Things I hope I see before I die
Atlantis came back home and it sparked my childlike dream engine.
I hope that the people of the world pull their collective heads out of their collective asses. After reading the Manifold trilogy a couple years back (and reading up on the facts), I broke through the realization that space travel should not be all that difficult. Seriously, its not. We have been traveling to space for 40 years, like anything, it is ripe for development. What makes it difficult is NASA and the FAA and our own misconceptions and lack of education. The actual methods can be expensive, but that shouldn’t be too hard to overcome once we realize just how much wealth is up there. And I am talking big money. Many asteroids in short distance from earth have enough raw metals in them to provide for Earth’s population for years. Once China starts to achieve some of those growth models that have been predicted, then we will see some big motivation to get out there. As the Manifold trilogy puts it: bootstrap it.
So if some paramount shift of human consciousness were to happen, I would hope I see these things before I pass on to explore the universe sans body.
- A space elevator
- Manned mission to Mars
- Asteroid harvesting (obviously)
- Private space missions
- Space-based shipyard
Mankind is long overdue on the promises of the golden age of spaceflight. We have two things wrong – no education of the masses of just what is up there, and the expectation that space flight is for purely scientific purposes. We just have to hit that critical mass for the next golden age to begin.
What will cause that criticality, I don’t know. But I am pretty sure that the US will not be the one leading it. This country is intellectually dying. China or India have a far better outlook on the future of the space industry. And tell you what, whoever gets out there first will be able to dictate who goes out there.
But maybe that is the way it should happen. Perhaps that is what will wake this country out of its fat-sugar-laziness induced coma. When the American people realize that the easy life is in the past, and that a billion and half people on the other side of the planet control all the wealth and economic and scientific growth in the world, perhaps that will wake them up.
I guess we will find out.
Either that will happen or the world will end. By religion, war, environmental destruction, zombies, etc.
I, for one, am hoping for mankind to follow the Golden Path.
What will cause that criticality, I don’t know. But I am pretty sure that the US will not be the one leading it. This country is intellectually dying. China or India have a far better outlook on the future of the space industry. And tell you what, whoever gets out there first will be able to dictate who goes out there.
I am a hopeless optimist – I don’t think the state of the nation is that bad. A lot depends on what is the best way for things to happen in space over the next twenty years.
China in particular is betting on the best way is a state-directed top-down effort. We’ve spent the past forty years seeing that approach doesn’t work. It’s possible the Chinese would be better at that than we are – but China has it’s own problems with population, resources and so on.
We seem – as a society – determined to grudginly allow private enterprise to do what it does best.
I’m betting a decentralized approach will work best.