Turning Point: Space
Turning Point: Space
Contents
The Upward Spiral
Thinking Extraplanetary
Framing Our Vision
Mindset
Space: The Great Unifier
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Most of life, it’s said, is simply showing up. Whether mentally or physically, just arriving is half the battle.
The world we live in was crafted by us, for us, and we did it by showing up and doing stuff. It’s hard to show up and not at least do something.
Thus, the fact of simply being here is perhaps the best start possible.
Next is to see how far we can take it.
The Upward Spiral
There’s a thing called a virtuous cycle. It’s like spinning a flywheel, adding momentum every time you give it a shove in the direction you want it to go.
The official definition:
“A chain of events in which one desirable occurrence leads to another, which further promotes the first occurrence and so on, resulting in a continuous process of improvement.”
Space Age 2.0 has begun, which means the flywheel of progress is spinning. Companies and agencies are actively pursuing opportunities in orbit and offworld, nations are making it part of their agenda, each act of which adds momentum to the whole.
All Contributions Are Valuable
Imagine one of those playground merry-go-rounds.
You might be a big kid, with both hands on the bars, shoving like a mad-man to make it go faster and faster. You might be a smaller kid, throwing on a hand every few times around, adding a smaller push.
Surely you remember those days.
You’ve probably also been one of the multitude of kids standing on the fringes, watching in rapt enthusiasm, cheering and laughing, encouraging the main players to give it their all. Or even just an approving parent, farther across the playground, on a bench with your coffee, smiling silently at what a blast all those crazy kids are having.
Support is meaningful.
All contributions are valuable.
No matter your role, the result is energy and enthusiasm added to the system. An upward spiral of successes.
That and a whole lot of fun.
Thinking Extraplanetary
How do we begin thinking in these terms?
As with most things, it starts about as simply as possible:
By making a decision.
Once you do that, and the next person does, and the next, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends …
Like the flywheel analogy, as more and more of us begin paying attention, as more of us participate, as more of us make even a passing awareness of events happening in space part of our daily lives, things start to happen.
The Next Level
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.
Did you ever stop to think, you’re part of a spacefaring civilization?
The spacefaring part is pretty dang small right now, no doubt, but we’re actually already extraplanetary.
We’ve achieved that milestone.
Now to see how far we can take it.
Our Focus & Our Reality
To get to the next level we need more. 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. 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 focus?
Framing A 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 larger space future.
Another Way To Put It
Why is Mars important?
A thousand reasons, some more obvious than others, but there’s one that might not seem obvious at all.
Call it exceeding your target.
As a younger man, one of your humble authors trained extensively in the martial arts. A lesson taught then had to do with punching through the target—the idea being to leave all the energy of the strike where it needed to be.
Humanity can (and should) use a similar concept when it comes to the moon and Mars.
Last time we went for the moon we made it, barely, then kind of faded. The moon became the short-term endgame.
To make it stick we need to punch farther.
If we truly want to make the moon a no-doubt, for-real, actual everyday reality, we need to punch through it.
By punching through the moon, aiming for Mars, the moon itself becomes a foregone conclusion.
Once we’re established on the moon, the rest of the solar system opens up nicely.
Mindset
The future will not just happen.
Okay, the future will happen, one way or another, but wouldn’t we rather be more in control? If we expect the future we want, we must reach for it and grab it.
We must create it.
What might the future hold?
That is entirely up to us to decide.
There are a million things to be done, a million ways to improve, all of which could be distilled down to two things we humans must do if we're to secure our future in space:
1. We must be better to each other.
2. We must create options to this one-world existence.
Both challenges are huge. We’ve had opportunities to see to #1 our entire existence. We’ve never had an opportunity at #2 until now.
Perhaps we might find solutions to one in the other.
Yet, even if we can’t quite get a handle on the first, we can’t wait for that to be perfected.
Sure, if we don’t take care of our personal issues we only drag them with us into space, but at least by expanding, by giving ourselves more places to fight, we at the same time give ourselves more places to live. More places to work on our manners.
It would be a shame to come this far and simply fight ourselves into oblivion. Or get wiped out by a natural disaster because we never figured out how to escape this world if we needed to.
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 have the same experience. 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 person who experiences it the Effect drives renewed interest in safeguarding 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.
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