The Cardishiv scale is a measurement system devised by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev back in 1964.

This scale was meant to help us very roughly approximate the different levels of development

for potential space-farring civilizations.

And space was something that we were just delving into at the time,

and we were feeling pretty optimistic about it overall

because of the rate of development of such things during the space race.

We were looking both outward and inward and thinking, okay, let's maybe figure out what we might expect during this extended exploration process.

A type 1 civilization, according to this scale, can utilize and store all of the energy

generated by its home planet. So if and when we're able to tap all of our available energy

sources, by some interpretations, including just the energy arriving to our planet from our sun,

and by others encompassing all of the possible

energy sources from wind to water to geothermal, to magnetic and gravitational, and

radiation-based, alongside solar.

While also having methods to store such energy so that we can use it when we want,

rather than when it happens to be available, we will have reached the level

of a planetary civilization, which is type 1 on the Kardeshev scale.

A type 2 civilization, according to this scale, has that same level of control over its entire

home solar system.

For us, this would mean the human species fanning out to occupy other planets

and fully tapping the energy available from our sun all the way out to the outer limits of

the sun's photonic influence. Beyond Neptune, beyond the centaurs, the icy comets and

comet-like bodies that exist on the outer expanses of the

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