Prefect assembly – Space colonisation
The refugee crisis, Brexit, and the American presidential election.Over the past yearthe public has become increasingly polarised by topics such as these, so I thought I’d make my assembly about a much more far-reachingsubjectthat could potentially unite people together. A common goal which would have benefits for all of humanity; the colonisation of space.This topic has been discussed here before; a number of you may remember an assembly from a few years agoabout the colonisation of mars under the Mars One project. But since then, a great deal has changed, so I thought I’d update us on what’s different.
Regarding the much more long term idea of transporting people beyond thesolar system, the Kepler space telescope has been busy scanning the galaxy for potentially habitable exoplanetssince 2009. It’s already confirmed the existence of 2,331, 21 of which are at a distance from their star that could allow liquid water to exist on their surface, andcould therefore potentially support humans. In fact, Kepler discovered just a few months ago that a planet with many of the characteristics of Earth exists in the Proxima Centauri system. Proxima Centauri is the star closest to Earth apart from the sun, at a distance of only4 and a quarter lightyears, so Proxima Centauri B is ideally placed to visit once technology reaches an appropriate level. The only flaw with data of this sort is that there is no way of determining the composition of a detected planet, only its minimum mass, distance from its star, and year length, so many of those detected may turn out to be hostile to life. However, as the data we have on exoplanets continues to increase, mathematical and computational modelling of exoplanets will become muchbetterat predicting the likelihood that a planet has the needed characteristics.
Another recent change is the appearance of theEM-drive, an experimental propulsion system which was initially rejected by the scientific community on the grounds that it breaks Newton’s third law of motion, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. There is a great deal of conflicting evidence on this, and in reality only a slim chance that it works as claimed, but if it does then there exists a way to provide thrust without losing any material. This is entirely unlike the chemical and ion-based thrusters used at present, or even theorised nuclear explosion-propelledsystems, opening up the possibility of powering interstellar travel in a somewhatpractical butincredibly efficient way.
The media’s attitude towards the concept ofplanetary colonisation has also evolved. Films such as Interstellar, The Martian, and the upcoming Passengers all deal with this issue directly, and the great success of the first two is indicative of public enthusiasm for the topic – Interstellar managed to raise 675 million dollars at the box office, and The Martian 630 million. News organisations have also had a lot to say about space exploration, with Tim Peake, the New Horizons Pluto flyby, and the Rosetta and Juno missions raising positive press. It’s a shame that the European Space agency’s Schiaparelli Mars lander failed, but the huge quantity of data collected from this attempt means there is a good chance the 2020 European Exomarsrover will still go ahead. And the press coverage demonstrates that people are still fascinated by space.
On the topic of Mars, it’s arguable that sending people there isthe next major achievement to be had in space, and it’s something that’s being encouraged by the emergence of companies like SpaceX. Just a few weeks ago SpaceX’s founder – Elon Musk – unveiled the Interplanetary Transport System, a space vehicle intended to reduce the cost of travelling to Mars from its current impractical amount to around 500,000 US Dollars per person. He hopes to startlaunching these by 2024, which isn’t actually too far-fetched – this timescale is comparable to that between John F Kennedy’s ‘We choose to go to the moon’ speech and the actual moon landings. Elon Musk isn’t the only one with visions for this opportunity; Jeff Bezos – the founder of Amazon – and his company Blue Horizons managed to beat SpaceX to be the first to land a rocket sent into space back at its launch site.The development of reusable technology like this would be fundamental forMars missions and potential colonisation, so this sort of competition is very encouraging.
But is any of this worth the huge cost? It could be argued that it would be a waste of resources to focus on something like Mars colonisation while we still have significant problems here on Earth. On the other hand, the moon landings were achieved in the middle of the cold war, and the developments made as a result of it – from communications systems to solar panels to computersto medical technology – have had a significant positive impact on people’s lives. There is no reason why Mars couldn’t be the catalyst for something similar. Mars is an entire planet of untapped scientific knowledge, and has several features like its low gravity that make it much more suitable as a base for further space exploration and exploitation. If a colony were to be established, it would quickly become the focal point of a new wave of technological progress. To help expand on this I’d now like to show you a clip from a YouTube video by Josh Sherrington, which explains how a Mars colony might work.
<90 second video clip
A goal like this isn’t without risks. The Apollo program killed 3 people just as it was getting started, and errors are still being made today. But in my opinion the opportunity to advance the knowledge of the human race, and the chance to make us a multi-planetary species, are too great to ignore. I suppose once we do start attempting to put people on Mars this phrase may need updating, but I still think it embodies a great mindset: shoot for the moon, because even if you miss you’ll end up among the stars. Thank you for listening.