The exponential growth of the human population on Earth is suffocating the resources that humans require to survive. This was prophesied 200 years ago in a major essay written by Thomas Malthus (1798) saying that the accelerated reproduction of humans would use up all the Earth’s resource and result in mass famine. It has become apparent that due to higher birth rates and mortality, there is more people occupying Earth than ever before. Scientists and philosophers are scrambling to find solutions to what seems to be a dim future. Underneath is a Google time-lapse from 1984-2016 of the urban sprawl in Chongqing, China expanding into farmland. Even though the carrying capacity of Earth is not exactly known, it is estimated to be limited at 9-10 billion people until food resources lack. Even if the scarcely grown grains are used to feed humans instead of livestock, this would support the carrying capacity to 10 billion vegetarians instead of 2.5 billion omnivores (Wolchover 2011).

To add to this pressing matter, the increasing production of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – from the burning of fossil fuels, agriculture and deforestation – traps in solar heat and pollutes the air with increasing concentrations of CO2 which suffocates native vegetation and farmland. These problems contribute to the carrying capacity of the Earth, but the effects can not be calculated to show how much it will decrease the already low estimated carrying capacity.

Now, there are many theories that could help lengthen the reign of the

Anthropocene Era. The United Nations (UN) Population Division projects that on the current course of growth the population will reach over 9 billion by 2050, and then due to environmental obstacles the population will plateau at 11 billion by 2100. In 2015, 193 governments gathered in Paris (The Paris Agreement 2015) in which they discussed global warming and efforts to reduce toxic emissions. It was a huge success with every country agreeing to try to make a difference to reduce the emissions to help with the fight to exceed mankind’s existence on Earth. There are also theories about lowering the fertility in women to deplete the average birth rate. This can be done by the increase of support for family planning, education of the availability of effective contraception, and increased government resources. But there is a solution which is slightly outside of the box – interstellar migration. If we deplete all resources needed to survive on Earth, find another ‘Earth’.

In recent years, NASA has been given the go-ahead to start preparing a long-term mission to Mars. The US government has increased NASA’s funding in the past 20 years from $13 billion to $19 billion (Amadeo 2017) with the passing of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017. The US Congress passed this bill with many mentions of the mission to Mars. The Act states “The key U.S. objectives for human expansion into space shall include human exploration of Mars and beyond…” and that the bill “declares to maximize the… activities leading to human habitation on the surface of Mars”. Preparations have now been put into action via 5 phases as a “stepping stone approach” which is specified in federal law (NASA Transition Authorization Act 2017).

Phase 0 is underway at this moment, which consists of multiple test at the International Space Station (ISS) and partnering with private space companies. Phase 1 is a 7-year project planned to start this year (2018). These are physical tests by launching six rockets with the aim to deliver components from Earth to a space station set up on Lunar. Phase 3, NASA will launch the Deep Space Transport tube towards the Lunar station, with astronauts inhabiting this tube for 400 days. By 2030, the transport tube in phase 3 will be stocked with supplies and a permanent crew will be sent via rocket used in Phase 1 tests. The final phase will be the journey to mars from the Lunar station (Rain 2017).

With the government backing steps towards interstellar migration, it has inspired many private space agencies which have the same ambitious view but with

hopes of a shorter timeline. A Dutch company running a mission called Mars One, has started recruiting scientists from around the world with hopes of populating Mars in 2024. SpaceX is an American space agency founded by billionaire Elon Musk in 2002 who has the aim to make humans a multi-planet Species. Mars is the closest and most in-reach planet to expand humanity, but there are other places in the Solar System with some promising research. For example, Jupiter’s moon Europa has an ocean of water under its surface and tectonic plates have been discovered.

Regardless of the dire prediction that philosopher Thomas Malthus wrote about in the 1700’s, it seems that the human race is resilient enough to fight for survival through every means necessary. Implementing steps to slow down the degradation of the resources on Earth, to creating new resources on a possible new home world. Science has allowed us to predict trends and understand the mysteries of the universe. We have expanded our knowledge on how our world works and beyond. With this knowledge we can prevent the devastation of millions and save the human race.

References

Amadeo, K 2017, ‘NASA budget: Current funding and history’. The Balance, 25 May, viewed 20 January 2018, https://www.thebalance.com/nasa-budget-current-funding-and-history-3306321

Malthus, T 1798. ‘An essay on the principle of population’, Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project 1998, viewed 18 January 2018, http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf

NASA Transition Authorization Act 2017 (U.S. 115th Congress), viewed 10 January 2018, https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/442

Rain, V 2017, ‘NASA’s 5-phase mission will take humans to Mars’, Geek Reply, April 29, viewed 25 January 2018, https://geekreply.com/technology/space-exploration-technology/2017/04/29/nasas-5-phase-mission-will-take-humans-to-mars

Wolchover, N 2011, ‘How many people can Earth support?’, Live Science, October 11, viewed 26 January 2018, https://www.livescience.com/16493-people-planet-earth-support.html

Resources

Mars One Mission – https://www.mars-one.com/

SpaceX mission to Mars – http://www.spacex.com/mars

UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs – http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/

The Paris Agreement 2015 – http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php