Sustainability: A Tedious Path to Galactic Colonization

TL;DR

This paper investigates the fundamental obstacles to long-term civilization survival and galactic colonization, analyzing resource constraints and the probability of discovering civilizations at various energy development stages.

Contribution

It provides a novel analysis of resource limitations and models the likelihood of detecting extraterrestrial civilizations at different energy evolution stages.

Findings

Resource constraints limit long-term civilization growth.

Probability estimates for discovering civilizations vary with their energy development stage.

Long-term survival and colonization are challenged by fundamental physical and resource laws.

Abstract

Civilization cannot sustain an exponential growth for long time even when neglecting numerous laws of physics! In this paper, we examine what are fundamental obstacles to long term survival of a civilization and its possibility to colonize the Galaxy. Using the solar system as a reference, resources available for sustained growth are analyzed. Using this information, we will explore the probability of discovering a civilization at its different stage of energy evolution as estimating some possible value of L, the typical life time of an extra-terrestrial civilization.