Image: Tavis Coburn
In Brief
- A space mission that isolates people away from Earth for extremely long periods—for instance, a Mars colony or a multigenerational voyage to a nearby star—will inevitably lead to the evolution of new cultural and physiological traits.
- Long-distance spaceships will be home to unique environmental hazards such as increased radiation and lower ambient pressures. These influences will most severely affect the most fragile stages of life—in the womb and just after birth.
- Mission planners will have to carefully select the “crew” of space travelers. Their goal: a genetically healthy population, but one diverse enough to withstand the occasional pandemic and thrive in profoundly new environments.
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The Science Of The Next 150 Years: 150 Years in the Future
When space shuttle Atlantis rolled to a stop in 2011, it did not mark, as some worried, the end of human spaceflight. Rather, as the extinction of the dinosaurs allowed early mammals to flourish, retiring the shuttle signals the opening of far grander opportunities for space exploration. Led by ambitious private companies, we are entering the early stages of the migration of our species away from Earth and our adaptation to entire new worlds. Mars is the stated goal of Elon Musk of PayPal fortune; polar explorers Tom and Tina Sjogren, who are designing a private venture to Mars; and Europe's privately funded MarsOne project, which would establish a human colony by 2023. The colonization of space is beginning now.
This article was originally published with the title Starship Humanity.
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24 Comments
Add CommentA human colony in Mars by 2023 is a joke. We haven't even colonized Antarctica. If a permanent settlement in Antarctica is ridiculous, more so for Mars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe late Dr. Robert Carroll, a mathematical physicist, worked with Aesop Institute for 12 years until his death. He never accepted relativity. As a consequence he developed an entire alternative physics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStar Scientific Ltd. an Australian firm and a Japanese – UK joint venture, are both developing Muon - Pion fusion.
It is widely accepted that a Pion antimatter powered spacecraft may approach the speed of light.
Dr. Carroll in his last public appearance, addressing an AAAS meeting section in San Francisco devoted to non-relativistic physics, claimed a Pion powered spacecraft might in-fact approach 20 million times the speed of light.
See pages 34-37 under CHEAP GREEN at www.aesopinstitute.org for a bit about what Pion fusion may mean in terms of exploring Goldilocks planets, should a Pion space drive experiment prove Carroll correct.
The article mentions the breathing atmosphere of the Apollo Astronauts were breathing low pressure, (5psi), pure oxygen. If I remember correctly, Apollo One had a fire during an earthbound dry run test, killing all aboard. After that they got away from using a pure oxygen atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-Donald W. Jacobson
Responding to Dr Strangelove saying colonization of mars is ridiculous, I am sure some Europeans thought the same about the New World.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Earth is almost used up, too many people, limited resources. I fear that in the not too distant future, conditions will deteriorate, and if we don't have something in the works, that is to spread out to unknown new worlds, we may just return to the dark ages with famines and plagues, with infrastructure falling apart. As humans we need to move on, and explore.
I read the article and it reads like good science fiction. I can only surmise that Smith is talking about a mars colony and he can't be serious about sending an arc to the stars. Consider this: The nearest star is Proxima Centauri and it is 4.24 light years away from us. Using our fastest gravity assist propulsion, it would take this "arc" 19,000 years to get there,and once you are there what will you find? Perhaps nothing habitable. So then you fire up the engines(?) and go for another trip lasting 10's of thousands of years. And on that I rest my case for why we are not going to the stars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich leaves Mars. Anyone wanting to go live underground on Mars, raise you hands. I rest my case.
We're staying here on Earth, and so we had better start taking really really good care of Mother Earth; it's all we've got.
I raise my hands on the Mars colony thingy, without a blink.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot everyone is a couch potato afraid to move away from their confort zone. In fact, I'd wager that not only they could get thousands of volunteers with minimum effort, they'd probably could get a whole colony of PAYING customers.
On the multi-generational stellar travel, yeah, for now I'll pass, unless the 19,000 years ETA is improved a bit ;)
I would wager that there would be literally millions of volunteers, just as there would for an underground Lunar colony, and I would be among them. Maybe we will meet one day in Gale Crater, looking for plastic artifacts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI doubt we will accept the expense and time involved with multi-generational ships to the stars. We will either (1)find a way to go ftl, or (2)migrate slowly outward through the Oort Cloud, or (3)sit here quietly and wait for the red giant phase to finish us off. (In order of preference)
Dr, I don't think an Antarctica colony is as much ridiculous, as it is prohibited by international treaty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually a Discover channel show presented a feasible scheme with present day tech using Nuclear Bomb propulsion, a technique known for a longtime. Small almost pure fusion bombs of about 5 kt are easy to make on an assembly line, could accelerate an enormous starship to 10% the speed of light. An alternative drive mentioned was anti-matter. It is actually relatively cheap to capture anti-matter with superconducting rings off the Solar Wind. But probably better to use anti-matter catalyzed fission-fusion pellets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can certainly observe the atmospheres of exo-planets - if there is oxygen & methane - there is life, even the James Webb telescope may be sufficient for that. So not too difficult to determine a suitable inhabitable planet in advance.
In the Discovery channel show motivation was a rogue Neutron star passing through our Solar system - we had 80 yrs to leave or everyone dies & Earth Life dissapears. So an effort on the scale of what we put into warfare, yep it could be done. Not easy, but could be done.
And actually the Terraforming of Mars is quite simple-minded. No need to live underground. And warming a large surface area is easy with a Solar reflector in Mars orbit. Maybe 80-150 yrs to create a thick atmosphere of mostly CO2, large amounts of liquid water, oceans, lakes on surface. Rainfall and lots of plant and bacterial life. Forming the O2 atmosphere for us to breathe would take more time, with present tech, but by then far superior tech is likely available, so 2nd Earth maybe 200 yrs. Replicating Earth biota on another world would be the GREATEST EVENT in the history of life since the pre-cambrian explosion. There is NOTHING, as in NOT-ONE-DAMN-THING that humans could do that would be as significant or historically important. The most important endevour ever taken in the history of human civilization and would payback any damage we did to the Earth by a million times.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this150 years is a realistic timeframe for launching a slow interstellar colonization mission, if we do it right. The human element is the weakest link; people are too fragile, short-lived and testy in long confinement. But luckily, emerging technology of artificial wombs and robust AI/robotics means that we can just send deep-frozen genetic material and make the humans once we arrive. It will take far less than 150 years before we have AI parents that do a better job raising kids than some human parents do nowadays. Wouldn't it be amazing if this took place in a space station orbiting an Earth-like planet in some far-away star system? Sure, it would take a long time, possibly a thousand years, to get there. But with proper shielding and backups, genetic information can easily survive this long - if not in biological form, then as data in some robust and redundant storage medium, which could be built into DNA and verified once the ship arrives. Interstellar colonization is the best insurance policy we have as a species, and for me, it can't start soon enough. Most of the necessary innovations (medical, AI-human interaction, robotics) also have obvious terrestrial applications, and we'll be developing them without even intending to prepare for interstellar colonization.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL Only in science fiction can what you describe be done in that timescale. How would humans move that amount of water to Mars? You think we have the ability to find and move a fairly large asteroid or many comets that have water?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe water is already there, they have found huge water sources on Mars, in the Polar Ice caps and under the soil. And there appears to be ample CO2 to make a thick atmosphere. Nuclear powered automatic factories would make SF6 a super-greenhouse gas, using known elements in Martian soil to warm the planet causing CO2 & Ice sublimation into the atmosphere then ice melting into liquid water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeneration ships are still aways off,but reaching out to asteroids can and should be done now.As resources on Earth become in short supply.The chances of global war increases exponentially with each passing decade.We should get to asteroids as soon as possible.As for a trip to Mars,I think we still know way to little about biology to return anything from there anytime soon.The chances of a illnesses caused by Mars microbe's are a very real possibility.It simply isn't worth the risk.Wherein asteroid mining may be in the end what saves our species.This would also give us the materials we will need to build the ships to go to the stars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"..chances of a illnesses caused by Mars microbe's are a very real possibility.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUh, no. Probability = NIL or less.
"..way to little about biology to return anything from there anytime soon.."
The idea of going to Mars is NOT to return goods to the Earth. In that you are correct, better to mine asteroids than exploit Martian resources. Although undoubtedly there will be odd exceptions. Certainly Mars would be a highly prized tourist destination for the wealthy. The purpose of the Mars endeavor is create a new bastion of Terrestrial Life and a new independent colony of humans. If Earth civilization fails, Mars will be an alternate. Well worth it. Stephen Hawkins has commented often on the vulnerability of human civilization being trapped on just one world.
Humans may one day be able to explore Goldilocks planets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPion fusion is under development. Pion powered spacecraft will surely follow. This would be an antimatter space drive. Specialists believe such a drive can be designed to approach the speed of light.
Dr. Robert L. Carroll, a mathematical physicist who rejected relativity, claimed that by a process he termed nuclear disruption, in contrast to fission or fusion, a Pion powered spacecraft might approach 20 million times the speed of light.
If a Pion disruption spacecraft drive can be developed it is conceivable that he might be proven correct.
Should that prove to be the case, Goldilocks planets will become accessible.
Scroll down toward the end of Cheap Green on the Aesop Institute website to pages 29 and 30 for a few details and a link to Carroll’s publications.
Dr. Carroll worked with Aesop Institute for 12 years until his death.
His last Paper was delivered at a section of the AAAS meeting in San Francisco devoted to non-relativistic physics.
At the conclusion, he wrote on the blackboard the maximum speed of a spacecraft powered by a Pion drive = 20 million times C.
He spent his life developing non-relativistic physics and was an active member of the NPA which is a world-wide network of scientists who reject relativity.
Only experiment will determine if he might have been correct. The payoff would be incredibly great for all humanity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomebody coming from the 19th century wrote: "The nearest star is Proxima Centauri and it is 4.24 light years away from us. Using our fastest gravity assist propulsion, it would take this "arc" 19,000 years to get there, [...]."
That's why God programmed into the Universe relativity, and provided us with early 20th century scientists like Poincarré, and Lorentz, so that we have Lorentz transformation (t' = gamma(t-vx/c^2)) that let us travel with time compressed, and Einstein E=mc^2 so that we can convert matter into energy to get close to the speed of light and benefit from this time compression.
But apparently, people in the 21st century still cannot grasp the elementary mathematics these formula represent and the liberating consequences they have for the space traveler.
I was so fascinated by Cameron's startling article that I had to put it away and think about it for a couple of days before reading it again, with great care. I have written a little on the subject myself (Cameron, may I send you my article, which was published by the Australian Skeptics' Society?), and had failed to think through the evolutionary aspects of ark travel in the wonderfully logical and wide-ranging way Cameron did it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think we can already build arks which could be accelerated to near light speeds within a few weeks or months - but unless we line them with soil (!!!), we would have to accept Cameron's amazing and rather brutal analysis of the genetic effects of space radiation. We should go to the stars - we are alone in our extreme cleverness, and we are therefore duty bound to ensure our survival
A recurring theme that seems to motivate this pion-in-the-sky nonsense is that humanity is rapidly turning the home planet an unihabitable mess. Admittedly, that is true to some gradually alarming extent. What isn't being said whenever the Escapist nonsense issue is raised is that our bad habitation habits will almost certainly be self-limiting, so to speak, like self-draining glacial dams and mutual prey-predator population fluctuations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's be clear on something: the concept of social utility should better inform our thoughts and behaviors vis-a-vis these various pion-in-the-sky interstellar colonization schemes. Far better to take positive steps to conserve and improve the habitability of Earth than devote a lot of time and effort to sending the seed of humanity a long way off. Better chances for success, more benefit for far more people.
When it comes to rational uses and sources of funds, the interstellear Escapist crowd are not our friends.
You have still forgotten about the lack of a protective magnetic shield to shield the biological entities form lethal radiation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe key to heroic interstellar travel, the kind of situation that could get many, many volunteers, is continuous acceleration. Although continuous acceleration will not shorten trip time for people on Earth, those traveling close to the speed of light will undergo time dilation. Subjective travel time for them might only be five or ten years. The people starting the journey would be the same that arrive at the destination star system. It is a one way journey because when they arrive their families may be long dead on Earth by thousands of years. With continuous acceleration and time dilation even the Andromeda galaxy is not beyond human reach.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to say I consider these plans to populate interstellar space with human beings a trifle over ambitious. They are so ludicrous as to be a complete joke.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTotal idiocy. Good luck on the investors in this tomfoolery ever seeing anything from their investment.It reminds me of the wonderful prospectus to investors shortly after the South Sea Bubble in which they were invited to invest their savings on the following prospectus, “carrying on an undertaking of great advantage but nobody to know what it is”.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've seen the talk about sufficiently large populations for genetic diversity purposes before - but wasn't that the case before refrigeration? A large supply of sperm would provide sufficient diversity for a very long trip - just keep adding it to the mix. Within a liter you could pack the DNA diversity of millions of different people in a scary mix.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA sperm contains either an X or a Y chromosome, so the population would have access to a near infinite replacements for all genes - even given a single woman at the start of a flight! Mind you, the first generation would have an awkward time dating - unless they we're screened to only be women who where the artificially impregnated.
Not counting mitochondrial DNA and bacterial flora (skin, gut, mouth etc) of course, you'd probably want to pack backups for those.