I just watched a Daily Show where John Stewart was talking about how our
country used to have a frontier, and no longer does (and how this
impacts our economic and social situation). The guest made some comment
comparing the U.S.'s role in the world to that of Cape Canaveral in the
60s, and John jokingly asked whether he was proposing that we colonize
Mars, getting a big laugh from the guest and the audience.

This saddens me. When did colonizing Mars become a joke?

I've thought many times about how it seems that the dream of colonizing
space, which I think was fairly common in the 50s-70s, seems to have
disappeared from the collective consciousness. The vast majority of
people seem to seriously believe that Earth is all we will ever have,
and think that living elsewhere is only a pipe dream -- if they think of
it at all. For that matter, the broader sense of great progress has
vanished too; people seem to assume that the future will always be
pretty much like the present, apart from shinier consumer gadgets.

Those of us who follow technology closely can clearly see that that's
not the case. Life a century from now will be radically different from
the present in many ways, certainly including space colonization (and
other things that would be off-topic for this list). But as a citizen,
and especially as a father, it's very disturbing to me how few people
ever look up and see more than just pretty lights in the sky.

Any thoughts to share on this matter?

Thanks,
- Joe

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 1:05 AM, Joe Strout wrote:
(...)
> Those of us who follow technology closely can clearly see that that's
> not the case. Life a century from now will be radically different from
> the present in many ways, certainly including space colonization (and
> other things that would be off-topic for this list). But as a citizen,
> and especially as a father, it's very disturbing to me how few people
> ever look up and see more than just pretty lights in the sky.
(...)

Surely it is sad that the Western civilization [*] has reached that
state of mind where all the dreams and aspirations for the future are
dead, and perhaps it is just one of the many early symptoms of its
decline, but I get consolation in the statistical near-certainty that
one day we - as in "we, human beings" - will leave Earth. For me the
best personal medicine against this grim Zeitgeist where we live is to
keep hope - and hope based on reasonable projections.

[*] I really don't know if that joke would work in all parts of the world.

On 10/5/11 8:55 PM, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

> Surely it is sad that the Western civilization [*] has reached that
> state of mind where all the dreams and aspirations for the future are
> dead, and perhaps it is just one of the many early symptoms of its
> decline, but I get consolation in the statistical near-certainty that
> one day we - as in "we, human beings" - will leave Earth. For me the
> best personal medicine against this grim Zeitgeist where we live is to
> keep hope - and hope based on reasonable projections.

Well, sure. And I don't even see the Zeitgeist as all that grim, on the
whole. But it's one thing to trust (based on reasonable projections)
that things will eventually work out, and another to help things along
however you can.

We in this group see the future as it could (and almost certainly will)
be, and in my mind, we bear some responsibility for communicating that
as well as we can. People need to know where we're headed in order to
steer intelligently.

Best,
- Joe

On Oct 4, 2011, at 9:05 PM, Joe Strout wrote:

> I just watched a Daily Show where John Stewart was talking about how
> our
> country used to have a frontier, and no longer does (and how this
> impacts our economic and social situation). The guest made some
> comment
> comparing the U.S.'s role in the world to that of Cape Canaveral in
> the
> 60s, and John jokingly asked whether he was proposing that we colonize
> Mars, getting a big laugh from the guest and the audience.
>
> This saddens me. When did colonizing Mars become a joke?
>
I noticed that too. Unfortunately, it's a joke because both Bush
presidents have made ringing declarations that we were going there and
then failed to spend the horrendous amount of money that it would take
to get there. It's a joke because if these programs had succeeded
they would have made no more difference to Mars colonization than the
Moon landings contributed to lunar colonization (not complete lack of
colonies there). It's a joke because we need a much, much strong in-
space infrastructure to colonize Mars or (much easier) colonize orbit.

Supporting space science and human exploration of space will never get
us that infrastructure. It will spend taxpayer money without end and
deliver inspiration and knowledge, but not settlement. To settle
space we need industry in space. We need space solar power, space
tourism, space manufacture, asteroid and lunar mining -- industrial
might. We are not spending much of our space tax dollars on this.

What we need is to change NASA from an organization that does
inspirational things to an organization that supports the development
of space industries -- as the aeronautics portion of NASA does for air
travel. The COTS and commercial crew program are a good start, but we
need more.

On Oct 5, 2011, at 7:55 PM, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

> Surely it is sad that the Western civilization [*] has reached that
> state of mind where all the dreams and aspirations for the future are
> dead, and perhaps it is just one of the many early symptoms of its
> decline

We are living proof this is not true. People have always ridiculed
space development, including Apollo. So far, they have always been
wrong.