On the same day that the first operational nuclear bomb saw the light of day, humanity entered what is called a “danger window“. That is, since the end of World War II, we have lived a few minutes from the end of the world. Of course, having overcome the Cold War and its delusional apocalyptic anxieties has made that threat lose credibility. But the truth is that even As long as there are no firmly established colonies beyond the limits of the Earth, that “window of danger” will not close.
The ‘Great Filter’ or why we haven’t found the aliens yet. We call it “Fermi paradox”, but you could say “if the universe is so big, where is everyone?”. In other words, in the vast expanse of the universe, with its billions of stars similar to ours, there would have to be other extraterrestrial civilizations comparable to ours (there would have to be civilizations superior to ours!). However, we do not know where they are.
There are many possible answers, but there is one that is especially interesting: the ‘Great Filter’. In 1996, economist Robin Hanson realized that the very development of the technology necessary to become an interplanetary species radically exposed us to the risk of self-destruction (through its own technology). That is, there are not many interplanetary civilizations because the vast majority of them are destroyed before they get there.
When will we pass that ‘great filter’? Can we do it? That is the question made by Jonathan Jiang and his team at the ‘Jet Propulsion Laboratory’ a few months ago. They are working on a model that, taking into account the expected rate of our technological development, can calculate how long it will take to overcome this ‘great filter’, when we will become an interplanetary civilization.
Starting from the premise that we will reach Mars in 2028, the researchers use several factors (historical trends in space budgets, the dynamics of annual scientific production and the speed of expansion of the effective radius of activity that can reach humanity) to make a rough schedule Of how .
And why (the satellites of) Jupiter? The first option is Mars, of course. It does not have a very high Earth similarity index (IST), but, in short, it is not only one of the planets that we know best, but we also have a lot of work ahead of it. After him, since Venus is a “toxic mousetrap incompatible with complex life”, we are left with the asteroid belt and the satellites of Jupiter.
In the case of Ceres, there are already scientists thinking how could we create structures allow us to inhabit it. However, the gravitational differences with the Earth are very large and would lead to quite important structural changes in human nature. Curiously, we can see some of them in the series ‘The Expanse’. In this sense, moons like Europa, Io or Callisto (despite being far from the habitable zone) present a very high similarity with our planet — above all, Europe. Many technical, health and logistical challenges would have to be overcome; but I would have left.
The great century of space exploration “Our results suggest that the first human missions by a space-capable nation or an international collaboration to the Asteroid Belt and the Jovian System could be scheduled at the earliest between 2071 and 2087 and between 2101 and 2121, respectively.” On the other hand, “the launch to the Saturn System could take place in the year 2132, with a window of uncertainty between 2129 and 2153.”
A “danger window” that is going to be long. It is important to clarify that one thing is to reach the satellites of Jupiter and another, very different, is to establish ourselves in a stable and self-sufficient way. Space mining is closer than it seems, the first Martian colonies too; but about becoming an interplanetary species and, in fact, being in a position to circumvent the “great filter” is quite far in the future. In the end, the most useful thing in the coming centuries is going to be getting along with each other.
Image | Greg Rakozy
