How to Save Humankind and All of Planet Earth
Would you believe, by building a starship?
Something remarkable: The challenges of exploring another star system hold the answers to solving challenges facing all humankind today.
When I started working in the aerospace industry as an astronaut teacher—of young students who want to become astronauts—my vision of space exploration was pretty much limited to the moon, Mars and nearby asteroids. At no time did I ever really give serious consideration to exploring beyond our solar system. Then in 2011 I met up with Icarus Interstellar.
A little about Icarus Interstellar*. Icarus Interstellar is pretty much the planet’s most resourceful interstellar space exploration organization.
- It is volunteer driven yet some of Icarus team members and regular associates (“icarii”) are among the finest minds on earth, including NASA scientist Harold “Sonny” White, TED Fellow Rachel Armstrong, and internet pioneer Vint Cerf.
- It is a lean, tightly-budgeted non-profit based in the US but Icarus manages to contribute or hold the reins to a vast majority of all the most scientifically-sound interstellar space exploration research and projects going today, including the renowned Project Daedalus and nanosat-centered Project Tin Tin.
- And though it is little-known outside of specific scientific circles, Icarus has managed to align itself with artists and creative talent from industries such as video games and science fiction, like Rage artist Stephan Martiniere and science-fiction authors Greg Benford and David Brin.
None of that would normally be reason enough to draw me in. Ridiculously cool most definitely but not specifically my cup of tea.
Again, what I do is work with kids. What I do is encourage young students around the world to pursue real careers in astronautics. Creative I may be (aren’t all teachers who are worth their salt?) there is still a very practical nature to the fostering of career interests in students. It has to be that way.
Interstellar space exploration at first blush seems too far out (so to speak) to mesh with what I do. But after a chance meet-up at DARPA’s now-legendary 2011 100 Year Starship Study symposium, a couple of my colleagues who also volunteered with Icarus pushed for my looking deeper into interstellar space exploration as an attainable possibility.
I acquiesced. It was a decision that effectively changed the way I look at everything I thought about space.
Imagine at this very moment discovering an entirely unexplored continent right here on earth, filled with absolutely new challenges of the unknown and unrealized vistas. That is what learning about interstellar space exploration has been like for me —and it is what interstellar space exploration is like for most (who care to examine the facts) at this very moment. What more, for all purposes interstellar space exploration will be “an unexplored continent” for humankind for hundreds of years to come.
First thing to know is “interstellar” essentially means another star, or specifically another solar system. It means traveling from our solar sytem of one sun and 8.5 planets to the next/another solar system. (Some have more than one sun. Many have loads more planets than ours.)
The second thing to know is the nearest other solar system is 4.3 light years away from ours. And the third thing to know is that nerest solar system is named Alpha Centauri.
The fourth and final thing to know is that a light year is defined as the distance of travel at 186,000-miles-per second for one entire year.
That’s moving 186,000 miles in the time span of one single second. Traveling to our own moon at the speed of light would take slightly more than one blink of the human eye, or roughly 1.25 seconds.
So besides the obvious challenge—which is, how do we as human beings get anything to move that fast? (Answer: we don’t)—the next most obvious question is this:
How does interstellar space exploration save, or even help, humankind and the planet earth?
The answer is that it is in solving the challenges of interstellar space exploration we solve all the problems facing our world today.
Limit on resources is one of the most pressing challenges. Space solves that by providing limitless resources. But it is in solving for interstellar space exploration that provides solutions to accessing, processing and using these resources in an efficient and practical fashion. This in turns easily enables these resources for earth.
Conservation in space is not a convenience; it is the law of the jungle. Every bit and piece of everything has value. Nothing is wasted. Everything is built, made, and used with the long-term in mind. Furthermore, the radical engineering of materials and structures and entire systems necessary for interstellar distances must provide extraordinary methods and science which when put to use on earth will translate to improved quality of life as well as unimagined ecological sustainability.
In fact, solving for accessing and processing space resources means developing means of propulsion and of energy-sourcing which will benefit all humankind. Solving for these energy demands and needs means putting aside energy sources such as gas, oil, and coal. Traveling interstellar has tremendous power requirements and requires great speeds. If we can muster one-tenth the speed of light—or 18,600 miles per second (presently as fast as we have managed is 140,ooo miles an hour)—we can get to the moon in a minute rather than days, Mars in half-a-day rather than a year, and the outer solar system in less than two days. To achieve such a speed will take something a lot cleaner smarter mightier than any source of locomotion humankind has developed yet.
And these benefits come about for our developing strictly for robotic (or AI) interstellar probes and spacecraft. However, the bounty becomes significantly more amazing when we add humans to the equation.
Living in space has its own set of obstacles for human beings, not the least of which are weightlessness, radiation and the myriad challenges which space presents to living creatures—from physical to mental. The medicine and biological and psychological science necessary for space travel over extended periods of time presents challenges which in facing provide a cornucopia of health and medical answers. This is factored by several powers over in considerations of interstellar magnitudes.
Finally, let us not forget food production. Growing/raising food in space means figuring ways to produce harvests in the most inhospitable of locations. Clearly, animal meat becomes obsolete as a food source. (However, as odd as it sounds, plants which are redesigned to grow meat tissues might be on the menu.) Other options may have to do with fantastic uses of algae or mushrooms. Algae grown in large vats can produce food, medicine, building materials, even clothing.
Researching and discovering new approaches to food production and manufacturing which produce for great lengths of time in space can radically improve the quality of life of every person on the planet. Hunger and starvation will become things of the past. This is not a “possible” spin-off of space living, this is for certain!
All of which led me a most inobvious conclusion:
Solving for interstellar space exploration is the most practical and immediate path to saving the planet and for increasing the quality of life for everyone and everything that lives here.
The amazing thing is that all of this is stuff about which we know almost nothing. Interstellar space exploration is all very much “undiscovered country”. I can say from personal experience that there seems to be a cognitive disconnect in understanding that the answers to our challenges are found in the place we need to get to in order to solve our challenges.
For instance, ask nearly anyone and most will agree that humankind’s destiny is in the stars—if we can survive long enough to get there. Yet, the answer to surviving is found in the very place our destiny places us if we survive. It’s a catch-22! By establishing the answer to our success as being “in the stars”, not achieving our destiny of interstellar space travel equates as the end for humanity. Plainly, we cannot allow this.
Nowadays, in communicating to kids and young people and students possible career goals, I engender appreciation of greater concepts—such as traveling to other solar systems and an openly migrational space program-as-a-means-to-perpetuating humankind. What I have discovered is what presenting “interstellar space exploration” as “the solution to the problems we all face today as a species” actually does is opens minds to astounding possibilities.
So then, if achieving interstellar space exploration leads to the solutions to pretty much all the great challenges facing humanity today, as an astronaut teacher who (now) works on pursuing interstellar space exploration, I have to pose this most astounding query:
What if opening young students minds to astounding possibilities also happens to be the answer to humankind’s achieving interstellar space exploration?
Because, as an astronaut teacher who (formerly) only thought of space as the moon, Mars, and nearby asteroids, I think it is.
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* Full disclosure: I work with Icarus Interstellar and do indeed think building a starship is a fine idea.
