System First

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2023 to 6/6/2024
Artem V Shamsutdinov (But it could be any number of people who are thinking about this)

By 2032 the initial results of the Europa Clipper scans will be available and widely known. Given that the assumptions made in the previous 5 articles are correct we are likely to find life there. The life that appeared and evolved completely independently of life on Earth. And given that Europa is probably just as old as Earth it will likely have advanced life, possibly with the presence of intelligent species (as I've briefly proposed in "It Ain't the Crown"). This will undoubtedly change our perception of the Universe and will be a pivotal moment in the development of our civilization. Finding separately appearing life logically dictates that life is present wherever possible in the Universe and thus also in our own Galaxy and its nearby region. Much will depend on the choices we'll make soon after that discovery.

The argument I've made before is that we should continue to develop independently for as long as is acceptable to all parties since that will maximize our potential for our own good and the good of our Galactic neighborhood. Good children make everyone better. To accomplish this the general approach can be summed up in 2 (3) words:

(Solar) System First

This means we need to secure our System before we attempt any large-scale interactions outside of it. Given that we have two other potentially habitable (Added: 2/1/2025 and possibly already inhabited) dry surface planets that period probably won't last long (500 to 1000 years) so we'll need to maximize what we can accomplish in that time. The next key assumption I'm making is that we have a multitude of intelligent species living on at least some of our 8 planets with sub-surface water. What comes to my mind is placing it at 3 planets with species in roughly the tribal stage of development and one with industrial (not like ours likely) capacity. I don't know what 3 planets it would be that would have the early stage societies but, based on what I saw in the live fly-by closeup of the New Horizons mission and on what I saw in our Nature and Science museum two days ago (an interactive 3D model of the planet's surface) it is Pluto that has advanced aquatic species.

Thus a moral dilemma immediately arises - if there are species capable of intelligent thought and technological progress, they must be given the ability to become space-faring. Hence we must populate them in controlled areas on our planet, allow them to see God's light and develop technology for space travel. It is the right thing to do and doing so will be just as good for us as it would be for them. To put it another way, if we don't do it we are asking for (some level) of trouble. This is where the brave guess of "diversants" comes in. It could be an incentive to get us to do the right thing, after all: "If they don't do it they are wasting precious real estate and may not deserve all of the deuterium it contains".

If that logic stands (as I continue to believe - man I just can't find anybody to talk to about this to check my assumptions and am limited to monologues) then the more effectively we accomplish the goal of "Show the Light" the more time we will be allowed to "See the Light" and develop our industrial and defense capacities. After all, we would be in charge of defending (mostly from unfair trading practices but possibly also from comparatively small-scale pirate attacks or something more serious caused by hardship) several other species as well.

Update: 6/21/24 The "a la Starship Troopers" vision of a species being able to gravitationally adjust orbits of (to become) Earth-bound asteroids has visited my mind several times, but the probabilities of significant physical impacts to asteroid orbits along with the ability to determine the correct orbital placements are most likely astronomically small. But, we should have plans in place in case of a disastrous impact to prevent certain interest groups from spreading disinformation among the public to attain influence for their own gain and cause hostilities between our species. Placing an asteroid on an Earth-bound orbit would however be easily doable by ourselves if we fail to secure the movement of asteroids. Full, multi-tier, and redundant (and multi-party) guarantees of the security of asteroid movement must be of utmost importance.

Thus, we must prepare for the moment of the initial release of data from Europa Clipper and have a scenario in place that will optimize our chances of long-term independence (and potentially survival as a distinct species), while fulfilling optimal expectations of us. The basic premise is that we need an organization to become the spine around which all subsequent space (and an increasingly larger portion of surface economic and defense) activities will be organized. And the optimal time to set up such a structure (I argue) would be immediately following the announcement of life on Europa. This is the structure I'm calling (Solar) Orbital Fleet. The premise is simple - safety first.

This organization would accomplish several goals, and have 3 major branches:

  1. Oceans: study & secure (by then we'll collectively realize the resource potential and will begin to realize the real-estate potential)
  2. Orbits: secure (asteroid mining will be 8 years closer and our two main commercial projects of rocket development should have demonstrated sufficient capacity to accomplish it - an off-course asteroid could wipe out any city on the planet)
  3. Beyond: study (this will have to be a closed structure, as I'm sure everybody understands the implications of premature integration)


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