There are many existential threats to life on Earth. A global pandemic even deadlier than COVID-19. A greenhouse effect that evaporates the atmosphere, as may have happened on Venus (but it's our fault). The impact of a giant asteroid larger than the one that killed the dinosaurs. You continue.
These catastrophes bring to mind the need to preserve the precious diversity of Earth's life, in the spirit of the biblical story about Noah's Ark. But what might a modern Noah's Ark look like to preserve humanity?
The reflection starts from an ultimately collateral question: is the space race good for humanity? Many are worried about the military risks of a space race between China and the United States (at loggerheads not only on this).
Star Wars?
I don't know if this rivalry over the management of such remote places could spark conflicts here. I assume, however, that there would be no military threat to Earth as a result of settling Mars or embarking on a journey to other stars.
For example, a civilization on the nearest habitable exoplanet, Proxima Centauri b, won't know the outcome of the 2020 US presidential elections (at times neither will we) until early 2025, because radio signals take 4.244 years to get there at the speed of light.
The current space race is driven by national pride and commercial interests in the same spirit in which the oceans were explored in the 15th and 16th centuries.
If ships had been banned from leaving Europe for commercial purposes just because of the military threat that navies might pose, everything would have changed. The Americas would never have been colonized by a race between Portugal and Spain, followed by Holland, England, France and Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries.
How to discover new worlds again?
The only way to discover “new worlds” like the Americas is through the exploration of new territories, with associated risks.
Space travel extends beyond the borders of nations. They are missions driven by the global economy with the goal of improving communication and navigation. Or to monitor weather patterns and climate change. To settle on the Moon or Mars, visit space, mine asteroids. Or even deflect objects crossing the Earth and remove artificial objects and space debris.
Free competition between commercial sector players, such as SpaceX or Blue Origin, would only benefit humanity in the long term.
A new Noah's Ark
A professor from Cambridge University, Jeremy Butterfield, reacted to the solicitation of the debate with implicit irony. "Good question. In the long term, we will all have to leave Earth because it will not be habitable. There is no doubt that space is our ultimate destiny because conditions will inevitably deteriorate on Earth.”
For this reason, there is ultimately nothing more practical and urgent than the ambition to create a modern Noah's Ark to save our species from extinction.
How could it be?
A modern Noah's Ark would not need to carry samples of all Earth's life forms. There is no reason to build a huge vessel that carries humans, elephants, whales, birds and so on.
Thanks to modern science and technology, the new Noah's Ark could be small: a Cube with an advanced computer system. A small cube, yes, equipped with artificial intelligence that stores complete information about the DNA of all species on Earth. A system integrated by a 3-D printer capable of producing the seeds of life when desired.
This platform could park in a safe place that receives enough solar heat, and would contain the raw materials for the chemistry of life.
We have already sent so-called “golden discs” into interstellar space on the Voyager probes launched in 1977.
The records included sounds and images portraying the diversity of life and culture on Earth, like a “message in a bottle” for an intelligent civilization. Without knowing where that civilization might be, or if our message will ever be received.
