The new century is characterized by an amazing paradox. Mankind’s profound scientific and technological progress is turning what recently seemed inconceivable into everyday reality. The cognitive powers of man are working wonders. At the same time, the power of information technologies has increased to the point where people are ready to believe in practically anything. For example, a former French motor racing journalist, who has assumed the glamorous name Rael, relays the story of how he met a 25,000-year-old extraterrestrial who visited Earth in a UFO. The tiny, green ET explained to him – in perfect French, of course – that the first humans had been created by aliens via DNA manipulation. Since then, aliens have been cloning the best representatives of Homo sapiens for their ‘exemplary conduct.’

Rael founded a sect which he named the Raelian Movement. In 2002, the Raelians declared the birth of the world’s first human clone. It is not the Raelians that impressed me most (after all, there are plenty of crazy people among us), but rather the newspaper and TV journalists around the world who produced scintillating reports about the sectarians. The members of the media all hoped to be the first to break this spectacular news to the world.
We live in a world that is controlled by information, to the point where it is becoming a universal instrument for attaining any goal – political, ideological, economic or military. Like all the other new technologies previously created, the global information exchange is one in a series of technological achievements that quickly change from a tremendous benefit into a destructive force; the mightier the enemy, and the more computerized his control systems, the more vulnerable he is to a precise information strike.

A skillful hacker sitting at his computer in some god-forsaken place can paralyze the entire giant Moloch of U.S. industry. Satellite intelligence, the generation and transmission of electricity, transport, shipping and other industries, have become easy prey for information attacks. This is a type of asymmetric strategy which the underdeveloped world could possibly implement as a weapon against the developed world; it would only require a single member of a radical organization with a talent for computers. Such a strategy does not require much money, whereas an effective defense against such attacks would take much effort and investment. Technically, it would be very difficult to build.

On the other hand, perhaps we fail to realize what great technologies can be implemented in virtual warfare, or what intellectual potential the enemy can use: the results of almost all technological breakthroughs in the second half of the 20th century quickly replenished the arsenals of the god of war. In some fields of development, however, there was an inverse tendency: for example, the civilian exploration of outer space was a by-product of the arms race.

Outer space at the Bush administration’s service

Years ago, like many other science-fiction writers, I wrote about man’s travels to other planets; Mars was usually portrayed as the most likely destination. Now it seems possible that these dreams will be realized. Early this year U.S. President George W. Bush announced the beginning of preparations for an ambitious space program: the Americans will return to the Moon, and prepare an expedition to Mars. But alas, the grandiose plans are less a daring desire to explore the universe than a very transparent political reckoning. The United States will soon have a presidential election, and the international reaction to the situation in Iraq, as well as to Washington’s achievements in the fight against counterterrorism, is mixed. So, White House advisers aptly recalled the effect produced by Apollo 11’s lunar landing in 1969. The U.S. astronauts’ flight was what is now referred to as a brilliant PR action, that is, a realization of the famous statement by Karl von Clausewitz that “war is the continuation of policy by other means.”

The U.S. administration is now trying to use the same tactics – especially since it would be impossible to hold the incumbent president to his bombastic promises: it would take not less than hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars and 15 to 20 years to prepare a flight to Mars. However, Bush is not looking to the future – he is more concerned with the nearest four years. It is not so important to him that the next president, who will replace him sooner or later, will most probably shelve all of his far-reaching plans. What matters more to the White House is that Mr. Bush is presented to the American people as a sagacious strategist and foreseer.

Even the arguments in favor of future space missions, presented by Bush during his speech at NASA, were nothing less than humorous. The U.S. president spoke about some “abundant resources” on the Moon and the prospects for developing the resources of Mars. The U.S. leader must be thinking of an interplanetary expedition as a journey aimed to establish control over yet another oil-bearing area.
The only substance found on Mars to date was some quantity of frozen water. If this ice is melted, the water will cover the planet’s surface in a four-millimeter layer. Thus we must ask: so what? There are four oceans on the Earth, why do we need Martian water?

War instead of science

There are still no prospects for exploring the universe in the way it was perceived by the 20th century futurologists. What we are witnessing today is not the exploration of the universe, but the exploration of near-Earth space (i.e. 100 to 300 kilometers above the Earth’s surface). And the reason for these explorations is for military purposes. From a military point of view, the Moon, for example, is rather unimportant: the 400,000 kilometers that divide the Earth and the Moon is simply too great a distance. I believe that China, the latest space nation, also has military considerations behind its space program; last year it fired into space its first ‘taikonaut.’ Beijing has grandiose plans of its own: it does not wish to cooperate with any other country in the exploration of space, nor does it plan to participate in the International Space Station project. China desires to accomplish everything on its own, no matter how much time and effort it may cost. Considering the resourcefulness of the Chinese people, and their strong desire to acquire all the attributes of a modern great power, they will most likely succeed.

As for the Americans, space is becoming a place for establishing a military strategic advantage. During the Iraqi war, which many describe as revolutionary in terms of the technologies employed, satellite communications were widely used for real-time troop control. Washington operates a constellation of 600 satellites, and this number is expected to soon reach one thousand. The U.S. must be thinking that the arms race which it has provoked and extended into outer space will require so much spending that no other nation will be able to compete with it, let alone overpower it.
However, it is impossible to predict the outcome of the emerging East-West confrontation. It was formerly believed that a technological edge would provide the U.S. with a ‘computer shield.’ However, terrorism has largely depreciated America’s technological advantage over other countries, because electronic machines are unable to predict, for example, an Arab kamikaze terrorist’s turn of mind. The human mind, especially if it has been poisoned with a radical ideology, cannot be mathematically decomposed into digital elements.

Recent developments on the Earth show that we must address the problems now afflicting the planet, rather than pursue space odysseys. The enormous gap in the living standards and development levels between the North and the South is much more dangerous than any conceivable technologies. The famous American political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, who in the late 1980s proclaimed the “end of history” with a universal triumph of liberal values (in the present war against terrorism such expectations look particularly naпve), has recently written a book entitled Our Posthuman Future. In it, he warns about threats posed by advanced biotechnologies which can alter the genetic code, change an embryo’s sex, cure formerly incurable diseases and increase man’s life span.

A majority of the global population – billions of paupers who live (or rather die) on half a dollar a day – are unable to comprehend the ‘post-human’ threats that the scholar from prosperous America is so much afraid of. These people live in a different world, in a different epoch, in a different dimension – not ‘post-human’ but inhuman. Meanwhile, the first phase in the development of the U.S. National Missile Defense alone will demand U.S. $50 billion, and one launch of an antimissile missile will cost U.S. $100 million. This world must be changed; otherwise, it will spin out of control and begin to change us.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq has provoked a global political regrouping on the planet. Conflicts have emerged even in the once-inviolable North Atlantic Alliance. Professor Samuel Huntington’s prophecy about an inevitable ‘clash of civilizations’ is becoming menacingly plausible. Hopefully, political events in a more distant future are still so unpredictable that Huntington’s prophecy may never come to pass. Last century, the failure of futurology for determining future events nevertheless succeeded in producing a saying that “nothing changes as much as the future.”

Let us save the Earth!

The future of the Earth, which is presently plagued with numerous political upheavals, is made even more unpredictable by climatic cataclysms. On a cosmic scale, man’s life span is very short; this is no different when we consider the brief life span of a civilization. (One result is that people fail to perceive that the Sun is becoming increasingly hotter in line with the law of stellar evolution.) Considering man’s environmentally unfriendly activities on the planet, it is difficult to look into the future without fear.

In the early 1960s, I wrote a satirical open letter on behalf of a character in my book Ijon Tichy.  The letter made a plea for humanity to save the universe from man’s destructive activities. In reality, people are simply unable to do any serious damage to the universe. However, on the Earth, man can do much harm. So, paraphrasing my call of 40 years ago, I would like to now exclaim: “Let us save the Earth!”