A Pandemic May End Our Civilisation

While very serious, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic virus that is currently sweeping across our planet will not end our civilisation. The vast majority of people infected will make full recoveries, and a vaccine will be developed . The economic damage from the lock-down of societies as governments attempt to stop the spread will take many years to recover from, but that recovery will happen. Communities will be stretched and challenged, but order will remain and normal life will eventually resume.

We have been lucky this time, but there is quite a strong possibility that a virus will emerge one day that will have a death rate so high that it will be a severe threat to our civilisation, and even the very survival of our species. Health care services will collapse, governments will cease to function, food supply chains will break, and utilities such as electricity and water will fail as those needed to run power and pumping stations succumb to the illness.

We must consider the current COVID-19 pandemic as a wake-up call and make sure we learn as much as we can from it on how to prevent viruses spreading, and how we can speed up the development of vaccines, in preparation for the time that we encounter something far more deadly.

All nations of our planet should be working together on the following:

Create a Parallel Rapid Response Pandemic Healthcare System

Implementation time: five years

Health services need to be ready to immediately react to the start of a potential pandemic event. Currently this would be hard to do as hospitals around the world are set up to cope with normal levels of healthcare issues. A parallel healthcare system needs to be on standby, one that is globally coordinated. This must include the ability to rapidly construct temporary hospitals in designated locations.

A modular hospital design (wards and private rooms section). Such pre-designed hospitals could be prefabricated at a factory and rapidly constructed anywhere.

Such a system could have purpose-built isolation wards in place within just a few days. If this is combined with social distancing and travel restriction measures then we would have a much better chance of containing even the most virulent diseases until a vaccine is developed.

Mandatory Pandemic Education

Implementation time: starting within a year

All nations need to properly educate their populations on how to act to help prevent and minimise the effects of a pandemic. Mandatory classes, held perhaps once year in all schools and regular public information broadcasts should be a requirement and cover everything from personal hygiene to self-isolation to maintaining mental health during such periods. Everyone should be aware how important it is to follow government advice. It should also be mandatory for people to keep a few weeks supply of certain items at all times, just in case.

Self-Sustaining Underground Sanctuaries

Implementation time: 50 years

Large underground sanctuaries capable of housing many millions of people should be constructed around the world. These sanctuaries must be self-sustaining and capable of remaining sealed off from the outside world for many years if necessary. They should be designed not only for survival but to allow scientific research and development of new technologies to continue so that our civilisation can maintain and advance its capabilities. That would be essential if those in the sanctuaries are to one day return to the outside and repopulate the surface.

Underground sanctuaries would be for very long term use and should be designed to maintain both the mental and physical health of those that live there

Such underground sanctuaries should be spacious and comfortable, and they should be designed to for to maintain the psychological as well as physical health of the occupants. Sanctuaries such as these would be effective refuges against other threats too. Read this article: 'Surviving the Next Doomsday Asteroid Impact' for a more detailed description of the ideal underground sanctuaries.

Self-Sustaining Colonies Away From Earth

Implementation time: first colony within a century

Ultimately we need to have self-sustaining human colonies away from Earth. These should be in a variety of locations from orbital habitats around Earth and other bodies in the Solar-System, to habitats on the Moon, Mars, and on the icy moons of Jupiter  such as Callisto. Saturn's moon Titan, with its thick atmosphere, and despite its frigid conditions, would provide an excellent location for a permanent colony (see my article: 'Human Colony on Titan').

Creating self-sustaining colonies away from Earth, wherever they are, is an immense challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Very large orbital habitats may well be the easiest with which to provide self-sustainability. If a large enough one was built and it was rotating to provide a simulated gravity similar to Earth on its inner surface, then a comfortable habitat with an Earth-like environment would be possible, with enough surface area for large-scale agricultural activity.

A massive space habitat many kilometres in diameter. This design is based on a Bernal sphere, which was first proposed as far back as 1929 by John Desmond Bernal, an Irish scientist. The habitat rotates along its axis to provide simulated gravity for the inhabitants that live on its inner surface.

The raw materials to build such enormous habitats are available in abundance in the asteroid belt, so the essential first step is to build up asteroid mining expertise.

If all of the above steps were taken our species and civilisation would be able to survive even the most extreme pandemics. Implementation should begin as soon as the current Covid-19 pandemic is under control.

Surviving the Next Doomsday Asteroid Impact

One day, as has happened many times before, a large asteroid thousands of metres in diameter will hit our planet.

The result of the impact will rain hot debris across the entire Earth, heating the atmosphere to an oven-like temperature and shrouding it in dust clouds. Fires will burn for years adding billions of tonnes of soot to the atmosphere, and then the global temperature will fall dramatically. Photosynthesis will grind to a halt. Almost all species of plants and animals will perish. The only survivors will be those lifeforms that are able to eat the remains of long dead life, such a cockroaches and deep sea creatures.

The collision of a large asteroid thousands of metres in diameter with our planet will almost certainly result in the extinction of most lifeforms. It is unlikely that humans would survive.

If such an impact happened now humans would not survive. The extinction of our species would be certain. Essentially, life on Earth would be reset to the point just after the last massive impact event 66 million years ago (the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that caused of the extinction of the dinosaurs).

By the next century we are likely to have permanently inhabited colonies on the Moon, Mars and possibly even beyond, but there will be a few hundred inhabitants at best. And most crucially those colonies will not be self-sufficient. If Earth is rendered uninhabitable and our civilisation destroyed then those colonies will die soon after. It will be a couple of centuries until self-sufficient colonies with tens of thousands (preferably millions) of people exist away from our planet. Until then we will need sanctuaries on Earth where a significant human population can survive should a massive asteroid impact occur. And by 'significant' I mean several million people at least.

The cost of building such underground sanctuaries would be extreme, and it would take decades or longer before they were ready for habitation. Hundreds of billions of dollars would be needed each year, and a workforce of millions. But it is actually affordable and achievable, if only the world's governments could be less paranoid and divert some of their defence spending to the project. The total spending each year by NATO members (29 European and North American countries) is more than one trillion dollars. If just a quarter of that budget could be redirected then the underground sanctuaries for North America and Europe could begin construction. If the likes of Russia, China, Japan and their neighbours did the same then sanctuaries in their region of the world could begin construction, too.

After a century of construction and expansion, the main chamber of a vast underground sanctuary, deep beneath mountains in Europe, is home to a thriving city of a million people. Powered by geothermal energy, the sanctuary is a self-sufficient haven for humans, one of several spread around the Earth. Even the impact of a large asteroid, such as the one that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species, would not lead to human extinction if such facilities exist.

Each sanctuary would need to be hundreds of metres underground, with locations beneath mountains the most preferable. As well as hundreds of kilometres of tunnels and smaller chambers there would need to be huge areas for agriculture, and even larger caverns to create the feeling of space and distance we have evolved to need, if only to maintain the sanity of individuals. Power could be generated using geothermal technology.  Energy generation using geothermal power stations currently provides 30 percent of the electricity requirements of Iceland, with the Philippines not far behind that. It is a relatively clean and renewable source of energy and would be ideal for subterranean habitats. New power generation technology, such as nuclear fusion, will hopefully be perfected over the next decades, which could provide almost unlimited power capabilities.

One of the many farming chambers that surrounds the main city of each of the underground sanctuaries. Agricultural facilities such as this, powered by geothermal energy, or even fusion energy, provide food for millions for thousands of years in the event of a catastrophic incident up on the Earth's surface.

Once created the sanctuaries would need to be permanently occupied to a high capacity: at least 50 percent. This is necessary to ensure that the sanctuaries are fully functional and under constant maintenance. They should be regularly assessed to identify areas of improvement. They would need to be totally self-sufficient if the need for them arises. There would hopefully be many months, if not years, of notice before a large impact would occur, giving plenty of time for people to migrate into the sanctuaries.

There are ethical and moral issues with regards to who would be selected to migrate into the sanctuaries should an extinction level impact be confirmed. The choice of certain sections of the population is obvious: there needs to be specialists in all areas of science and technology (engineering, medical, computing, utilities, agriculture etc) and also educators; it will be essential that education levels are maintained for the generations that will live in the sanctuaries, so schools and universities would be required.  The majority of inhabitants, however, will be ordinary citizens with ordinary levels of education and skills. Whatever method is used to choose which of those individuals and families are chosen - a lottery, or genetics (to maintain the diversity of the gene pool) - there would be objections, protests and even wars fought no matter who is chosen (there would be nations of the world without any access to sanctuaries of their own). Great care would need to be taken to ensure that the security of the sanctuaries is maintained and the chance of sabotage is kept to a minimum.

The selection of who is to migrate to the sanctuaries, and how to prevent attacks on them as they travel there, will perhaps be a more troubled process than the construction of the actual sanctuaries themselves.

Of course, it would be best if a cataclysmic asteroid collision was prevented altogether. There are numerous proposals to deflect or destroy asteroids that are identified to be on an eventual collision course with Earth. None of them has yet been tried, and all of them required many years, or even decades, of warning. Research into such methods should be intensified and an effective asteroid defence system should be implemented as soon as possible. The underground sanctuaries would allow a small percentage of our human population to survive the aftermath, but they should be considered a last resort. The need for then should ideally never arise.

Developing the ability to deflect or destroy asteroids on a collision course with Earth is essential to prevent the extinction of our species. A joint NASA and ESA mission in 2020-2021 will perform the first test of such technology.

If we construct several underground sanctuaries around the world, and deploy a system capable of destroying or deflecting asteroids, we stand an excellent chance of surviving as a species even if an object many tens of kilometres wide collides with our planet, and of eventually repopulating the surface once its ecosystem has recovered.

But, before the creation of the underground sanctuaries can happen we need to cultivate a will to change our thinking and work together for the greater good and the very preservation of our species and the wider ecosystem on which we depend. If we fail to do so we will fail all of humanity, and our extinction will be assured.

Comfortable Homes on Mars

Mars is one of the most likely places in the Solar-System where the first permanent human colony away from Earth will be established. With the right equipment the planet has all the resources required to sustain a community indefinitely. And there is also the intriguing possibility of discovering evidence of an ancient technological civilisation that once existed on the planet.

Before the search for such evidence can begin there are practical issues that need to be addressed. Habitats with enough space and comfort are required to maintain the physical and mental health of the colonists. And such space and comfort should be ready and waiting even for the very first colonists to arrive. They will need decent quality homes, with enough comforts to get them through the months and years before they have the opportunity to return to Earth. Those habitats should be nothing less than a home from home.

There are plenty of designs for such habitats, but NASA's ice home concept is one of the more practical and impressive ones.

NASA's Mars ice home. The inside is inflated and then the outer shell filled with water. It can be constructed robotically and be ready when astronauts arrive.

The home consists of an inflatable torus within which there are two levels of living space comparable to that of a small house on Earth. The torus is surrounded by chambers filled with ice to provide insulation and radiation protection. The water for the ice will be extracted from the subsurface ice that is abundant in many locations on Mars. Because of this the actual structure itself is very lightweight and can be deployed and build robotically. The homes would be delivered to Mars and prepared over the span of a year or so. When humans finally arrive they'll be able to move immediately into comfortable habitats.

A cross-section of NASA's ice home showing the interior space

Whatever the design of the house, its interior should offer the ocupants the comforts of a home on Earth. It should be a familiar and safe place to return to, with space to relax and have privacy when required.

The first humans visiting Mars will almost certainly face a stay of at least a couple of months, and possibly a year or two.  And that would be after many months of arduous travel in a cramped spacecraft. It is vital that those humans are provided with all the normal comforts possible to allow them to recover physically and mentally: essential for them to do their work effectively, and also for them to prepare for their return journey.

The interior of a house on Mars should offer all the comforts of a home on Earth. It should be spacious, clean, bright, and be familiar and cosy.

Such homes should last many years, and be ideal for the early missions. But ultimately they would be temporary. One day people will arrive on Mars who will never leave. And soon after that the first children will be born there. By that time a substantial and permanent habitat will need to have been constructed.

Space X Mars surface colony circa 2050 with a busy spaceport. Large numbers of human are arriving as the construction of permanent habitats continues. Many of those arriving at this time will never leave, and many will start families there.

The best place for permanent homes is below ground, or inside hills and mountains. Excavating such facilities from scratch would be an immense undertaking, but utilising existing underground chambers, such as lava tubes, would reduce the workload significantly. Homes for thousands could be build in such tubes, and the thick shielding required by surface habitats would not be necessary as the roof of the tube would be more than adequate.

A colony set up in the relative safety of a lava tube on Mars

As well as exploiting natural underground voids such as lava tubes, there is the possibility to exploit unnatural voids, too (see my previous articles 'Sanctuary Entrance Found on Mars' and 'Where Did All the Martians Go?'). The search for such 'unnatural' voids is, in my opinion, one of the two primary reasons for sending humans to Mars (the other being, of course, to aid in the survival of our species if and when a global catastrophe occurs on Earth).

There is strong evidence to suggest that Mars was once a temperate world: one that could have been a perfect environment for life to thrive. That environment was likely to have existed for more than a billion years. That's more than enough time for an advanced civilisation to develop. For whatever reason that life-nourishing environment began to fail. It could not be saved. If there was a Martian civilisation it would have had no choice but to retreat underground (with a privileged few managing leaving the planet). 

Eventually the underground civilisation would have died out.

Colonists on Mars explore the remains of a long dead underground Martian city

Many of the vast chambers and warrens of tunnels they constructed must still remain, ready to be exploited when our civilisation arrives on the planet. There may be huge networks of structures and dwellings that could be modified for human habitation. Within just two centuries there could be a population of millions of humans living on Mars with complete independence from Earth.

When the first humans arrive on Mars and have their first colony up and running they must begin the search for those underground chambers. And from where better to embark on that search each day than a safe, spacious and pleasant home with all the familiar comforts of Earth.

Sanctuary Entrance Found on Mars

It's quite possible that NASA has found the entrance to an underground sanctuary on Mars.

In my earlier article, 'Where Did All The Martians Go?', I discussed the dramatic change in the climate of Mars, and the need for as many of its inhabitants as possible to evacuate the planet. But most would have had to stay. I wrote about the huge underground shelters that would be required: long term havens that would enable millions to survive for many generations until they too could be evacuated, or until the planet's atmosphere and environment recovered.

The entrance to one of those havens may now have been discovered.

Near the south pole of Mars: the possible entrance to a huge underground survival facility, capable of sustaining thousands, if not millions, of Martians as their climate failed and surface survival became impossible.

Found near the south pole of Mars by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the hole, hundreds of metres in diameter, is possibly one of the main entrances to a vast underground complex. It was probably used for vehicles, including aircraft and spacecraft.

And there are likely to be many more such entrances, large and small. One example can be found on the slopes of Pavonis Mons, an extinct shield volcano in the Tharsis region of Mars near the planet's equator. Shown below, the hole could have been intentionally created to allow Martians to utilise the lava tubes of the extinct volcano to access a network of underground sanctuaries. Its equatorial location would have been very useful for more economical launches of spacecraft.

Such holes can be naturally formed. This one is on Pavonis Mons, and is thought by some to be the collapsed roof of a lava tube. It could also have been intentionally constructed as an entrance to a massive shelter beneath the extinct volcano.

There has been no real evidence of unnatural surface activity on Mars, which suggests three possibilities: all of the inhabitants have now left, they are surviving solely by subterranean means, or they have all perished.

The first possibility is the most unlikely. The effort to evacuate millions of inhabitants from the surface of a planet would be a gargantuan undertaking for even the most advanced civilisation. While a huge number of Martians will indeed have left the planet, most would have had to remain. Even if evacuations continued for thousands of years, which is a possibility, the remaining population would have continued to renew as generation after generation were born. And most may have wished to remain, having physically and mentally adapted to their subterranean existence.

The second possibility of the inhabitants still surviving underground right now also seem very unlikely, at least in large numbers. There is no evidence of the emissions that would be observable if there was a massive population still living there, even underground. Of course, they could be withholding their emissions to prevent detection and living in a perfectly contained and self-sustaining biosphere, but this would be almost impossible to achieve to a level where no emissions at all were made.

A vast underground Martian city, home to possibly millions when war and climate change rendered the planet's surface uninhabitable. Could there still be millions of Martians living in such cities, undetectable within a perfectly contained biosphere?

Unfortunately the most likely possibility is that all the inhabitants left in the subterranean facilities eventually died. If the sanctuaries were designed well enough they could have survived for thousands of generations - a remarkable achievement. But many millions of years later the likelihood of the sanctuaries still functioning is minuscule. At best there may be a few hundred Martians still eking out an existence in the huge and now deserted underground cities. If so it must be a lonely and grim experience.

A cavernous space like this, clearly artificial, could be found beyond the sanctuary entrance. While the sanctuary is most likely uninhabited now, there could still be a small community of Martians living there. We need to take great care when we finally start to explore such places.

The discovery of the huge potential sanctuary entrance near the south pole of Mars reinforces the need for a substantial human colony to be established to enable its exploration. If there is indeed an abandoned network of vast underground cities on the planet we need to explore them as soon as possible.

The first colonists on Mars explore one of the entrances to an abandoned underground city

As well as the thrill of discovering the remains of a lost extraterrestrial civilisation (with the remote potential of encountering surviving members of that civilisation), we would have the opportunity to find out exactly what calamitous events happened millions of years ago which forced the planet's population to retreat underground.

Thrilling indeed...