Is Colonizing Space the Next Stage of Human Evolution?

Human evolution is a narrative writ sluggish. It’s been about 3.8 billion years since life on Earth emerged and steadily started to unfold its attain from the tidal swimming pools to the oceans to the shorelines to the grasslands to the forests—and, in the end to New York and Tokyo and Shanghai and extra. Having exhausted our terrestrial vacation spot, humanity is now reaching for extraterrestrial ones. Our dream of going again to the moon and onto Mars and extra distant worlds—not least to make sure our species’ survival earlier than the solar flames out and engulfs a lot of the photo voltaic system—will be seen as only one extra step in evolution’s lengthy march. That’s the compelling argument made by Caleb Scharf—writer and senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA Ames Research in Moffett Field, Calif.—in his new guide The Giant Leap: Why Space Is the Next Frontier in the Evolution of Life. Scharf sat down with TIME to speak about life, survival, and the destiny of our species.

TIME: Much of what you write about within the guide entails the concept of “dispersal” as an evolutionary course of that might dramatically change the human species. Describe what you imply by that.

Scharf: Dispersal refers back to the concept of life spreading far, far past its level of origin. It’s the identical type of course of that we see play out on the Earth the place a species migrates to some new surroundings after which undergoes modifications. A single species turns into many species as a result of its descendants essentially adapt to environments that they discover themselves in. The sheer scale of the panorama wherein a spacefaring species will discover itself should change it. It will trigger it to speciate. It will trigger it to grow to be perhaps a number of species. 

We advanced to stay right here, on Earth, and but we’re making an attempt to stay there, in area. Isn’t this maladaptive?

We might have a look at the historical past of life on Earth and say, “Well, life did really, really well in the oceans. Why would you have surface plant life eventually evolving?” Of course, there isn’t any plan. Evolution is a technique of continuous experimentation. And so my perspective on that is that, sure, it appears hideously terrible to attempt to exist in area and even on the floor of one other world like Mars. But I feel expertise is an adaptive trait, simply as different organisms assemble issues round themselves—termites construct nests, birds construct nests, animals manipulate their surroundings to make it extra appropriate for themselves. We do that as properly.

If Earth is in the end doomed—if the solar will start to incinerate us in a couple of billion years—Mars wouldn’t do as a protected harbor, since that planet could be put to the torch as properly. The reply is to go to different star techniques, however until we are able to break the legal guidelines of Einsteinian physics, we might by no means strategy the speeds wanted to achieve even the closest stars in a human lifetime. So are we doomed?

I feel the reply could be very unsure. Any affordable mechanism we all know of now to get to a different star goes to take a very long time. We know chemical rockets will not do it. Light sails and big lasers may get you among the method there. And there are different concepts to do with ion drives and gathering interstellar fuel and utilizing that to propel your self alongside—however all that might contain very prolonged journeys. Maybe that could be a barrier that every one organic life ultimately comes up in opposition to. And maybe one purpose we really feel so alone within the universe is that no one else will get by that specific barrier.

You write that area exploration would not be doable with out “the ecosystem of mathematics, physics, and chemistry” which have developed over the previous couple thousand years. Is that ecosystem a perform of evolution or a reason for evolution? 

I think that it’s each. Human-like intelligence so far as we all know has solely been round for just a few hundred thousand years. We do not know precisely how sensible the Neanderthals had been, however we might speculate that we had an analogous scope of intelligence. The sobering thought is that it could be too early to know whether or not that emergent trait has a constructive or destructive impact on survival.

The Apollo 11 moon touchdown was a hinge level in human historical past, as you describe within the guide. But we’ve got not been again to the moon for the reason that finish of the Apollo lunar program in 1972. Why are we stalled on Earth?

I’d say that in some methods, we’re not stalled in any respect. Certainly human exploration past Earth orbit floor to a halt after Apollo. But the remainder of area exploration has simply barreled forward. The Apollo missions had been designed and constructed to get the job executed, which was to perform what [President] Kennedy laid out on the desk, for all its geopolitical worth and its bragging rights and so forth. The drawback with that type of enterprise is that you simply’re not essentially pondering long run. That would not actually set you up for long run success.

There are tens of millions of species on Earth. If we’re going to get off the planet earlier than the solar burns out, do we’ve got an evolutionary duty to take a few of them with us?

We would inevitably must take different life with us. Obviously, there’s the human microbiome; that may go together with us. And we’ve got to consider whether or not we have to take components of the microbial surroundings that surrounds us as a result of the microbes that stay on the floor of all the things on the planet additionally contribute to [our well-being]. We additionally must eat and I feel we might inevitably take a sure variety of species with us, selfishly due to meals. I’ve been requested about this earlier than and I’ve mentioned I’d take a cubic kilometer of the Earth’s floor and all the things in it—all of the bugs, all of the creatures, all of the vegetation, all of the microbes. I’d simply dump that in a container and use that as a part of my life help system.

There are at present greater than 8.1 billion of us and that quantity is just prone to develop sooner or later. If the time involves solid off from Earth, we’re definitely not going to move billions of individuals. Will this be a melancholy waving goodbye to a specific few hundred thousand whereas the opposite billions keep behind and perish? 

Realistically, any future like this may play out over such a very long time scale that it could be extra an occasion of a gradual form of rebalancing. Over a century, perhaps just a few thousand people—pioneer organisms—exit and begin residing in a hollowed out asteroid or elsewhere. And steadily, you realize, there’s development. People born many generations after us will maybe have the choice to determine, do I need to keep on Earth, or do I need to go some place else? I do not know what their decisions could be.

Do you assume we are able to ever overcome our tribalism sufficiently to do that collectively?