The time for Mars is now… before history repeats.

The time for Mars is now… before history repeats.

We live in a very special time.  This is the first period in human history where our species has both the technology and the will to explore beyond our own planet.  However, like a candle in the wind it can either be protected and allow it to ignite a revolution that carries our species into the cosmos, or it can be battered by the naysayers and be extinguished forever.  The choice is ours.

With history as our guide, we know that this window in time where we can seize the opportunity will be fleeting. In the past 5000 years, the average lifespan of a civilization is 336 years. Historians debate when our modern era officially began, but a safe estimate is in the 1500s. This period is marked by both the beginning of improved transportation which started globalization and also the advent of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press which dramatically improved the transfer of knowledge leading to education reform and scientific inquiry.

According to Luke Kemp, a researcher based at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, “Societies of the past and present are just complex systems composed of people and technology. The theory of “normal accidents” suggests that complex technological systems regularly give way to failure. So collapse may be a normal phenomenon for civilizations, regardless of their size and stage.”

Kemp further explains that a collapse in our current modern society is also far more likely to set ALL of humanity backwards technologically and socially because of how interconnected the modern world is, how advanced our technology is, and how powerful our weapons have become. The global impact of the COVID-19 virus clearly demonstrated that our modern world is highly interdependent and more vulnerable than we could have imagined just three years ago. 

History and our modern view of the world are at odds.  500 years of rapid advances in technology from the age of sail to the nuclear age has given modern mankind the false impression that human society and technology will always advance.  We falsely assume that the future will always be better than the past and that tomorrow will be full of technological wonders we cannot imagine today. History tells another tale. 

The Roman empire is a good example of the potential future that awaits our modern civilization. At its peak the Roman empire spanned 4.4 million square km across modern Europe and had developed the engineering prowess to build complex structures like the Pantheon with its expansive dome using a form of ancient concrete. This technology was ancient Rome’s technological equivalent to our aerospace industry as it allowed them to create infrastructure and buildings that were unparalleled in any previous civilization. The knowledge and skill required to both engineer the Pantheon and to create the concrete it was made of were lost for more than 1000 years after the fall of Rome. It was not until the 1700’s before concrete was rediscovered by a French engineer whose formula remains the basis for modern concrete.  

This needs to be a warning to our modern society on just how vulnerable we could be.  Concrete is quite literally the foundation of our modern world. Nearly every home, building and modern infrastructure relies on it. Just think about that. Humanity lost 1000 years of progress because one civilization fell and the world forgot how to make something as basic as concrete. Our modern civilization’s “concrete” is our aerospace industry and our ability to rapidly travel around and beyond our own planet.  A feat far more challenging than any achieved by humanity thus far.

Visionary author Isaac Asimov believed that human civilization moved in cycles.  This concept was the underlying theme of his Foundation series; a multi-novel masterpiece which began with the development of hyperspace travel and tracks the rise and fall of human civilization over tens of thousands of years.  As a science fiction author he drew heavily on the examples of the rise and fall/decline in both the Roman and British empires and gave his readers a futuristic portrayal of how humanity survives through becoming multi-planetary.  As we have mentioned before, this series – and philosophy – deeply impacted Elon Musk and is a driving force behind his urgency to colonize Mars.  It should also be noted that this is not a call to abandon Earth and give up on protecting our current home. Simply to safeguard our species and our technology by “creating a backup” as Elon Musk says, on another planet. This is why Asimov believed that “the colonization of space is the only possible salvation of Earth.”

It has happened before… and it will happen again.  All known civilizations on Earth have followed a pattern of establishment, growth and then for a variety of reasons plateau and collapse.  Unless we change the rules of the game through expanding human civilizations to other planets, our modern civilization will (eventually) end like those which came before us and our opportunity to explore the stars will be gone. 

To ensure humanity survives, we collectively need to take concrete steps to ensure our future. World leaders need to come together and create internationally agreed upon standards for the laws and expectations of space faring nations along the same lines of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that governs international waters. International space advisory boards should be created to encourage international cooperation and competition against set planning milestones such as those proposed by the National Space Society in their Roadmap to Space Settlement. Governments with space programs should dedicate at least 1% of their GDP to their space programs and/or supporting industries to encourage growth in advanced space technologies. Industries should invest in technologies that benefit both improving life on Earth and enabling deep space missions while simultaneously developing a workforce skilled in these technologies. And last but not least, we the people should become informed and invested in our own future beyond planet Earth.

Simply put, our civilization must act now before we become just another footnote of history.