The emergence of private space companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX has brought a new dynamic to the space industry. Thanks to Musk, launch costs, which remained static for approximately forty years during the era of state-dominated space travel, have fallen by 80 percent. Musk’s innovative spacecraft is making things possible that, until recently, many people thought impossible. However, criticism is also growing.

Musk argues that mankind essentially has a duty to colonize other planets because sooner or later an asteroid impact could lead to the extinction of our species. His objective is to colonize Mars, with the potential goal of transforming it into a second Earth through the process of “terraforming.”

Opponents of private space travel see this as a major threat and are advocating for strict bans and extensive government regulation. As always, the battle begins in the universities. In her book Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race, the American religious studies scholar Mary-Jane Rubenstein criticizes any such plans, arguing that Mars belongs to the microbes – if there are even any on Mars. Since this is not certain, she defends the rights of rocks on Mars and criticizes a “Western antimineralism,” namely, “a tendency to value those rocks........

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