| photo credit: IMDB |
We watched Interstellar
over the weekend. While I can’t say it’s one of my favorite movies, it does
present an interesting premise. What if we stop spending money on space
exploration and maintain the planet as is? If so, what happens if our planet
becomes uninhabitable? How does mankind survive?
In the movie, Earth experiences such extreme
temperatures, drought, and famine worse than the Dust Bowl of the 1930s that
humanity faces extinction. A secret NASA (secret because nobody wants to spend money
on space exploration when people are starving) sends a team of astronauts beyond
our solar system to find an inhabitable planet. Of course, there are various
crises and dilemmas. Wouldn’t be a good sci-fi action/adventure if there weren’t.
Much has been written lately about the discovery of new
planets that appear to be capable of sustaining life. But it would be no quick
trip to check out what telescopes and probes tell us. To get beyond our solar
system we’d need either faster-than-light propulsion or wormholes (hypothetical
shortcuts through spacetime). So far, we haven’t invented the former or
discovered the latter.
Let’s say, scientists discover a wormhole that will let us
travel to another part of our galaxy or into a different one. What would it
take to get mankind to leave Earth? A global disaster? Would we see it coming?
Would we heed the warnings in time? In Deep Impact (an asteroid will hit Earth), we hide underground until
the Earth becomes safe again. In the movie 2012,
we build an ark. But who is chosen to survive? How? A lottery? Your job? Bribes
to officials?
I’ve written before about Mars One,
the privately funded project to send a team on a one-way trip to establish a
colony on Mars. NASA is also working on a plan to go to Mars. Progress is slow.
Funding is always a challenge. If we knew that sometime in the future humanity
would have to leave Earth, would we expedite that endeavor now? Or would we leave
it up to future generations?
A lot of questions in this post. I love a good adventure
movie. Disaster movies, not as much. But they do make me think. It’s that “what
if” question that writers instinctively ask. It’s what makes a good story. But
what if (see?) it’s not just a story? What if it’s real?
What do you think?