Living on one Planet is to engage the whole Human Race in the “strategy” of employing a single point of failure. This is stupid. End of argument.

Everything else is a subordinate idea.

Responding to this oversight can be a lot of fun. Going into space will generate more wealth and discovery than we have accomplished in our entire history to date.

It takes about five minutes of thinking to understand why space. But is does take thinking.

Moving into Space is not a government thing - it is a people thing. Once we understand that, the process can begin in earnest. Everyone and every institution (including government) will have a role in it. Thinking that “it’s all over” with this Planet in terms of geological changes, meteor impacts and possible human stupidity, is totally unsupported by geology, anthropology and history - not to mention common sense. There are estimated to be 100,000 uncharted bodies in the asteroid belt that are large enough to destroy all life on Planet Earth. We do not know their orbits. On March 15, 2002 New Scientist reported:

We should be remembering the Dinosaurs not the Alamo. The real question is how do we do it - how do we go into space by a process we can afford with an outcome oriented toward life?

Space can be achieved in a series of steps, each one, useful and profitable in itself.

In the mid 1975 (Notebook page 22) I outlined such an approach. My reasoning then, and today, is that a series of progressively larger and self contained Mega-Structures would provide superior Earth-based habitats and the the knowledge-base necessary for building and living in space. This is a pay-as-you-go strategy.

This approach would not solve the issues related to rockets and space logistics, however, I considered them (and still do) to be the easier-to-solve problems. This is not underestimating the considerable technical problems involved nor the genius involved in solving them. Engineering will get us there in time - sooner, if there is an economic environment that supports incremental, profitable development.

A controversial project, BioSphere 2, has been built and tested. This is not what I had in mind, however, I suspect there is real value in the experiment. I do not understand the controversy that is involved with this venture. It seems to me that everybody not involved in the project is criticizing it from the vantage point of what they would do if they had invested the time, imagination and dollars to do it. Why not take it on it’s’s own terms and learn - even support rather than deter. Radical concept. If you have a better idea offer it, join up or go make you own project happen.

My approach suggested (Notebook page 23) building a series of real living/working environments, starting at the MLU and Domicile levels, and progressively evolving them along several dimensions: the sophistication of the structures, autonomous systems, size, community cultures, internal economies and architectural values.

In time these land-based structures, which would get progressively lighter and more self-contained, and could be matched up with the launch, rocket and space-systems technologies. Then, in-orbit habitats could be built (only if both efforts were designed from the beginning to do this, however). This a way to get to something like O’Neals Space Colonies but having solved a number of social and biological problems in advance.

In 1977, I was interviewed by Norie Huddle then representing the L-5 Society. In it, I was critical of the social and biological assumptions of O’neal’s work because I believed these aspects were under rated in both their importance and complexity. I presented the L-5 society with a different model of space development and a different set of underlying Design Assumptions about it. The interview was never published. I have put it one this website [link: taylor huddle space colony interview].

I have never believed space to be a hostile environment - to me, it is just the opposite. Keep the air in, avoid space debris and watch radiation and you have a stable, safe environment to develop in. One that is full of resources by the way. Earth, by contrast as wonderful as it is, is a high variety, and on human the human scale, unstable environment. Earth is the dangerous place to live! A great place to visit.

In addition, much of human development - at least at our present crude level of building - has an extraordinary negative impact on Gaia beyond modest levels of density and scope. Earth is a wonderful place to visit. Lets turn the paradigm around: live and develop in space, vacation and recreate on planets. Earth is our mother and nest - comes a time, in order to grow, you have to move out of your home and go build a new life.

Many of us, of course, will choose the Earth-style of living and that is fine as long as this is done with a steward’s mentality. The important thing is that we humans understand that now this is a choice. In a short time, it will become an economic, biological, ecological necessity. Given a disaster it will mean survival. Next time you talk to a dinosaur - ask him

[link:hawking: humans must spread out into space]
[link: Hawking copley medal remarks about humans into space]

August 30, 2007 update:

a new theory postulates that there was an ice age impact in North America which decimated the majority of the large species on the continent [link: ice age blast ravaged america]. And, a prize offered for a remote sensing spacecraft for tracking space rocks [link: uk plan to track asteroid threat].

Are we learning?

SolutionBox voice of this document:
VISION • STRATEGY • SCHEMATIC