What Next for Mankind?

About 5 billion years ago, our solar system was formed from the gravitational collapse of a giant cloud of dust, molecules and atoms, much of which was left over from the Big Bang itself. A small amount, however, was generated by the death of giant stars as they blew themselves to pieces in what is called a supernova. When things began to settle down from the violence of the creation, the solar system consisted of our Sun with 8 attendant planets (the ninth, Pluto, has been demoted to a dwarf planet), an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, comets, meteors and other sundry bits and pieces. Initially the Earth was awash with volcanic and earthquake activity as it cooled down, but eventually it became relatively stable although even today volcanic and seismic activity continues.

So, how long more can mankind continue to live on the Earth? Baring the possibility of humanity blowing itself to bits or destroying the environment, we must consider our Sun as the most likely cause of Earth’s demise. The Sun will continue to burn at its present rate for another 5 billion years. It will supply all our energy needs during that time and assuming we don’t do something daft, will also continue to sustain us. However after that time has expired the Sun will begin to go through a number of changes where it will eventually expand into what is called a red giant. This means that its outer surface will expand almost to the distance of the Earth. If we are inside that expansion the complete planet will be utterly destroyed. If we remain outside it, the atmosphere and oceans will be boiled off and everything on the surface will be burned to a crisp. We had better be gone by then.

Of course, we have only been around on this planet for about 200 thousand years and while we made some pretty major advances early on (discovery of fire, the wheel etc.) our technology has really only taken off since the late middle ages. Since that time it has progressed in leaps and bounds to our electronic computer age today. We have managed to send a man as far as the Moon, which is less than a quarter of a million miles away, a dot in the ocean in comparison to the distance to our second nearest star, Proxima Centauri, a mere 25 million million miles. And that was by putting him in a little capsule on top of a massive rocket and hurling him upwards into space.

Looking on the bright side we still have a long, long time to figure out how to get permanently off of this planet. We have already taken the first steps, by building the international space station. But it is a tiny step, and the worry is that with the world in a financial mess, there’s not much money around where people are prepared to invest in long term projects. Of course, the whole idea that we should run our affairs tied up in money and power is ridiculous but that’s another article. In the meantime we have to have an optimistic outlook that we’ll get to our goals eventually.

Wrapped up with the idea of leaving planet Earth is the concept of reaching another planet and colonising it. Or even terraforming Mars. That in itself is an interesting concept and certainly a tremendous challenge. How could we transform the hostile atmosphere and environment of Mars into an Earth like state? The main changes required would be the building up of the atmosphere to make it breathable for humans, increasing the temperature and preventing the atmosphere leaking away into space. We could start by importing a very large quantity of water which in theory could be obtained from ice asteroids or the icy moons of Jupiter or other planets as there does not seem to be enough of the substance frozen in the Martian poles. Once there was enough water to form an ocean or two, plant life such as plankton could be introduced into the newly formed sea. This would start converting the atmosphere from its present format to oxygen. These things will be possible in the future even if the technology is a little beyond us at present.

But we don’t need to go to another planet. Why shouldn’t we use the concept of O’Neill cylinders? Gerard O’Neill was a professor of physics at Princeton and in a 1976 book he proposed the idea. Using materials from the moon he envisioned building a huge cylinder in space about 5 miles in diameter and about 20 miles long. This would rotate in order to create an artificial gravity while humans could live on its inner surface. This could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people. Other designs could house even more people. And not only would these massive space stations of the future be able to hold so many people, they would not have to stay in the one place, or even orbit one star. They could travel slowly through space which would mean that after many generations the descendants of the first intrepid space farers could reach planets orbiting distant stars. In the meantime the inhabitants of these colonies could live their lives exactly as they did on Earth, working and raising their families.

So this may be the way we will visit and perhaps colonise other planets, assuming of course nobody is already living there. We won’t have to invent the warp engine or any of the other extremely futuristic projects to travel between the stars. While I do believe the application of science will one day be able to overcome the light speed barrier, it will take a very long time in my estimation. One of the ideas on how the warp engine actually operates is that of bending spacetime. The spaceship stays in a bubble of normal space while the space in front and behind is stretched and condensed. In this way the ship rides this wave so to speak. As it takes massive amounts of mass or energy to bend space (even Earth bends it by an incredibly tiny amount) it will be many centuries before we even begin to develop that sort of technology. Of course all this bending of spacetime is only theory. We have no clue if it can ever work in practice. In the meantime all we need is patience as we slowly move through space in our O’Neill cylinders.

Other ideas like moving through the universe involve the use of wormholes. Regions of space light years distant from each other could be connected by a wormhole. Going through the wormhole takes us pretty well instantaneously between the two regions. The analogy is with an apple. To get from one side of the apple to the other, an insect for example, would have to go around the surface. However, if a worm bored a hole through the centre of the apple, this would be a much shorter path between two widely separated areas of the apple. Scientists like to give exotic names to their ideas. Again we would need to be a highly advanced technological civilisation before even attempting such a feat.

And of course we mustn’t forget the old Star Trek favourite, the transporter. The idea that a machine can take your body and send it through space and time to another machine in a different place is quite mind boggling. This to my mind is an even more advanced concept than the wormhole. There are two ways it might work. First, the machine reads the precise position of every atom in your body. Immediately we run into the uncertainty principle, but let’s ignore that. This transporter has a computer with massive memory capable of recording where every single atom in your body belongs, that’s 7000 trillion trillion atoms, more than there are stars in the observable universe. That’s some computing power. Of course with clever algorithms we need remember much less than that, but it is still an awesome feat. Then the machine teleports this information to its sister machine some other place and hence reconstructs you, with all your atoms in the correct position. Now the first transporter has to kill you otherwise there will be two copies of you. The other method is to deconstruct you in the first place (it could still be called murder), send your actual atoms as energy to the other machine and reconstruct you. The question also arises whether the reconstructed you is really you. Of course a more advanced transporter doesn’t need a second machine to work. It can put you down anywhere. Notwithstanding that some scientist recently said that a device like that in Star Trek could be invented within the next 100 years, I think that is rubbish. This technology won’t be invented within the next 1000 years. Then again all guesses as to what the future may bring are usually wrong.

So what will it be like living in an O’Neill cylinder? As the cylinder is spinning an artificial gravity, equivalent to that on Earth, will be created due to the centrifugal force generated by the spin, much like on fairground rides. Therefore, living on the inner surface, you will feel weight, objects will fall if dropped and everything will behave as if on the surface of a planet. However, if we look up we won’t see a normal sky. Instead we will see the buildings, open spaces, fields and so on in use by the people on the opposite side of the cylinder, just as they will see us on our side. Probably in strips along the length of the cylinder will be massive glass windows through which we will see the stars outside although only when the lighting system within the cylinder will have been shut down. We will need to have light and dark cycles to simulate the pattern of day and night on Earth. We will have to have seasons with artificial sunshine, and we will need to fabricate our own wind and rain. The dream of controlling the weather will become reality here. We will need to have sufficient space devoted to farming with real seeds producing real food. We will even be able to take holidays to other parts of the cylinder. Perhaps we can have mountainous regions, forested regions, vast savannahs all populated with their own animals.

O’Neill cylinders may be well and good but others see a different future for mankind. They cite evolution and the fact that we are still evolving. And with the rise and progress of genetic engineering it is not inconceivable that we can nudge our evolution forward and in ways we ourselves may wish. In theory we could increase our intelligence, enhance our bodies so they become disease free, become stronger, faster, live longer. In effect there is probably no limit on our capabilities. Some people may say that is messing with nature and it should not be done. Making ourselves likes gods. But all I can say about that is if it can be done, now or in the future, we’re going to do it.

We could evolve our bodies to be able to survive in different atmospheres which would mean we won’t have to try terraforming Mars or other planets. We could even survive in the cold vacuum of outer space itself. This would mean we don’t have to create artificial atmospheres in our O’Neill cylinders. Make ourselves to fit the environment rather than making the environment to fit us.

What about incorporating some machine parts into our bodies? Of course that is already being done with artificial limbs, hips, pacemakers and so on. But what about a radio transmitter and receiver made of bio material inserted into our brains? This, for example, would allow connection to a massive knowledge bank where anything we might want to know would simply require thinking about it. Sort of being wired up to the internet without having to use a computer.

However, the main challenge we have as a race of humankind is the ability to be able to put wars and hatred to one side. We need to grow up. And fast. The Earth is not going to be able to support us as we are. We simply cannot continue to plunder its resources and pollute its environment. We cannot continue to overpopulate it. We have to sit down and take a long hard look at ourselves. Do we want to head for the stars eventually? And that urge is in our blood. After all we came from the stars. Most of the atoms of which we are composed were cooked inside a star long ago. So let’s put our puny differences aside, stand together and head for the great unknown. Otherwise we might as well blow the planet to pieces right now.