The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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As the title suggests, this is one of the books for which theoretical physicist Michio Kaku dons his futurist cap to speculate about what is to come. Other of his books that might be included in this “series” are: Visions, Physics of the Future, The Future of the Mind, and Physics of the Impossible. This particular book focuses on how humanity will spread beyond the planet (and, perhaps, beyond the universe) to survive the (probably distant, but – also – inevitable) threats to the species. While there are other topics discussed, such as the search for immortality and transhumanism, those topics are often framed as necessities of interstellar expansion.

As one would expect of a physicist, the book is highly focused on the physics of the subject. There is little discussion of the psychological difficulties, nor of biological issues such as the fact that humanity is not so lone wolf as we think, and taking off to other planets and living in space without the Earthly life we are interdependent on would involve challenges we have difficult fathoming. All of the challenges that are usually treated with handwaves in science fiction are also handwaved off here.

The book is fun and interesting reading. It’s probably more insightful of science fiction than of our future, but that doesn’t make it less compelling. The seven years since this book was published have seen a lot of change, and there may be a book on this subject that has more of a finger on the pulse, but I still enjoyed reading it. [The downside of writing about the future, even with a focus on the distant future, is that one risks becoming obsolete rather quickly.]

If you’re interested in how humanity might survive into the future, I’d recommend this book. If you enjoy popular science and / or science fiction, you’ll probably find it intriguing.

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