All language subtitles for americas_book_of_secrets_s04e07_doomsday_scenarios

While the American government strives to
protect the nation from obvious

threats, it must also plan for
unforeseen disasters.

There are immediate threats facing
humanity on the planet Earth.

If an asteroid were to hit Earth, it
would kill millions instantly.

Events that could threaten not only
America, if you're looking at a new dark

age, but every nation.

Across the globe. That is the most
dangerous moment humanity has ever

Although complete agreement on anything
is hard to come by today, experts around

the world believe more than ever that it
is not a question of if humanity will

one day face a cataclysmic event that
may cause our extinction, but when.

In fact, a number of doomsday scenarios
are being predicted.

Do these threats really exist?

If so, then what is being done to
prevent them?

Perhaps the answers can be found in
America's book of secrets.

January 23rd, 2020.

An international group of global
security experts known as the Bulletin

Atomic Scientists advances the hands of
its symbolic doomsday clock from two

minutes down to 100 seconds before
midnight.

The clock has been moved forward. Tell
me, how else can we tell people where

we're at? The moment is serious.

This yearly announcement is their
assessment of the chances that a global

catastrophe will take place in the near
future.

The doomsday clock started in 1947, and
according to the experts, humanity has

never been closer to the apocalypse.

The Earth has experienced five major
extinction waves, and these are periods

time where more than three -quarters of
the animal species on the planet went

extinct.

So when we actually look in the fossil
record, we can see that this happened

before, and that'll tell us it's going
to happen again.

Is there an existential threat looming
that could wipe out the human race?

And if so, will this threat be man
-made?

Or could it come from nature?

Yellowstone National Park.

Each year, more than 4 million people
travel from all over the world to

experience its canyons, hot springs, and
other natural wonders.

But beneath the surface of this
picturesque landscape lies a deadly

just waiting to erupt.

When we think of Yellowstone National
Park, we think of Yogi Bear.

We think of Old Faithful, but underneath
that park, there is a ticking time

bomb.

There's a super volcano underneath the
Yellowstone, the size of Rhode Island.

A volcano that has had an eruption of a
magnitude 8, which is the highest

category on the Volcanic Explosivity
Index.

It's classified as a supervolcano.

This type of eruption can eject more
than 1 ,000 cubic kilometers of magma

ash, not only obliterating everything in
its path, but also rendering the

surrounding environment unlivable.

When it goes off one day, and it will,
it will rip the guts out of the United

States of America.

It would blanket much of North America
actually with volcanic ash.

It will destroy industry, it will bring
down power lines, it will contaminate

soil, not just North America but much of
the world.

The world really only has about two
months of food reserves.

So if you suddenly shut that off, that
doesn't leave a lot of time.

We may prefer to think that the idea of
a supervolcano causing worldwide

destruction is an exaggerated one.

But the truth is that not only is this
doomsday scenario possible, it's

happened before.

Sumatra, Indonesia.

More than 70 ,000 years ago, the
enormous supervolcano Mount Toba

violently erupts.

Volcanic ash and debris shoot into the
atmosphere.

Toxic clouds black out to the sky,
covering the entire planet in darkness.

Toba was a supervolcanic eruption doing
more than 10 ,000 square meters of rock

debris, volcanic ash, into the
atmosphere.

Using genetics, we know that only a
handful of us survived that cataclysm 70

,000 years ago.

Maybe a thousand of us.

escaped the devastation of the eruption,
escaped into the Middle East, and then

repopulated the planet Earth as a
consequence.

So in other words, it was luck.

Luck that humanity was not wiped out by
a supervolcano about 70 ,000 years ago.

The devastating power of a supervolcano
like Mount Toba is terrifying to think

of, as is the fact.

that 18 such volcanoes exist on the
planet at this very moment, including

one that sits beneath Yellowstone
National Park.

The last eruption underneath Yellowstone
was perhaps 600 ,000 years ago, but

we don't know for sure.

We're monitoring it because we know that
it will erupt. We just don't know when.

There is one department of the United
States government that is well aware of

the danger posed by the Yellowstone
supervolcano and is taking steps to try

prevent it from erupting.

However, the agency best equipped to
find a solution is neither an

nor a geological department, but
actually one that most might not expect,

NASA.

NASA has an experiment in mind to drill
into the heart of where the

supervolcano at Yellowstone is because
we really need to have a mitigation

strategy in place.

It's called geoengineering.

You would have to dig into the ground 10
miles to inject enough water to begin

the process of cooling down that pool of
magma.

The downside of it is that it could be
unstable and it could set off the

eruption.

Even as NASA hopes to stop the
catastrophe currently brewing deep below

are also struggling to combat another
that is equally chilling.

One high above us and getting closer by
the second.

Chelyabinsk, Russia.

February 15th, 2013.

In this remote town, about 950 miles
east of Moscow, a meteor

streaks across the sky and explodes in
the air.

Suddenly, fireballs rain down over vast
area, causing a shockwave that smashes

windows, damages buildings, and injures
more than 1 ,200 people.

And what's worse is that we had no idea
it was coming.

There are three kinds of asteroids.

The first is the city buster.

Two of them struck Russia. One in 1908
and one recently outside Chelyabinsk.

Then we have the nation buster. It is
over 1 ,000 feet across, capable

of wiping out one of our nations of the
planet Earth.

And then there is the planet buster.
That is an object 10 miles across which

would take out life on the Earth itself.

We think that 65 million years ago, an
asteroid about that size struck the

Yucatan of Mexico, wiping out the
dinosaurs.

In 2018,

NASA committed $150 million to help fund
the detection of asteroids hurtling

towards the planet.

But just how common are such truly
dangerous asteroids?

There are in the order of 10 to 20 ,000
extinction -level event asteroids.

The asteroid Apophis, for example, is an
asteroid about 1 ,000 feet across.

It'll skim by the planet Earth in the
year 2029.

And in the second round, 2036, it may
actually hit the Earth.

The danger posed by a giant asteroid
seems insurmountable. But actually,

there may be a possible solution.

In October of 2022, NASA is scheduled to
launch a mission known as the

Double Asteroid Redirection Test.

The idea is to bump an asteroid and see
if they can alter its trajectory.

It's like playing billiards.

You use a cue ball to move the other
balls around the table.

All you have to do, especially if you
have a lot of advance notice, is move it

slightly, it'll just miss the Earth. The
very fact that we can do this is kind

of amazing. I mean, it could be that
down the line, humanity will be able to

survive what would otherwise have been
an extinction -level event because...

It's one thing when scientists identify
massive and potentially devastating

objects hurtling towards the Earth.

But what about other lethal threats?

Threats that are invisible to the naked
eye.

June 10th, 2020.

The U .S. Department of Homeland
Security releases a report warning.

that the People's Republic of China
possesses powerful new weapons that can

generate an electromagnetic pulse,
commonly referred to as an EMP.

An electromagnetic pulse is a super
energetic radio wave that's got so much

energy in it that it can destroy
electronics.

It can collapse electric grids and
basically wipe out electronic

all over the world.

China is an enormous EMP threat, as is
Russia and North Korea. All three of

have super EMP weapons.

According to military experts, EMPs can
be unleashed in a variety of ways,

including by a nuclear missile detonated
high up in the atmosphere, by

satellite, or even from a concealed
device the size of a suitcase.

Then there are non -nuclear EMP weapons.

They don't have fields as large or as
powerful as the nuclear weapons, but

a handful of them, you could achieve the
same thing that you do with a nuclear

EMP attack and basically black out the
grid for a protracted time, enough to

destroy our electronic civilization.

What would a huge EMP do?

When you drive down the road and you
look at the power lines and you see

big metal cans that are on top of the
poles, those are transformers.

There are millions of them in North
America. The power lines would act like

antennas and absorb this energy and blow
out millions of these transformers.

A big transformer is custom made.

And there are only two places in the
world where they're made.

South Korea and Germany. You're talking
about years to get it back up.

You take power away, you're not going to
have electricity.

You're not going to have water.

You're not going to be able to get food
or anything like that.

And that causes society to break down
very quickly.

Cars wouldn't start.

Airplanes would fall out of the sky.

We wouldn't have enough food in the
country to feed 330 million people for a

month. And it would immediately begin to
spoil when the electric grid goes down

and the refrigeration systems. You
wouldn't be able to transport it to

Another effect is it could wipe out most
of our communication satellites that's

in orbit around the Earth.

And what a lot of people don't realize
is that the global stock exchanges and

all the banking networks work through
these satellites.

So almost instantly, we would have an
economic collapse of all of the markets

the planet. That could be chaos like
we've never seen before.

The looming threats of sophisticated EMT
weapons.

has led many to wonder, is there
anything that can be done to defend

against this kind of attack?

We need to protect the grid as soon as
possible, as well as other like

-sustaining critical infrastructures,
communications, transportation,

the food and water supply.

EMP attacks are largely ignored because
of the enormous cost it would be to

harden the grid.

It's estimated that it would cost
between $10 to $20 billion, and it would

over three to five years.

Hardening the grid means installing
technical devices that would protect

transformers and control systems from
EMP effects.

So not only are these things a
tremendous threat to our civilian

infrastructures, but theoretically an
electromagnetic pulse can be caused by

sun, like a rare solar superstorm like
the 1859 Carrington event.

Red Hill, England, September 1st, 1859.

While working in his observatory,
amateur astronomer Richard Carrington

a burst of intense white light erupt
from the surface of the sun.

Minutes later, the energy from this
flash of light, known as a solar flare,

blankets the Earth with the energy of
over 100 nuclear bombs.

It's called the Carrington Event, and
when that happened, people saw a bright

light in the middle of the night. They
thought it was morning. They would get

and start to make breakfast.

Telegraph operators were shocked,
literally shocked.

Certain telegraph stations burst into
flames.

The transatlantic cable that had just
been laid in 1859 connecting North

to Europe, the pulse was so powerful it
reached down miles deep into the

Atlantic Ocean and burned it out.

Now, in 1859, we were still a horse and
buggy civilization. We weren't dependent

upon electricity for survival. And so
civilization continued.

If it happened today, communications
would go down. The Internet would go

Cell phone activity will go down.

Even the astronauts in the space station
would have to be on alert because of a

gigantic solar flare.

We would be thrown back.

A hundred years into the past, to the
very dawn of the electric age,

the threat of a naturally occurring
electromagnetic pulse has to be taken

seriously. Because as scientists
recently discovered, sudden and massive

flares happen with frightening
regularity.

On July 23, 2012, a rare solar
superstorm like the 1859 Carrington

hit. And NASA estimates that the
likelihood of a catastrophic natural EMP

about 12 % per decade.

And so we're basically in a game of
Russian roulette with the sun.

That virtually guarantees that within
our lifetimes, or at the latest, that of

our grandchildren, we're going to
experience this thing.

The clock starts ticking toward
doomsday, basically, once that EMP hits.

You're looking at a Mad Max kind of
thing.

You're looking at a new dark age.

Even though the dangers of super EMP
weapons keep many in the U .S.

up at night, those threats pale in
comparison to another potential doomsday

scenario, one that could instantaneously
destroy not only our infrastructure,

but humanity itself.

Pyongyang, North Korea, October 10,
2020.

During a rare nighttime military parade,
North Korea unveils the world's largest

mobile nuclear missile.

The 85 -foot -long weapon can reportedly
reach any point in the continental

United States, the country that North
Korean dictator Kim Jong -un claims is

country's main enemy.

It's a chilling reminder of mankind's
capacity to unleash a true nuclear

doomsday. And some experts say it's only
a matter of time.

Before that happens.

We need to remember that these weapons
are still there. There are still, I

think, close to 14 ,000 nuclear weapons
throughout the world.

There are the United States, Russia,
China, India, Pakistan, North Korea,

Israel, France, and England. All have
nuclear weapons.

So there is still a threat to the
world's peace and to the consequences of

nuclear fallout.

Times have changed.

Now the bomb has proliferated,
proliferated into some of the most

areas of the world.

Areas like the Korean Peninsula could be
the match, match that sets off a

nuclear war.

We have to worry about an accidental
hotspot blowing up and then escalating

to the great powers.

For those who find the idea of a
catastrophic nuclear exchange

History provides a sobering rebuttal.

October 14, 1962.

United States surveillance aircraft
capture photographic proof that the

Union has placed nuclear missiles in
Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of

Florida. It marks the beginning of what
would come to be known as the Cuban

Missile Crisis.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is probably the
most dangerous moment humanity has

possibly ever faced, actually.

You have the United States and Soviet
Union at the height of the Cold War.

Hundreds, thousands of nuclear warheads
pointed at each other.

You have this face -off over Soviet
missiles in Cuba that was too close to

.S., the fear that those could be
launched quite quickly, the U .S. would

have time to retaliate. The U .S.
responds by putting a naval blockade

Cuba. The Russians are sending ships
there. There's a face -off.

There were far more Soviet military
personnel in Cuba than the Americans

There were Soviet submarines off of Cuba
that had nuclear capabilities and

nuclear torpedoes. There was actually
one Russian nuclear sub that was being

depth -charged by U .S. Naval Forces.

And a few officers on that sub thought
they should fire off their nuclear

torpedoes with the idea of defending
themselves. They figured the war had

already started. We should just go ahead
and do this. We can't check back with

Moscow. There were three commanders on
that submarine. Two of the commanders

voted to launch the nuclear weapon that
they had on the sub.

The third commander, Vasily Arkhipov,
dissented. He said that they did not

what was going on on the surface, and he
refused to authorize the launch.

Vasily Arkhipov actually saved us from
being in the middle of a nuclear war. If

he had not dissented and they had
launched that weapon, undoubtedly we

have ended up in a nuclear exchange with
the Soviet Union.

and the consequences would have been
absolutely catastrophic.

The Cuban missile crisis ended when
President Kennedy secretly agreed to the

removal of U .S. nuclear weapons in
Turkey in exchange for Soviet First

Secretary Nikita Khrushchev having his
country's missiles removed from Cuba.

While nuclear war was averted at a
pivotal moment of the Cold War, the

terrifying truth is...

Some experts believe that the threat of
such a doomsday is even greater today.

Washington, D .C., October 1, 2020.

President Donald J. Trump is diagnosed
with COVID -19, raising questions about

his ability to perform his presidential
duties.

Soon after Trump's diagnosis,

the U .S. Air Force scrambles several
E6B Mercury planes into the air.

The function of these planes is to
communicate with America's nuclear

in the event of a surprise nuclear
attack against the United States.

According to some experts, the planes
were put on alert because the military

concerned that such an attack was
imminent.

With the diagnosis of President Trump
with COVID, There was some speculation

that foreign adversaries might take
advantage of that.

When President Trump was diagnosed as
having COVID -19, it's interesting that

the days that followed, both China and
North Korea flexed their military

muscles. There were shows of new
hardware, displays of force.

Almost as if they were demonstrating
that they had a capability or an

to do something, or even gearing
themselves up to take action.

The President's health scare is an
example of how a single event can still

unexpectedly stir up nuclear tensions at
a moment's notice.

Just days later, Russia and China
unveiled new nuclear missiles.

However... Unlike their ballistic
predecessors, these weapons of mass

destruction are hypersonic.

When a ballistic missile is launched,
usually it's picked up by a satellite,

that information is passed back to
commands in the United States. The

is made to employ a kill weapon, which
is basically another missile, and that

ordered to be launched, and hopefully it
intercepts the intercontinental

ballistic missile in space and destroys
it.

Well, guess what? Now we have hypersonic
missiles that can travel much faster.

And that means you have that much less
time to figure out what's going on,

minutes really, to decide whether to
shoot back.

Recently, it was revealed that the U .S.
military was developing and deploying

an artificial intelligence -driven
computer program to try to give

early warning of any imminent nuclear
attack.

You can use artificial intelligence to
try to detect patterns in that behavior

of your adversaries that would indicate,
say, that they're preparing a missile

for launch.

In the case of North Korea, we can sort
of see from the sky when they're

preparing missiles, and even in
underground bunkers when they're moving

of materials to those places that would
allow that.

This super smart AI computer program
would be able to react.

faster and with more accuracy than any
human and it would enable an attack

to be deterred or certainly if an attack
was launched to be countered and

defended against.

Is it possible that with artificial
intelligence mankind has really created

safeguard against deadly international
conflicts?

There are experts who fear.

that it may not ultimately prove to be
our savior, but rather the architect of

our demise.

Boston, Massachusetts, June 2016.

Robotics company Boston Dynamics reveals
a four -legged canine -inspired robot

known as Spot.

This artificially intelligent machine

funded in part by the U .S. government,
is capable of manipulating objects,

navigating varied terrain, and even
performing complex acrobatics.

But many experts warn that such huge
advances in both artificial intelligence

and robotics are a double -edged sword.

AI offers tremendous advances.

But are we comfortable with giving total
power to something that's not

answerable to humans? That's concerning.
That's something that's going to have

to be addressed.

Humanity is at the top of the food chain
around the world because we're the

smartest species.

So what happens if we create something
else, something artificial, that is

smarter than us?

AI is the ultimate extent of risk.

While robots like Spock can someday
surpass our ability to control them.

There is a type of artificially
intelligent robot being developed that

also be over our heads.

And in more ways than one.

We have drones from the sky that shoot
at enemy combatants on the ground.

And what happens if one of them gets out
of control?

The military is interested in using
artificial intelligence.

There's efforts to build drones that
would be much more autonomous than they

now. If you kind of eliminate the human
from the loop, these systems can make

much faster decisions and operate much
more quickly.

Imagine something like a predator drone,
only instead of having a human being at

the controls, we just hand it over to
the robot.

I could see a lot of strategic reasons
for why you might want to do that. You

speed the process up. But once you go
down this road, it gets very scary.

Really quickly.

November 12, 2017.

The Future of Life Institute releases
Slaughterfuck, an eight -minute film

offers a grim warning about a potential
doomsday scenario in the form of

artificial intelligent drone assassins.

Although a work of fiction, its
realistic presentation and plausible

only triggers it to go viral, but also
attracts the attention of the United

Nations.

Flutterbots was created to be kind of a
newscast from the near future, where you

actually see tiny little drone swarms
going after people.

And in the Flutterbots scenario, they
capture an image from your laptop or

your smartphone.

And then they use face recognition to
track you down and execute you.

The different individual flying robots
can act together as a network.

They can work together to, say, fly
through small areas at high speeds.

They can share the information that
they're collecting. So if you're

whole city for a particular individual,
as soon as one drone finds it, all the

other drones will know exactly where
that person is and can go to that area.

Actually, the technologies employed are
all available today. Most PhD students

in robotics and drones

could write the software to do something
very similar. The question is the

willingness to attach lethal weapons to
it.

In October of 2020, the Chinese military
released video of swarms

of similarly designed attack drones
deployed from both the ground and air.

While China's swarm technology is not as
advanced as the fictional slaughter

box,

Its very existence represents a
significant escalation in autonomous

lot of countries are afraid that if they
don't invest in these technologies,

then their adversaries will.

So you have this competition between the
great states, primarily China, U .S.,

Russia, who all want to develop these
weapons first.

Of course, once you get ahead, then
everybody else is trying to get ahead,

it's an endless kind of race.

Recently, the British chief of the
defense staff, General Nick Carter, made

speech where he said that a quarter of
the basically UK armed forces could

be replaced by autonomous robots.

If you're simply pressing a switch and
ordering robots into battle, there's no

real downside for you in terms of
casualties.

I think there's a moral and ethical
issue, whether we want to allow machines

that are not being actively supervised
and controlled by humans to make life

death decisions, whether any particular
human lives or dies.

For instance, we saw in Tahrir Square in
Egypt, where Mubarak tried to order the

military to attack the million people
occupying the square, and the military

stood down and refused to do that.

Robot soldiers aren't going to refuse
their orders.

The speed at which an AI could learn,
the speed at which it could grow, if it

actually passed it as humans, there's no
telling where it could go.

And if that happens, we've just given
the keys to the Earth to something else.

If governments around the world fail to
prevent the ultimate doomsday scenario

from occurring, what then?

Do we have a plan that offers a chance
for survival?

Many experts say the answer is yes.

However, they believe the solution lies
not with the government, but by taking

matters into our own hands.

Today, in the plains of western South
Dakota, a series of curious embankments

dot the countryside.

These 575 mounds are entrances to
underground bunkers made

of concrete.

The total area within the bunkers is
three -quarters the size of Manhattan.

And in recent years, these former
military structures have become home to

largest private citizen survivalist
community on Earth.

It's called the X -Point. And this was a
World War II munitions storage depot,

and this facility fell into disrepair.

575 semi -subterranean concrete bunkers
that were built to protect weapons.

Recently, it was purchased by a
California real estate developer who

that this would be the perfect doomsday
community.

And what he's been doing is selling 99
-year leases on these bunkers.

It's what they claim is going to be the
center from which humanity reemerges

after a great calamity.

There's about 40 families who are living
in there now, so they're only

inhabiting a very small percentage of
the place.

But it's a fascinating transformation.
These bunkers that were built to protect

weapons are now protecting families.

And it's beginning to look like a
typical American cul -de -sac. People

putting up white picket fences and
American flags over their blast doors

building quite intricate structures
inside the bunkers.

We have this idea of a prepper being
this lone wolf figure who

is going to single -handedly save the
world through his knowledge of survival

skills, bushcraft.

But the reality is very different from
how we imagine preppers to be.

Preppers are everywhere.

They're your next -door neighbor.

is a modern take on a concept that's
been developing for a long time.

Giant bunkers built underground as
humanity's last resort for survival.

As in fact, the U .S. government has
been constructing such facilities for

decades. The Department of Defense
estimated that there were 20 ,000

facilities around the world.

Many of those bunkers aren't in the
United States as the remnants from the

War.

These are continuity of government
facilities. The idea is that in the

nuclear war, you could move large
amounts of military personnel, parts of

civilian government, and ensure that the
government and military command is not

totally wiped out.

In the 1980s and during the Cold War, a
number of top -secret underground

facilities were constructed as part of a
massive continuity of government

initiative. It came to be known as...

The Doomsday Project was started by
President Reagan.

The idea was that Russia and the whole
world already knew where the existing

bunkers were, so we needed to build new
bunkers.

Each bunker needed to have its own
technological convoy. They

needed to have space satellite
connections.

They needed to have lead -lined tractor
trailers so the government could be

mobile and move from place to place.

The June's Day Project ended, I believe,
in the year 1994.

We think, but we're not really sure.

Authorities are secretive about the
location and size of the government's

-day underground structures.

But if history is any guide, they are
most likely.

We do know about a couple of prime
examples from the Cold War.

One of those is the Raven Rock Complex,
which is incredibly vast.

They've excavated the inside of this
mountain, and they've essentially

multi -level building inside there which
sits on shock absorbers.

So if the bunker were to be hit with a
direct nuclear weapon, the whole

can actually flex with the blast.

And there's a million square feet of
office space inside there.

There's a vast reservoir, essentially an
underground lake that they can pull

fresh drinking water from. There's
roads, obviously.

It's essentially an underground city.

And in Virginia, there's a bunker called
Mount Weather.

And it's a multi -level bunker that
thousands of people could live inside.

It's also the place where the government
would take precious artifacts,

paintings, things like this that are
important to the cultural history of the

United States.

This is essentially a giant safe where
they can take these things and store

during an attack.

While the U .S. government has invested
heavily in underground structures,

critics have questioned the wisdom of
building so -called doomsday bunkers.

that would preserve and support
civilized society.

It's impossible to be able to provide
shelter for everyone in the country.

The disparity between providing
protection for government elites versus

ordinary citizens is a very complex
issue.

If you can survive in one for an
extended period of time is another

What would the quality of life be like?
Would you want to survive?

If you could never go outside again, if
you could never feel the sun on your

face, a nice cool rain on a hot day,
what kind of life would that be?

There's also a lot of research into the
psychological effects of what it would

be like to be in those places.

I'm not sure how effective it would be
over the long term.

So there are insurance plans, but one
that hopefully we'll never actually have

to cash.

If things really do go south on the
surface of planet Earth, can humanity

sanctuary deep underground?

Perhaps there is another solution, one
that the American government is

developing right now, that is simply out
of this world.

Boca Chica, Texas, January 2021.

American Aerospace Company, SpaceX.

performs three successful static fire
tests of its colossal SN9 rocket.

The SN9 is a prototype of what SpaceX
calls the Starship, which

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims will be the
largest and most advanced spacecraft

ever made.

And there are those who believe that in
the event of a global catastrophe,

Rockets like the Starship could become
lifeboats to new frontiers for human

civilization. If a supervolcano erupts,
if there's a pandemic that engulfs the

world, maybe we have to leave the Earth
as a consequence.

One of the best ways for humanity to
ensure its survival is to spread out

the stars, to the moon, to the asteroid
belt, to Mars.

to maybe the moons of Jupiter and
Saturn.

If we spread out, it's going to be
harder to kill us with one big shot.

And that way, humanity might survive.

If we can establish ourselves off the
Earth, so we're a multi -planetary

species, if something happens to wipe
out the Earth, you know, it could be a

nuclear war, it could be an asteroid
strike, it could be a very angry AI, we

have a backup plan. We have somewhere
else we can live. And that's part of why

Elon Musk is so interested in colonizing
Mars.

His goal is by 2050, there would be a
million colonists on Mars. Each rocket

ship would carry 100 passengers. It
would take several years to build up

colony, but it is well within the laws
of physics.

To reach these ambitious goals, SpaceX
plans to build more than 1 ,000

and eventually launch three of them to
Mars every single day.

Sound impossible?

For many, this elaborate project is not
only a viable option to save the human

race, but also a natural next step to
help it evolve.

Humans are built to survive. Our species
exists and continues to exist because

we refuse to surrender to fate.

We are hardwired by evolution.

To be concerned about doomsday and the
ultimate catastrophe of our species,

a look at the mythologies of every
civilization on the planet Earth.

You will always find some reference to a
doomsday, because in the back of our

minds, there's always the possibility
that all this, all this civilization

come to naught, that it will be gone in
the flick of an eye.

What matters in terms of averting these
disasters is not just us.

Because, yes, it would be very sad,
obviously, if something were to happen

have all of us go extinct tomorrow.

But the real loss would be no more
future, no more future generations, no

future accomplishments, no more future
humans.

And we here at a moment where there's a
lot of risks out there, both natural and

increasingly man -made, we have a
responsibility to ensure that the future

going. And the best way to do that is to
tackle these risks head on.

Could an exodus to another planet really
be mankind's solution to an earthly

apocalypse? Or would the same
devastating natural and man -made

await us there?

Ultimately, it is up to us and our
leaders to ensure a safe and hopefully

tomorrow.

Can we do it?

Perhaps for now, the answer lies hidden
in America's Book of Secrets.