Peter Solomon: 100 Years to Extinction

In 2017, the iconic astrophysicist Stephen Hawking predicted that to survive as a species, humanity would need to expand beyond the confines of our home planet within the next hundred years.

He also said that it would take at least that long for humans to build a permanent extraterrestrial settlement, presumably on Mars.

So what are you waiting for?

Get on that spacesuit you bought from Amazon and climb aboard the Musk rocket to Mars.

In fact, the fate of humanity over the next hundred years is no laughing matter.

Hawking considered global climate change, pandemics, nuclear war, the rise of artificial intelligence, which at the time was only a vague fantastical notion for many of us, and even cosmic events like alien contact, asteroid impacts, or gamma ray bursts as potential harbingers of existential doom.

In fact, a powerful nearby gamma ray burst could vaporize the planet.

Though the odds of that happening anytime soon are, well, astronomically low, it's harder to be sanguine about the odds of nuclear war, climate collapse, or the rise of killer AI.

Thus was the thrust of Hawking's message of the need to move the species and presumably other earthly life forms off the planet to save ourselves, to have a backup, as it were.

Though, frankly, Mars makes a pretty shitty backup, in my humble opinion.

I discussed that in more detail in a previous Earthbound episode.

Living on Utopia or A Fool's paradise or I review the excellent book City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith.

Playing On Hawking's warning, Dr. Peter Solomon's novel 100 Years to Extinction explores what a world on Mars could look like if we didn't dig too deep into the reservations presented in Weiner Smith's A City on Mars.

Solomon earned his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University.

He holds 20 patents and is a serial entrepreneur, founding five companies.

He now devotes his time to making science and technology accessible to a general audience.

To be fair, the Mars colony that Solomon eventually gets to in his 432 page near future semi sci fi novel isn't exactly the point of the story, though it serves as the principal narrative framework.

I recently spoke with Peter Solomon about the book, his work and his ideas on the state of the world.

To that end, Solomon mirrors Hawking, suggesting extinction triggers threatening humanity that include climate change, artificial intelligence, the misinformation in the vast Internet rabbit hole that is capturing our brains, genetic engineering, and after all that happens, nuclear war in the case of nuclear or radiological fallout.

But Solomon's book isn't some nihilistic dive into the bottomless chasm of extinction.

Quite the opposite at times annoyingly so.

And I should probably say here that that my criticism and occasional snark are not a reflection of the idea Solomon and I discussed.

Indeed, each of the aforementioned triggers offer their own brand of potential extinction, and considering each one in the silo is over simplistic and ultimately counterproductive.

To Solomon's credit, he makes an admirable effort in laying out all this in a story focused on two Gen C sisters, Aster and Elizabeth, and their cousin Milo.

They are geniuses in their fields Aster the astrophysicist, Liz the doctor and geneticist, and Milo the communicator and political leader.

While working as an emt, she's a very accomplished individual.

Liz is shot by a deranged gunman, and there's no shortage of those in real life.

It seems that after her recovery, her sister and cousin Milo made a solemn vow to save the world from all the damage done by previous generations.

I won't attempt here to condense Solomon's expansive narrative in a few sentences.

The gist of the book is that the Gen Z trio and their colleagues colonize Mars, refine nuclear fusion as a power source both on Earth and for the ship that shuttles our intrepid colonists to Mars in a cool three days, no less.

Liz and Astor are on that ship.

Milo stays behind as a driving force behind the New Planet Party, a third US Political party that becomes the dominant force in American politics.

The electoral college is abolished.

There is a growing Make Earth Great Again movement, including the Earth Corps, modeled on the Peace Corps.

The world comes together to tackle misinformation and climate change, two of Solomon's most urgent problems extinction triggers and, come to think of it, mine as well.

Essentially, our protagonists offer a glimpse into a near future in which we tackle the polycrisis age.

We find ourselves in the mid-2020s and all this by the mid-2030s.

If Solomon's technical optimism seems unrealistic to me, his intentions and scientific knowledge are sound.

Indeed, the continual gentle 1g thrust of a nuclear fusion engine could potentially shorten a trip to Mars from six months to three days.

Once there, an orbital superconducting ring could shield the colonists below from gamma rays and solar radiation.

Habitation domes and other materials could be manufactured with 3D printers using Martian substrate as a source material.

Food could be grown in a Martian lab.

While all that is possible, according to Dr. Solomon and others, as of this recording, we have difficulty loading the hydrogen and helium into a chemical rocket for the Artemis 2 mission's relatively short swing around the Moon.

The Muskian notion that we will have a colony on Mars within 10 years is simply unrealistic.

That said, we can give Solomon a pass on his optimism.

Since optimism is the point in 100 years to extinction, he offers a glimmer of hope.

We can also forgive the book's flaws.

The plot and pacing are inconsistent and gloss over many of the technical and social challenges to achieve Solomon's vision of the future.

In some cases, character development is uneven and the ending smacks of and they lived happily ever after.

A little disappointing.

After slogging through more than 400 pages, I was hoping for a more substantial conclusion to the story.

Again, to his credit, Solomon provides thorough endnotes with resources informing the topics covered in the book.

The author's note reinforces his belief in the social and technological evolution throughout the story.

I guess my main complaint is the assertion that it can occur in the time frame he suggests.

But all that said, I enjoyed reading 100 Years to Extinction and Dr. Solomon's earnest attempt to place our polycrisis age within the context of solutions.

Generally, I take issue with the urgency of colonizing Mars.

The resources and focus necessary to build a survivable colony on the Red Planet should, in the short term, as in this century, be applied to building a survivable, equitable and thriving civilization for all of us here at home.

As I said in my City on Mars episode, I'm not against space exploration or landing people on Mars at some point this century.

As I've said, my beef is with the idea that we must colonize another planet to save our own or have a backup.

As Solomon describes it in the book, I believe we must get our house in order before we think about moving into another one out in space.

Naturally, I am reluctant to go against the genius of Stephen Hawking and Peter Solomon, but if it is indeed true, we only have 100 years to extinction.

Less now.

Since Hawking said that in 2017, and our only hope of avoiding that fate depends on overcoming all the obstacles of creating a Martian colony, then I fear we are screwed.

For instance, Solomon only offers a cursory, largely unsatisfying account of governance on Mars, a critical part of any successful colony, its internal affairs and how it interacts with the people left behind on Earth.

Is escaping a troubled Earth viable?

Or will our human flaws simply accompany us to the Red Planet?

While I believe we should look to the stars and explore the cosmos, there is a more pressing need to learn how to live sustainably and peacefully here on Earth, our true home before we think about packing our bags for Mars.

And it seems that Solomon anticipates my objection, and certainly that of others, that we risk wasting resources that could help us survive the previously mentioned extinction triggers.

While he and others, most notably Stephen Hawking, claim that Mars should be a backstop for life on Earth, Solomon emphasizes throughout the book that Earth is precious and irreplaceable.

True enough, our efforts should reflect that truth.

Thanks for listening to this short review of Dr. Peter Solomon's book 100 Years to Extinction.

His follow up book, 12 Years to AI Singh Singularity, focuses on the impact of artificial intelligence on human civilization, as we all know by now, a potential near term extinction trigger.

There's so many of them anyway.

Other books by Solomon include the Stardust Mystery and the Race to the Big Bang, both of which won first place for STEM books in the 2021 Purple Dragonfly Children's Book Awards.

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