Wohlforth, Hendrix imagine human life 'Beyond Earth'

Beyond Earth: Our Path to a New Home in the Planets

By Charles Wohlforth and Amanda R. Hendrix, Ph.D.; Pantheon Books; 2016; 320 pages; $27.95

The earliest vivid memory I have of my childhood is sitting on my father's lap at the age of 5 watching Apollo 11 land on the moon. Like millions from my generation, it was a defining moment when I knew I'd grow up to be an astronaut and travel to distant planets. I spent much of the ensuing decade consuming a steady diet of science fiction books that only furthered my dream. Mars was the obvious next step, and it was only a matter of time before humans went there to live. I intended to be one of them.

By 1980, my thoughts had turned to more earthly concerns, and so had NASA's. Politics and budget realities limited the nation's space program to planetary orbit and a few unmanned space probes. The notion of people moving off of Earth and planting colonies on other worlds went from cutting edge to quaint.

Only recently has the idea resurfaced as more than fantasy. After the Columbia space shuttle explosion in 2003, then-President George W. Bush ordered NASA to commence work on establishing a moon base, with a long-range goal of traveling from there to Mars. Billionaire investor Elon Musk created SpaceX, a corporation bent on sending colonists to Mars. Barack Obama canceled Bush's program but took steps to allow private companies more leeway to launch their own space explorations. After 40 years, people are once again talking seriously about moving off the planet.

Deeply informative, yet lively

Charles Wohlforth and Amanda R. Hendrix, Ph.D., are enthusiasts for resumed exploration and possible colonization. Wohlforth is familiar to Alaska Dispatch News readers as a columnist, while Hendrix is an accomplished senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. In "Beyond Earth," they offer an enticing yet realistic assessment of what such a venture would entail. The combination of Hendrix's extensive knowledge with Wohlforth's wonderful storytelling ability results in a book that is deeply informative, yet lively and engaging from start to finish.

[Check out Planetary Science Institute]

The first thing the authors do is put to rest the idea of a self-sustaining colony on Mars. Musk's focus on the fourth planet notwithstanding, Wohlforth and Hendrix explain that its deadly atmosphere, questionable resource potential and lack of energy sources rule it out.

What they instead foresee as humanity's next home is faraway Titan, a moon of Saturn that, while different in many ways from Earth, has enough similarities that it could work. The atmosphere lacks oxygen but isn't immediately toxic, the surface is somewhat akin to Earth's with solid land masses largely made of ice and seas probably composed of liquid methane among other fluids, there's water that can be harvested for hydration and oxygen, and the methane could provide a virtually endless source of energy. There's even a remote possibility that some form of life lives in the seas.

For readers who grew up dreaming of becoming interplanetary pioneers, it's heady stuff, and the approach Wohlforth and Hendrix use in presenting it makes the book irresistible to sci-fi geeks. Each chapter explores various aspects of current knowledge about space travel (labeled "Present") interspersed with an ongoing fictional account of how human colonists would reach Titan and what they would encounter when they got there (dubbed "Future"). The "future" sections add up to a science fiction story where the emphasis is on the science half of the equation.

For the primary, "present" narrative, the authors meet with a broad range of people working in both governmental and private arenas. The many challenges that would face any attempt at locating humans off-planet are explored. A lot of these center around the effects, both known and speculated upon, of lengthy time in space on the human body. The absence of gravity can lead to bone and muscle degradation. There's also evidence that too much time in space can lower IQs. The psychological impacts of months or even years in a cramped spacecraft are difficult to predict. Radiation exposure in space is hard to mitigate to a safe level.

Warp-drive travel

One solution is to cut the travel time, and we learn from this book that recent advances in propulsion could reduce a trip to Titan from its present seven years to 18 months, potentially tolerable for someone with the right psychological profile. We also find that warp drive, the solution science fiction writers devised to solve the problem of quickly getting from one end of the galaxy to the other, is now a theoretical possibility (although a very long ways off, if indeed realistic).

The authors explore the philosophical ramifications of moving to another planet, as well as the economic and political realities. Reflecting on Elizabethan England's success in using government-chartered private corporations to build the British Empire, they suggest that this would be the best way to fund travel and exploration of the outer solar system. They also look at how artificial intelligence and robotics would be required both for unmanned missions sent out in advance of any colonists as well as making a human settlement viable in such an alien environment.

The "future" scenario the authors conceive as driving that settlement is unsettling. Looking at current trends, they foresee worsening climate and political instability across the planet as motivating those who can accomplish the task to get away. Corporations, meanwhile, step up their involvement in helping those wealthy enough to leave because there's money to be made. And any colonists would have to meet a rigorous physical standard. Social Darwinism would be hard to resist.

Of course, the further they get away from present conditions, the more Wohlforth and Hendrix are guessing, but they acknowledge this. What they want to do is stay within the realm of the currently possible, which, they write, includes one known fact: "There's plenty we don't currently know about Titan. But we do know that, if we could get there, we could live there."

For those of us who grew up dreaming of space travel, that's enough to warrant giving it a shot.

David A. James is a Fairbanks-based freelance writer and critic.