Transport via Digital Encoding.

When the survival of humanity on Earth is at risk, we could turn to the idea of interstellar migration. The evolutionary drive for self-preservation and reproduction continuously compels us to seek survival strategies. Yet traveling to planets outside our solar system is practically impossible with current technology. Distances are vast, speeds too low, and the required energy immense.

What if, instead of physical travel, we opted for informational transmission? Light, carried by massless photons, can travel at the highest known speed. When only information—and no matter—needs to be sent, we can leverage this maximal speed.

The fundamental question is: what makes a human who they are? If we assume that “being human” is fully determined by the configuration of atoms, molecules, neurons, and their interrelations—the exact structure of body and brain—then this information could theoretically be recorded. A complete digital scan of a person could then serve as a basis for reconstruction elsewhere in the universe.

This leads to an alternative approach to space travel:

The body does not travel, only the information about it.
This information is transmitted via light signals.
At the destination, the data is decoded and potentially converted into a physical equivalent.

Possible scenarios:

The receiving planet hosts a civilization with comparable technology capable of decoding and virtually reconstructing the information.
This civilization has the capacity to assemble physical bodies from locally available atoms based on the received structure.
If only basic elements are available, such as hydrogen, heavier elements could be synthetically produced, provided the environment is suitable.

This method offers several key advantages:

Transmission occurs at the speed of light.
Required energy is relatively low, especially with directed transmission via laser.
Multiple copies of the same “individual” are possible—raising ethical and philosophical questions.

We could test this principle on Earth by digitally transmitting an object or living being between two locations—one as sender, one as receiver—where the object is reconstructed locally from available atoms.

For illustration: the nearest star system is Proxima Centauri, about 4.25 light-years away. Even with a rocket traveling at 100,000 km/h, the journey would take over 46,000 years. Information, by contrast, would arrive in just over four years.

This approach confronts us with fundamental questions: Would a copy of ourselves on another planet truly be considered “us”? And if so, what does that mean for our understanding of identity, continuity, and personal consciousness?