Space colonization and exploration is a touchy subjects for many people. On the other hand, it is the truth many others think we should be focusing on. The reason for the first school of thought is based on the uncertainties that come with space travel, including the presence of potentially hostile extraterrestrials. While this fear is worth taking seriously, billionaire investor Yuri Milner proposes that exploration of space is the only way to increase humanity’s long-term chances of survival.
Why Should Humans Explore Space?
In his book, Eureka Manifesto, Yuri Milner gives multiple insights into the evolution of the cosmos from the expansion of space and time at the Big Bang to the formation of stars and planetary systems and eventually the diversity of life. From simple to complex, life has evolved ever since. He describes the gradual increase in the complexity of living beings and their models of the world as the universe “waking up,” becoming aware of its own existence and story.
Stephen Hawking stated that the chance of an existential disaster happening on Earth is low but increases with time, becoming almost inevitable in the next few thousand years. Many scientists and researchers share this opinion. They believe that the next threat may come from e.g. an asteroid or comet running into Earth. According to these scientists, a big enough collision could kill all life on the planet. And this is where space travel comes in — the preservation of life, especially as humans are the only known species with the means to communicate history through generations.
Key Achievements in the Race to Explore Space
In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake presented an equation at the Green Bank conference that estimated the number of communicative civilizations in the Milky Way — way before the debate on civilizations’ presence in outer space became fiercer. As you already know, the search has been unsuccessful. But Jill Tarter, an authority on the search for intelligent life, believes we are not looking hard enough. Yuri Milner supports Tarter in the Manifesto, saying space travel is yet to receive the recognition and funding it deserves.
Yuri Milner’s launch of the Breakthrough Initiatives, and its SETI program called Listen, sought to revolutionize the search for intelligent civilizations. The Initiatives have also partnered with NASA to investigate the possibility of an inexpensive mission to look for signs of cellular life on one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus. Milner believes the question of life in the universe is vital, and the mission of humanity is to explore and understand the universe, which he stated in his widely publicized Manifesto.
In recent times, the most prominent figure in the push for human multi-planetary habitation has been Elon Musk. He plans to relocate one million people to Mars, citing the uncertainty of humans’ safety on Earth. Elon’s initial timeline for “evacuation” to begin was in 2022, but he stated in March of 2022 that the first humans on Mars would be in 2029. His approach may differ slightly from Yuri Milner’s, but they have similar goals — fighting for humanity’s survival through space colonization.
Final Thoughts: Where Do We Go From Here?
Yuri Milner’s arguments in Manifesto are solid; connecting the dots between the evolution of life to our shared mission in the cosmos is genius stuff. But as clearly documented in the book, every innovation (or conclusion such as his in the book) would have been impossible without the foundation of discoveries by previous scientists like Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton. So has man’s journey of space exploration flowed from Yuri Gagarin, Jill Tarter, and Carl Sagan to Yuri Milner and Elon Musk. With SpaceX’s giant stride in space technology, Carl Sagan’s dream of a habitable exoplanet is fast becoming a reality. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for 2029.