The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth

The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku“The Future of Humanity” is an awe-inspiring exploration of the pioneers who have the energy, vision, and the resources to change the fate of humanity. He also analyzes the advance in technology that will make it possible to leave the Earth and settle elsewhere. Cofounder of string field theory, best-selling author and professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, Dr. Michio Kaku takes the reader on a unique journey beyond Earth. This splendid 352-page book includes fourteen chapters broken out by the following three parts: I. Leaving the Earth, II. Voyage to the Stars, and III. Life in the Universe.Positives:1. A Kaku trademark, great science writing for the general public. Informative, interesting and fun to read.2. The fascinating topic of the future of humanity in the hands of an expert.3. Excellent format. The book is broken out logically and in chronological order of future events. Also, each chapter is introduced by chapter-appropriate quotes.4. An excellent introduction that clearly states the main purpose of the book. “In this book, I will describe the technologies that will take us even farther as we explore the planets and the stars. In part 1, we will discuss the effort to create a permanent moon base and to colonize and terraform Mars. To do this, we will have to exploit the fourth wave of science, which consists of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology.”5. Interesting factoids throughout. “The V-2 set a number of world records, shattering all past achievements in terms of speed and range for a rocket. It was the first long-range guided ballistic missile. It was the first rocket to break the sound barrier. And most impressively, it was the first rocket ever to leave the boundary of the atmosphere and enter outer space.”6. Thought-provoking philosophy. “Since science is the engine of prosperity, nations that turn their backs on science and technology eventually enter a downward spiral.”7. Excellent look at the pioneers with deep pockets and their dreams for humanity. “Today, it is not the private fortunes of the members of the Baltimore Gun Club fueling this new space race but the checkbooks of moguls like Jeff Bezos. Instead of waiting for NASA to give him permission to build rockets and a launchpad with taxpayer dollars, he founded his own company, Blue Origin, and is building them himself, with his own pocket money.”8. For the love of astronomy. “Asteroids, in some sense, are like flying gold mines in outer space. For example, in July 2015, one came within a million miles of Earth, or about four times the distance from the Earth to the moon. It was about nine hundred meters (or about three thousand feet) across and was estimated to contain ninety million tons of platinum in its core, worth $5.4 trillion.”9. Discusses what it will take to live on Mars. “But settlers would have to get used to the gravity on Mars, which is only 40 percent of the gravity on Earth, and, as on the moon, they would have to exercise vigorously to avoid muscle and bone loss.”10. Discusses potential life-supporting venues besides the planets. “Perhaps the most intriguing of all is Europa, one of the original moons discovered by Galileo. Europa, like some of the other moons of the gas giants, is covered with a thick layer of ice.”11. Such discussions are not possible without the great contributions from Einstein. “Albert Einstein, recognizing that Newton’s laws could be flawed, showed that Mercury’s orbit could be explained by an entirely new effect, the warping of space-time according to his theory of relativity.)”12. Robots in space, oh my. “The next push for self-replicating robots came in 1980, when NASA spearheaded a study called Advanced Automation for Space Missions. The study report concluded that self-replicating robots would be crucial to building lunar settlements and identified at least three types of robots that would be needed. Mining robots would collect basic raw materials, construction robots would melt and refine the materials and assemble new parts, and repair robots would mend and maintain themselves and their colleagues without human intervention.”13. One of the joys of reading Kaku are the numerous references to popular science fiction movies that help readers understand science topics. Movies like Passengers, Interstellar, Arrival and of course the classic 2001 get a lot of love.14. Discusses a variety of types of spaceships. “The ramjet fusion rocket is another enticing concept. It would look like a giant ice cream cone and would scoop up hydrogen gas in interstellar space, then concentrate it in a fusion reactor to generate energy. Like a jet or a cruise missile, the ramjet rocket would be quite economical. Because jets gulp ordinary air, they do not have to carry their own oxidizer, which reduces cost. Since there is an unlimited amount of hydrogen gas in space for fuel, the spaceship should be able to accelerate forever. As with the solar sail, the engine’s specific impulse is infinite.”15. Did somebody say wormholes? “In conclusion, negative energy does exist, and if enough negative energy could somehow be collected, we could, in principle, create a wormhole machine or a warp drive engine, fulfilling some of the wildest fantasies of science fiction.”16. The fascinating topic of aging and immortality. “In fact, there is an influx of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs investing millions to defeat the aging process. Not content to wire up the world, their next goal is to live forever. Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google, hopes to do nothing less than “cure death.””17. The quest to find extraterrestrial life. “A new branch of science has recently been born, called exobiology, to study life on distant worlds with ecosystems different from those found on Earth. So far, exobiologists have had difficulty trying to find a path to creating life-forms that are not based on the carbon chemistry that gives us rich and diverse molecules.”18. A look at the Kardashev scale of civilizations. “His ranking was as follows: 1. A Type I civilization utilizes all the energy of the sunlight that falls on that planet. 2. A Type II civilization utilizes all the energy its sun produces. 3. A Type III civilization utilizes the energy of an entire galaxy.”19. The search for the theory of everything. “What theory can unify general relativity and the quantum theory at the Planck energy? Einstein spent the last thirty years of his life chasing after a “theory of everything” that could allow him to “read the mind of God,” but he failed. This remains one of the biggest questions facing modern physics.”20. The three possibilities for the ultimate fate of the universe. “So my point of view combines both the Copernican and anthropic principle. I believe that our universe is not special, as in the Copernican principle, except for two features: that it is very stable and that it is compatible with life as we know it. So instead of having an infinite number of parallel universes floating in the Nirvana of hyperspace, most of them are unstable, and perhaps only a handful of them survive to create life like ours.”Negatives:1. I would have preferred a better laid out book. I would have added timelines, highlight factoids, and take advantage of linking capability in eBooks. Time to take these books to another level.2. Limited visual supplementary material for such a great narrative.3. Honestly, how many readers even at its most basic will truly understand string theory?4. Let’s be honest it’s hard to live up to the The Future of the Mind.5. In order to reach a broader audience, depth pays a price.In summary, I really enjoyed this book! Kaku is the tour guide you want to teach us about the future of humanity. This is what popular science writing should all be about, inspiring minds to dream big while keeping us grounded in sound science. What makes this book a treat to read is the combination of Kaku’s mastery of the topic, his enthusiasm, his ability to convey complex topics in an accessible manner, and providing readers with excellent examples from popular science fiction movies. Some shortcomings aside, I highly recommend it!Further recommendations: “The Future of the Mind” and “Physics of the Future” by the same author, “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” by Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Heavens on Earth” by Michael Shermer, “Immortality” by Stephen Cave, “Cosmos” Carl Sagan, “The Big Picture” Sean Carroll, “A Universe From Nothing” by Lawrence Krauss, “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking, “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene, and “Wonders of the Solar System” and “Wonders of the Universe” by Brian Cox.

I've read several of Professor Kaku's books, and there are two things I can say about all of them: (1) they are extremely well written and (2) they will expand your mind. When it comes to the genre of physics books for laypersons, Kaku is as good as it gets. Indeed, his book "Hyperspace" was one of the first books of this genre that I read many years ago, and thanks to Professor Kaku, this one-time English major has become very interested in physics."The Future of Humanity" is a fun book. This is one of Kaku's gifts--making science fun. Any layperson of average intelligence can (with a little determination) understand Professor Kaku's discussions of quantum physics, relativity, string theory, and related matters. In this book, Kaku covers not only the short-term future, which involves colonization of Mars, and exploration of earth-like planets in our galactic neighborhood. He also takes a look into the very distant future of humanity, when we might well have achieved immortality, and have advanced from our current Type 0 civilization into a Type 3 civilization, which has harnessed the power of galaxies, to explore the entire universe. Along the way, one learns quite a bit about quantum physics, including string theory, and also quite a bit about science fiction, which has inspired Professor Kaku's mind throughout his life. (Kaku's references to science fiction are a great deal of fun and quite interesting). I was most interested in the short-term future and how we solve our problems regarding clean and abundant energy and how we begin to colonize nearby planets. On these issues, Kaku is an optimist, and his optimism is well grounded in science. It is clear that if our species is to survive, we must eventually find ways to leave Earth and colonize Mars and earth-like planets in nearby solar systems. Even overcoming the many challenges of traveling to and eventually colonizing Mars presents daunting obstacles. Professor Kaku discusses these obstacles in great depth and suggests ways that future generations will eventually be able to overcome them. Kaku's discussion of the short-term future (through the end of this century) is quite convincing because there are already many ideas as to how humanity could terraform Mars and eventually travel to nearby earth-like planets. Professor Kaku makes a convincing case that if humanity can avoid self-destruction, we can and will be able to colonize nearby habitable planets, which is absolutely essential to our species' survival. By the end of this century we will probably have colonies on Mars and perhaps on some of the many earth-like planets that have been discovered orbiting nearby stars.The most speculative--and most entertaining--part of this book (for me) was when Professor Kaku looks into the distant future and begins to speculate what humanity could achieve thousands of years from now. This part of the book discusses concepts such as navigating wormholes to explore the vast distances of our universe and the use of AI and robotics to greatly expand our life expectancy to the point where we could realistically hope to explore the known universe and to travel well beyond the limits of our home. This section of the book also raises a number of philosophical questions (e.g., is immortality actually desirable? how will our conception of what it means to be human change when we encounter other civilizations?, will we even recognize our species as human thousands of years from now?), and Kaku's thoughts on these matters are thought-provoking and challenging. I particularly enjoyed Kaku's discussion of Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 civilizations. We are currently not quite Type 1; our ability to generate the energy that's necessary to travel beyond our planet and to spread humanity throughout the galaxy is still quite primitive, but we are making great progress. We will eventually become proficient at using atomic and solar power in ways that will provide the necessary clean and abundant energy that we need to venture to Mars and beyond. Kaku's discussion of what we might be thousands of years from now when we become a Type 3 species and can harness the power of entire galaxies to explore the entire universe is speculative, but a treat for the imagination--science at its best, inspiring and hopeful. Above all, I think that this is a hopeful book. If humanity can avoid self-destruction, then our future is very bright indeed. Earth will always be home, but to survive as a species we must journey from home to the ends of the universe, and we can do so. This is a very enjoyable and inspiring book by a very talented writer and scientist. Mind-blowing and entertaining.

Just wow. What a beautiful way of explaining the universe to someone who has absolutely NO IDEA of physics, math or anything related. Absolutely recommended.

This is smart funny and gives an interesting outlook on our next future possibilities.I advice it to anyone willing to understand science basics explained in a really clear and not boring way

Great book! Easy to understand even though it deals with some crazy physics and theories... I Will definitely read more books by Kaku

While I enjoyed the fantastic scenarios presented in this book, I have a problem with the view that humanity could and should conquer the planet, solar system, galaxy, and finally the universe as described here.What if humanity is just a temporary disease of the planet, something to shake off and leave behind?

An excellent read! Michio Kaku has a brilliant imagination mixed with tons of factual material. Highly-recommended.