COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	LONG RANGE CONSIDERATIONS
C00007 ENDMK
C⊗;
LONG RANGE CONSIDERATIONS

heat death, interstellar travel, transformation of
humanity by ai, exploration and occupation of the 
universe, occupation of the solar system,
population growth, long range resource system
George O. Smith and the matter duplicator

	In the main this book is about short and medium term opportunities
and problems for humanity, especially Americans.  However, the long term
future of humanity raises some interesting questions.

THE HEAT DEATH

	Ever since the formulation of the first and second laws of
thermodynamics in the nineteenth century, it has seemed scientifically
probable that the universe will eventually "run down", and life will
become impossible.  The discovery that the stars were maintained by
nuclear reactions made possible the first estimates of how long this
would take.  Our sun is good for several billion years without any
action on our part.  Other suns in our galaxy will last longer, and
we can imagine humanity moving to them.  Three questions arise:

	1. Is the heat death really inevitable?  While it can be put
off by human action, unless present science is mistaken, it is inevitable.

	2. Given that it is inevitable, is any human activity meaningful?
We don't want to go into this kind of philosophy, but will content ourselves
with a short answer.  Humans individually find plenty worth doing, even
though their lives are limited and so will the human race as a whole.
Of course, some theories of the "meaning" of individual lives are based
on the idea that the species is eternal, but it seems doubtful that
most individuals base their own lifetime activities on any such theory.
Pursuing the analogy with an individual further, it seems likely that
humanity will attempt to survive as long as possible.

	3. How long can humanity survive and by what means?  Except
for possible immediate emergencies, serious consideration of this
question can be postponed for at least a billion years.  Therefore,
anything we say or do about it now is for our own amusement.

	Our sun is good for some billions of years, but we might have
to move closer unless we find some way of stoking it.  Material can be
collected to form new stars, but if our descendants wish to survive a
very long time, they may find it wasteful to expend the energy in stars
that radiate in all directions.  The very same conversion of hydrogen
to helium that powers the stars, can be used in fusion reactors to
produce energy as needed.  Economical use of hydrogen would give a factor
of a million to a billion in the length of time humanity can survive, i.e.
it might make 10%518%1 years possible.

	However, according to present theory most of the energy in the
universe is gravitational, and we can convert mass to energy by lowering
it into black holes.  At present rates of human consumption of energy,
our galaxy is good for 

expansion into space

varieties of human society

varieties of human