp, for example, that are also intensively farmed on Earth. So if we were to see intensive farming conditions for fish or shrimp on the Moon or beyond– because of the fact that aquatic animals are fantastic to farm [in space], because they are already operating in the floating condition, so the reduced gravity would not really make a mass difference to them– we could massively expand the amount of animal minds that are suffering, just to make our presence possible there.

If we were to expand our presence beyond the Earth, we need to systematically start thinking about our duties as potential seeders of life. Just taking these animals with us, as a first step, might not seem such an important topic because of the small scale, but these things tend to get slippery afterwards. Once an industry gets locked in to a particular technology, it is quite difficult to unlock it and take it to another trajectory, so it is usually more prudent to prevent a specific pathway from getting established. Otherwise, it will be much, much more difficult later on.

Secondly, if we were very sure that [a space environment] did not host native life, this still does not absolve us of our responsibility [to that environment]. You need to start thinking about the integrity of celestial bodies that are “lifeless” in that sense. This still requires a lot of ethical deliberation and a lot of decisions to be made with duty kept in mind.

And let’s say that we eventually decide that some place needs to be used by the terrestrial biosphere: for example, because of the need for the rest of life to continue after the Sun has expanded and engulfed the solar system. Let’s just assume that for a moment. Then the question becomes: How do we set up a copy of the terrestrial biosphere in another place, even if we resolve all the previous ethical questions that I mentioned? Because on Earth, wild animals suffer greatly. This is just part of the biosphere and how it operates: predator-prey dynamics, illnesses. It’s basic population dynamics, and how populations get balanced: animals die out in what is usually a very painful death. So if we were to replicate, let’s say, part of the terrestrial biosphere on another lifeless celestial body, after a lot of ethical deliberation, how do we do that? Do we do that as it is? I mean, do we just start propagating the same suffering all over the world, all over the universe, or wherever we have the potential to reach, with arks or other kinds of missions? Or do we take a prudent stance and say, “Well, it’s now our responsibility to see that the worlds that we are seeding are free of the things that evolved by necessity on Earth,” because now evolution will not be by necessity, it will be by design, by human design.

This is the most difficult challenge right now, as I think about the expansion of human and other terrestrial presence in space. Do we eliminate carnivory? Do we design ecosystems that do not involve several trophic levels? Is there another way to have evolution by natural selection, ensuring the survival of other species without the suffering of individual organisms at the subspecies level? Do individual, wild animals always have to suffer for their species to continue functioning, for the biosphere to continue functioning? Is the life that we propagate in outer space, by necessity, based on suffering, or is there another way? Finding another way might be one of the most important contributions that humans can make to the presence of life in the universe in general.

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