Yuri Milner recently published the Eureka Manifesto, a book that attempts to put our time on Earth in perspective. Milner was obsessed with the possibility of extraterrestrial life as a child, and as an adult he realized that he had an opportunity to communicate with at least one civilization – his own.
His manifesto is a deep dive into what the human race has done and what it must do in the far future to thrive. As a wealthy man, he has the resources to further exploration, and he hopes to both define our larger mission and lend a helping hand to get there. We’ll look at how Milner and other billionaires are attempting to further our journey in the universe.
The Mission for Our Civilization
The mission for our civilization as defined by Yuri Milner is to seek knowledge and push the boundaries of understanding at every opportunity. As the generations roll on, we add more knowledge to our base and build from there. However, after several millennia, it’s clear that it’s a painstaking process at best.
Yuri Milner points out that exploring and understanding the universe is the key to grasping humanity’s place in the cosmos. However, he also presents challenges to this mission in the form of existential threats. How long do we have to survive? Several hundred years after Galileo, Milner says that we’re still in the very early stages of discovery.
If we’re going to accelerate the Scientific Revolution, Milner believes that we must launch the new Enlightenment. For our descendants to advance into the far future, there needs to be intervention today. A spacefaring civilization will be built on strong research and a sincere belief that we don’t have to settle for what we have today — that we can strive to a higher plane. Yuri Milner is doing everything he can to do his part.
The Eureka Manifesto is ultimately a quest to move beyond Earth, a goal that he spoke about in Seattle at a space summit. He talked largely about visiting one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, via his nonprofit organization. With its space program, known as the Breakthrough Initiatives, developing rapidly, he was unwilling to wait for NASA to launch a mission of its own to the icy satellite. He asked himself if he could design a time- and cost-efficient mission to the moon. It would be the first private mission into deep space, and in September 2018, he partnered with NASA to establish the Enceladus Mission.
Part of a Bigger Plan
Yuri Milner’s Eureka Manifesto is not the only attempt to encourage exploration. Fellow billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have also made their own strides and plenty of headlines with claims like building colonies on Mars. Elon waxes poetic when it comes to his goals. He believes that few things are more exciting than reaching for the stars.
Musk even went so far as to say that he could have astronauts put on the red planet by 2029. The entire mission of SpaceX is to put a colony on Mars that could house up to a million people. Musk has already made headway in this regard, as he’s built several rockets that have enjoyed successful rides. For Jeff Bezos, his rocket is more focused on the business side of things. He’s spoken openly about establishing everything from a space hotel to a commercial research station. Along with fellow enthusiasts, Milner’s Eureka Manifesto: the mission for our civilization is an important text for anyone who wants the human race to learn, grow and ultimately survive.