# Joseph Gottlieb

**Domain:** space-development  
**Type:** person  
**Role:** Philosophy professor, Texas Tech University  

## Overview

Joseph Gottlieb is a philosophy professor at Texas Tech University who has published academic work defending Mars colonization on existential risk grounds, arguing that space refuges provide protection against location-correlated extinction events that Earth-based alternatives cannot match.

## Key Positions

**Pro-Mars colonization on existential risk grounds:**
- Argues existential risk mitigation is a countervailing moral consideration that overrides environmental preservation concerns
- Thesis: "Stoner has failed to establish that we ought not to colonize Mars because there is a weightier countervailing consideration: the opportunity to create a space refuge that mitigates existential risk"
- Key framing: "even if terrestrial shelters offer effective protection against almost all possible risks," a Mars refuge still provides what bunkers cannot — Earth-independence for location-correlated extinction events
- Addresses philosophical questions about discounting long-horizon projects (how to weigh Mars colonization costs against future existential risk benefits)

## Publications

**Academic papers:**
- "Space Colonization and Existential Risk" (2019) — Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Volume 5, Issue 3, pages 306–320
- "Discounting, Buck-Passing, and Existential Risk Mitigation: The Case of Space Colonization" (2022) — Space Policy journal

## Timeline

- **2019-09** — Published "Space Colonization and Existential Risk" in Journal of the American Philosophical Association, rebutting Stoner's anti-Mars PSC argument
- **2022** — Published follow-up paper on discounting and long-horizon existential risk mitigation in Space Policy journal