Our Future: "Will it be a Stone Age or a Space Age?"...

"We face a choice of the type of future that we leave to posterity: a stone age or a space age.
If it is to be a space age there is a need to act now with much greater vigor that is currently being shown."
Mark Hempsell, 1989 [1]

Not only today, but throughout millennia humanity has wondered about its relation to the cosmos and about its ultimate purpose. Based on existing knowledge, myths, religions, and other models of thought were created to try to satisfy its ignorance of the answers to these fundamental questions of existence. As knowledge increased, all these models of thought were modified or replaced by newer ones in order to have a more precise and believable explanation of where we came from, who we are and what is our purpose.

Of all the life forms sharing our home planet, the human species appears unique in that it alone can contemplate its existence, examine its past and look ahead to its future. Our species has also developed the means to look beyond Earth into the universe and has yet to find any hard evidence of Life, as we know it.

The overwhelming success of our species poses a great threat to the rest of life sharing this planet. There is no need to list the many problems facing humanity in the 21st century. Be they environmental, ecological, political, economic or social, the problems are obvious, immediate and threatening. Most of these problems can be linked to the ever-expanding activities of the human species that has resulted in it occupying every available niche and exploiting every available earthly resource for living, working and maintaining society. Thus, humanity today is at a crossroad. Its future well-being, the sustainability of modern civilization and indeed its very survival as a species is at stake.

Just 10,000 years ago there were only about 5 million people on the planet living, at that time, mostly in caves. For these people planet Earth was surely the entire cosmos. 8,000 years later, there were 130 million people around when Christianity was born. By 1650 the human population grew to about 500 million. 200 years later, at the beginning of the industrial age, it doubled to 1 billion. Our planet still seemed large enough and resilient enough to support any human purpose. 100 years later, the number of humans increased to 2.5 billion. At this time, a new development appeared - all of humanity as well as all of Earth's inhabitants began living with the threat of nuclear destruction hanging over their future.

And now, there are approximately 7 billion busy humans living, working and playing on a very crowded and ecologically endangered planet. The mothers of the next 2 billion people have already been born and, barring a major catastrophe, by the year 2020 there will be at least 8 billion people sharing the planet with the rest of Life that hasn't yet been pushed to extinction by human expansion.

With the human population presently growing at a rate of almost 100 million human beings per year and as more and more species are becoming extinct at an alarming rate, is it not too soon to ask a fundamental question:

"Has humanity - and indeed, all terrestrial life - outgrown its home planet Earth? "

A Stone Age

A "No" answer to the question above implies that our species will either somehow find a combination of terrestrial solutions to comfortably accommodate 8-10 billion people in the coming decades; or nature (including human nature) will drastically reduce the human population to more sustainable levels. It has been estimated that the carrying capacity of the planet's ecology can comfortably sustain a human population of just 1.5 billion people at the living standards of Western society.

With the impact of 200 hundred years of industrialization based on a hydrocarbon economy which many scientists believe is upsetting the climate balance in unpredictable and unmanageable ways and the fact that wars have already begun over vital resources, the likelihood of a mass reduction of the human population appears to be a definite possibility. Without any alternative to modern society in place, once our hydrocarbon economy collapses in the midst of climatic upheaval , one could imagine that our civilization would quickly slide into a post-industrial "Stone Age".

or a Space Age?

A "Yes" answer implies that our species recognizes this fact and tries to understand why it has reached this point in its own evolution in the context of the evolution of life on Earth.

A cosmological explanation is that Mother Earth has come of age and it is now time for it to sow its seeds throughout the cosmos in the hope that one or more of them will catch, begin to grow and flourish as Life has on Earth.

Seen in this context, it has taken planet Earth 4.5 billion years of time to reach this opportune moment. Humanity has undergone over 2 million years of evolution capped by the last 200 years of accelerated technological development and some 50+ years of spaceflight experience. The development of spaceflight - the ability to visit other planets - is perhaps, the most significant development, not only in the history of our species, since the appearance of life itself on our planet.

The result of this unprecedented industrial, technological and scientific development that has led to our current predicament has also provided the means for our species to perpetuate our present civilization and indeed to promote the survival of humanity. To do so it will need to harness the infinite resources beyond the atmosphere of our planet to 1. meet the needs of human society on Earth while 2. creating an infrastructure in space for further human expansion in the cosmos.

This scenario for humanity is called The Space Option.

Space visionaries and pioneers long ago recognized this eventuality and they and their followers have quietly and consequently developed both the scientific rationale and the technological concepts to open the space frontier. Upon these works is the development of a concept called The Space Option [2,3,4] and, because this option offers humanity the most "optimistic" pathway to sustainability, it is a choice humanity will most likely make in order to maintain its well-being and its ultimate survival.

The Space Option concept is an evolutionary plan to meet the basic and anticipated needs of humanity through the utilization of near Earth resources - especially that of energy from space. The wide-scale and successful implementation of The Space Option could substantially contribute to the restoration of the global environment by its reliance on unlimited, clean space solar energy to replace humanity's dependence on hydrocarbon fuels which are finite or nuclear fuels which have negative environmental and political aspects.

Such a new energy source would not only maintain and stimulate the global economy, the eventual exploitation of other extraterrestrial resources would guarantee future generations a sufficient supply of material resources. Thus, The Space Option provides hope for the less fortunate societies on our planet to aspire to reaching a living standard substantially beyond their present situation while the present advanced societies can maintain their standard of living and continue their development - an approach to the future that differs greatly from many of the current scenarios for "sustainable development" that are under discussion.

As such, The Space Option could and should become the primary motivation for continued space exploration and development - perhaps even becoming a more powerful driver for space activities than national prestige, security and scientific exploration have been. Indeed, The Space Option should be a catalyst for the opening of a "New Space Frontier" attracting the energies and capital of a new generation of explorers and entrepreneurs.

If implemented in time and with sufficient commitment, the ultimate reward will be a prosperous and dynamic planetary civilization living in a healthy environment and the creation of an infrastructure in space upon which the expansion of the human species throughout the solar system and beyond could be realistically anticipated. Instead of finding ourselves forced to live in the misery of a post-industrial "Stone Age" our species will find its destiny in the "Space Age".

References

1. 1989, Mark Hempsell. Space Industrialization -- A New Perspective. Spaceflight 31[07], 224-227.
2. 1995 Arthur R. Woods & Marco C. Bernasconi, Choosing A Space Age Or A Stone Age, Commentary published in Space News Oct. 2-8, 1995.
3. 1993 Marco C. Bernasconi & Arthur R. Woods, Implementing the Space Option: Elaboration and Dissemination of a New Rationale For Space. (Parts 1 & 2) - Paper IAA.8.1-93-764 a & b presented at the 44th International Astronautical Congress, Graz, Austria. October 16-22.
4. 1990-2005, The Space Option Studies, OURS Foundation

Arthur R. Woods