The journey of our heart, spirit and soul for our future, and our children’s future lies in each of us. Thanks to the many generations of individuals in truly believing the importance of becoming a space-faring nation, and building, achieving, and growing on this strong heritage. NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, ESA, and many other grass root organizations and commercial industry leaders have given us the rare opportunity to survive as a species beyond just being a spark of light in the history of time and space that makes up the history of our home planet, solar system and galaxy.
Imagine colonies of planets, generation space stations and ships, and technology advances preserving our Eco-System for generations to come so we as a species will forever thrive, grow, and advert single-point-of-disaster potentials if we are to expand and flourish throughout the galaxy.
No more would we be afraid of one lone meteorite or comet snuffing everything we are, out in one single quick blast. Some traveling at speeds 10 times or more faster then a speeding bullet. How can any early warning system ever warn us in time to avoid or even prevent such a thing with our current technology levels as they are today.
Now, government funding is losing more and more focus on the importance of our future survival, cutting more and more funding and chances in building and growing this lifeboat which earth and all of mankind so desperately needs. How can we turn our backs on thinking this tiny island will never be a victim of disaster and destruction when the evidence of history, time and time again has shown otherwise.
Every journey has a beginning…. ours is about to start, here… now.
I invite everyone to join me in a journey of creating the discussion, planning, and tangible implementation of contributing to SPACE COLONIZATION, it’s future for all of planet Earth. This blog will be the first step in building this cohesion, sharing of knowledge, linking other groups together in common cause and also serve as a central hub in the great tapestry needed to make such a dream a reality.
You have a chance, here and now, to change, contribute, and be apart of history.
Each of us has a unique past, skills, experiences, and talents the Earth so desperately needs to make all of this possible.
This site will begin to open up more and more as the weeks go by. It’s time for the voices of all mankind be heard that the red-tape of politics, social group agendas, and inward focused thinking organizations understand that our path is clear. The distractions of these re-directions will no longer smoke screen the truth, the truth that we need to expand into the Galaxy for all mankind.
Cheers!
-Keither
Your words are inspiring.
The technology and abilities are out there and most of them we currently posess.
The stars are waiting for us. we just need to get there; and with the help and contributions of us all we can surely reach the stars and see the far off words and beautys that this universe has to offer.
So far we have confined ourselves to the tiny world we inhabit. but just imagine, if Earth is this exotic and wild, just imagine what the whole universe is like: wonders as far as the eye can see and freedom without limits in this endless universe.
Throughout our history we have been defined by our exploration: the colonization of Europe and the new world, and these discovories will pale in comparison to the discovoies that lie ahead.
Why are we still here? have we grown content with our world? the great explorers of our race would slap us in the face, point our eyes to the sky and say, “How can you just let that [the universe] go unexplored?!”
The galaxy, no the universe is waiting……..are we going to let the chance go by untaken?
“Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.”
I t is important to start any conversation with a commitment to reality. Along the way we may be enticed to explore far reaches and wandering pathways of our collective imaginations. Sometimes, through these intellectual side streets, we can discover ideas outside of present paradigms. But we must agree to return to reality as we know it to apply these new concepts.
The topic of Space Colonization has this temptation, to drift into dream and fantasy. Although one can always apply that old chestnut “anything is possible”, any meaningful futurecasting must always stay within the limit of the pragmatic and practicable to be considered reasoned. .
Space Colonization, as a concept, has 4 major dilemmas which can neither be dismissed or overlooked if anyone is to take any of this type of discussion seriously
1 – Space travel is still an incomplete concept. Yes, I know about Neal Armstrong etc. But this is not true space travel. The moon landings and the subsequent near earth orbit experimentation are high tech engineering feats and wet the appetite for further exploration. However, real space flight will involve the adaptation of the human body to space. This remains both a hurdle and a limitation to our technological reach. Venturing into near earth “space”, perhaps as far as Mars, by carting along and maintaining an artificially created Earth environment is hopelessly self limiting. The farther we go, the more cumbersome and futile it becomes. To be truly “spacefaring” we must find a way to leave Earth in a more profound way.
2 – Space is absolutely hostile to human life. Human beings are a water/carbon phenomenon of Earth, adapted to its environment. We can only exist in an earthlike bubble, an outpost perhaps positioned on and yet partitioned apart from any alien world. True colonization would involve both adaptation and incorporation of that environment – which may never be completely possible. As an example, we can, using submersibles, explore the deep ocean floor but to be considered true creatures of the sea would require adaptation, again, to a much more profound degree.
3 – Distance is a limitation. To ”spread” civilization requires linkage and reach. Reach depends on the speed of travel. The Apollo astronauts during the peak acceleration of the trans lunar trajectory, experienced the highest speed achieved by any human being – an amazing relative speed in excess of 25,000 mph. Imagine if, in the next century, it was possible to increase that speed by 1000 times, a fantastic idea.
Fast, but still not good enough to allow travel beyond the solar system. At that speed120 years of travel time is required to reach the nearest star. Without venturing into fantasy, we have to accept that our reach is confined to the sun’s system.
Planting settlements requires trade linkage. This means realistic round trip times (10 years or less) without adverse relativity effects. Even with advances in technology this confines us to the inner planets out to perhaps the moons of Jupiter, an area encompassing roughly .5 billionths of 1% of the universe.
4 – Self sustaining economics, a prime motivator for human activity, does not exist outside of Earth. If the first three dilemmas were solved, this one could be the ultimate killer of any colony. Economics fuel human activity.
The often-cited examples of the economic viability of the extra terrestrial collection of solar energy and mining are, in reality, merely extensions of Earths economic system. Similar to a get rich quick silver mining town built in an arid dessert without a self sustaining economic substructure.
Such enterprises only make economic sense if their operational expenses are less than terrestrially based operations. Since viability involves keeping operational cost low, there will always be an impetus in keeping the number of personnel to a minimum as they (and their life support) are part of the colony’s overhead. Thus an Earth based economic relationship will increase the attractiveness of automation and decrease the value of large scale human expansion.
This aspect crushes the oft-used comparison of space colonization to the 17th Century European colonization of America. The American colonist upon arrival from Europe needed nothing from the old world to survive They were presented with a land of material bounty, a large potential return for very little initial investment, more opportunity than risk. The lure of these easy resources encouraged settlement. Like a seed dropped in fertile soil, the colonies expanded rapidly
This is decidedly not the case with space colonization. A closer parallel might instead be the colonization of Antarctica. Here the colonist depends on the continuous importation of supplies, deriving little from the surrounding environment. The economics, combined with the harshness of this environment, discourages the casual settler. Antarctica is simply not a place people choose to live their lives without the lure of wealth. Likewise, space will only be ventured by the determined and hardy few.
Space is an extremely hostile environment. Colonies demand tremendous expense to create and support while promising tenuous potential economic gain. Should market demand on Earth dry up they would dwindle like the proverbial western ghost town.
Underlying all of this is the basic idiom that profit must to exceed cost in general to make any economic model work. For an industry involved with the extraction of raw materials this means a critical volume of product deliverable in a timely and predictable manner. The value of this product must cover both the huge operational cost and the cost of initial setup while at the same time present a sufficient profit projection within a short enough time frame to make the venture worth the initial investment. Needless to say, the amount of raw ore needed to cover these costs would be enormous. It would probably dictate some sort of robotic strip mining to make the system functional.
These afore mentioned dilemmas are not mere technological inconveniences but are rather fundamental boundaries within which our future will evolve. This changes the view of colonization away from the future of Star Trek and Azimov, the future we are most comfortable with, where civilization can be reinvented and renewed.
Rather the immerging picture is a more dull varnished extension of the present world, where humanity is stuck with a fragile ecosystem it must constantly protect and cannot easily escape – but it is reality. However, within the limitations of that vision are still some remarkable possiblities
The greatest “:products” of any colony will most likely be science, adventure and wonder. A small, partially self-sustained, outpost of humanity could exist on the moon and possible Mars. Its purpose would be as an observation platform for science and those who simply wish to gaze out and contemplate. Many could make the trip, to appreciate and then to return to Earth where ultimately humans, in a most profound sense, belong.
The best parallel for space colonization here on Earth may be the Grand Canyon. Humanity has scattered colonies here, one in particular at the edge of the south rim. It is not a place of general habitation or industry. It is a place to temporarily visit, to appreciate the grandeur of a majestic natural formation. The small support community and its residents derive income from the comfort of those who visit.
It is not viewed as a source of resource exploitation, an escape from some cosmic fate or a remedy of over population or social ill. But then again, in reality, neither is the Moon or Mars.
I think the colonization of space would be a safe guard for humanity. I have an idea for a self contained, massive, mining/science colony on Mars. Mars contain a lot of iron, more than earth. It’s the reason it’s red, it’s all rusted iron in the dirt. My ideas would be a series of large buildings. 1. food, (cows for milk and beef, plants for vegetables and fruit, etc..) 2. ore refining, into fuel, iron. 3. Living, would include medical as well. 4. Supplies, equipment, etc.. 5. Storage, storage of iron, etc.. These buildings would be massive, 1/4-1 mile in diameter, assuming these buildings are circular. Next to these buildings would be a landing strip, and some sort of take off area, a traditional rocket, or some kind of plane to get iron bars to the mother ship/shuttle, which would take them back to the moon base for storage and sorting, to be shipped to Earth. Branching out from the buildings would be massive, 30-50 foot wide roads. There would be eight or so branching out in every direction. These roads would be for iron ore, the dirt, to be brought back for refining. This mining would fund the space colonization as well as supply it. You would need steel, and it would come from Mars. You would need money, and it would come from Mars. You could build bigger colonizations far away from mining operations, for living. I would like to live on Mars, or the Moon.
To Kvn Star. Thank you for pointing out the obvious. Now if you would please come up with successful solutions for those problems, humanity would probably appreciate it someday, and so would we. But this is problem isn’t it. So many people to point out the obvious problems and not enough open minds to solve them. Procrastinators unite tomorrow!