SEEKING JUSTIFICATIONS FOR HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

Traditionally cited benefits such as scientific and economic progress or political advantages have been widely recognized as insufficient to justify ongoing and future human spaceflight programmes in today's pr evailing geopolitical and socioeconomic environment. A rationale for h uman spaceflight evoking visions such as exploitation of extraterrestr ial resources and human exploration of space has to cope with an unavo idable dilemma: attractive as they may appear, those projects are frau ght with many grave uncertainties and risks. The paper attempts to ans wer the question of which significance (if any) such visionary project s may assume in justifying the continuation of human spaceflight activ ities. We argue that, despite as yet unanswerable technological and ec onomic questions and despite the extremely long time-frames involved, it seems reasonable and, hence, justified to keep the option alive to be able to solve - by means of humans in space - one of humankind's pr obable major problems in the coming century: the impending energy cris is.