Competing Visions (2)

Most of us would agree that exploration is a positive human activity. We are a curious species, and our tendency to go "out there" to learn more about the unknown is almost taken for granted. Of course, we do that, right? There is even speculation that we carry an "explorer gene" that can be activated in the right circumstances.

Exploitation is a bit more problematic, though. It is also a human tendency to exploit the resources that we find surronding us, or that we discover through exploration.

 There are times when this exploitation seems benign enough, and times when it is downright destructive.

When we look back at the great ages of exploration on Earth, especially the 15th through 18th centuries, the picture is truly mixed, from an ethical point of view. Finding "new worlds" exerted great impact on the European countries from which the sailing ships departed, and surely played a positive role in supporting the Enlightenment, which broke old modes of thought and led to new concepts of humanity and our role in the world.

However, the colonial worldview of the explorers represented nothing short of disaster for the Indigenous peoples they encountered in their journeys. As we look back at the great age of European exploration of the planet and the settling of the American West, we would certainly like to have a "do-over" based on a different philosophy of exploration and exploitation.

(To be continued)

(c) Copyright, Frank White, 2016, All Rights Reserved

The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution is available at aiaa.org and amazon.com 

Competing Visions

For some time now, I have been urging that we develop a "philosophy of space exploration and development." As it turns out, two of the main players in the commercial space sector actually have embryonic space philosophies, and they have begun to reveal them.

As it also turns out, the perspectives offered by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are radically different, and this is really important to our future. Why? Because both of them are visionaries, committed to their cause, and both of them are billionaires, able to turn their visions into reality.

Let's take a look at these two competing philosophies, how they lead to contrasting visions for space exploration and development, and the implications for the rest of us.

First, Elon Musk has said that he wants to put a million humans on Mars as a "Plan B." Essentially, he is making the logical point that an extinction event brought on by climate change, an asteroid strike, or something as yet unforeseen will wipe out humanity unless we become a "multi-planet species" and a "spacefaring civilization." Ultimately, he cannot be contradicted, because we know that the sun will eventually go supernova and wipe out all life on Earth. (Of course, this would wipe out all life on Mars as well, so it is an argument for interstellar, rather than interplanetary, travel.)

Then there is an alternate vision that is being offered by Jeff Bezos, another billionaire who made his fortune because of the "technological Overview Effect" that is provided by the Internet/World Wide Web. Bezos harkens back to an earlier era in the history of space exploration and development, the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Gerard K. O'Neill started the Space Studies Institute and offered a new perspective on how humans ought to expand into the solar system.

(To be continued)

(c) Copyright, Frank White, 2016, All Rights Reserved

The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution is available at aiaa.org and amazon.com 

What is "the Mars Effect?"

I am beginning to see the outlines of what a "Mars Effect" might be. It is different from the Overview Effect, but is still a way in which space exploration has an impact on human thought. It is connected with the Overview Effect as a subset of the Copernican Perspective, a realization that we are part of the solar system, an astronaut insight that was discussed in my book, The Overview Effect. Here are some excerpts from the book:

We will explore our entire solar system in the next 400  or 500  years, but we won't be able to go beyond that point. ... I believe it's possible, but it'll be a long time.

-Payload specialist Marc Garneau

   

Many years ago, Democratic  Senator  Spark  Matsunaga  of Hawaii  suggested  in an Omni magazine article that the American space community, led by Wernher von Braun, had its sights set on a space frontier with Mars as its outer boundary  before the Apollo program. He said, “From the beginning,  NASA planners shared  von Braun's  aspirations for a Mars mission as the primary target of our space  program. But in the spring of 1961 John  Kennedy  needed  a relatively  quick  and dramatic space accomplishment, so he sent  NASA racing to the moon instead.”1

Matsunaga reminded  us that Robert Goddard, whose work in rocketry laid the foundation  for the American space program, had a vision of “the  planet Mars, red and gleaming in the darkness of space” while sitting in a cherry tree in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1899. Goddard imagined  a vehicle that would take him to Mars and "spent  the rest of his life working to turn his vision into reality.” 2


References

(1) Matsunaga, S. "Marsquest," Omni, June 1986, p. 22, in The Overview Effect, p. 123.
(2) Ibid.

(c) Copyright, Frank White, 2016, All Rights Reserved

The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution is available at aiaa.org and amazon.com 

Is There a "Mars Effect?"

With all the recent excitement about a human mission to Mars that has the goal of establishing a settlement there, I have begun to ask myself if there is a "Mars Effect," analogous to the Overview Effect, which is beginning to have an impact on how we think about our place in the universe.

I discussed the idea of the Copernican Perspective in my book, The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, as the realization that we are not only a part of the Earth system but that the Earth is part of the solar system, which is becoming our new environment. As we see more and more images of Mars in the media, it is a reasonable question as to whether the "Mars Effect" is a subset of the Copernican Perspective. I think it is premature to define this phenomenon, but I do believe it is worth exploring.

More on this later.

(c) Copyright, Frank White, 2016, All Rights Reserved

The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution is available at aiaa.org and amazon.com 

The Impact of Contact (III)

We have considered what might happen to our society if we were contacted by an extraterrestrial civilization only a few hundred years ahead of us in development. In theory, we might connect with civilizations that are much farther along than that. Imagine trying to converse with ETs that are a thousand years ahead of us, or a million, or more! The idea of such a dialogue is difficult to picture.

            The White Equation provides a way to develop an Impact Index for any level of difference between our civilization and that of the aliens. However, as we move more deeply into using the equation, it raises some significant questions about the entire SETI enterprise. The problem is this: once we imagine an alien civilization that is, let us say, more than 10,000 years ahead of ours, it seems unlikely that they will still be confined to a planet, and even more unlikely that they will want to communicate with us.

            When we look ahead at terrestrial civilization in 10,000 years, we are likely to have spread out into the solar system and perhaps far beyond its boundaries. The Singularity may have occurred, an event that takes place when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence. Again, we would imagine that Super Artificial Intelligence, or Super AI as it is called by AI researchers, is not going to remain tied to a single planet, but would prefer to roam free through the galaxy and beyond.

To be continued
(c) Copyright, Frank White, 2016, All Rights Reserved
(1) The SETI Factor, Frank White, Walker & Co., New York, NY, 1990.
(2) http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2016/09/23/stephen-hawking-aliens-wary-answering-back-intelligent-life/90895018/
The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution is available at aiaa.org and amazon.com 

The SETI Factor, which explores the impact of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, is out of print, but some copies may be available at amazon.com

The Impact of Contact (II)

While a significant amount of effort has gone into finding exoplanets and determining if they are habitable, much less work has been done on the impact of successfully discovering and contacting these civilizations. That is the focus of the “White Equation,” which I developed in writing my book, The SETI Factor, in 1990. (1)

     In the White Equation, our concern is less with the likelihood of successful contact and more with the results of it, especially in regard to Earth’s civilization.

            In considering this topic, I looked first at the results of interactions between highly advanced technological civilizations and less advanced societies on Earth. The most obvious example is what happened when Europeans migrated to North and South America in the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

            In using the terms “more advanced” and “less advanced,” I am not making a value judgment. In many ways, I consider the societies of the indigenous peoples of the New World to be superior to those of their European adversaries. However, the possession of weaponry such as muskets and, later, repeating rifles allowed a relatively small group of adventurers from the Old World to overcome and even destroy the indigenous tribes and civilizations of the New World.

            The same trauma could well be true of contact between Earthlings and extraterrestrials, a scenario that has been advanced more than once by none other than Stephen Hawking. (2) Just imagine the difference between our own global society in 1816 and in 2016. Two hundred years ago, there were no electric lights, automobiles, cell phones, spacecraft, computers, or refrigerators, and this was the case in both the developed and the so-called non-developed worlds. If a person could travel back in time from now to then and communicate about these technologies, the people of 1816 would be amazed and probably traumatized.

            Now imagine that we have contact with an extraterrestrial civilization that is “only” 200 years ahead of us technologically. This could have an incredibly disruptive impact on our economy, politics, science, and even religion. For example, what happens to Apple and IBM if this civilization is far ahead of us with computing technology, including Artificial Intelligence, an area in which IBM has focused much of its business strategy?

To be continued
(c) Copyright, Frank White, 2016, All Rights Reserved
(1) The SETI Factor, Frank White, Walker & Co., New York, NY, 1990.
(2) http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2016/09/23/stephen-hawking-aliens-wary-answering-back-intelligent-life/90895018/
The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution is available at aiaa.org and amazon.com 
The SETI Factor, which explores the impact of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, is out of print, but some copies may be available at amazon.com

The Impact of Contact

Two fields of study are beginning to come together, with fascinating results: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the search for extrasolar planets, or exoplanets (SEP).

            To some extent, SEP is a subset of SETI, because we have always assumed (consciously or unconsciously) that we are looking for intelligence that is like ourselves, which therefore evolved on a planet like the Earth. The Drake Equation, formulated in the 1960s to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in existence in our galaxy and/or the universe, begins with the number of stars in the galaxy/universe, all of which might be suns. It then narrows down the overall result by estimating the number of planets revolving around those stars, and then the percentage of those planets that might bring forth life. (In this analysis, we will focus on the galaxy to simplify the conversation.)

            The assumption is, then, that those habitable planets will nurture not only life but also at least one, and probably many more, intelligent species. The Drake equation has been used to develop a wide range of predictions regarding how many advanced technical civilizations might exist in our galaxy. Given the large number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, it is difficult, even with conservative assumptions, to reduce the estimate below 10,000.

            Regardless of the final number, the focus of SETI has reflected its name, in that it involves a search for intelligence, and without clearly saying so, a search for intelligence more or less at the level of development of our own civilization.
To be continued
(c) Copyright, Frank White, 2016, All Rights Reserved

The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution is available at aiaa.org and amazon.com 
The SETI Factor, which explores the impact of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, is out of print, but some copies may be available at amazon.com