CAJ:The Lifeboat Space Mission

The project of a space habitat as a backup plan for human civilization is still at a very early stage. This, however does not mean that there is not much done in this field at the moment. On the contrary as the Lifeboat Foundation is currently working on rendering space flights beyond the atmosphere cheaper and come up with non-rocket methods for reaching the orbit. The most prominent name within the Lifeboat Space habitat mission is ‘Ark1’.

‘Ark 1’ is a self-sustaining space habitat, which should be made capable of ensuring the survival of humanity in the event Earth becomes uninhabitable. The artificial ecosystem should also include plants and animals and will resort to resources from the moon and asteroids since acess to the Earth, which will not be existent by this moment in time will no longer be an option. The living quarters of Ark I will be a set of two spinning wheels accumulating gravity. As an energy source, nuclear fission reactors and solar panels will power the habitat. Ark I will be a test in terms of a self-efficient environment as well as new ways of managing and obtaining resources and finally for astronautic hygiene and space medicine.

The flow of resources will be especially challenging when it comes to creating a space habitat. At the moment various technologies are being pursued to reuse and recycle resources in space. Reuse of water is already achieved aboard the ISS. The most promising model of a perpetuous artificial ecosystem is ‘closing the loop’ to minimize the need for new resources. Generating a flow of resources, which does not rely on the blue planet is crucial when it comes to providing a self-efficient space colony.

An equally important matter regards sustainable health care in space. As experience has shown  radiation, gravity and sanitation prove to be the most difficult problems to be tackled in space. Reating and preventing health problems in space is essential. In absence of the Earth magnetic field, which works as a natural protection against radiation, solutions to protect against dangerous radiation, including the sun rays have to be found

CAJ:The '21st century Planck Club'

 

In comparison to former centuries, the 21st saw very few inventions, less brilliant scientists and moderate technological advancements. The reason for this is that endowments nowadays are assigned through a system that does only support ideas, a committee of agencies consider reasonable and particularly interesting. Radical inventions and innovative plans usually have no positive reputation among these committees and are therefore denied any funding. The lifeboat foundation tries to counteract to these sad developments in order to promote possible successors of Watson, Planck and Einstein, whose contributions to the economic growth of the last centuries was remarkable and of unmeasurable value.

The program is called ‘Scientific Freedom Shield’ and supports promising researchers and scientists by providing them necessary help. The foundation refers to this elite as the ‘21^st century Planck Club’ and sees them as an answer to very questionable tendencies in current research that seems to ‘work’ with companies that are so-called ‘patent trolls’. They gather scientists, researchers, medical specialists, and investors, who theoretically invent technologies that will not exist for several years. Then they patent these ideas for future patent infringement litigation. This is unethical and stunts the innovation of the human race. It is time to give way to new brilliant inventions, as it is vital to come up with new discoveries in order to keep track with the world’s development and effectively be prepared to safeguard humanity. Impeding scientific freedom is poison for human development and will ultimately be decisive when it comes to guarantee our future existence.

 

CAJ:Should we consider singularity as friend or foe?

As I have already established in my CAJ that one of the core tasks of the lifeboat foundation is the protection against the growing power of technology. An important term in this context is singularity, or more precisely technological singularity. These expressions describe the hypothetical moment when artificial intelligence will have exceeded the capacity of the human brain. I do not refer to this point as hypothetical because it could potentially happen one day in future. No, in fact the arrival of such a moment is an absolute certainty. Greater than human intelligence is estimated to set in within the next three decades. So the reason for calling it arbitrary therefore is that the exact moment will not be reasonably measurable. Nonetheless it will have massive impact on our lives.

The relationship between computers and human intelligence can be compared to the relationship between humans and lower animals. The encompassing power of technology will leave us without any hope of control. Social, economic and ethic patterns will change inevitably as the influence of humans will reach a historic point of no return to the throne of power. Scenarios as to what such a reality, dominated by technological singularity will look like are very vague and almost impossible to make out. This makes it hard for the lifeboat foundation to provide methodology to protect humanity. Still, it is an important step to create awareness and consider it worth to actively come to terms with the phenomenon of singularity.

The most scaring aspect of artificial intelligence is the hypothesis of an ever improving cycle. More specifically we are talking about the ‘intelligence explosion’ caused by clever technology that creates even cleverer technology. Just consider the evolution of the human being from ‘homo’ sapiens until the average human of the 21^st century.