Standard of Care and Bioethics in Multinational Human Spaceflight Missions

Please join us in Mass General Hospital's historic Etherdome for a discussion looking toward the future of human spaceflight. Prof. Konrad Szocik will discuss how standard of care may play out in commercial exploration missions, addressing bioethics, the role of informed consent, the determination of acceptable risk, and accountability for the health and safety of human explorers. We will also consider who gains and who loses when the standard of care is shaped by national regulations, private contracts, but also mission pressure and profit orientation. In our discussion, we will place particular emphasis on issues of justice and equality, with a view to protecting high-risk participants and avoiding situations in which some people are at greater risk because they have less power or fewer options. We will draw attention to the status of traditionally marginalized groups such as women and people with disabilities, asking whether private space exploration and our future in space is truly for everyone. Finally, we will consider what ethical and bioethical principles and norms should guide space exploration, especially commercial spaceflight.

Bio:

Konrad Szocik is a philosopher, bioethicist, and professor at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland. From 2021 to 2022, he was a visiting fellow at the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. His research interests include philosophy, the ethics and bioethics of space exploration, human enhancement, feminism, selected issues at the intersection of futures studies and technology, as well as climate change, population ethics, procreative ethics, and the philosophy of antinatalism. His most recent books include Feminist Bioethics in Space (2024) and The Bioethics of Space Exploration (2023), published by Oxford University Press, as well as numerous articles published in journals such as Bioethics, American Journal of Bioethics, npj microgravity, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and others. 

The Etherdome is located at 66 Blossom Street. For building, parking, and elevator locations please view: Main Campus Map