Finding Common Ground
Common Ground: Space
Contents
Opening The Chamber
It Won’t Be Easy
By The Numbers
Why “Forty Suns”?
Finding Focus
Space
Reality Meets Imagination
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It’s been said every breakthrough was a crazy idea before it became a breakthrough. Incremental improvements are good, even necessary, but to really advance we need a healthy dose of wild concepts. Audacious ones.
It's the only way we make the big gains.
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.
Can we come together toward the impossible?
Opening The Chamber
Space, like anything, can become its own echo chamber, with its own, isolated groups of enthusiasts.
Those who get it can’t understand why those who don’t ... don’t.
Seems it's about time we fixed that.
A few points:
You’re already part of a spacefaring civilization.
So far the “spacefaring” part is small.
It will continue to grow.
Now is as good a time as any to:
Pay closer attention.
Find ways to support that growth.
Space is the answer.
It Won’t Be Easy
The trick is coming together over this one point we all have in common.
Extrapolate natural human frictions across billions of us and it should be no surprise we have trouble getting along. At times it’s a wonder we even have rockets at all. Throw in the long term evolution of cultures, beliefs, politics and all else, and it’s clear we’ve been busy making this single planet a fun (is that the right word?) and interesting place to compete.
Quite a few complicated games we have going on.
Some are creative and advance our survival, others not so much.
What if more of us had the idea that maybe, just maybe, we could find ways to work together, as a world, long enough to add extra places to play?
Expand the sandbox, so to speak.
By The Numbers
If a billion of us truly paid attention—with interest—to what’s already going on in the pursuit of space (and there’s a lot happening), a million of us might get active and get involved.
That would be a major difference-maker.
With such attention and such involvement, our extraplanetary future would quickly become real.
Let’s be honest. In the same way it was inevitable humans would end up all over the planet, it’s inevitable we’ll end up in the solar system and beyond.
That being the case, why be slow about it?
Forty Suns was founded to bring more of us together over this common ground. Not just those who already get that space is the answer, but all of us.
Space is hard. The only way we make it is if a majority of us are behind that push.
Why “Forty Suns”?
You’ve been reading these blogs, you got here via something with the words Forty Suns somewhere in it …
Why that name?
The truth is, it came relatively randomly. During a coffee binge, as it will be recalled, trying to dream up a way to frame a common goal for as many of us as possible.
The name does, however, have significance.
Forty Suns is a nod to the fact that our own sun is but one of many, and around those many other suns are worlds like ours.
Which is to say there’s a much larger playing field out there.
It should be our objective to expand into it.
Forty is an arbitrary number, but it works for our purposes. If we knew of or had access to forty new worlds, what opportunities would that create?
Forty Suns exists to remind us that we’re larger than our differences. Perhaps more importantly, Forty Suns exists to bring us together over common ground.
Finding Focus
Any successful group, whether stellar, global, local or otherwise, is made up of agreements. We’re all individuals, there’s no question of that, but we’re also in this together. That togetherness, the mortar of our “house of humans”, relies on seeing eye to eye where we can.
When we share common goals and purposes … well, that’s when the magic happens.
Philanthropist, scientist, entrepreneur—basically, one of those superhumans driving progress on this planet—Yuri Milner, says this on his site:
“Any organization that is serious about doing something significant has a mission. But human civilization, as a whole, has nothing resembling a shared mission.”
A unique and perfect analogy.
He goes on to add:
“In the long term, that means we cannot thrive—or probably even survive. But what could such a mission be? People, nations, and cultures vary wildly. Where on Earth do we look for a common goal?”
We find the answer in the one thing common to all of us:
Space.
Space
We beat that drum with good reason.
Space is mostly virgin territory; a true “new frontier”, offering us an opportunity to come together to find ways to solve it.
Occupying 40 suns would certainly be a huge, huge leap for humanity in our current state but, were we to ever achieve that, it would take a whole lot of working together along the way.
So to the question “Why Forty Suns?” the answer is:
01. We could use a goal like this, and
02. It’s a fitting name.
To be clear, this is based on real possibilities. What’s happening now, what could be happening soon. We’re not talking Star Trek-level stuff in our far future, or even fast interstellar travel in this generation—though discussing such possibilities is worth our attention.
We’re talking about spinning the flywheel of current advancement, doing the things now that will get us to the next level and the next so that, one day, that eventual interstellar civilization becomes reality.
The journey of a thousand steps?
This is where it begins.
Reality Meets Imagination
Reaching another sun is a long road indeed. Especially from this starting point. Space is hard. “Doing” space is not for the faint of heart. So much, however, can (and needs to) be done to reach that first next-sun, it’s high time we got started.
Space is a goal we can, and should, focus on together.
What can we do?
The answer is pretty easy, and could be pretty fun:
Add space to the mix.
Live your life as you do, do your favorite things, watch your favorite shows, hang out with your favorite friends, go to your favorite restaurants and eat your favorite foods. Among that, throw a little attention now and again toward space things.
You’ll be surprised how that builds.
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