Humans are great at taking advantage of technology to achieve our goals. But we’re also surprisingly good at taking advantage of the limitations of technology, and I bet we’ll see this continue in the future as our civilization spreads out enough to start running into a particular limitation on communications technology: that darned speed of light.
We often take instantaneously communication for granted these days. I can pull out my phone and talk to someone on the other side of the planet whenever I like (assuming that person is awake enough to answer). Breaking news, business deals, live sports… our only restrictions on the speed of these interactions are the cost of devices and infrastructure.
But at larger distance scales— like, say, between planets— there’s a limit to how fast a message can travel, no matter how much you pay for your internet service: the speed of light, nearly 300,000,000 meters per second (186,000 miles per second). This is a physical law that, at this point, we have no clue how to technologize our way around.
The communication lag between the Earth and the Moon due to the speed of light is only a little over a second; barely noticeable. Between Earth and Mars, it’s somewhere between about 4 to 24 minutes, depending on where the planets are in their orbits. This makes real-time communication impossible, but the pace of a text message convo between Earth and Mars wouldn’t feel too different from one between two distracted multitaskers here on Earth.
But I still wonder how this inconvenience will shape the relationships between groups of humans living in different parts of the Solar System someday. As I mentioned, humans have already demonstrated that we’re good at using these kinds of technological limitations to our advantages.
For example, not too long ago, before the invention of the telegraph, the communication lag between people on different sides of the planet could be months, depending on how long it took letters to cross the ocean. As Yale historian Lauren Benton described during an interview for my podcast, colonial elites in the Spanish Empire had an attitude towards their home governments often referred to as “Obedezco pero no cumplo”: “I obey but I do not comply.” When they received orders from the government back in Spain that they weren’t inclined to follow, they’d respond asking for clarification. It would take months for their request to reach Spain and for the reply to return, and in the meantime the colonial elites could carry on doing things however they liked.
(This reminds me of the modern cliché about blaming cell phone reception problems for “not hearing” a part of the conversation you’d rather not hear: “What’s that, boss? I can’t hear you, I’m driving through a tunnel/getting in an elevator/in the subway! Oh well, I’ll just talk to you on Monday, okay, bye!”)
Even if humans were living at the far reaches of Pluto’s orbit, we wouldn’t have to deal with delays longer than a few hours. To recreate the months or years of delay experienced by pre-telegraph empires, we’ll have to go beyond the Solar System. (Our nearest planetary system, Alpha Centauri, is over four light-years away. They’re a whole World Cup behind.) But I’m sure humans engaged in politics, diplomacy, and interpersonal relationships will all still find ways to manipulate and work around a 20-minute delay.
Part of me worries that without the ability for instant communication between world leaders, like the famous “red telephone” hotline between Moscow and Russia, misunderstandings, delays, and simmering resentments could lead to more conflict between societies far apart in space. But on the other hand, that distance doesn’t just slow communication: it also slows any attempt at actual violence. I’ve grown up in a world where a nuclear weapon on the other side of the planet could reach me half an hour after someone made the decision to launch it. A missile launched from Earth to Mars would take months. Maybe the immense distances in space will actually lead to more patient and stable interplanetary relations. Or maybe we’ll all just get good at writing letters again.
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