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Luke Shivers

Professor Joyce Barnes

English 1201

3 February 2019

Should Humanity Leave Earth Behind

Chances are you or anyone you know has never worried about the long-term future of the

human race. We simply do not just wake up in the morning and ask ourselves these big

questions. Almost everyone in the world agrees our wasteful and destructive ways have and still

do negatively affect our environment. humans have a bad tendency to think of short-term gain

they experience without considering the long-term consequences that will affect future

generations. It seems as Humanity has already explored our planet and is now in the process of a

growing our individual civilizations. However, this raises an interesting question. Has Humanity

acquired all that it needs on its home planet of Earth? Or, is Humanity destined to explore the

last true frontier, interstellar space. Matthew McConaughey said it best in his hit movie

Interstellar by stating, “It's like we've forgotten Who We Are: explorers, pioneers not

caretakers.” (Nolan, ​Interstellar​). Humanity should collectively begin making plans to explore

interstellar space.

Many people may ask the question, what are we looking for? Multi planetary star

systems, habitable exoplanets and new astrophysical observations are just a few of the highlights.

Space agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency have already begun preliminary

observations of these extra terrestrial bodies. Equipment such as the Hubble Space Telescope and

the highly-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope have observed Planets outside our solar
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system. These exoplanets, as they are called, have the potential to support life. As one can

imagine this greatly intrigues scientists and astrophysicists alike. These observations lay the

groundwork for our future actions and allow us to observe objects very far away without having

to travel to them. all combined these observations will allow us to answer the question of where

we will go.

As it turns out our most compelling reason to explore interstellar space is practically right

next to us. The Sun which is a mere 93 million miles away has various stages throughout its life.

Right now it is in it a relatively calm, mid-life stage. It is not throwing off weird powerful

particles like a young star would and it is not in the process of a supernova explosion like an old

star. However, scientists estimate that in about 5 billion years the sun will expand into a red

giant. Once in this stage the sun has run out of its hydrogen fuel and must resort to burning

helium in tern increasing the radius of the star. Fortunately for us, humans can predict these

stages by studying other similar stars in our galaxy who have undergone this death dance.

Everything here is an estimate but one thing is very clear, life will struggle during this time.

As the sun further expands Earth will be cooked from the outside in. As the heat

scorches the Earth it will become increasingly hotter. The polar ice caps will melt releasing

excess water vapor into the air. The oceans will then evaporate and our home planet will be a

baron on hospitable desert. Unfortunately water is a terrific greenhouse gas and all the excess

vapor in the air will cause a runaway greenhouse effect which will make the planet even hotter

and more uninhabitable. Life at this point will either survive by leaving the planet or it will

perish by staying. Some estimates even say by 7.5 billion years the sun's outer layers may

completely engulf the planet. If this scenario becomes a reality Earth will become what scientists
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call a lava world. The last few extremophiles alive at this point will die off rendering Earth

completely sterile.

Eventually this cataclysmic event will eventually happen and it is only a matter of time.

Humanity has a Doomsday Clock that it cannot stop but inkly outrun. It is the hope of many that

by this point in time our civilization will have other planetary bodies to retreat towards. The

habitable zone of the sun's heat radiation may even put the moons of Jupiter right in the

Goldilocks zone where liquid water can exists on its surface. Here for a few million years life

can enjoy the comfort of a mild climate and a watery world similar to the oceans of Earth.

However, this will be a short-lived fantasy as after the sun's red giant phase the star will shrink

down into a space 10 times smaller than its original radius. Life living on these moons will

quickly freeze and return to something resembling the icy moons today. At this point we will

once more have to search for a new home. Theses extreme changes will eventually happen

therefore, it is imperative we begin laying the groundwork to finding a new home outside of our

chaotic solar system before it's too late.

Having our home burned alive is not humanities only problem. Our lifestyle and

economy revolves around the use of fossil fuels. With our current rate for the consumption our

supply will soon run out. Scientists estimate oil, gasoline, and coal will be nonexistent within 53

years. Once these fossil fuels are gone they will be gone for good. It has taken mother nature

hundreds of millions of years to produce these reserves and humanity has managed to deplete

them all in just under two hundred years. Without finding another energy source humanity would

be catapulted back to the late eighteen hundreds in a world where technology and electricity was

nonexistent.
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Luckily we may have a solution to this problem. renewable resources such as wind, water

and solar will most likely be the energy sources of the future. However, the collection and

storage for this form of energy tends to be extremely difficult, inefficient. Solar panels today

only convert roughly 15% of the energy received into usable energy making them impractical for

large scale operations. Wind turbines must be placed in areas where wind is prevalent, but what

happens if we have a day where the wind is not blowing? In these instances electricity will not be

produced again making it impractable. You cannot store these vast amounts of energy in simple

batteries either. Hydroelectric power on the other hand works around the clock all year long.

However, not every town in the world has a ferociously powerful river next to it. it is impossible

to transport this level of energy hundreds of miles away from its source. This means

hydroelectric power can only supply energy for those nearby. In addition, geothermal energy has

the same problem. While it is very clean and produces zero waste hot Springs are incredibly rare

and only produce enough energy for people living close to the source.

There are some energy sources that fall in between. For example, things such as nuclear

fission produce vast amounts of energy and little waste. However, the waste that is produced is

very radioactive. This toxic sludge can remain harmful for hundreds or even thousands of years.

There is one more option though. Nuclear fusion is not yet fully developed but when it is it could

be a game changer. If fusion became a reality it would without a doubt be the energy source of

the future. The only problem is it is incredibly hard to develop and maintain a fusion reaction.

Scientist in the 1950s claimed the technology was only 30 years away at the most. Ironically

scientists today still claim nuclear fusion is only 30 years away. No one truly knows if this will

actually be developed or if the technology will never become a reality. That is why is crucial that
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we constantly search for new sources of energy to power our civilization. By exploring other star

systems we could come across or develop new forms of energy that were previously

undiscovered, revolutionizing our world.

Once we have escaped the sun's Wrath and are exploring Interstellar space with our

fusion technology we met unintentionally answer one of Humanity's biggest questions, are we

alone in the universe? In our search for a new habitable planets it is entirely possible that we will

run across a native species on one of these celestial bodies. if conditions on an exoplanet are just

right chances are that planet has been habitable for millions or even billions of years. Life could

easily evolve under these perfect conditions. However, due to humanities past this would likely

not turn out good for the native species as the outsiders tend to kill off the natives. Hopefully,

due to the scientific significance of discovering extraterrestrial life there may be efforts to

preserve it by completely leaving alone and just studying its characteristics. if this occurs we

may choose to leave the new planet behind search of one without life currently living on it.

While how exciting as finding aliens may be it is entirely possible there could be another

outcome. By something that would defy logic and all scientific calculations humanity may truly

be the only intelligent life in the universe. Scientists call this the Fermi paradox and in this case

we would just need to find a planet that would suit our physiological needs, not worry about

destroying a native species. While this would be a lonely discovery it would be one of

Humanity's greatest. The discovery of an alien species cannot be done by observing it from a far

which is why interstellar travel and exploration is the only way humans will ever figure out if we

share this universe with other beings.

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There are many other benefits to pursuing Interstellar travel as well. Many inventions we

use in our daily life where invented for NASA astronauts. Technology power enough to send a

spacecraft on interstellar journey will surely you have implications back here on Earth. before

leaving our pale blue dot behind we will likely develop new technology previously thought to be

impossible. For example, due to celestial bodies being very far away we may need to figure out

how to perform a type of hibernation on our bodies. The applications for this technology in the

medical field would be amazing. More research will need to be done on its affects but having

your body and mind go to sleep for years or decades has exciting potential. Research will need to

be done on the effects of bone loss and degeneration cells due to weightlessness as well. It is

entirely possible we will develop artificial gravity to counteract this problem. This would allow

human beings to stay in space for long periods of times a potentially build a Generation ship.

These spacecraft require generations of humans to be born and died until the end goal of

reaching their target is achieved.

We could possibly make a ship that would take less time to travel but it would need to be

propelled at a much faster rate. This ship would need to travel a significant percent of the speed

of light in order to fulfil the practical application of reaching nearby star systems within a human

lifetime. The closest star to us is Proxima Centauri which is over four light-years away. This star

system is a mere skip in the grand scheme things. However, a ship traveling at 20% of the speed

of light would take it over 20 years to reach just our next door neighbor. It is for this reason that

humanities number one technological development hurdle is our propulsion technology. We still

rely on conventional chemical rockets to propel us to our destination. However, the new and

exciting world of future propulsion technologies could do the job more efficiently, with with less
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waste and with much smaller propellant amounts. This is why it is imperative to develop new

methods of propelling or ship into the cosmos.

Once we reach uor Target planetary body we may find it to be habitable but in short

supply of vital resources. Luckily almost everywhere in the universe is surrounded by a cluster

space debris known as asteroids. These are the gold mines of the universe anchor contain enough

resources to power our ever-evolving civilization. Asteroid mining would open our civilization

to new markets and quickly rise to humanities biggest development. New jobs would also be

created in this process. Workers could mine asteroids and return the raw materials to our new

planet in order to fulfill our needs.

Asteroid mining is incredibly interesting because it is almost equivalent to winning the

lottery. A small company who successfully mines an asteroid can acquire trillions of dollars in a

very short amount of time. In addition, once people and other companies get word of the vast

wealth of an asteroid, the rate of technological advancements relating to space travel will

increase dramatically. Not to mention the countless uses such technology could have back on

earth. For all we know in the process of researching the effects of space travel on humans we

may stumble across some huge discovery like the cure to cancer. Space is the last frontier and we

truly have no idea what kind of amazing treasures could be awaiting us.

Although there are some possible downsides to pursuing our interstellar travel. Some

people believe that time money and research should be spent on Earth fixing things such as

world hunger. However, money can be drawn from other places other than space Exploration.

NASA's budget in 2018 was a mirror 0.2% of the US military's budget. When the country is not

actively at war we should be pursuing peaceful and productive ideas such as interstellar travel. If
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we ever want to successfully navigate not only our own solar system but other stars solar systems

we need to increase funding and simultaneously draw money from useless areas to fix problems

here on Earth.

Still others take a different view. Some people believe if humanity expands their

influence they will bring the same negative problems that plague the world now with them and

our next home will simply be a repeat of Earth. Why this is a legitimate concern it has a

relatively simple solution. A new enforcement agency, such as President Trump's space force,

should set up an independent democracy that learns from previous nations mistakes. By electing

strong leaders we will ensure our new home follows a strict set of guidelines that will protect it.

The future of humanity is bright and there will be stunning new inventions we cannot yet

perceive. However, it is the job people now to begin laying the groundwork for these new

revelations. Advancement will not happen overnight but as long as we keep pushing forward we

can defeat our destiny and survive whatever is thrown at us in the future. Whether it's to survive

a random meteor impact or the inevitable doomsday countdown of our own sun it is imperative

we begin to come together and make a conscious effort towards developing the technology and

infrastructure necessary for interstellar travel.

Work CIted

Mervis, J. “A Mighty Wind Blowin.” Science, vol. 313, no. 5789, 2006, pp. 901c–901c.,

doi:10.1126/science.313.5789.901c.

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bdf-ba9f-238017624058@sessionmgr101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=ed

sarx.1811.06526&db=edsarx.

“Why Interstellar Travel Will Be Possible Sooner Than You Think.” Singularity Hub,

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ooner-than-you-think/#sm.00001jqwq3m6p1cnjt9nbrmeg343l.

Williams, Matt. “Pros and Cons of Various Methods of Interstellar Travel.” Universe Today,

Universe Today, 13 Dec. 2018,

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/.

“The Physics of Interstellar Travel.” Official Website of Dr Michio Kaku RSS,

mkaku.org/home/articles/the-physics-of-interstellar-travel/.

Tate, Karl. “How Interstellar Space Travel Works (Infographic).” Space.com, Space.com, 1 July

2013, www.space.com/17619-how-interstellar-travel-works-infographic.html.

IMDb, IMDb.com, 5 Nov. 2014, www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/.

Thorne, Kip S., and Christopher Nolan. The Science of Interstellar. W.W. Norton & Company,

2014.

Catlin, Roger. “NASA Won't Be Going 'Back' to the Moon-It Wants to Go Beyond It.”

Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 13 Dec. 2018,

www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/nasa-wont-go-back-moon-it-wants-g

-beyond-180971033/.
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