Unsolved: Future Humanity¶
| Problem | Status | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| A self-sustaining Mars colony | Early research | Very hard |
| Lunar cities | Early research | Very hard |
| Asteroid mining | Early research | Hard |
| Cryopreservation and revival | Unsolved | Very hard |
| Mind uploading | Unsolved | Very hard |
| Synthetic biology | Active progress | Hard |
| Living well past 120 | Early research | Very hard |
| Terraforming planets | Unsolved | Very hard |
| Space manufacturing | Active progress | Hard |
| Civilization resilience | Early research | Very hard |
Lunar cities¶
Status: Early research · Difficulty: Very hard
The Moon is a three-day trip away, a proving ground for Mars, and a source of water ice for fuel. A permanent base is the realistic first step to living off Earth.
Current approaches: NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return crews this decade, a planned station in lunar orbit, and research into building with lunar dust so you do not have to ship everything from Earth.
Why it's still open: lunar dust is razor-sharp and gets into everything, the 14-day night needs stored power, there is no atmosphere to block radiation, and the cost is huge.
Timeline: a small research base in the 2030s. An actual city is a multi-decade goal.
Related: a Mars colony, space manufacturing, asteroid mining.
Synthetic biology¶
Status: Active progress · Difficulty: Hard
Engineering biology like software lets us program cells to make medicines, food, fuels and materials, even organisms that never existed in nature.
Current approaches: engineered microbes already produce insulin, spider silk and fragrances, a synthetic minimal cell was built with just 473 genes, and DNA is being used as a way to store data.
Why it's still open: biology is messy and hard to predict, engineered organisms behave differently outside the lab, and there are real biosafety and biosecurity concerns.
Related: regrow organs and reverse aging on the medicine page.
Mind uploading¶
Status: Unsolved · Difficulty: Very hard
Copying a mind into a computer would redefine death, identity and what it means to be human.
Why it's still open: we cannot yet map a single human brain, as the brain page covers, we do not understand consciousness, and even a perfect copy raises the Ship of Theseus question from the philosophy page. Would the upload be you, or a copy that only thinks it is?
Timeline: deeply speculative, and not this century on current science.