“And now for something completely different” – Monty Python (1969)
Recently, a good friend sent me a list of 10 interesting space missions that are slated to occur in 2017. It looks to be a very exciting year, as NASA plans to launch the most advanced planet-hunting telescope yet and the number of privately funded space ventures continues to grow. There was one mission on this list however, that stood apart from all the others – far apart. It’s the launching of the first satellite associated with the birth of the “Space Nation” of Asgardia. You read that right – Space Nation – not space station. This is an endeavor to build a completely new country in space. While the effort has been entirely earthbound so far, and thus might be considered just fantasy, the funding and launching of a satellite this year does lend it some credibility.
Digging a little deeper, it turns out the founding father (yes – singular) of Asgardia is a Russian scientist named Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli. His ideas for Asgardia are both technical as well as philosophical in nature. In his own words, “The essence of Asgardia is Peace in Space, and the prevention of Earth’s conflicts being transferred into space”. I know, it seems fanciful. But there’s a lot more. Asgardia was self-declared as a nation this past October, and since then has been conducting an online sign-up for anyone wanting to apply for citizenship. While Dr. Ashurbeyli is the “Head of Nation” of Asgardia for now, a constitution is being written and formal government elections are to be held this June. So far, over 166,000 people have applied for citizenship to Asgardia. Since official citizenship won’t happen until the United Nations recognizes Asgardia as a country, all the applicants are presently considered members of the Asgardian “community”. Nevertheless, that number of people will make Asgardia the 168th most populous country once recognized. (Instinctively, I wanted to add the words “in the world” to the end of the previous sentence, but realized it didn’t make sense). For context, Guam is 167th. Among the various things needed for Asgardia to become an official country are a Flag, Motto, Insignia, Anthem, and Salutation. To that end, they’ve been holding “contests” for each of these items among those who’ve signed up. You can visit the website (https://asgardia.space/en/) and click the Contests tab to have a look at the entries. Thankfully, they’ve grouped the submissions for each item into several categories – Latest, Popular, In Order, Declined. As you can imagine, the most entertaining category (by far) is “Declined”.
The website also goes into some detail about the proposed philosophy of the new country in addition to its scientific goals. Another interesting and somewhat entertaining part of the site is the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section.
The sheer number of people who so quickly sign up for this kind of thing is amazing to me. Could this really work? Do we need it? There will hopefully be a point in our future when we either have figured out how to move people to another planet or onto a large enough space station to support an entire country. When that happens, there will be a legitimate need for some kind of government. What should it be like? The science fiction world has dramatized life in space for humans, and we can’t help but wonder if it was one of these fictional futures that many of the Asgardia applicants had in mind when signing up. That may explain a lot of the early enthusiasm. Star Trek and Star Wars stand as examples and are interesting to compare with the plan for Asgardia.
The Star Wars future is depicted without an “earth”, but still having people that look and act like us. While in the beginning of the tale there is the concept of an overall government leader (Chancellor) and even a “Senate”, governing happens at a very abstract level in this future. For the most part, people exist in either a regimented military structure, or they are ungoverned and fending for themselves. Rules, if they exist, appear to be created and imposed locally as needed and/or dictated. This future seems much more like the wild west and is also influenced by a form of mysticism (the “force”).
In the Star Trek future, all the countries of earth united into a single “World” government. There was a President and Cabinet, and that single governing body had purview over all the other places in the galaxy where earth humans had spread, including space stations. Only one set of laws were universally in use and every human respected them regardless of where they were. In addition, they had even gone to the next level and formed a “federation” among ourselves and willing alien cultures. In many respects, it was the idealized evolution of our existing government to one that simply includes everyone.
While not exactly matching either of these, the Asgardia framework does appear to contain elements of each which gives it a familiarity of sorts. Add to that utopian goals like “…serve entire humanity…”, “…protect planet earth from space threats…”, and create a “…free scientific base of knowledge in space…” and it’s understandable how Asgardia has a certain likability to it.
Of course, there are a range of other legitimate questions that arise for living beyond the boundaries of any existing earthbound country. Education systems, economies, identification, policing, birth, death and much more, take on a new meaning in this context. Would humans really be able to live in an idealized society like this for an extended period of time without devolving right back into patterns of behavior that divide us into separate groups like we’re in now? Even when you eliminate all the tongue-in-cheek applicants, the size of the remaining “genuine” Asgardia population is already far too large to be re-located in space with current technology. Therefore, the “inhabitants” of Asgardia will remain earthbound for the foreseeable future. Just enough core parts of the country’s technical infrastructure will be deployed in space as satellites, starting this year, so it can still be called a “space nation”. If nothing else, Asgardia will be a good social and philosophical experiment for how a new country could be formed once the technical capabilities to relocate people in space catches up. We will follow-up with an update after their elections this June.