The year 2026 marks the great return of manned space ambitions: French mission to the ISS, Artémis 2 project around the Moon, Elon Musk’s Martian promises. Is it a vital horizon for humanity or a technological luxury that is as expensive as it is uncertain?
Catherine Van Offelen is a philosopher. She published Risquer la prudence at Gallimard, in 2025.
2026, cosmic year. French astronaut Sophie Adenot flew to the International Space Station (ISS) on February 13 for eight months. After multiple postponements, NASA’s Artemis 2 mission should take off on the evening of April 1 to transport astronauts around the Moon, which had not been accomplished since 1972. Would we return to the great fever of space exploration of the 1970s? In the wake of conquest, in the fever of enthusiasm, in the hope of discoveries, an angry question always arises: is it really useful to send humans into space?
The cosmonaut could respond in the manner of the British mountaineer George Mallory, who was asked before the war why he wanted to climb Everest: “Because he is there.” The aporia is clever, the argument a little short to justify the hundreds…
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