The Civilization Survival Scale: A Biological Argument For Space Settlement

Mars base by SpaceX The ability for humans to live beyond Earth may be critical to the survival of civilization. (credit: SpaceX) The civilization survival scale: A biological argument for space settlement by Thomas L. Matula Monday, January 13, 2025 Space advocates have long argued that humans must become a spacefaring civilization to ensure the survival of humanity. They point out that as long as we are restricted to a single planet there is a risk that a planet-wide catastrophe like a nuclear war, an asteroid impact, or major volcanic eruption could destroy global society and put humanity on the road to extinction. The only way for humanity to avoid that fate is to expand beyond the Earth, first to the solar system and then the galaxy beyond. To counter arguments against space settlement, I am proposing a scale grounded in evolutionary biology that classifies civilizations based on their ability to avoid possible extinction levels events. In the 1940s, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series of science fiction stories was based on the premise that our civilization had become extinct on Earth while flourishing throughout the galaxy. Ray Bradbury’s 1950 work The Martian Chronicles highlights humanity as it survives a devastating nuclear war on Earth by migrating to Mars. In 1978, the science writer and science fiction author G. Harry Stine wrote: “As inhabitants of a single planet around an average Class G star in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy, the human race faces the possibility of extinction as a result of any one of a number of astronomical or other cataclysms.”[1] Similarly, in a 2010 interview, Stephen Hawking stated: “It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.”[2] Elon Musk frequently advances the idea that our civilization must at all costs become multi-planetary to ensure our survival. Jeff Bezos agrees that we must expand into space and his firm Blue Origin was founded to move heavy industry into orbit to avoid the environmental collapse of our civilization. Both Bezos and Musk have dedicated their fortunes to creating a spacefaring civilization. They are part of a community of space advocates that includes scientists, science writers, legislators, and global figures. The spacefaring stance of this community fails to impress their opponents, who argue that the drive to settle outer space is nothing more than an abandonment of the Earth to the fate of its environmental destruction. These proponents fuel a campaign to “fix” the Earth before we venture beyond our blue planet to settle the solar system. A recent review here examined books by Mary-Jane Rubenstein and Savannah Mandel respectively. Both treatises regard human expansion into space as a waste of money. They both argue we should end human spaceflight and apply the funds spent on it to other needs.[3] More recently, Katie Hunt at CNN has promoted the premise of a new book titled A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space and Have We Really Thought This Through? Hunt has taken at face value the work that the authors Kelly and Zach Weinersmith propound in their book in its opposition to space settlement. Their obverse position is that we are irresponsible in our aims to settle space while ignoring the overwhelming problems that beset the Earth now. Thus, Hunt supports the book’s hypothesis that we have to resolve terrestrial challenges before we go space faring.[4] Underlying these polemics against human expansion into space is the unsupported assumption that space settlement is an idea based on emotion not logic, on fantasy not reality, implying space advocates are “cultists” whose desire is driven by reading too much science fiction and ignoring the hard facts of science. To counter these arguments against space settlement, I am proposing a scale grounded in evolutionary biology that classifies civilizations based on their ability to avoid possible extinction levels events. The scale is inspired by the famous Fermi Paradox. In 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi was in a discussion with his colleagues at Los Alamos Laboratory about aliens when he famously exclaimed, “Where is everybody?”[5] His statement assumed—an assumption since proven correct by astronomers—that most of the billions of stars in the galaxy likely had planetary systems and that many would be far older than the Earth. Given the vast numbers of star systems and their age, it was argued that civilizations should have emerged in numerous star systems and expanded into space. Even if the expansion of these civilizations beyond their star system was at a small fraction of the speed of light, it was likely one or more alien civilizations would have spread throughout the galaxy over the last million years. Hence Fermi’s famous question: “Where is everybody?”. This simple question led to what is known as the Fermi Paradox: If alien civilizations are common and capable of spreading throughout a galaxy in such a short time period, why haven’t they reached the Earth?[6] The subsequent discourse on the Fermi Paradox has resulted in numerous speculation, inquiries, and arguments built around the same basic premise: if the Fermi Paradox is incontrovertible, why have these alleged alien civilizations not reached planet Earth? Does the vast number of star systems reduce the chances of aliens visiting the solar system? Is there the possibility aliens might have visited Earth in the distant past? Or are they secretly visiting us now, as UFO enthusiasts believe? These discussions have primarily focused on the Paradox’s need for specific events, commonly referred to as “Fermi Filters,” that prevent civilizations from spreading throughout the galaxy. The proposed Fermi Filters may be easily divided into two groups. The first group are Fermi Filters that homo sapiens has already passed through, while the second group are possible Fermi Filters that we will need to pass through in the future. The first group claims that there is a lack of alien civilizations because life has failed to evolve beyond the level of microbes on the majority of planets with life. Another possibility is that many planets that have developed life have suffered a catastrophe that rendered them lifeless. Other smaller catastrophes might have served to wipe out a species that was evolving towards intelligence. For example, we know from the study of the human genome that homo sapiens experienced two unknown events that pushed primitive hominids to the brink of extinction. The first event was around 950,000 years ago and the second 70,000 years ago.[7,8] As scientists learn more about our past from DNA analysis, it is probable more “close calls” with extinction will be discovered. The clear implication is that if a civilization wishes to survive long enough to multiply throughout the galaxy, any given population must, like the coyote, be equally adaptable to a variety of habitats. Since we did survive these earlier potential Fermi Filters, the more interesting speculation is that our extinction level event is still in our future. In 2015, Stephen Webb gathered a fairly inclusive list of potential Fermi Filters, past and future, in his book, If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens… Where is Everybody?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life.[9] Potential future Fermi Filters include nuclear war, resource depletion, climate change, an asteroid or comet impact, pollution, pandemic, eruption of a super volcano, collapse of the magnetic field, a massive solar storm, or nearby supernova flooding the Earth with its radiation. Any or a combination of these events could serve to end our civilization completely. In 1998, Robin Hanson built on previous discussions of the Fermi Paradox and argued a “Great Filter” exists that has prevented alien civilizations from colonizing our galaxy.[10] Hanson listed a series of steps that all civilizations must surmount to colonize a galaxy. He believes that one of these steps must be far more challenging than scientist realize, labelling this major barrier “The Great Filter.” However, I believe it is more likely that there is no Great Filter but merely a succession of Fermi Filters that an intelligent species must pass through until they are able to begin expanding throughout its galaxy. The key point at which all the explanations of the Fermi Paradox converge is that a civilization must survive long enough to become interstellar. This common factor of survival provides us with a method to classify advanced civilizations based on their ability to survive possible extinction level events. The system of classification proposed vindicates space advocates who promulgate the need to expand into outer space. The basis of this new classification of civilizations is evolutionary biology. Evolutionary biologists recognize that a species capable of surviving in diverse habitats is less likely to become extinct. Coyotes are a good example of this principle, with their ability to survive in a wide variety of habitats from grasslands to deserts to urban areas. Once limited to the American Southwest and Plains, coyotes have expanded throughout North America from Arctic Alaska to the East Coast and southward to Panama while their cousins, various species of wolves, have declined with some species being on the brink of extinction. The clear implication is that if a civilization wishes to survive long enough to multiply throughout the galaxy, any given population must, like the coyote, be equally adaptable to a variety of habitats. The Civilization Survival Scale Clearly, the more diverse habitats in which a civilization can sustain itself, the more likely it is to survive any Fermi Filters it encounters and thus expand throughout the galaxy. This leads to a classification based on the survival potential of a civilization. Since proposed Fermi Filters are easily divided into categories that are planet-wide, star-system-wide, and galaxy-wide, the classification system will logically consist of three levels: A Level 1 Civilization would be able to inhabit the diverse habitats found on the surface of its planet and would only be endangered by a planet-wide event. A Level 2 Civilization would be able to inhabit the majority of the different habitats in its star system and would only be endangered by a system-wide event. A Level 3 Civilization would be able to inhabit multiple star systems and would only be endangered by a galaxy-wide event. Although it would be appropriate to call it the “Fermi Scale” to reflect the Fermi Paradox that inspired it, the term “Fermi Scale” is already in use in the field of particle physics to describe the energy process associated with electroweak theory. Instead, I propose to name it the “Civilization Survival Scale” since the further along the scale a civilization is, the greater the probability it will survive to populate the galaxy. Since the number of events that might destroy civilizations decreases drastically as a civilization moves up the scale, this system provides the scientific foundation for advocates to urge that humanity expand into the Solar System. It should be noted that the two near extinctions of our species recorded in the human genome date to before our species spread beyond Africa. Clearly, the probability of modern humans avoiding extinction increased as a result of their dispersion geographically to more diverse habitats in Eurasia. The emergence of farming enabled our ancestors to move into new habitats along with enabling them to survive the climate change that occurred at the end of the last Ice Age. Our survival potential increased further when the Industrial Revolution created the technology to sustain a limited presence in Antarctica as well as under the sea, the last habitats of Earth beyond our reach in the pre-industrial era. Humanity is therefore on the threshold of a Level 1 Civilization, lacking only sustainable communities established under the ocean and Antarctica to achieve Level 1 status. Arguably both are within reach of existing technology and all we lack is the incentive to establish permanent communities in either habitat. Beyond its use by space advocates, the Civilization Survival Scale could provide an explanation for the failure of SETI to locate extraterrestrial intelligence. However, as a Level 1 Civilization we would still be at risk of planet-wide catastrophes such as an impact event, nuclear war, pandemics, a super volcano, etc., any of these preventing our evolution to a Level 2 Civilization and dooming mankind to eventual extinction by limiting it to a single world. By contrast potential Fermi Filters that would threaten us as a Level 2 Civilization would be limited to those that would impact the entire solar system, with a massive solar event or a nearby supernova flooding the solar system with radiation being the most likely. Given sufficient advanced notice, our Level 2 Civilization might well survive either event by creation of additional protections for communities in space and on Earth. The transition of humanity into a Level 3 Civilization capable of inhabiting multiple nearby star systems would further reduce our risk of extinction, requiring a catastrophe of sufficient enormity to have an impact on the entire galaxy, or at a minimum the region occupied by humanity as we know it. The Kardashev Scale Unlike the Kardashev Scale, which served as a guide, the Civilization Survival Scale is based firmly on evolutionary biology. Named after the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, who first proposed it in 1964, the Kardashev Scale has two major issues that make it a poor classifier of galactic civilizations.[11] By classifying civilizations into categories based entirely on the use of energy, the Kardashev Scale assumes that the strong correlation between technological advancement and its cumulative energy use that emerged during the Industrial Revolution will continue into the distant future. In doing so it fails to recognize how technological advances often result in the more efficient use of energy, resulting in energy use per capita decreasing as our knowledge of the universe increases. The second weakness of the Kardashev Scale is in assuming that the human population will always expand. However, as economics has long shown, a rising standard of living actually slows and eventually reverses population expansion. On the Earth, our population is apt to decline over the next century before it stabilizes. Thus, human civilization will likely occupy not only the solar system but expand into nearby star systems well before consuming the estimated total energy output of planet Earth. In doing so it undermines the use of the Kardashev Scale in measuring the advancement of civilizations. Beyond its use by space advocates, the Civilization Survival Scale could provide an explanation for the failure of SETI to locate extraterrestrial intelligence in as much as it implies that the technological signature of advanced alien civilizations would be far smaller than the Kardashev Scale anticipates. Instead of the projects predicted by the Kardashev Scale that transform star systems or even galaxies into artificial constructs, the only traces of an advanced civilization following the Civilization Survival Scale would be tight-beam communication signals that link communities across galactic distances and the radiation from communications within their star systems. Since leaked radiation from communications by alien civilizations will decrease as their technology becomes more efficient and their populations stabilize, it is probable that the more advanced an alien civilization is, the less likely it is to be visible across galactic distances. This could explain the failure of numerous SETI searches over the decades to detect any civilizations. This failure might be because the communication signals from alien civilizations would be nearly invisible except for a time window of a few centuries as the alien civilization moves from a Level 1 civilization to a Level 2 civilization in their home star system. Applications in space advocacy But the greatest value of the Civilization Survival Scale is in providing a powerful scientific argument for human expansion into space. Since the survival of a civilization is based on its ability to survive in highly diverse habits, the technology we develop to build communities in space will enhance our ability to thrive in diverse environments here on Earth. Technologies that we develop for advanced food production to sustain communities in space will enable farming on Earth to become more resilient to external disruptions. For example, the technology to grow fruit in an enclosed environment on the Moon or Mars will enable communities above the Arctic Circle on Earth to grow fresh fruit year-round independent of the harsh polar environment. Similarly, recycling technology developed by communities in space could be used to reduce the environmental impact of communities on Earth. Rather than abandoning the Earth, the Civilization Survival Scale demonstrates how communities in space actually enhance the survivability of communities on Earth. The technology to access resources from space ensures the Earth’s survival by reducing dependence on terrestrial resources. Technologies and warning systems to protect communities in space from massive solar storms such as the Carrington Event of 1859 are sure to protect communities on planet Earth.[12] Space communities could also protect the Earth from catastrophic impacts by comets and asteroids through the advanced technologies needed to mine asteroids being applied to prevent those collisions. The Civilization Survival Scale provides a solid scientific foundation for justifying our need to evolve into a spacefaring society. It illustrates that the best hope of humanity surviving the Fermi Paradox is to become as quickly as possible a Level 2 Civilization that calls multiple habitats in our solar system home. References Stine. G. H. (1979). “Why go into space?” in Destinies Vol. 1, No. 2 116-138. ---- (July 27, 2010). “#5: Stephen Hawking’s Warning: Abandon Earth—Or Face Extinction” Big Think Interview. Retrieved December 16, 2024. Foust, J. (October 21, 2024). “Review: Spaceflight Skeptics” in The Space Review. Retrieved December 16, 2024. Hunt, K. (November 22, 2024). “Elon Musk has pledged to settle Mars. A prize-winning book offers a reality check” CNN Retrieved December 16, 2024. Ben R. Finney, Eric M. Jones (1985) “Fermi’s Question” in Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience ed. Finney & Jones, 298-300. Rees, Martin (2015). “Forward” in If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens… Where is Everybody?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life 2nd Edition by Stephen Webb. New York: Springer International Publishing. Ashworth, J (August 31, 2024). “Human ancestors may have almost died out after ancient population crash” British Natural History Museum. Retrieved November 22, 2024. Krulwich, R. (October 22, 2012). “How Human Beings Almost Vanished From Earth In 70,000 B.C.” NPR: Krulwich Wonders. Retrieved November 22, 2024. Webb, S. (2015). If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens… Where is Everybody?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life 2nd Editon. New York: Springer International Publishing. Hanson, R (September 15, 1998). “The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It?” Retrieved December 14, 2024. Kardashev, Nikolai S. (1964). “Transmission of information by extraterrestrial civilizations”. Soviet Astronomy. 8: 217. Tsurutani, B. T. (2003). “The extreme magnetic storm of 1-2 September 1859”. Journal of Geophysical Research. 108 (A7): 1268. Thomas L. Matula, Ph.D. is a Professor of Business Administration at Sul Ross State University in Texas and holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from New Mexico State University. Currently he is developing an online MBA in Space Commerce. This is an excerpt from a book in progress: Astrosettlement: An Evolutionary Strategy for Space Settlement. A board member of Space Renaissance International, he may be reached by email at thomas.matula@sulross.edu.