Milestones in the Philosophy, Ethics and History of Science (
forthcoming)
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Abstract
There is a vast amount of research data accumulating from space exploration on the topics of impacts, symmetries, habitable zone, chemical compositions, atmosphere, climate and geology. The related facts, sayings and relations need to be evaluated by a theory of decision based on strategies of reflection on empirical research and cooperation. More and more suitable technological applications, appropriate inventions and innovations are being introduced for the implementation of the objective to find interstellar habitat. A logic of space science and technology is being, therefore, continuously articulated and innovated through focusing on efficiency, computability, polyvalence, feedback control etc. This effort needs also to be assisted by a reevaluation of conceptual and mathematical frameworks, with the adoption of new physical definitions and new units of measurement. Otherwise, the whole effort remains impeded by its own entitlement.
An example of the requirement for conceptual reevaluation is the increasing significance of astrobiology, on account of the quest for water, life and habitable planets. Hereby philosophy of physics meets the philosophy of biology, so far as the concepts of life and non-life could plausibly be reconsidered by space exploration, while ethical problems on the value of space medicine, health and information arise, as well.
An example of the urgent requirement for reflection and reevaluation of mathematical frameworks is the task for an efficient motion of spacecraft to the interstellar medium, to Proxima Centauri b and other exoplanets. Such a task should require the adoption of new units of measurement, for instance, of the magnitude of ~6.000 km/s (30 times faster than the Parker Solar Probe), being thus better comparable to the speed of light (since ~6.000 km/s equals to 1/50 or 2% of the speed of light).
However, the most significant instant of the challenge to reflection is the role of the magnetosphere, the magnetic fields and dynamos for the development and the motion of the planets of our solar system and exoplanets. A successful procedure to explaining the contribution of the magnetic field to planetary dynamics may help us answer serious scientific questions and probably may crucially contribute to the discovery of a new unified physical theory of everything.