No one knows what the future of humanity will be like in a thousand years. Any attempt to predict what will happen would be as useless as it is wrong. But that has not prevented many scientists from imagining how it could be because there are always visionaries capable of lifting the veil of the future and glimpse something that awaits us.
Terraforming Mars
The biggest undertaking such a civilization can face is the terraforming of planets, the construction of a planetary biosphere that simulates that of Earth . Obviously the first planet we will terraform will be Mars. To do this, we must first increase the average temperature of the red planet by installing factories that produce artificial greenhouse gases, such as perfluoromethane (CF4). If it were released at the rate of 1,000 tons per hour, the average temperature of the planet would increase by 10 C in a few decades. On the other hand, the insolation on Mars would have to be increased by at least 30% by installing orbiting mirrors like solar sails. Valid levels of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere should then be achieved by volatilizing nitrates and carbonates by two methods, each more catastrophic: by directed meteorite impacts or by nuclear mining. Both achieve in situ volatilization of these elements by injecting heat into depth .
With the increase in temperature, the ice that exists a few meters below the surface, in the permafrost, will melt and we will have liquid water, but not enough. The only way to add water to Mars is through intense cometary bombardment , something that already happened to Earth when it was young. After 200 years of planetary engineering, Mars would have a global temperature of 8ºC, a total pressure of about 240 millibars (about a fifth of Earth’s)
Dyson spheres
The future of humanity is not only about solving the problem of space and natural resources. You also need a source of energy that provides it in large quantities and is practically inexhaustible. In 1960 the physicist Freeman Dyson proposed thatthe best way to extract all the energy from the sun was to build an “envelope” of solar cells that surrounds it, like the skin of an apple. There are three possible radii for this spectacular shell: 9 million kilometers from the Sun, between the orbits of Mercury and Venus, or, as Dyson originally proposed, at the distance from the Earth to the Sun. There are two problems it faces this type of planetary megaconstruction: where to get the materials to build it – a Dyson sphere located at a distance from Earth would have an internal area of 183 billion square kilometers – and how to solve the problem of the gravitational effects of the inner planets that could destroy this structure.The solution to the double problem is unique: if the planets bother us, we remove them. “It is possible to break planets into pieces,” Dyson wrote in 1966. By grinding them, we will obtain the necessary materials to build the sphere. Yif necessary, we can finish off Jupiter. This could be done in two ways: speeding it up or flying it. The first would be achieved by covering the planet with superconducting cable. Due to its magnetic field, Jupiter would become an electric motor that would start spinning faster and faster to the point where gravity would not be able to keep it stable. But the waiting time would be almost eternal: about 40,000 years. Blasting is a more acceptable option. The point is not to blow it up in an uncontrolled way, but in the same way that it is done when knocking down buildings, only in a bigger way: what is called controlled subatmospheric thermonuclear blasting. In short, by strategically placed nuclear charges within Jupiter’s atmosphere.
colonization of the galaxy
In a thousand years, if humanity is still alive, we will jump to the stars. The distances are enormous and we do not know under which suns we will find habitable planets, but the exploration will be able to start. And all thanks to automatic Von Neumann probes. In 1940 John Von Neumann mathematically proved that self-reproducing automata were possible . That is, there was no theoretical condition that prohibited this type of machine. Based on this idea, physicists Frank Tipler and John D. Barrow have calculated the time we will need to explore the entire galaxy, assuming that there is a habitable planet every 50 light-years away, that these automatic probes travel at a tenth of the speed of light and that the probes take about 500 years to consolidate their position on a planet (the time needed to terraform it), in just two million years we will already have colonized the galaxy ! If we reduce its speed to 30 km/s, it would take a little longer: about 30 million years. A very short period of time in cosmic time.
At this point the imagination runs wild. The astrophysicists Sagan and Shklovskii proposed triggering artificial supernova explosions using lasers of unimaginable power: one trillion Gigawatts. Why? In supernova explosions is when heavy elements are created, the elements with which a technological civilization is built. For his part, Martin Fogg proposes to create stars: to make those celestial objects that could never become stars shine because they did not contain enough mass . How? Using the micro black holes – black holes the size of the head of a pin – that are supposed to have been created by the Big Bang. The vast majority would have already disintegrated, but some would still survive to be able to launch them against those “aborted stars” and, placed inside them, make them shine. Or why not! Building micro black holes in the lab and moving them there.
Incredible true? And that there are always scientists capable of talking about galactic Dyson spheres, the galactic internet, the seeding of life on other planets and the reorganization of the galactic structure to obtain the maximum level of resources for the galaxy… But you know, the imagination is free and the paper holds what you write.
References:
Kaku, M. (2011) The future of Humanity, Random House
Zubrin, R. (2000) Entering Space, TarcherPerigee
