Space: A World Of Fans
Space: A World Of Fans
Contents
Energize
Imagine This …
Thinking Extraplanetary
Getting There
Space: The Great Unifier
Our Advice
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When there’s interest in a thing, that thing tends to gain steam.
The NFL is huge because lots of people love watching football.
What if lots of people loved hearing about what was happening in the world of space?
Energize
To help achieve that we can energize interest, creating a world of space fans.
Like sports fans, these would be people who pay attention to and drive demand for their chosen space interest. It might be rocket launches, it might be lunar exploration, deep space probes, satellite arrays or anything else extraplanetary.
Fans come in all shapes and sizes.
Until now most discussions of the topics of space have been too clinical, as if it were a rarified domain. Space is a rarified domain, but at this stage in our history nearly everyone will have some sort of interest in knowing more.
Imagine This …
How about a quick orientation?
If you’re still reading we assume your silent answer to that question is something along the lines of, “Sure, why not?”
Here we go.
Imagine a beach.
Now imagine being there.
Scoop up a handful of sand. Just a handful. Let it sift through your fingers, paying attention to the streams. Now pay attention to the grains. Stop a few; isolate a single, tiny grain and look closely.
Imagine that’s a star.
Now look again at the sand you have in your hand. Any remaining, even those little grains stuck here and there. Those, too, are stars. Now expand your vision, back out from that focused view, and take a look at the sand all around. The sand you’re standing in, the sand in your immediate vicinity—all the sand you can see.
Stars.
Each grain. All the way down the beach, as far as your vision goes. Each and every grain of sand a star.
Now go further. Imagine every beach in all the world, every desert, every backyard, every grain of sand.
That’s roughly how many stars there are in the observable universe. Many of them of a type that could host one or more habitable planets. Which is to say, there are a near infinity of goals out there to achieve.
The question then becomes:
Who, and what, is getting us there?
Thinking Extraplanetary
How do we begin thinking in these terms?
As with most decisions, it starts about as simply as possible:
By making up our mind.
Once we each do that, and the next person does, and the next, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends …
Like a flywheel analogy, as more and more of us begin to participate, as more of us pay attention, as more of us make even a passing awareness of space events part of our daily lives, things start to happen.
Extraplanetary means living on other planets. That reality is further off, but it’s where we’re headed, and it will one day (perhaps even sooner than we think) be a part of our everyday existence.
Getting There
To get there our minds have to be there. Even if only a little.
Achieving goals means thinking of them as if they were a foregone conclusion.
A technique that works both individually and as a group. If we decide we’re an extraplanetary civilization, then the things we do will tend to align in that direction.
Our focus becomes our reality.
How should we frame that vision?
Unless we skip a few steps of scientific discovery and end up with warp drive way sooner than expected, Mars will very likely be the next actual planet we occupy. In order to stake that next claim, to see that extraplanetary thinking through to reality, this is where our global focus will most effectively lie.
The stages might go something like this, putting energy into each in sequence and in concert:
1. Building and expanding our on-orbit presence.
2. Making the moon an every-day reality.
3. Mars.
Mars, the Red Planet, will be the first big milestone on the road to our greater space future.
Space: The Great Unifier
Every astronaut who’s been to orbit says the same thing.
It’s life altering.
To a man, to a woman, they experience the same thing: A oneness with their fellow humans.
Sounds like a great epiphany to have.
In fact, it’s been suggested (by those people who’ve been) that going to space should be a prerequisite for any leader. Before a new official assumes office, they should have to go up there and look down here.
To see.
To get that perspective.
The experience even has a name, the “Overview Effect”.
For each who experiences it the Effect drives renewed interest in maintaining our world. As more of us go up there, out there; as more of us experience this effect; well …
We can only imagine the results.
For one, it will drive ever faster that flywheel of interest.
And it just may make us appreciate our fellows, and this planet of ours, that much more.
Our Advice
Don’t keep it a secret that you’re a fan of space.
You might be surprised who else is.
Live your best life. Make your best contributions to this world. As you do, simply keep in the back of your mind that things are happening to advance our space future.
Take note once in a while.
Make mention here or there.
Those simple things alone, if most of us are doing them, will remind others that we’re in this together.
Thus laying the foundation for a brave new world.
Want to hear from us Friday mornings?
Every Friday our chief correspondent, Tai Rade (you’ll love her take on things), sends a recap of the week in space.
#FortySuns