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2 October 25

Blog:
Our Brotherhood
 

Contents

Space 101

Our Brotherhood

A Potential Frailty

The Reality Facing Us

A New Hope

In most cases the pursuit of space, along with increasing our presence in space, is a thing on which many of us could agree.

A discussion of space, therefore: 
 

1.  Serves to raise awareness of the very real need to expand into this next frontier.

2.  Provides common ground over which to connect.

Within that discussion we might also hope to learn a bit about ourselves.

Space 101

Space has captivated us since the dawn of time.

Our ancestors may not have known it as “space”, but the fascination was the same. For them it was the home of the gods; brilliant points of light in the night sky, dynamic, celestial entities, moving slowly over time, planets, constellations, bands of color imbued with all sorts of imaginative explanations. It was a place where fantastic events were happening, high above.

Whatever our ancestors thought, one thing was certain:

That thing, space, represented an untouchable vastness.

Our Brotherhood

It also represented a thing common to each of them.

Later, as we came to understand more of the world around us, we began wondering if it might be possible to go there. To experience those faraway places. Not just look at them through a telescope, but actually travel out there, among the stars.

To go to space.

Musings which have accelerated faster toward reality in the last century, humanity making greater strides toward that objective in the last short span of decades than in the entire rest of our existence.

Now we’ve done it. We’ve gone to space.

Our next generations will live and work there.

So far we’ve put handfuls of us on the nearest celestial body, the moon, and are looking seriously at going further. It’s important that we do. Because Earth, our wonderful home—we now realize—is but one tiny dot in that sea of vastness.

Not quite as eternal as we once might have believed.

Until very recently, the best we could hope for was to take care of it, while simultaneously hoping it didn’t get smashed by a big rock.

That wouldn’t be great for any of us.

A Potential Frailty

Worse, big rocks are just one way our cozy cottage in the cosmos could get ruined. No matter how well we see to it, our wonderful world could burp, or shrug, and kill us all. Not that the Earth is unkind, it isn’t, only … it really doesn’t care.

Narrating the documentary Life on Our Planet, Morgan Freeman names the Third Rule of Life:

Earth never remains stable for long. Sometimes that helps life, sometimes that hinders it.

Ancient-us couldn’t do much about extraplanetary options.

Modern-us can.

Across the long history of life here on Earth there have been five (5) major extinction events, each driven by entirely natural (and in each case different) factors.
 

1. 440 Million Years Ago (MA), 86% of life on Earth lost.

2. 365 MA, 75% of life lost.

3. 252 MA, 96% of life lost. This one was the worst.

4. 201 MA, 80% of life lost.

5. 66 MA, 60-75% of life lost. This was the dinosaurs.

And we may be in the middle of the next one right now. To put it mildly, stuff happens. Whether we have any say in it or not.

Meaning we need options.

The Reality Facing Us

Soviet rocket scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, phrased the situation nicely back around the turn of the last century:

“Earth may be the cradle of humanity, but we can’t stay in the cradle forever.”

Much as we love it, we’ve needed alternate solutions to living on Earth since … well, since we’ve been here. Since long before Tsiolkovsky made that astute observation. A “second home” option, if you will. Getting out of the cradle, however, has never been a thing we could realistically even dream of.

Until now.

Thankfully we made it this far. No burps. No civilization-ending shrugs. No big rocks. No other things we didn’t manage to deal with and keep advancing. Through the millennia of turbulent expansion, through all the rough spots of existing as humans on Earth, we’ve arrived. Here, now, where we at last have real reason for hope.

Finally, with a concerted effort, we can solve the “one world” dilemma that’s loomed over our heads since the beginning.

Finally we can conquer space.

While taking better and better care of this wonderful planet we call home we can, at the same time, realistically set our sights on expanding our possibilities. The technology to do so is being developed all around us, faster than at any point yet. Space, and living elsewhere, is, for the first time in our history, possible.

A reality many may not be aware of.

A New Hope

The journey of a thousand steps begins with one, as a wise man once said, and if our journey toward an extraplanetary existence will be a thousand steps, the ones we take today are the ones that will eventually get us there.

But those steps must be taken.

Good news is, they are. Each and every day, by pioneers in the field, by newly formed and forming enterprises, by national interests, scientists and explorers and on and on.

If you stop and look, you’ll see space is being worked toward by way more people than you probably realized. In fact NASA recently heralded this as the next generation of space exploration.

We are, whether you’ve observed it or not, at the dawn of a new Space Age.

Call it Space Age 2.0.

People already have.

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6 October 25

Blog:
Thinking Big
 

Contents

The New Space Economy

Survival

Abundance As A Solution

Thinking Big

Future Heroes

The Bright Path Ahead

The advent of Space Age 2.0 has much to do with opportunity. In particular economic opportunity.

A lot of players (and there are lots) are currently focused on the space economy. Those numbers have been increasing exponentially in the last decades, which is good, because money drives progress.

Our dreams may be noble, but our reality takes cash.

Cash (profit) is the battery that runs the world.

The New Space Economy

This stable of new and established enterprises are launching and will launch fresh ventures, while at the same time advancing the world’s technologies in their quest for viability.

That growing economic interest, combined with an explosion of new programs being put into place by nation states around the world—plus a rising groundswell of global interest from space enthusiasts like we and thee—is leading, even now, to a renaissance of our space future.

These realities are fantastic.

They need to be strengthened.

Let’s put it another way.

If our focus determines our reality, it stands to reason that by focusing on space it will …

Become our reality.

Survival

It’s not enough that we simply survive. At least not on a global scale. Individually yes, perhaps. Most of us work toward our mortgage payments, hoping to save enough for a better TV. Maybe a vacation.

 We survive.

And that’s fine for most of us. As a planet, however, the only way we achieve the next frontier is to survive in abundance. Across the board our thinking, our planning, our reach serves us best when we direct it toward the seemingly impossible.

Go big or go home.

A popular saying.

Maybe we should change it to “Go big or go bigger.”

Why give ourselves the other option?

Abundance As A Solution

Striving for an abundance is the way we get there.

Together we must decide to focus on the things that will get—and are getting—us to the next frontier. The short and the long view. Things our fellow humans around the world are doing, other things not yet being done but that will be done, advancements to pave the way. Even things that are only just now being imagined.

Especially that.

For in order for our space future to become real, the ability to imagine things hitherto unimagined, the determination to believe in—and reach for—things once believed impossible, will be key.

It’s been said every breakthrough was a crazy idea before it became a breakthrough. Incremental improvements are good, even necessary, but we need a healthy dose of crazy ideas too. Audacious ones.

A quote from one of the Wright brothers, first humans to fly (controlled flight, anyway; no doubt a few of us humans have flown via catapult or other means down through the ages), gives a nice encapsulation of that driving premise:

“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.”

In other words, to go big (or bigger) we have to think big.

Thinking Big

We must start the world thinking. Each of us. Discover new interests, do our own research, make our own space connections and, ultimately, learn more about—and possibly even support—humanity’s prospects on this final frontier.

We must each ponder what our own role in our space future might be.

What can you do?

How can you be a part?

Hm.

At times, one may do more for the advancement of positive change by posing a question than by answering one.

Future Heroes

Such action might even be the inspiration that launches the career of a few new space cadets.

A heroic victory cry might go something like:

“From Space Newb to Space Nerd!”

Or, for those with a preference:

“From Space Greenhorn to Space Geek in a single week!”

Could one of those new players be you?

After all, the best way to predict the future is to create it.

Consider that you’re here, capable of so much more than you may imagine. Consider this the starting point. The launch pad, to use a more fitting term.

The humble place from which you embark on your journey to discover All Things Space.

There’s an awful lot to those three simple words.

“All Things Space”

Up for such a challenge?

The Bright Path Ahead

So much is being done. Advanced, way advanced things, way incredible projects, missions, explorations, science and discoveries. More good things are happening right now in the pursuit of space than you quite likely realize.

More progress is being made, on more fronts, than most people know.

Right now, even as you read this, there are amazing humans out there doing amazing things to advance the cause.

To help us survive in abundance.

So let’s turn our eyes toward discovery. Awareness. Let’s explore the realities and opportunities of what might be our collective space future.

It’s a grand one. And it’s already happening all around us.

Welcome.