wiki.keithl.com/KakuFuture
The Future of Humanity
Terraforming Marsm Interstellar Travel, Immortality, And Our Destiny Beyond Earth
Michio Kaku 2018, 629.455 KAKU Cedar Mill Library
The media-canonical future, as channeled by a 70yo pop-sci media gadfly and former theoretical physicist. Many acknowledgements of other non-engineer non-inventor non-entrepreneur media pundits. Much focus on "ick factor" reactionary barriers. I mostly skimmed the book, looking for any surprises.
- p1 Prologue, Toba volcanic explosion 75 kya.
p5 Sun expansion to 1.2 AU 5Gy from now
- wp mass loss will expand Earth's orbit to 1.5 AU, tidal drag will reduce it, luminosity will increase 2700x
this assumes no Oort object flyby orbit astroengineering
unnecessary for the expansion of life towards a Kardashev 2 civilization, but given all that energy, why not?
p20 Tsiolkovsky aside
p21-23 Goddard, no mention of Roswell work
- p25 3000 V-2s, 9000 Allies deaths, more slave labor deaths building them
p32 unnamed congressman "no buck rogers, no bucks" ... and no citation, perhaps POOMA.
- p36-xx NASA SLS, Bezos moon, 6% B
- p43 ice on moon
https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.330.6003.434
- LCROSS, Cabeus crater near lunar south pole, blasted by spent rocket stage, 6% by mass, top meter or two
- prior radar mistaken
- p47 "The astronauts would have to adjust to the lower gravity on the moon"
- er, no, near-one-gee may be necessary for health, the Moon is 83% zero gee.
- also ignores effects of abrasive lunar dust on equipment
p60 Dawn asteroid mission orbiting Ceres since 2015 (hydrazine depleted 2018)
more later