Biology first

We have to deal with the colony as a biological system, a wonderfully complex problem that O'Neill's groups have yet to give more than lip service to. We understand that as physicists they're not really capable of--or necessarily inter- ested in--dealing with it, but the current strategy of ignoring that aspect and going on with the design until some biologists- come along and take care of the problem is ridiculously naive. For one thing, it's the best way not to attract biologists to work with you. In our experience with the MIT group, almost no time was given to considering the biosystem since it wasn’t a common interest and few people had any biological train- ing. They had no faith in our necessarily inadequate descrip- tions of the complexities involved, and boundless faith in biologists’ abilities to modify life forms to suit their needs.

Far from being tailored--or kluged--to fit the physical design of the colony, the ecosystem it will contain must to a large degree dictate that design. For instance, plants may grow in a nitrogen-free atmosphere because they get their nitrogen in a different form from bacteria in the soil. But where do you suppose the bacteria get it from? And as soon as you decide to dispense with the bacteria and fertilize directly with chemicals instead you've upset your minimum- energy equilibrium, and since you don’t know what other functions plants (or something else in the food web) need those bacteria for, you're treading on shaky ground. This is tragic, for both the biologists who could have, in the design and eventual realization of space colonies, the perfect incen- tive and paradigm for exploring the Gaia hypothesis, and for the colony designers who, without an understanding of that hypothesis and its implications, will end up with an ugly and costly failure. ...

Space colonization isn't something to rush into, and then be locked into, as a means to profit. Developed with care, as an end in itself, the space colony can be a most fertile in- spiration, forcing/leading us to learn the meanings in the structure of communities, the balance of biological sufficien- cy, and the qualities of a sane technology, lest we export the amorphous, imbalanced insanities we live with now. Consider that the building of worlds is the work of gods. Evolution is metamorphosis; when we leave Earth in a world we have created we will be literally and metaphorically leav- ing the cradle. The question is whether we break out of a ruin like a virus exploding from a shattered cell, or leave Earth as a child leaves a playpen, no longer needed but ready for the next sibling. The virus is a degenerate fragment that just replicates on; the child grows towards limits we haven't yet found.

-Doug and Missy Mink
Brookline, Massachusetts

[PDF of page in CQ] [Biology first in archive.org] [CoEvolution Quarterly, Spring 1976]