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.

Preserving Earth Life

Opened in 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen far north of the Arctic Circle, is the world's largest store of seeds. It was built as a way to preserve seeds from global catastrophes, and is a backup for the hundreds of other seed vaults around the world, some of which have already been lost due to war and natural disasters.

The modest entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The actual vaults are deep within the mountain. The vault holds close to a million samples of seeds.

The seeds are stored in vaults deep in the permafrost, which helps to keep the seeds cold enough for preservation. But despite being built to protect seeds from potential disasters such as climate change, climate change is already threatening the vault itself. The Norwegian government is having to make modifications just a decade after it was built. This is an ominous sign that whatever we do to preserve life and all that we have achieved on our planet (the Arctic World Archive opened nearby in 2017 as a data and knowledge store) it is going to be a losing battle.

We need to think bigger if we are to protect life and our knowledge and achievements from oblivion.

The colder the better is the key to very long term preservation, and natural environments that offer such low temperatures for 'free' are highly abundant within our Solar-System.

Inner Solar-System Vaults

The Moon has areas of permanent shadow at its poles, and a NASA instrument on board India's Chandrayaan-1 probe confirmed the presence of water ice in those regions. Those areas, as well as being ideal locations for human colonies, would make excellent locations for preservation vaults. The close proximity to Earth would make the vaults relatively easy to access if/when Earth's climate causes major problems that require access.

A vault so close to Earth would also be vital if our current civilisation is wiped out by a catastrophic event, such as a nuclear war or an asteroid impact. It could take centuries, even millennia, for a new civilisation to advance to the point where space travel is possible.

On Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, there are also areas on the planet's surface that are in permanent shadow in craters at its north pole. The Messenger probe that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015 discovered billions of tonnes of water ice in those areas. It proves that preservation vaults can be built on bodies very close to a star, providing there is no atmosphere to distribute heat to those areas of permanent shadow.

The planet Mercury. Despite being so close to the sun the planet still has a large amount of water ice on its surface. The ice is located in craters in areas of permanent shade. It would be possible to construct preservation vaults that would provide protection for life and knowledge for millions of years.

A vault on Mercury would only prove sensible if sizeable human colonies were to be established there, which is unlikely. Venturing so close to the sun is not something that I predict will happen for humans. Perhaps colonies in the clouds of Venus will be as as near as we will get.

Human colonisation of Mars is almost certain to happen this century. There is abundant ice on Mars, which will be heavily exploited by the colonists to provide water, oxygen and fuel. Those colonists should create preservation vaults as a matter of urgency. It should be one of their top priorities once the essential activities for their survival are established and running smoothly. Areas within the ice mines could be designated for such a purpose.

Outer Solar-System Vaults

There are many large bodies in the Kuiper Belt, such as Eris, Haumea and Makemake, that would be worthy locations for preservation vaults, and there will be hundreds more waiting to be discovered. Those larger bodies are more useful that the millions of small bodies out there, if only because they provide at least a useful level of gravity, even if it is only around 5 percent that of Earth.

The best known example of a large object in that region is Pluto. The mountains and crevasses of that dwarf planet, which can rise over six kilometres in height, are examples of places in the outer Solar-System that would be ideal locations for such vaults.

The surface of the dwarf planet Pluto. The Al-Idrisi mountains shown consist almost entirely of water ice, and the plains are mostly nitrogen ice. With a mean surface temperature of -229 Celcius it would be an ideal place for preserving life and knowledge for many hundreds of millions of years at least.

Even on the surface of Pluto the temperature is low enough to provide an excellent level of preservation, but vaults should still be constructed deep into the ice to protect against meteorites, and eventually from theft. Building inside mountains means access to the vaults can be horizontal, which would ease construction. Several preservation vaults should be constructed, each on a different dwarf planet and on radically different orbits.

Interstellar Vaults

Ultimately the sun will flare up and expand, consuming the inner Solar-System vaults. The outer Solar-System will suffer too, with the extra heat threatening the stability of vaults in that region. A truly long-lasting vault, that could survive for billions of years, should not be in the Solar-System at all.

The interstellar void between stars is the coldest and most benign area in the galaxy. It is not completely empty, with rogue planets and smaller bodies drifting for aeons out there in the frigid darkness. Finding one is not easy, but such a world is an ideal place to build a safe and secure preservation vault (and surprisingly, it would also be suitable for an interstellar human colony).

Instead of hunting for interstellar objects on which to construct the vaults it would be easier to create our own. By redirecting some of the smaller Oort cloud objects away from the Solar-System (or even constructing our own purpose-built station for the vault) we would have easily available bodies on which to preserve whatever we wish. Ideally there should be human colonies nearby.

Although in the Kuiper Belt, Arrokoth (pictured here) is a good example of the kind of small object we can find in the Oort Cloud. At just under 20 kilometres in diameter, a body like this could host a preservation vault and be redirected onto an interstellar course to hide between the stars.

It may sound almost impossible, and undesirable, for a human colony to be located away from the obvious benefits of a star, but it is not so. My 2018 article 'Secret Colonies Between the Stars' explains why not, and gives reasons why such colonies would actually be an essential part of our colonisation efforts, and even on which the ultimate survival of our species could well depend.

Where ever we humans go, from the inner and outer Solar-System to interstellar space and other star-systems, we should construct life and knowledge vaults to preserve as much of what has been achieved on Earth as possible. It should be an essential part of colony building wherever that may be. In billions of years time it will then be possible for our very distant descendants to benefit from our endeavours, even if it is just to know where all that they take for granted actually comes from.

Hopefully they'll be able to enjoy bread just as we do today.

Subterranean Life on Planet Nine's Moons

The hypothetical planet nine is talked about a lot at the moment. And so it should be. A new and massive planet, currently lurking in the darkness at the far reaches of our Solar-System, is an intoxicating prospect. And it is likely to be confirmed as a reality over the next couple of years as more and more astronomers turn their telescopes to the area of space where it's most likely to be.

Planet Nine

Until it's found and observed closely its origin is unlikely to be known. But there is a strong possibility that it is a captured rogue planet. If it does turn out to be of interstellar origin then that would be very exciting indeed, for it could have brought with it a tantalising glimpse into the possibilities of life and even civilisations that formed hundreds or even thousands of light-years away.

The planet is expected to be a smaller version of Uranus or Neptune with a thick and deep atmosphere of mainly hydrogen. With a mass ten times that of Earth it would be just less that four times the diameter of our world. If so, there is little chance of life on its surface.

It could well be a different story on its moons.

One of Planet Nine's ice moons

Such moons, preserved over the aeons by the deep cold of interstellar space, could well be a treasure trove of artifacts from hundreds of millions of years ago that point to the existence of intelligent life that evolved in a star system far from ours, and when the moon's parent world was in a stable position around its home star. If the civilisation was relatively primitive (no more advanced than ours) it would have ended when some catastrophic event, such as a close encounter with a passing star, dragged the parent world out of its home star system and banished it to the interstellar void.

But if, during such an event, a technologically advanced civilisation existed on one of those moons, it would surely have gone to great lengths to preserve its existence as long as possible. We may well find evidence of deep habitats, seed banks, and even knowledge banks or cultural archives.

The frozen surface of one of Panet Nine's moons. Could the artifacts of an extra-terrestrial civilisation from hundreds of light-years away be hidden beneath the surface?

But what if some remnant of that civilisation still survives, somehow utilising the decaying heat of the moon or parent planet's interior for energy? Rogue planets are not necessarily the lifeless worlds we usually imagine (see my earlier article on rogue planets).

Another intriguing idea is that a civilisation, aware of its decline towards extinction on its home world, colonised Planet Nine as it passed close by. Using the rogue planet as natural interstellar generation ship, the colonists would have planned for a voyage of hundreds of millions of years with an indeterminable destination. They would have also had to prepare for the possibility that no suitable star system would ever be reached.

To ensure survival such preparations would have to include a meticulously designed ecosystem, safely contained from the harsh interstellar void. This would most likely be beneath the ice of a moon with access to the ocean beneath. Such an ocean, seeded with life from the civilisation's home world, would be the most likely source of food, water and oxygen for the colony. And it could be a source that could indeed, with disciplined management, provide for a journey and time span of such magnitude.

There is great risk in embarking on such a journey. After tens of thousands of generations the colonists may well lose sight of their ultimate aim. Such a subterranean existence would change a civilisation from an outward looking and curious culture to a simpler and inward looking one focused more and more on nothing but its day to day existence. Devolution could occur, with physical and mental abilities simplifying over the generations to match the environment. Intelligence could dwindle, and physical dexterity could lessen. Technological systems, if self maintaining, could continue to function indefinitely, looking after the colonists who no longer comprehend the machines that keep them alive.

Ancient self-maintaining machinery that could support a subterranean ice moon colony for millions of years 

Such a colony could be thriving right now on one of the moons of Planet Nine, well adapted to their subterranean existence, and unaware of our existence and even that they are now part of our Solar-System. There may even be no knowledge or concept of the universe beyond their ice-shrouded domain. The colony would function in an eusocial manner, like a society of ants. It would be a collective of simpler minds working together, more by instinct than planning, to ensure survival.

Colonies like this could be intentional rather than evolutionary. A technologically advanced civilisation could engineer a version of its species to function in a eusocial manner and create colonies beneath the surface of numerous ice moons. The colonies would survive in the simplest manner possible, ready for higher intelligence levels to be reinstated, most likely by automated systems, when the time is right. At that time, upon entry into a star system with a suitable planet for the colony to live on, the automated systems would genetically modify the next generation to possess a high enough level of sentience and sapience so that it could be educated.

Automated systems re-engineering a new generation of intelligent colonists ready to be educated before travelling to their new home planet

Over the next few generations the advanced technological civilisation that created the colony millions of years before would be restored. Awareness of the universe beyond the ice would return, along with the curiosity and motivation necessary to leave the safety of its confines.

A colonisation spacecraft, maintained by automated systems for millions of years, is readied for launch as a viable star-system is reached

There could be a huge number of such subterranean, almost troglodytic, colonies, set up to allow species to survive for hundreds of millenia as rogue planets make their natural interstellar journeys.

We would need to be very careful if evidence of such a colony is discovered. Our appearance within their colony could devastate it. We should monitor it carefully, without disturbing the delicate balance that has kept it alive for so long. The way the colony functions, and the machinery to maintain it, could teach us a lot about survival.

Planet Nine may turn out to be one of many captured interstellar objects in the outer Solar-System. Such objects would be a rich source of evidence about the environments around other stars, and could well contain the preserved remains of extra-terrestrial civilisations, and even the surviving descendants of such civilisations.

The discovery and exploration of such objects should be a priority. The knowledge we gain could transform our unstanding of the possibilities of life beyond the comforts of Earth.

It could even save our species.