Richard Garriott: "…humanity is destined to live beyond the confines of our Earth"
In what I gather is his new periodic feature at the Huffington Post, Richard Garriott writes about what, in his view, the next phase of human exploration of space will look like, and what forces will drive it.
There can be little doubt that humanity is destined to live beyond the confines of our Earth and even our solar system. But this expansion is far more than mere adventure, more even than a survival necessity in the great span of time. Human expansion into space will continue to bring radical benefits right here on Earth in the very short term, just as it has already done.
Today we are at a new dawn, the beginnings of the new Space Race! With the retirement of the Space Shuttle and all the budget and planning cutbacks, many have proclaimed the end of the U.S. manned space program, ceding our leadership to Russia and China. But this is not the case.
And how, exactly, is it not the case?
Space X — The firm started by Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and Tesla Motors, launched its Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon Space Capsule in November of last year. It orbited the Earth and safely re-entered, and the company recovered its capsule. This monumental event was the first orbit and re-entry of a space capsule by a non-government entity. They are scheduled to begin cargo service to the ISS this year, with crew to follow. Space X already has plans beyond ISS, beyond LEO (low Earth orbit), all the way to Mars. They believe they can drop prices to low Earth orbit to near $1 million, through fully reusable launch vehicles. If they do this, human space exploration will be hugely profitable for the first time!
Traditional firms are competing in this new era too! Boeing, which makes the main shuttle orbiter and which few can doubt has the capability to build rockets, is one of the major commercial competitors. Sierra Nevada Corp. is building a great “mini shuttle” that could sit atop existing rockets and bring crew comfortably back like an airplane. It is similar to the shuttle but with far less complexity in a simpler and safer system.
The makers of these new vehicles can now sell flights to customers not associated with NASA. This is good for NASA, the vehicle makers and anyone who believes, like I do, that they can create business opportunities in space. My company, Space Adventures, has already flown seven private citizens to the space station and has a circumlunar mission planed in a few years. In fact we are the sixth largest global space agency after NASA, RFSA (Russian Federal Space Agency), ESA (European Space Agency), CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency), and ahead of China, Bulgaria and about 19 counties who have flown a single astronaut each.
It’s worth noting that if we look at the most well-known works of sci-fi — Star Wars and Star Trek, and certain others — one common theme that prevails in all of them is that while the governments of the galaxy obviously have access to the biggest, most advanced, and most powerful space ships, corporations and private citizens also have access to cheap, readily available, and even privately-owned means of sailing through the stars.
We’re a long way off from that sort of future, but these early private ventures that Lord British speaks of (Space X, Space Adventures, etc.) are the pioneers — in both technology and practice — that may one day, one century, one millenium arrive us at it. Except for the whole warp drive/hyperdrive thing…I for one am convinced that FTL travel is indeed the stuff of fiction, and only fiction.
Do be sure to follow Richard Garriott’s “HuffPo” blog from now on, Dragons and Dragonettes! He promises to talk about his “30-year plan for Mars” in his next post.
I’d like to read this, but the Puffington Host makes me feel all…. icky.
Has it become any more sane since Queen Arianna sold out?
It’s a least 25% more sane now.
Yes, that’s a joke.
He’s not wrong.
I think this is something we need to actively be working towards. Without FTL there isn’t a whole lot we can do (apart from maybe mining resources from other planets/asteroids and research). But still, it is important.
Plus, if we do manage to find a viable planet within 20 or so lightyears from here, maybe we could send people to it eventually… I like the thought that humans will live on when the Earth (or our sun) finally bites the dust. I think we are at a stage where humans should be able to live on, no matter what… Well… unless the universe implodes at some point.
Considering no individual human will ever be capable of truly appreciating the intergenerational and transdiscipline scope of the journey, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter if we spread throughout the stars or extinguish like a candle under a glass.
Is there something so profoundly positive and unique about us that we need to ensure our survival in the event of planetary or galactic catastrophe? The real irony is that the most probable reason to have to leave the planet is that we fucked it up ourselves. Doesn’t really make much sense.
Unless we discover a way to cheat Einstein, the best we can hope for is sending robots to the moon to search for and mine resources like metals and water that can be used to create manufacturing and launch facilities for the eventual colonization of Mars. Escaping gravity is the #1 problem, so using the moon and every resource it offers as a stepping stone to other planets and moons seems like the most efficient way to go. Or we could figure out a way to alter Mars’ orbit to warm it up.
Um… Your moon comment scares me a little. Strip mining the moon seems like not learning from our mistakes. I don’t think we should mine something that close to us.
Not sure what you mean by the “Considering no individual human will ever be capable of truly appreciating the intergenerational and transdiscipline scope of the journey” comment. If you mean what I think you mean… then… I disagree?
“Is there something so profoundly positive and unique about us that we need to ensure our survival in the event of planetary or galactic catastrophe?”
Yes.
I’m not saying this to express open support for the idea, but I should at least point out that the moon’s surface has lots of He-3, which could be a viable nuclear fusion fuel.
Also, there’s no proximity-related dangers with Lunar strip-mining. Lunar gravity may be way lower, but actually blasting mining ejecta out of orbit and back toward Earth would…I don’t even see how it could occur. Lunar gravity is about 0.165g, and Lunar escape velocity is about 2.38 km/s. From what I’ve been able to find searching Google, that kind of debris velocity is only going to happen in a large-scale impact or volcanic event; mine blasting debris just won’t have the necessary energy.
I don’t think we need to be mining the moon. We have enough resources here. Transferring mass from one object to another (on that level) seems like a really bad idea.
Fair enough.
But why? I get that you view the idea with trepidation, but I’m curious as to exactly why this is so.
The moon has been orbiting us for quite a while now, and part of that is due to the mass of Earth and the moon. Things on Earth are effected by the moon’s gravitational pull as well. If we moved a substantial amount of mass from the moon to the Earth I see it possibly having consequences.
Or maybe I’ve just seen too many disaster movies. If it could be proven beyond any doubt that nothing bad would happen, then I’d have no problem with it. I just don’t trust governments (or corporations) to do the math.
@ThePal: “Not sure what you mean by the “Considering no individual human will ever be capable of truly appreciating the intergenerational and transdiscipline scope of the journey” comment. If you mean what I think you mean… then… I disagree?”
I mean that technological advancements which require countless disciplines of science, each of which worked under by thousands of people who are experts only in individual subdisciplines and who die with their work unfinished leaving it to countless future generations to complete leave no chance for any individual to say anything other than, “God this starship is a piece of junk, why the hell does it take two days to get to Mars?” Human greatness is the sum of its achievement as a species. Any single person is too limited physically and mentally to fully appreciate or understand that greatness.
Also, I wasn’t talking about bringing moon resources to Earth, but rather having robots harvest and refine them so other robots could build launch facilities. It costs too much to bring resources from Earth, so find everything you can at the build site itself, then bring up from Earth whatever else you need to finish the job.
Ah. That makes more sense (the moon mining thing)
A single person couldn’t make humanity live on, yes. But that is obvious. Sending a large ship containing thousands of people however could do a decent job though. Especially considering the sum of human knowledge could probably fit in a small room at this stage. Humanity could continue to exist (if moved to another world), it would just slow down in development for several generations.
As a teacher, I’m well aware of how humanity has progressed to where it is. We learn from the previous generations. We build on the knowledge of those that came before.
Anyway… to sum up… I’m still not sure why you are talking about a single person…
@ThePal: You’re killing me man. 🙂 Maybe another way to explain it is that what’s important isn’t that we as a species survive, but that our knowledge is preserved. A single person generally isn’t very useful, whether they’re a ditch digger or Isaac Newton. Even the brightest among us are just building on the ideas of those who came before. No one person can understand the entirety of our accumulated knowledge, even a teacher. My bottom line is that we’re not really worthy of spreading to the stars yet, though we show some potential. We need to evolve physically and socially before that happens, or any other place we move to will just become another Earth, or worse.
To look at it from another perspective, what do you think a species far more advanced that ours would think if they saw us constantly killing each other for ridiculous reasons, trashing our own planet’s environment, then spreading to other star systems and breeding like rabbits once we arrived?
How do we treat life on Earth? We breed other species in assembly-line concentration camps for food and clothing. We deforest to grow crops for the ever-expanding population (no population control at all save China). Half our technology comes from warfare or preparation for it (space race, medical advancements, nuclear energy). When a technologically superior tribe discovers a less-so tribe they are exploited and enslaved if not outright annihilated.
Despite the cool stuff we’ve accomplished over the last few thousand years, in the end we’re still batshit crazy and are showing no signs of slowing down. From the outside looking in we’re hostile parasites that figured out how to pass down knowledge and make cool tools. The first time someone pulls off FTL travel, it will likely be detected and someone will pay us a visit with a warning or worse.