Elon Musk's 50 Million Year Vision

I'll get to speaking directly of Elon Musk in a minute. First a little background...

A number of scientists believe that human life is the only intelligent life in the galaxy, and perhaps even the entire universe (see the Fermi Paradox for details). It is estimated that it would take "only" about 50 million years to colonize the entire galaxy. Since the galaxy has existed for billions of years longer than Earth has, if there were other intelligent life forms in the galaxy, they would have colonized the Milky Way long before Earth even formed. So where is everybody? Why do we find no evidence of intelligent life no matter which direction we look? A possible explanation lies in biology.

Pop Quiz

True or false: Evolution completely explains the development of life from non-life.

False.

I'm not arguing Biblical creationism here -- any evolutionary biologist would agree with the above statement (see abiogenesis for details). Evolution begins with the appearance of the first self-replicating organism -- likely a DNA or RNA molecule. But evolution can't explain how one of these molecules developed in the first place. It couldn't have been natural selection, because natural selection requires a pre-existing self-replicating organism. It would be more likely for a tornado to blow through a junkyard and assemble a working 747 than for random collisions of molecules to form a double helix DNA molecule.  That is the mystery of abiogenesis -- how did the first self-replicating organism get here?


The prevailing theory is chance -- given billions and billions of random collisions of molecules (occurring over billions of years in a primordial ocean, for example), abiogenesis might be inevitable somewhere, some-when. If you calculate the odds, it is still incredibly unlikely for it to have occurred anywhere on Earth, even with its 4.8 billion years of history. But it's much more likely to have occurred somewhere or other in the entire universe over its 13.7 billion-year history. That somewhere just happened to be Earth, the theory goes -- Earth is the winner of the Cosmic Abiogenesis Lottery. The point is that the unlikelihood of abiogenesis occurring in any particular place lends further support to the idea that we are the only intelligent life forms in the galaxy or perhaps even the entire universe (see here for a relevant discussion).

Given our lack of competition, and the fact that colonizing the galaxy shouldn't take longer than 50 million years, might we look forward 50 million years ahead and expect and find the galaxy brimming with incredibly advanced intelligent life? Might we look forward billions of years and find the whole universe (or significant parts of it) colonized? All of it owing its entire existence to the good ol' Human Race from Ancient Earth? Not necessarily.

Global warming and nuclear arms are about to give this glorious future a cosmic abortion. Many scientists believe that global warming is already past the point of no return -- that environmental catastrophe is inevitable no matter how many climate change summits we hold in the future. That catastrophe might leave us with an Earth gradually losing its ability to sustain human  life at all. This Great Cosmic Abortion would be like aborting a baby who otherwise would have grown up to be the father of an entire race of people ("Cosmic Lucy"?) If the extinction of human life on Earth is inevitable, the only question remaining is whether or not we begin colonizing other planets before the sunset of life on Earth arrives. If we want a future galaxy brimming with life, we need to start colonizing other planets right now, during this incredibly short window of opportunity. Perhaps half a century compared to the approximately 137,000,000 centuries that have elapsed since the Big Bang might just determine whether the universe lives or dies.

And that is where Elon Musk comes in. He founded Tesla Motors to buy humanity some time on this planet by slowing global warming with cars powered by renewable energy. Now he is leading SpaceX to establish the first human colony on Mars, a colony that will hopefully survive even after the Earth is dead. And from there our species can proceed to colonize the galaxy. If he succeeds, the future Milky Way will be full of intelligent life. If he fails, there may be no intelligent life in the galaxy, perhaps even in the entire universe.

If Einstein hadn't come up with Relativity, sooner or later someone else would have. If Darwin hadn't figured out evolution, sooner or later someone else would have. But if someone like Elon Musk hadn't done what he is doing, it might have meant the extinction of the human race with no future "somebody" to take his place.

We call a man a visionary when he is able to foresee a century or two into the future and acts on his vision. America's founding fathers, who wrote the U.S. Constitution, were visionaries. What do you call a man who sees 50 million years into the future and acts on it? The English language does not even contain a superlative worthy of describing such a phenomenon. Consequently, I'd like to coin a new English word, "musking", defined as acting in the present based on a vision of a future so remote that nobody even bothers preparing for it except you.

What say you, Elon? It seems you are almost as exceptional as our Dear Successor, the Illustrious Kim Jong-Un, who is so extraordinary he doesn't even defecate...