For when a manned mission to Jupiter? Are we technologically prepared? Humans could be smart enough to achieve interplanetary life within the next 200 years, according to a study by a team of eight researchers who published their research on the preprint server Arxiv. Not only this: we could become a Type I Kardashov Civilization by the year 2371.
What is a Kardashev Civilization?
The Kardashov model or scale was proposed in 1964 by the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashov and is based on evaluating how close a civilization is to conquering space and interplanetary travel. It relies heavily on the types of energy each civilization is capable of using and storing.
It comes in three categories: Type I, II and III. The Type I civilization is capable of using all the energy resources of its planet; those of Type II, can use all the resources of their star and its planetary system; and Type III, from your galaxy.
The long road so far
In 2020, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft managed to briefly land on an ancient asteroid, known as Bennu, to collect dust and pebbles from the surface to send to Earth. Earth in 2023. Scientists now predict that manned space missions to the asteroid belt could take place within 50 years, provided humans manage to reach Mars by 2038. Their prediction is based on an economic analysis of the rate at which that space budgets increase over time and how humans have increased their sphere of operations since the dawn of the space age.
Technological progress
Since the US space agency was established in 1958, there have been several peaks in the economic investment/expenditure curve for space exploration. The first is 1966 with the Apollo program in which the NASA budget represented about 1 percent of the US Gross National Product. Although it has not had a continuous escalation, experts are of the opinion that the general trend is constant linear growth.
The Artemis project will send humans to Mars around 2037, when the radius of human activity will increase to 0.3763 astronomical units. Assuming this mission is successful, we will have another tipping point of data that scientists can use to project into the future.
The researchers conclude that a manned mission to the asteroid could take place in 2073, while astronauts could land on Jupiter in 2101 and on Saturn in 2132. “The results so far suggest that the worlds in our solar system, throughout human history, they are mere specimens of light in the night sky, they will soon be within our reach. Our model suggests that human landings on worlds beyond the Moon and Mars could well be witnessed by many people alive today.”
The study further suggests that humans will need to ‘escape’ Earth at some point, to survive a future catastrophic event of some sort. In fact, the authors cite physicist Stephen Hawking ‘s warning that humans must leave Earth within the next 200 years if we are to survive. Hawking believed that it was too risky to put all of humanity’s eggs in one basket and that future generations needed to carve out a new life in space.
Of course, predictions of this kind are fraught with uncertainty. Many factors, such as climate change, could dramatically slow progress. Be that as it may, economic conditions and the priorities of nations will determine the rate of development.
Referencia: Impact of Economic Constraints on the Projected Timeframe for Human-Crewed Deep Space Exploration Philip E. Rosen, Dan Zhang, Jonathan H. Jiang, Leopold Van Ijzendoorn, Kristen A. Fahy, Zong-Hong Zhu : arxiv.org/abs/2205.08061
