Adapted for the Internet from:

Why God Doesn't Exist

    1.0   The evacuation of 10 billion earthlings

    In order to justify funding for their space projects, leading scientists argue that one day we will have to
    evacuate the Solar System anyway because the Sun has a limited lifespan. If the calculations are correct, our
    star is in its middle age and has about another 5 more billion years to go.

    However, evacuation, colonization, and exploration are wholly different motives for justifying the allocation of
    funds. For starters, money that would otherwise be unavailable for exploratory research could become
    unconditional in case of an emergency.

    But can we realistically visualize evacuating billions of people from the Earth in slower-than-light spaceships
    to sun-like stars Alpha Centauri A or Tau Ceti 12 light-years away? Will the Solar System ever generate the
    resources to construct the number of vehicles needed for such massive exodus? Can we imagine 10 or more
    billion people, most of them beyond middle age, travelling forever through space, with the purpose of seeking
    asylum from cousins, or vice versa, they from us? Or can we imagine established, overcrowded colonies
    sharing land and resources with invading remnants? Well, what do you think would happen today if the entire
    continent of Africa fell on hard times? Would the rest of the world partake 400 million new immigrants?

    Interstellar evacuation is a ridiculous idea that starry-eyed dreamers entertain without giving it much thought.
    They should turn their TVs off for a few minutes so they can concentrate on the impossible scenario involved.

    Perhaps we will do it simply to ease overcrowding. We get rid of a few million volunteers.

    Unlikely! First, these small numbers would not make a dent on the total population, and then the Earth could
    just as well recover the losses in no time. If the population stagnates, there is no reason to make the trip in the
    first place. Regardless of the available habitable surface in the entire Centauri System, the colonists would
    spread like wild fire before a significant number of earthlings embark to alleviate overpopulation here.
    Certainly, the surface of Mars is significantly smaller than the Earth's. Mars can probably hold a fourth of what
    the Earth can hold. Therefore, Mars is not going to help us at all if the problem is overcrowding.

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    Last modified 02/27/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Now that we have
claimed this land in the
Centauri System for
the U.N., should we
start collecting
coconuts, Captain Al?
Stop it! You're killing me!
I'm marooned with two
loonies in the middle of
nowhere, and they're
talking about commercial
ventures!


    2.0   Sons of the pioneers

    How about colonization?  Is this any better?

    Who would be the first to go? A poor, persecuted sect of suffering Bolivian pilgrims? Or maybe we should
    take the opportunity to evacuate the prisons and force inmates to board the craft at gunpoint?

    Interstellar colonization would be expensive and government run, nothing remotely like the conquest of
    the American continent. Under the best of circumstances it would be reserved for an elite destined to go
    one way. Would the whole of humanity pitch in for a select few to begin a colony at a far away place that
    would forget the motherland upon founding? In what manner would that help Earth? Would they claim the
    land for the U.N. Secretary General or for the Queen of Spain?

    Or perhaps the idea is to develop some brisk, mutually profitable commerce?

    What would traders bring in their 30 lb lightsails? Spices? Local commerce would clearly be more
    profitable, and colonists would naturally appropriate the regional resources for their own needs.
    Nevertheless, we are assuming that the Solar System is self sufficient, has a stable population, and has
    invented everything there is to invent under the Sun when our pollen spreads to the stars. What would we
    need Proxima’s produce for and at such exorbitant prices? The transportation costs alone would be
    prohibitive.

    Maybe we would colonize just because of our natural animal instinct to propagate the human race?

    This would really be quite a motive. 'Propagation' is rapidly dying in all advanced countries, where people
    procreate at much slower rates today and care even less for their offspring. How powerful a motive this
    will be in 100 years remains to be seen. I discuss it in more detail in the section dealing with fertility. For
    those who missed it, the age of colonization happened 500 years ago when young, curious adventurers
    had yet much to discover here on Earth. There is no room for colonization in a world where an older,
    stable population, having discovered everything of relevance that there is to discover settles in for a quiet
    life of remembrance and prepares for extinction. Colonization would amount to an expensive giveaway
    that gains nothing for Earth. At best a very small percentage of the human population would ever make
    such a trip. For what? To send an elite one way at the price of emptying the world's coffers? One thing is
    to go to the Moon or to an orbiting space colony for a couple of weeks. Another is to risk suicide by
    travelling, in the best of cases, for a boring, perilous five years to a planet terraformed in advance by
    robots when you can be safe back in the comfort of your home watching it on TV. Why would anyone risk
    such a trip? To lose 5 years of his life in space, luckily reach Centauri, and see the same thing we saw on
    Earth? The discovery and colonization of America is not even remotely an analogy for the conquest of
    Centauri.

    Maybe our destiny is in intergenerational travel: to preserve the human race against the wishes of Mother
    Nature.  We could begin, for example, by fabricating torus-like habitats designed to orbit planets or
    satellites of the Solar System. Materials for these habitats could be cannibalized from asteroids and the
    Moon, for example. Once an entire generation of space-children is born, living at the torus will be second
    nature.

    So far so good. Now, tired of orbiting the same dumb old satellite, a revolution occurs. A new generation
    of teenage entrepreneurs rebels and decides to risk it all. They pool their resources, build their own torus-
    space-ship, retrofit it with powerful antimatter rockets, fuel which they skimmed in secret from their
    parents, and begin their suicide attempt to reach Alpha. I say suicide because if they ever make it, they’ll
    be older than Rip Van Winkle. Obviously, the trip is a gift to their grandchildren, a sentiment hard to
    believe will be second nature in the incoming alienated young generation of Earth. But assuming best
    case scenario, these teenagers will fly throughout their lifetimes without seeing anything but space. Their
    rebellious nature has led them to live the most boring life anyone can imagine just so their grandchildren
    can orbit a far away stone just like their wiser parents did in the old days.  Sounds reasonable?
Finally, we leave that stinking hell hole. It was just too
overcrowded and polluted!
A great Eden awaits us in Mars! There, in that gigantic land,
we will be able to multiply like the sands of the desert.
Yes, my faithful Stevie. Our
mission is to bring back
enough food to feed Earth.
We should begin our
enterprise immediately!
News flash:

The politicians unanimously vote to allocate
trillions for a tour to the nearest star

    3.0   Go where no man has gone before, but go!

    There is also the possibility of sending an exploratory probe to Alpha simply for scientific purposes.

    For what? To see a sun we already know much about and dead Mars-like rocks floating around it? At a
    cost of trillions? Why would we go through such trouble when we’ve already settled that we’re not going
    to colonize or evacuate. The likelihood of finding a planet teaming with life is next to nil, and terraforming
    would take more years than anyone will live.

    What these arguments really show is that idealistic proponents have had enough with the politicians and
    want to get out of the planet rather than stay and fix its problems. Maybe this is why governments pay
    back in kind by treating space science as a hobby. The entire Universe is like what we see. There is one
    planet teaming with life like ours, surrounded perhaps by millions of scattered rocks with bacteria-level
    life, surrounded in turn by a sea of billions of dead planets, double stars, white dwarfs, red giants and
    other lifeless places. Since Earth-like planets don’t generate life all at once, we are staggered in time and
    have little chance of even communicating with the nearest civilization. What do we want to expand into
    the galaxy for if eventually we’re going to die anyway? What difference does it make whether it is one
    million years or 100 years. We know pretty much all there is to know and discovered pretty much all we
    will ever discover. All that lies ahead of us is tedium, mechanical motion, endless repetition of the same
    old thing. We are destined to become dinosaurs, doing the same thing day after day, living beyond
    justification, facing extinction because we have nothing more to live for. Indeed, we never had. Speed
    technology and resources are the limiting factors for all of the above scenarios anyway.
Okay amigos! Let's do it! Let's
explore this planet in Alpha Centauri
and see what exotic specimens we
can take back to recover some of the
costs of the expedition.