Building a new society in space

If any mission to the Moon or Mars is successful, how will people behave when they are free from Earth’s influence? Our space correspondent searches for answers.I like Star Trek as much as the next person. Probably more. But one thing has always bothered me: life on the Starship Enterprise may appear almost utopian but the way the ship – indeed the whole Federation is run – is essentially hierarchical. Humanity’s mission to “boldly go” is being undertaken by a quasi-military dictatorship. For a series originally billed by its creator as “wagon train in space”, it is hardly land of the free.

Is this really how we want to explore the cosmos and take our culture to the stars?

Now that there are proposals for private missions to the Moon, a plan to send a married couple to Mars and space agency ambitions to fly a crew of six into deep space to explore asteroids, this is no longer a theoretical question. If even only one or two of these schemes come to fruition, in the relatively near future, humans are going to be living in isolation beyond the direct influence of governments on Earth.