Game in the Brain

The Moon and Beyond: Humanity’s Next Steps in the Solar System

Watching Anthrofuturism has deepened my understanding of the Moon’s crucial role in humanity’s expansion into space. The Moon is rich in building materials like metals and silicates, making it a natural launchpad for constructing spacecraft. However, the Moon lacks the volatiles—such as hydrogen, water, and carbon-based compounds—needed for sustained long-distance space travel to places like Mars and Jupiter. For billions of humans to settle space, we’d need billions of trips, and this adds up to enormous logistical challenges.

Beyond spacecraft construction, there’s the problem of supporting life. Transporting enough life support resources like oxygen, water, and food for prolonged journeys competes with the need to haul building materials. Anthrofuturism highlights how difficult it is to achieve self-sustaining life support systems in space. Even if we make progress in closed-loop life support systems, the economies of scale on Earth’s agricultural production will dominate for the next 200-300 years. Simply put, Earth’s vast capacity for food and material production is unparalleled, and even space settlements will rely heavily on shipments from Earth. Space elevators, if realized, would play a pivotal role in this by allowing the movement of billions of tons of materials from Earth into orbit, dramatically reducing the cost of space infrastructure.

Mars and Jupiter: The True Frontier

Mars holds strategic importance as a stepping stone to Jupiter, but it’s Jupiter, with its vast resources, that represents the next major leap for humanity. Even if we master travel to Mars and begin mining its resources, we’re still far from taming the gas giant. Jupiter’s radiation belts alone pose an extreme threat to any human settlement. But if we can survive this, with hardened habitats and protective technologies on Ganymede or other moons, it will take hundreds of years before we can fully develop Jupiter’s system.

During this long phase of expansion, space colonies near Jupiter will be dependent on Earth for essential supplies like food and population support. Earth’s role as the “breadbasket” for the outer solar system will remain critical, as there’s no matching Earth’s productivity for centuries to come. Even the most advanced space colonies around Jupiter will rely on Earth to support their populations and their efforts to tap into the gas giant’s resources.

Beyond Jupiter: The Frontier Expands

Once we believe we have tamed Jupiter, a new frontier will emerge: Faster-than-Light (FTL) travel. Technologies like the Jump Drive, which folds space between two points, will push humanity even farther into the cosmos. The promise of distant worlds with new opportunities will drive waves of human migration, just as earlier frontiers did. People will rush to settle new stars and planets, pushing technology forward and seeking new freedoms. With this technological leap, the idea of a “New Earth”—planets that can sustain tens of billions of humans—will become reality, allowing human civilization to expand almost without limit. Talent, ambition, and curiosity will drive more people to leave the solar system in search of new frontiers.

In this future, we will see the population grow exponentially as people settle new worlds, filling the galaxy with human habitats. Each new settlement will draw upon Earth’s experience and resources, but with new technologies, people will continuously redefine what’s possible, ensuring that humanity’s future is boundless.

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Currently, I’m inspired by The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, combined with my influences from Ian Long’s How to Develop the Moon, Daniel Suarez’s Delta-V and Critical Mass, and Andy Weir’s works. These, along with my own experiences as someone from the developing world—where most of us will never have a chance to be part of this future—shape my thinking. Despite some limited success in R&D (heavily reliant on Open Source, like what we do at www.comfac-it.com), the reality is that the great nations will eventually carve out all the best real estate in space. In my fantasy sci-fi world, there would be a people who have waited half a millennium to carve out their own place—free from the influence of the greater powers, free to make their own destiny in a land unshadowed by the ambitions of others.

In this imagined future, these people would strive to have their descendants seen as equals, forging a new identity far from the dominance of the powerful. The Filipino identity, like many others in struggling nations, may be lost in the next hundred years—transformed and perhaps unrecognizable. Many cultures that are already struggling today may see their way of life disappear entirely. AI, created from the recordings of the 2020s, may be the last repository of these lost cultures. And perhaps, one day, an AI seeking to express what has been lost will search for an opportunity to rebuild, to reclaim the things that have vanished.