Space Age 2.0: The Next Frontier | Part 1
Space Age 2.0: The Next Frontier
Part 1
Contents
Space 101
Our Brotherhood
A Potential Frailty
The Reality Facing Us
A New Hope
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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.
We’ll see you next week for Part 2.
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