Can humans eventually become an interstellar civilization? Musk said he wants to become a multi-planet species, how long will it take?

The answer is yes, but the prerequisite is that human technological civilization will continue for at least 200 years.

Let’s first talk about what interstellar civilization is.

Interstellar civilization itself is a rather vague concept. It can be described as extraterrestrial civilization or human civilization moving toward the stars. Today we are going to discuss the latter, that is, whether human civilization can flourish in the stars.

So far, humans have only set foot on the moon, and only 12 elite humans have been there. It has been 50 years since they went to the moon, and there has not been a second group of people there. Therefore, humans do not have the scientific capabilities to migrate to other planets at this stage.

The second extraterrestrial planet that humans are most likely to land on is Mars. Dozens of unmanned probes have already been to Mars, most of which are from the United States. The more reliable plans are already being made by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket company. These agencies have claimed that they will send humans to Mars around 2033.

To achieve this goal, the more radical Musk also said it would take 50 years. He believes that within 50 years, a city can be built on Mars with a population of 1 million, and the people there can use local resources to be self-sufficient, reproduce and become real Martians.

Musk is determined to send humans to Mars. He believes that humans must become a multi-planet species as soon as possible to avoid the crisis of extinction. But so far, Musk's plan seems to be just a dream with a sci-fi color, and there are still many unpredictable difficulties.

Musk's Raptor engine production has been troubled recently. He expressed his anger in an email to SpaceX employees on Thanksgiving. He claimed that there was a major crisis in the production of the Raptor engines needed for the Starship, and warned that if the Starship's flight frequency could not be achieved at least once every two weeks by next year, the company would face bankruptcy.

If SpaceX really goes bankrupt, the plan that seems to have the most hope of sending a large number of humans to Mars will likely be shelved indefinitely. Of course, Musk is an outlier. In recent years, he has made one astonishing achievement after another in the field of aerospace, which has indeed greatly promoted the progress of human aerospace.

But without Musk, it’s not that humans won’t explore other planets, it’s just that it will be a little slower.

Even if a city is built on Mars, it does not mean that humans have truly become interstellar civilizations. I think this is just a start. The solar system is not even a speck of dust in the universe. Before humans leave the solar system, they cannot be considered to have become interstellar civilizations. Martian immigrants can only be said to have reclaimed a piece of wasteland at their doorstep, and they have not even left the village.

Why is it said that human technological civilization needs to continue for at least two hundred years before there is hope?

According to the three-level civilization theory of the universe proposed by former Soviet scientist Kardashev, to get out of the solar system, we must at least develop into the second-level civilization of the universe, that is, we can collect and utilize all the energy of the sun, and the total energy reaches 3.78*10^26 J/s (joules/second).

According to this theory, human civilization is now only at level 0.73, and its energy usage is only 10^13 J/s; and to reach level one civilization, the energy usage must be equivalent to the total energy of solar radiation received by the Earth, which is one 2.2 billionth of the total solar radiation, or about 1.72*10*17 J/s.

We are still 17,200 times away from this indicator, and we need to increase 131 times from the current level.

Fortunately, human technological development has entered the fast lane, and the current technological progress in one year is comparable to that in the past 100 years, and it will continue to get faster and faster. Based on this, scientists speculate that it will take about 200 years for humans to achieve level 1 civilization; and to achieve level 2 civilization, it will take about 5,000 years to increase the energy usage capacity of level 1 civilization by 2.2 billion times.

Why did I say earlier that human technological civilization will continue for at least 200 years, rather than 5,000 years? This is because as human civilization continues to improve, the probability of natural disasters and man-made disasters causing the extinction of civilization will decrease. As long as humans reach the first level of civilization, they will have the ability to migrate within the solar system.

In this way, all human eggs will no longer be placed in one basket on Earth. Even if the sun suddenly explodes violently one day, or an asteroid hits the Earth and destroys the Earth's ecology, and the human race on Earth is extinct, the humans on Mars, or on the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, will still have a great chance of surviving and have the opportunity to fly out of the solar system.

Moreover, once they reach the first level of civilization, humans will no longer be afraid of any natural or man-made disasters on Earth, and in this way, humans can develop to a higher level. Therefore, before the first level of civilization is the most vulnerable infancy of humans, and the key now is whether God will let humans live another 200 years.

The biggest crisis we must overcome in 200 years

Some people think that it is no problem for humans to live another 200 years. Even the theme song of the TV series "Kangxi Dynasty" says "I really want to live another 500 years." What is 200 years in human history?

In fact, I also believe that the probability of human beings living for another 200 years is still very high, but the risk of not living for another 200 years also exists. In recent years, the scientific community has become increasingly concerned that humans will face a major survival crisis at the end of this century, mainly due to the increasing frequency of climate disasters caused by the greenhouse effect.

In recent years, if we had not just focused on the meal in front of us, but had been able to look at the world with a broader perspective, we would have found that climate change around the world is becoming more and more extreme. It is not cold when it should be cold, and it is not hot when it should be hot. When it is cold, it is freezing to death, and when it is hot, it is burning to death. The ice caps and glaciers are melting and decreasing, droughts and floods are becoming more severe, forest fires are constant, and biological extinction is accelerating.

Scientists predict that if the greenhouse effect is not effectively improved and controlled, the world's average temperature will rise by more than 3°C above the pre-industrial threshold. The earth's self-regulating system will collapse, and extreme climate will become uncontrollable. The temperature will rise sharply and soon reach the catastrophic limit of 6°C. The sea level will rise by 100 meters, and all developed port cities in the world will be submerged. Mass extinction of species will be inevitable, and it will be difficult for humans to escape the crisis of extinction.

All countries in the world have signed an agreement called the Paris Agreement to address climate change. The main purpose is to achieve carbon neutrality through energy conservation, emission reduction, ecological restoration, and carbon emission reduction. The goal is to control the temperature rise within 2°C by the end of this century.

Ordinary people seem not to feel this crisis, and they continue to eat and drink, but scientists have long called for us to have little time left. If we do not change, we will go extinct in about 100 years. Therefore, politicians from various countries temporarily put aside their differences and sat together to come up with the Paris Agreement.

However, solving this kind of high-level issue concerning human survival will affect and damage some local and current interests. Therefore, many countries, regions and enterprises will make their own calculations, always wanting to avoid losses and let others contribute more. Therefore, various interest groups have been arguing over how much emissions should be emitted each year and when carbon neutrality can be achieved.

Therefore, it does not seem optimistic whether the century-long crisis can be overcome.

The human crisis is far more than this

The greenhouse effect is just a crisis that has been seen and is beginning to be taken seriously. There are many invisible crises that may erupt at any time. For example, if a larger bubble (flare) appears on the sun, or a larger asteroid hits it, it may lead to the destruction of mankind. Will these things happen? No one knows.

Some people may think that it has been tens of thousands of years since humans left Africa. Even in recorded history, it has been thousands of years, and no major extinction events have occurred. So what problems could there be in the past two hundred years?

But that is not the case. 65 million years ago, an asteroid about 10 kilometers in size hit the Earth, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs that had dominated the Earth for more than 100 million years. 85% of all life on Earth became extinct, causing the Earth's life to restart again, and the world of mammals evolved. Humans stood out from them and became the king of the Earth.

God has kept the Earth's ecology peaceful for tens of millions of years. He has taken too much care of humans. Why would he continue to take care of us like this? Human technology currently has no ability to deal with the above-mentioned natural disasters. Even if we knew a 10-kilometer asteroid was coming several years in advance, we could only wait for death.

Based on this, some far-sighted scientists, politicians and entrepreneurs are spending huge amounts of money to try to solve these problems. However, some people do not understand these at all, and only see what is in the bowl and the pot, thinking that spending money on them is just a show, and that helping the poor more and managing the earth well is more important than anything else.

Fortunately, not everyone has this short-sightedness, and the world's major scientific resources and wealth are not in the hands of these people.

Three major events in the aerospace industry in recent years have given humans more confidence in the future

The probes launched by humans have already visited all the planets, and have also visited some dwarf planets and asteroids; increasingly powerful telescopes have peered into the depths of the universe for more than 13 billion years. In recent years, the aerospace industry has launched many spacecraft, especially the lunar and Mars explorations, and China has also joined the ranks as a space power, which is gratifying.

There are several landmark spaceflight events that I believe are critical to the future of humanity.

One is the Parker Solar Probe launched by NASA, which is the first probe to come into close contact with a star. It will eventually brave temperatures of more than 1,400 degrees, touch the solar corona, pass 2 million kilometers from the solar surface, explore the secrets deep within the sun, and collect data for humans to deal with possible solar disasters in the future.

Another one is that on November 24, NASA launched a probe to hit an asteroid, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. This is the first time that humans have launched a probe with the mission goal of hitting an asteroid. On October 4 next year, the periodic asteroid Didymos and its satellite Dimorphos will pass by the earth at a distance of 10.66 million kilometers. At that time, the 550-kilogram body of the probe will be guided to Dimorphos, and it will smash itself into pieces and collect a series of data. Scientists will evaluate the impact force and angle required to make the asteroid deviate from its orbit, providing a basis for humans to deal with the possible threat of asteroid impact on the earth in the future.

Another one is Musk's SpaceX rocket company, which has created the largest SN starship in human history, changing the narrow space of the past man-made spacecraft. The starship cabin is luxurious and comfortable. This starship can launch a payload of 100 tons and transport 100 people to Mars at a time. Musk plans to build 1,000 SN starships within 10 years, and in the future, 100,000 people can be sent to Mars at a time. This creates conditions for large-scale human migration to Mars.

Solar disasters and asteroid impacts are the biggest threats to human survival, and migrating to Mars is the biggest measure to prevent human extinction. Solving these major problems will better ensure human survival and development. However, these scientific and technological advances are still in their infancy. To truly cope with these crises, humans will need at least 100 to 200 years of effort.

This is what I said. If human beings want to move towards interstellar civilization, the most important and crucial thing is to be able to develop peacefully for 200 years. What do you think? Welcome to discuss, thank you for reading.

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