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Jun

2016

Our interview with Jeff Greason – Are the major space agencies supporting the development of civilian astronautics?

Space Renaissance International has kicked-off the discussion leading towards its second world congress, mainly targeted to update our analysis of the status of civilization and development of civilian astronautics. Our first reflection is a self-critical one, about the forecast we made during our first congress held in 2011 when we anticipated the kickoff of civilian astronautics that would be catalyzed by space tourism. Following the general expectations, we had no doubt that Virgin Galactic, XCOR or perhaps some other entity would have initiated commercial suborbital flights before 2016. It was a logical perception: space tourism is the only (or at least the first) private initiative that could develop in a self-sustaining manner by selling tickets to private passengers – initially for suborbital flights, then to orbit, to the Moon, and so on. The growing market would work as a positive feedback scenario, decreasing the cost of tickets and boosting the investments for further improvement of technologies.
There is no doubt that the space frontier will be opened by private enterprise and our focus remains on the private sector. But it hasn’t happened so far. The long promised start of commercial suborbital flights did not occur as expected. However, in the meantime, SpaceX has become a key part of the revolution by developing reusable rockets obtaining NASA contracts. Reducing the cost to orbit objectively supports the civilian astronautics development which allows more private enterprises to enter the market. Robert Bigelow is also taking key steps in the area of civilian astronautics with the first experimental inflatable module deployed on the ISS and by working with NASA as well.Jeff Greason, who recently joined the Space Renaissance USA Chapter, says that there is more work to be done between LEO and GEO than what we expect. So attention students, both young and less young specialists, please take good note that: “one thread that people don’t seem to emphasize” said Jeff “is that the number one problem in the space economy right now is … a shortage of labor! There are many, many activities which cannot be conducted economically because there is an insufficient source of labor in the space industry to do the jobs that need doing.”

Q. So, Jeff, let’s start with this quite interesting point. Could you tell us something more about the activities you are talking about?

R. Today, the bulk of activity in space is satellites. Most of the expense of satellites isn’t directly in the launch cost – though indirectly, the constraints of launch being expensive and hard to schedule are a big driver. But satellites have a lot of mechanisms to unfold solar arrays and antennas, and the components which might be quite affordable for a terrestrial application are expensive because they have to withstand a very rough ride on launch, and then last for ten years or more without maintenance or repair. Now imagine there was a facility for doing some very simple assembly work on orbit, and transportation from LEO to GEO. Satellites are very modular – so many transponders, so big an antenna array, so much solar panel. You could send those elements up, plug the modules together, and build quite large satellites ‘by the meter’ so to speak. It would be a simple task for a technician – if only you had technicians. A lot of money has been spent on research to service and repair GEO comsats. If instead you brought them to a technician, again, most of that could be done. And we know there are materials on the Moon of tremendous economic interest – water for propellant for one example. What’s missing isn’t the machines to do the mining and processing; they’re relatively simple and could be launched if there were need. But they need to be set up, maintained, and repaired – a small base could provide that labor, if economic activity were its focus rather than scientific research. Energy harvesting in space is a definite possibility, but again, the requirement to make the entire architecture 100.00% self-assembling is a big driver of cost; it doesn’t take much to plug pieces together.

Q. On the bad side of the news, we observe that Virgin Galactic was forced to build a new SpaceShipTwo after the tragic accident in 2014 and is still on ground, and that XCOR seems to have suspended the Lynx program, in favor of projects that are bringing in revenue.
Is that only due to difficulties in fundraising and finding investors or are we also witnessing a strong resistance by military lobbies and governments to release their control on outer space enabling private commercial ventures? If so, how could SRI’s lobbying action in favor of paradigm changing measures be effective?

R. There’s been absolutely no resistance from military lobbies that I have seen – if anything, there is friendly interest in the developments of frequent, reliable, affordable space transportation. The space environment is changing – it is no longer a place where military assets are safe from interference by hostile powers. So the best way to peacefully maintain space as a place for the use of all nations is to make satellites not worthy targets to attack. Making them easy and cheap to replace is an excellent way to do that. So there is a lot of beneficial overlap between commercial and military interests in space.
All space endeavors have, until recently, been very difficult to finance. What’s changed that is that small satellites have shortened the development cycle for commercial satellites so that new applications can be tried and show their economic value – or fail – within a few years, which is the time horizon of interest to institutional investors. The reason I’m working on the business plan at Agile Aero is to try and do the same thing for space vehicles – shorten their development cycle. But until we, or someone, does that, investment in space transportation is going to remain a challenge. That’s why right now the bulk of the investment in that area is from high net worth individuals investing in their own projects – which is a very welcome development, but not enough of a foundation for a healthy industry.

Q. Today, Space Renaissance International is making a qualitative and quantitative step, as we say, towards SRI 2.0. Since the end of 2008, our first years of activities, SRI was mainly a philosophical association, a think tank dedicated to developing the advanced concepts of a space age philosophy and to indicate the main strategic direction for our civilization. Recently , SRI more than doubled its presence on social networks, with almost twenty national Facebook pages world wide. SRI USA was incorporated as a 501(c)4 non profit association by Manuel Perez, with a quite focused strategic plan which includes lobbying the US Congress and collaboration with government agencies. Thus, SRI will now develop political goals and not only philosophical ones, by working with national and international institutions and striving to unify as much as possible the space advocacy movement on a platform of a few shared goals. Each national chapter will be encouraged to develop its own proper plan tuned to the national environment and social climate where they are located.
In such perspective, some questions become relevant for SRI as well as for the broader space advocacy movement from a strategic point of view.
Elon Musk has invested much of his previously accumulated fortune – made by brilliant great inventions, such e.g. PayPal — in his SpaceX enterprise and few other futuristic industrial ventures, e.g. the Tesla electric car and the very high speed vacuum tube train. It appears however evident that, with regards to Richard Branson and other new space entrepreneurs, Musk has something extra that allows him to produce many rockets and to recover from accidents in just a few months. The availability of substantial capital is due to the contracts that NASA is assigning to SpaceX for the use of Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon capsules to serve the ISS. It is likely that this momentum is also attracting further investments to SpaceX which now appears to be a successful corporation.
NASA already named the first four astronauts who will fly on the first U.S. commercial spaceflights in private crew transportation vehicles being built by Boeing and SpaceX, as soon as mid-2017, if all goes well. (Gizmodo).
NASA, by supporting SpaceX with lucrative contracts, is de facto supporting the development of fully reusable launch vehicles which is something that space advocates have been promoting for at least thirty years as the essential key factor for the downsizing of the cost of transportation from Earth to orbit. Consequently, the development of a private commercial space industry and market is being supported as well.
But this is not the only good news. On the other side of Atlantic, ESA’s new director Johann-Dietrich Woerner from the German DLR was selected in 2015. During his first interview, he challenged ESA with a grand goal: to build a first village on the Moon during the 2020-2030 decade! Such strategic address was initially announced in a symposium – Moon 2020-2030 – that was held at ESTEC, in Noordwijk in December 2015. If realized, this would be a key step on a path of settlement of outer space.
How do you see this process? Is NASA supporting the development of civilian astronautics by giving contracts to Elon Musk? Is that within the frame of a strategic plan? Or is it just the basis of a pragmatic orientation, because lower launch costs is however convenient?

R. Talking about “NASA” and “strategic plan” together probably overstates the case. NASA is a collection of dissimilar interests flying in formation. I would love to see an overall strategic plan for NASA but so far I haven’t. Certainly, however, national policymakers and some farsighted people within NASA have seen the value of adding NASA’s demand to commercial and military demand to stimulate the overall launch market – and of course so the taxpayer can derive the benefits of lower prices that come from a more competitive launch industry. It’s been a slow process dating back to the decision in 1986 to withdraw the Space Shuttle from the commercial launch market. Not everyone realizes that all the military launches in the U.S. and all NASA science missions are already launched on commercial rockets and have been for some time. NASA is providing the critical early customer support for SpaceX and ATK rockets by purchasing commercial cargo service to the Space Station and is doing the same for crew transport on Boeing and SpaceX capsules. I think that is all positive. There are some enormous missed opportunities, however. NASA is still spending about $2 billion a year on a large heavy lift booster that will start with 75 ton and eventually lift 125 ton payloads to orbit and fly every other year. That same price would pay to put up over 300 tons per year on the existing commercial market – and if an additional 300 tons per year of launch were purchased, the price would certainly come down. It’s really a mistake to think of this in terms of one provider; thanks to the efforts of both military and NASA launch the U.S. is now the only country with internal competition for launch and that competition is really improving the performance of ALL of the providers.

Q. Whatever the rationales behind this new orientation of the major space agencies, there seems that a new phase is opening in which many new space enterprises, having civilian astronautics in their mission, can hope to get contracts and to work with space agencies in order to develop technologies that will favor the growth of the commercial astronautic industry. There is, not yet, a big private space travelers market, but it is however a serious development vs. the old exploration paradigm. So, in your opinion, which are the themes upon which a new space enterprise may consider working with NASA, while being coherent with its own civilian astronautic mission?

R. I think the real opportunities are ahead of us. For decades, ambitious human spaceflight goals have been discussed by NASA and other space agencies. Expeditions to Mars, bases on the Moon, visits to near-earth asteroids. The private sector is talking seriously about private robotic missions to the Moon, or human missions to Mars orbit, and providing resources from the Moon and near-earth asteroids. The opportunity for NASA and other space agencies is that if they planned such ambitious missions, NOT as the agency that would perform the mission but simply as customers for those missions, leaving most of the execution to private sector firms to do in the most cost-effective manner, then they could actually afford to DO the things we’ve dreamt of. For example I’ve little doubt that a human return to the Moon, even with a permanent base could be done privately for something on the order or $10-$20 billion. No space agency is likely to do that so cheaply, and it is very difficult for the private sector to justify spending that money. But if space agencies really wanted a return to the moon – they can afford it, if they just buy it. And of course the space agencies have relevant expertise – but that expertise can be made available to private actors where there is need. All these efforts feed each other – the more things are being done in space, the easier it is to do more. For example, if there were some kind of transportation node in cislunar space – say at L1 or L2, it would be easy to stage components for a Mars mission from there, eliminating the need for very heavy lift launch beyond what other customers demand. But sadly, there are still too many in national space efforts who view ambitious space goals not as ends to be achieved, but as justifications for ongoing programs that will be funded year after year, with little incentive to reach the goal and move to the next one.

Q. We have always in mind your historical slides presented at the ISDC 2011, when you were talking about the missing 2nd step of the NASA strategic vision: “step 1 = exploration / step 2 = ? / step 3 = settlement”. We at SRI represent step 2 as a coherent plan for a progressive industrial expansion beyond Earth’s atmosphere based on humanist concepts, starting from LEO, recovering and reusing space debris, developing interorbital maneuverability, improving re-entry technologies, then developing infrastructure in the cislunar space, L4 and L5, on the Moon, using Near Earth Asteroids as raw materials and possible habitats.
What is your vision of a coherent plan for colonization of the Geo-Lunar space region?

R. The missing element right now is extraterrestrial sources of propellant. We know they’re out there, we know how to get them, but we haven’t developed those resources. Once we have that, moving from LEO to GEO, or from LEO to destinations beyond LEO, becomes much more cost effective. I personally think we will need humans to maintain and operate some of that equipment, which implies a transportation capability for people as well as cargo and a logistics resupply ability to bring cargo where we need it to be. Whether that material comes from Lunar or asteroidal sources or (as I suspect) from both doesn’t really matter – once we start to disconnect our umbilical to Earth and supply a big part of what we need to do things in space from resources IN space, we’ll be well on our way to a virtuous cycle where more and more of that becomes the norm. Once you start extracting resources, your next need is energy – it takes a lot of energy to extract and process that material. And of course there’s no shortage of demand for energy on Earth either; we’re 10-15 Terawatts short of what it would take to bring the whole world up to a modern standard of living. So the same infrastructure we need to collect industrial quantities of energy from the Sun, in space, for space-based customers can over time extend to supplying our needs here on Earth.

Q. From our humanist point of view, the overdue change of paradigm – from space exploration to space settlement – a few key areas of scientific research should have an high priority. If it is foreseen that the number of civilian passengers and settlers will increase in space, especially beyond the protective Van Allen Belt, the issues of protection from cosmic radiations and artificial gravity should be addressed, in order the migrants will not be subject to fundamental physiological changes in a few years. These type of research should be better developed by public money, as well as scientific research for a single stage to orbit vehicle, and exobiology, selecting the best vegetables to be cultivated in space, for food and for oxygen regeneration. Do you think a lobbying action may have a chance to orient governments and agencies in such a direction?

R. I hope so, but I’m not counting on it. The idea that the goal of government action in space shouldn’t be to visit it, but to develop it as an economic arena and frontier for human settlement is one that has been growing slowly and not always steadily. Clearly, that is not yet motivating our investments in space research because these problems remain unsolved. It is unpardonable neglect of our research priorities that more than 50 years in to the space age, we still have NO idea what the long term health implications of 1/6 or 1/3 gravity are on human beings. If national space agencies have a purpose, this is the kind of problem they should be solving. And again, how they solve it matters. If they think it’s too expensive – then put out a contract to buy that data. A lot of smart people have been thinking of cheap ways to get that data – surely there is SOME price at which NASA or ESA could afford to answer this question.

[English language editing by Arthur Woods]

OTHER LANGUAGES VERSIONS OF THIS ARTICLE:

version française, grâce à Catherine Laplace-Buhle

Join the Space Renaissance!

2016 is seeing an incredible growth of the SRI presence on the social media, Facebook mainly.

Do you believe in the space renaissance? Then Join the Space Renaissance!

If your country does not have a national SRI chapter already, you can register as a member of Space Renaissance International, here:

https://spacerenaissance.space/build-sri-with-us/membership-2/membership/.

If you like to keep on receiving our analysis, newsletters and updates about our initiatives, please subscribe to the SRI newsletter here:

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If you have already subscribed once, there is no need to subscribe again.

Jun

2016

Space Renaissance USA, Inc. is moving its first steps to the Stars!

One week ago the SRI USA chapter was incorporated, By Manuel Perez (President), Amalie Sinclair (Chairperson), Corrinne Graham (Secretaire), Walter Putnam and Sergio Lebid (Directors).

In the first days of its existence, the new chapter achieved two excellent directors: Jeff Greason and Paul Werbos!

And many old SRI supporters are rejoining, seeing the excellent plan defined by Manuel and his team, with the ambitious mission: “USA to the Stars!”.

Space Renaissance USA, Inc. was incorporated as a 501(c)4 non profit association, with capabilities of public education and outreach, and lobbying towards USA Congress and political institutions.

In his two first short videos, Manuel addresses not only the space community, but the general public at large, since our goals are of great relevance for the whole society, to help solving their daily problems, first of all jobs and hope in a better future for our children and nephews.

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May

2016

The Space Renaissance is blooming everywhere!

Perhaps you’ve wondered why an entity like Space Renaissance International was born, and its practical use may be… But, as Americans say, there is a logic to our madness! (:-)

There are space agencies, governmental and organizational bodies and corporate entities, working in space, across Europe, United States, Asia and many locations. There are also many public associations engaged in interchange, dissemination and educational activities, promoting space exploration and human activities in space. In Europe several original communities have emerged in recent years, enabling the spread of modern astronautic objectives through their mission. The huge success of SpaceX which has privately developed a low cost orbital launch vehicle and returned all of the stages to the ground, ready to be reused, is an remarkable example. However, it is shameful that traditional media in many countries provided little or marginal news about such a remarkable and very recent achievement. And this touches upon the logic behind our original question: what is Space Renaissance for?

Space Renaissance International (SRI for friends) is an association that promotes the human expansion into space, and that is common ground with other associations. But let’s go ahead: Space Renaissance International is a philosophical association, developing a space age philosophy, that is direly needed. And here the field becomes meaningfully narrowed, in fact we might count on the fingers of one hand the associations, or rather the institutes, that are dealing with such disciplines. In the United States, Kepler Space Institute publishes, more or less yearly, the Journal of Space Philosophy, compiling the writings of approximately thirty authors. The Astrosociology Research Institute studies the interaction between space exploration and society, both as behavior and for development, with the additional Journal of Astrosociology publication. Other philosophical and humanistic manifestos might be found through exemplary communities such as the 100 year starship and Icarus International and the SETI program (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). But outlooks in these areas are more often bounded towards the advanced technologies and not the immediate and motivating philosophies of space. Stephen Ashworth, an English astro-humanist philosopher, has drawn up several fundamental concepts outlining the purpose of astronautic humanism, and distributes a regular newsletter, analyzing space usage and related events, from a socio-evolutionary point of view. Even so one can see that resources are limited and that the field of space philosophy is only recently beginning to emerge.

The Space Renaissance International platform can certainly be considered as an early pioneer in these efforts. We aim to propose and integrate an essential philosophical ideas that arise into concrete steps, suggesting autonomous and highly personal reflection to persons who will accept to look at reality by means of a new perception of the world, about the critical issues of our time: the future of civilization, the enormous risks that we are facing, and the choices we have before us; what is not yet done and should have been done already; and what types of implementations are therefore now extremely overdue. In this sense, the specificity and usefulness of Space Renaissance is coming to light, at this point. Why do we propose these concepts that are not said elsewhere? This is because only we are looking at the technological and humanistic renaissance of humanity that blossomed in the last 100 years. That in and of itself allows us to step back from the details of different projects to analyze the state of civilization from our humanist point of view, including the primary responsibility each generation has towards our species – seven billion and a half persons –, as well as towards other sentient species, with less intellectual and cultural means but much potential for the future.

But today we’ll not develop the philosophical discourse, only draw your attention to some of the intellectual peculiarities, which are most often neglected. Our humanist concept, moving from the interests and inherent rights of all living humans and their offspring, leads us to propose the argument that humanity desperately needs to expand its world view into space, and not just to tentatively explore it, if we are to avoid, and have a positive alternative to, a holocaust of gigantic proportions. The equitable space based worldview is not isolated against itself; it includes many propositions, features and issues. Space based IT, within low earth and geo stationary orbit, gave its essential contribute to the world wide network, for global social and environmental problems solving, in support of wide scale global development. In another issue of our newsletters we’ll discuss about the overdue evolution of the unmanned commercial orbital infrastructure to a manned one, capable of the necessary maintenance, recovery and reuse of the enormous orbital space debris. Our humanist vision, a driven purpose to get nearer towards the concrete things, the substantial elements, leads us to formulate a “soft” expansion rationale, one that will allow terrestrial migrants to become inhabitants of space avoiding major physiological changes within a few generations.

This means to seriously address two problems: artificial gravity, and protection from harsh space radiation. Solving these problems would allow us to invest us in space outside of the protective shield of the Earth’s atmosphere and the Van Allen belt, which protects astronauts in low orbit, where the ISS travels. But going to the Moon, even for short term durations, let alone Mars, implies the need for much more robust types of protective shield. After all, why, fifty five years after the first human flight in orbit, have so many of these fundamental problems not been addressed? The answer is perhaps quite simple: because no one has yet seriously faced the issues of transporting civilian passengers in space. A hopeful outlook towards space agencies research and development suggest that they continue to make inquiry, and that if many problems have not yet been solved, it means that our science has not yet reached to that point. But is this statement altogether true? This question does not mean to denigrate the work of many honest researchers, who are dedicated with love and devotion to their work, achieving excellent results. Those scientists are being committed, through their directors and institutions, to develop specific fields and areas of studies and research rather than other ones. So we might ask ourselves: is the strategic vision of the agencies, and of governments establishing, sufficiently based on a humanist conception? The answer, unfortunately, might yet be: only partially.

Current spacecraft are still designed primarily bearing in mind military trained astronauts. You and we might not travel today on the Soyuz, yesterday on the Space Shuttle, as if we were taking a normal flight. We might not bear the accelerations, the on-board living conditions, and the many stresses, which we are not prepared for. Denis Tito and the other few civilian tourists who flew to the ISS have undergone the same training, which lasts several months, made by the military pilots. But, most important, they had also signed a waver, a letter of total release from liability to the agencies, after paying 30 million for a ticket! Fortunately, today a number of space tourism companies are addressing this issue and when their commercial flights will begin, initially only to suborbital altitude, passengers will fly in comfortable conditions, and with legal liabilities, similar to those of a normal commercial flight. Of course, at 100 km altitude the problem of radiation exposure is quite low, and being in weightlessness for a few minutes is a funny thing that does no physiological harm.

However these first attempts of a suborbital tourism industry represent the beginning of the needed change in paradigm, from military to civilian space flight. Even the cost of space missions has represented a determining factor, until today, keeping the high frontier firmly subject to an exclusive government control, and closed to private enterprises. Leading forward on this edge, Elon Musk is creating a true revolution: bringing ashore all the stages of the new generation launchers allows the fast reclaim and reuse of high powered engines, with a drastic reduction in the cost of ground-orbit transportation.

Back to the main issue from a humanist perspective: the protection of life and human health in space, outside the Earth’s protective shield. We need to obtain gravity conditions of 1 G, equivalent to the Earth environment, and being totally shielded from the harsh space radiation, both coming from the Sun and the cosmic sources (from supernovae). Even in the context of what we will presently call the expansionist movement, we might listen to debate about the priorities of colonizing the Moon rather than Mars. But both of these assumptions for future development do not take into account the mentioned problems. On the Moon we could protect ourselves from radiation by living underground, perhaps using the lava tubes, caves ready to be equipped and inhabited. But it still leaves the problem of gravity, equal to one sixth that of Earth. Mars has a gravity equal to one third of the Earth’s still significantly less than what we are used to. On both worlds earthling migrants would be supermen, for a few years, but then they would no longer be able to walk on Earth’s surface, and thus condemned to never return home, except for short “holidays”… on a wheelchair!

Since the first international congress of SRI, in 2011, we began working on a humanistic solution for human life in space. Gerard O’Neill had already written about and designed many of these basic concepts in the 70s of last century: large rotating toroidal colonies, placed in stable Lagrange points, where objects can reside permanently, without the need of asset or orbital correction. This concept was taken up in the movie Elysium, by Neill Blomkamp, in 2013. But if this design solves the problem of artificial gravity, it does not solve the issue of protection from radiation. Another possibility would be to capture an asteroid, among those whose orbit (unsettlingly!) passes near our planet, and to transfer it to a Langrange location, for excavation. Among other developments, we could obtain huge amounts of raw materials, oxygen, and building materials in this way. Then the asteroid could be “terraformed” inside, providing long term, radiation proof living accommodation. Certainly this is a futuristic and multi-generational enterprise involving scientific and technological knowledge within vast ranges, in addition to the formative space sciences: and extraordinary developments in the fields of architecture, civil engineering, sociology, economics, psychology, biology, agriculture, … All disciplines where we will eventually add the “exo” prefix.

On these topics, of vital importance for humanity and for all nations, while continuing the search for new industrial development lines, a public discussion should presently arise. Governments should discuss such types of forward looking dynamics, adopting policies to support the new civil astronautics industry, hold international summits, similar to the gatherings recently held for the climate change mitigation. The environmental issues took 45 years, since the first publication of the Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth”, to gain the attention of the political leadership… but we don’t have 40 years! Civilization needs to kick off a genuine international expansion into space before 2025, if we are to avoid economic implosion and further generations of confrontation and aggression. Therefore we need the pro-space movement to develop cooperation worldwide, and political and lobbying activities and to spread these vital proposals to the Earthlings!

The Space Renaissance is blooming everywhere!

Join the Space Renaissance!

The springtime of 2016 is seeing an incredible growth of the SRI presence on the social media, Facebook mainly. Join the SRI springtime!

Do you believe in the space renaissance? Then Join the Space Renaissance Initative!

If your country does not have a national SRI chapter already, you can register as a member of Space Renaissance International, here:
https://spacerenaissance.space/build-sri-with-us/membership-2/membership/.

If you like to keep on receiving our analysis, newsletters and updates about our initiatives, please subscribe to the SRI newsletter here:
https://spacerenaissance.space/build-sri-with-us/space-renaissance-newsletter-registration/.

If you have already subscribed once, there is no need to subscribe again.

[English editing by Arthur Woods]

Voir aussi la version française (pdf)

Apr

2016

Do you believe in a space renaissance? Then join the Space Renaissance!

Do you believe in a space renaissance? Then join the Space Renaissance!

Collapse of Western civilization – Nowadays many economic and international relations experts talk openly about the collapse of the Western civilization and also attempt to predict the date of such a collapse with the five-year period from 2025 to 2030 considered to be “very critical”. One such example: “ Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” was recently published by the US National Intelligence Council. (See link below).

This comprehensive document covers various topics including the development of a multipolar society, continuing population growth, limiting resources at all levels and the considerable risk of conflict proliferation including significant concerns about the spread of nuclear weapons. Within such a period, a number of crucial attributes will emerge and global conflict may erupt with long term and destructive consequences. After the fall of the Berlin wall during the last quarter of 20th century, no concrete plan for a newer world order was implemented. The West now appears to be incapable of facing declining security, the threat of terrorism, the deficits of a so called postmodern era and is unable to protect its citizens and its newer generations from the threat of violence. After witnessing the recent disruption of many national societies including those in the Middle East and North Africa, the West, however, has failed so far to propose any further reiteration of the democratic social model which could feasibly contribute towards global stability, development and world peace.

War, “hygiene of the world”? – Looking at the past, it is often assumed that when a civilization finds itself in an implausible, stagnant or declining state, progress is “awakened” by crisis and warfare: shock and trauma are regenerators or even the “hygiene of the world”, as was defined by Marinetti’s futurism in 1909.

The current expectations of our many global societies could be summarized by future historians within the expression “the decline of Western civilization”, and it could find its epilogue in what may be large and highly generalized conflicts. Such a decline could be partly balanced trhough the collaborative development of the emerging Eastern countries including China, Asia and Russia as well. Even so, the potential of these entities will be considerably slowed by a lack of resources and greatly hampered by the still ruling philosophy that sees our planet as a closed environment. Even if warfare were still considered to be ethically acceptable, if indeed it ever was, for a number of reasons it does not seem to be a very useful “tool” in the world of today.

The wars of the past are extinct prospects: they were declared among nation states, were fought between armies which destroyed multiple resources, endured and ended while triggering and ushering in territories and newer political phases. Today’s hybrid wars are more likely to be eternal and exhausting guerrilla wars, wars of long term attritions that are comprised of ethnic and cultural unrest, political adventurism, terrorism, and the suppression of civilian populations. They are also endemic and depressing, quickly affecting essential business, travel, tourism, the economy, and development in general. At this stage we find ourselves in an immanent and vertical crisis, both economically and militarily, in that global society should certainly contemplate the final prospect, i.e. this situation could lead to a tragic end game implosion of civilization. Such a threat would comprise the first time that a (globalized!) civilization might break down without another civilization ready to pick up the baton. That is why we cannot resign ourselves to a supposed “necessary evil” or having to accept “bitter medicine”, as a prelude to healing, because most probably there would be no possible compensation, or any realistic resurgence and our species might plausibly regress to an insufficient pre-cultural anthropology or, far more tragically, to an hopeless post-cultural status.

On a purely economic level, considering the desperate need to allocate immense resources to essential and large scale development projects, civilization at large can no longer afford to spend a majority of its national budgets per year on weapons and on highly unproductive and unusable rearmament. Last but not least, the destructive potential of modern weapons, especially nuclear, has greatly increased the danger of total self-destruction of civilization, though this subject might nowadays be out of fashion.

So, in a nutshell: humanity cannot tolerate war. It cannot afford it as it is useless for any purpose. Indeed, it is 100% counterproductive and regressive. Therefore, a marked change in strategies is urgent than ever before. When it is noted that the direction in which we are going may lead towards disaster, we need to change direction as soon as possible, and to set off for a new era of vigorous development, one which raises and restores hopes of social growth – a new renaissance.

A disruptive shock of new global concepts – To trigger a new renaissance we need the disruptive shock of new global concepts, but we have already seen that these cannot take the shape of warfare. Given the choice, and we do not see why we should not be able to make such choices, would we happily opt for a positive shock that brings excitement, joy and opportunity rather than death and destruction? We prefer to propose a new perspective and a new human understanding, with far reaching horizons, as opposed to providing cannon fodder for tyrannies while avoiding the squalor and the mud of misery. It would be useless to invoke stability, democracy, freedom, development and well-being, without the dignity that comes from jobs: as without offering a new type of industrial development, nothing can stand in the way of Armageddon. The most fruitful revolutions were in fact, the industrial ones. The most promising industrial revolution now currently possible, is found through the global development in the fields of innovative civilian astronautics – from Low Earth Orbit to the cislunar region of space. All the harbingers of progress now point upwards.

There is little remaining potential for new land transport industries and, although improvements will be made, we have resigned ourselves already to the decline of the oil civilization, to which we are still tied. It is not difficult to see, in fact, that the crisis which began in 2008 with skyrocketing oil prices, is now finding a fresh outbreak with the decline in oil prices, the deflation factor and hence a global economic slump. Given the pace of original technological advancement, the new urbanism is thus forced to take inspiration from the work of our most forward thinkers and original scientists. In particular we continue to reiterate enlightened 20^th century thinkers such as Gerard O’Neill and Krafft Ehricke, aiming humanity towards Earth’s orbit, to the Moon, into cislunar space, and towards the Near Earth Asteroids. With science and technology humanity will look to the stars – not as a distant sky to be observed – but as an immediate three dimensional framework within which we are immersed, and through which we will need to learn how to navigate and to live. Will our children and grandchildren dwell among the stars or in the teeming wastes of urban blight and the shacks of shanty towns? The outcome depends on us today, we, seven and a half billion citizens of planet Earth. We must decide, while we still have the power to do so, whether to dedicate our energies, our governments, our taxes and our investments for warfare, death and destruction, or apply these towards the opportunities inherent in opening space frontier and the forthcoming Renaissance.

The plan to capture an asteroid, and bring it to L5 – Considering positive shocks to society, like the many major and historic projects – ideas that are comparable in scope to the construction of the Egyptian pyramids – will illustrate our case. Some examples: the plan to capture an asteroid, bring it to stable lunar orbit at L5, and creating a large rotating habitat endowed with artificial gravity; which represents just one of many remarkable concepts; or the possibility to achieve within the next 20 or 50 years a comprehensive manned lunar settlement and then subsequent trips to Mars undertaken by astronauts of all nations; or to achieve an unfolding space based information networks in LEO, accessible to all peoples in all places which can accurately investigate, describe and create the comprehensive infrastructures of a sustainable future world.

The focus on international space development will bring an impetus to the comprehensive global agenda, helping it to endow an equitable world-view and to avert the many critical threats we currently face. Amongst many innovative prospects, tax policies which are favorable to the companies in the civil astronautics will contribute to the preparation of low cost earth-orbit fully reusable vehicles leading to the development of orbital infrastructure and lunar tourism.

We will face the problem of a instable political direction. New leadership with a highly scientific, technological and cultural profile is needed. We can see a glimpse of this on the horizon, yet, unfortunately, only a beginning. But let’s do it! It depends on us!

The Space Renaissance International and its national chapters have several initiatives and public events in agenda, a possible workshop on Lagrange City at L5, and for cislunar architectures in October 2016 in Rome, and in 2017 the Space, Not War! Congress.

https://www.spacenotwar.space

Want to help? Do you believe in a space renaissance? Then Join the Space Renaissance Initative!

We are looking for membership from all walks of life and all persuasions. Please join us in creating the new paradigm for the 21^st century.

If your country does not have a national SRI chapter already, you can register as a member of Space Renaissance International, here:

https://spacerenaissance.space/build-sri-with-us/membership-2/membership/.

IMPORTANT: you received this newsletter as an invitation. To deliver a newsletter entails some overhead and administration, and we do not intend to send our communications to persons who are not interested, and which would therefore remain unread.

Therefore, if you like to keep on receiving our analysis, newsletters and updates about our initiatives, please subscribe to the SRI newsletter here:

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Link to: “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World”

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf

[English editing by Amalie Sinclair & Arthur Woods]

Download the pdf English version:

https://spacerenaissance.space/media/SRI_Newsletter_17042016.pdf

Télécharger la version française, en pdf:

https://spacerenaissance.space/media/SRI_Newsletter_17042016-fr.pdf

[Edition française par Catherine Laplace-Builhe & Philippe Blanc]

Oct

2015

“The Martian”, a movie and a book still to be written

SRI NEWSLETTER – OCTOBER 20^th 2015 – by A. V. Autino

There’s never time to write and comment on everything worthy of comment, however “The Martian” (in Italian, “Il sopravvissuto”) gives me the opportunity to put on paper some concepts very central to my space activist sensitivity.

First of all, I will say that I would like very much to see an exploration mission to Mars, and I could also say that I’d like to have seen it some years ago, and now to be witness to its initial settlements. This is a first point of discussion: many will say that the technologies are not mature enough. I would reply that technologies to go to the Moon simply didn’t exist in 1961, when President Kennedy challenged NASA to reach our natural satellite within ten years. So please let’s not listen too much to the ones who make things even more difficult than they are, in order to “raise the price” of their supply.

Having said that, I have to say that the book written by Andy Weir is much better than the movie, from the point of view of the novel: we listen to Mark Watney, his desperation, his hopes, his continuous reasoning on the practical problems he does his best to solve, by his skills of as an astronaut and botanist. And, most of all, the book is a manifesto of the human initiative, and capacity to never give up. The book also gives us the measure of how much Mars needs to be explored, in order to understand the conditions in which the first settlers will find themselves. This is something that the movie doesn’t convey, or, if it does, in a reduced measure.

Coming to the policy aspects, the book and the movie were released just before NASA was presenting its budget to the Congress. At the same time, NASA announced the discovery of liquid water flowing on Mars, albeit seasonally. The mission statement of NASA is space exploration and it is entirely appropriate to justify an agency’s proposed budget by highlighting achievements that demonstrate the mission is being accomplished. They have done so repeatedly and with savvy marketing capability: chapeau! (said without irony :-). The message is quite clear, and it is repeated several times during the movie: the goal is to do exploration missions, and always to bring the explorers back to home, on Earth.

Not by chance, the end of the movie is quite different from the end of the book. The last lines of the book are taken from the board logbook, Mission Day 687. Mark questions why such a significant amount of money was spent to rescue him, one only person, instead of abandoning him on Mars’ surface. Beyond the humanitarian rationales, he mentions “progress, science and the interplanetary future that we dream since centuries”. The last scenes of the movie show us Mark, considering a green, small plant spontaneously growing among stones on Earth and, subsequently, giving an education to young candidate explorers, illustrating the very hard conditions of space. The subliminal message seems very clear to me: let’s continue to empower trained explorers to go to Mars, while the rest of us remain “safe” (so to say) on Earth. During the credits, we listen to the announcement of NASA about next exploration mission, reiterating the concept: the goal is to bring the explorers back to home, to Earth. So, even “ordinary” viewers of the movie, fully unaware of any space policy, could ask: but why are we going there, if we don’t want to stay, and to settle on another planet for human benefit? To address that question, I’d like to submit few reflections those who promote Mars colonization and spacefaring civilization.

First, are we sure that, in 2030, should the only space strategy remain exploration, we will have resources and funds to re-purpose an Apollo-style program to Mars? Considering the social, economical and environmental situations that could be logically anticipated, considering that likely in 2030 we will be 9 or 10 billions people on Earth, I have many doubts. Only expanding our industrial development beyond the limits of our mother planet we can hope to revert the global crisis, and to ignite the greatest economic and cultural revolution of all times. So, why should we just keep on exploring, and not to start expanding? And, talking about expansion, what are the logical first steps? Industrializing the geo-lunar space region, of course, the so called Greater Earth, including the Earth’s orbit, the Moon, the Lagrange Points and the Near Earth Asteroids crossing in or near such area.

Rick Tumlinson recently wrote an article, titled “How we go to Mars”. This is a good approach to the matter. Nobody wants to discuss whether to go or not to go to Mars. The questions are: with which resources, with what support by people, by public money or by private effort? And, could it be a program forwarded by one only country, or would it be an international cooperation program? My opinion is that we won’t be able to reach Mars in 2030, nor later, if a serious expansion program is not well rooted and in progress. Rick answers the question “why” thusly: to improve science and to expand civilization. And he discusses several possible ways, through the Moon or directly, just to explore or to settle and remain. The extent to which the world is in crisis may be perceived differently, depending on whether one lives east or west of the Atlantic. Maybe many more alternatives seem to be possible, from one’s particular vantage point. I would say that, being the current global expenditure around $1,7 trillions/year, for opposing global terrorism and feeding different conflicts, and the expenditure for space just $25 billions, if the world remains closed we can only expect such a quite immature balance to get worse. Any space exploration mission will be more uncertain, unsafe and insufficiently supported.

Having said that, we can still see the problem in different ways. We could criticize the NASA strategy, still oriented only to space exploration and closed to space expansion and industrialization. But I am afraid that would be an old method, based on opposition, instead of collaboration. In parallel, we can however cautiously applaud the new ESA’s strategy, that includes a quite interesting Moon program, for the years 2020 – 2030, including the building of a first lunar village. Some of the Tumlinson’s questions are ruling, of course: who should finance space exploration, and who should finance space expansion? May we simply split the problem, as apparently the US administration tried to do: exploration by governments, by public money, and industrialization by private ventures? It is not that simple. Such an approach could simply lead to half the agency’s budget, and leave few courageous entrepreneurs fighting alone for the benefit of humanity. Is that correct?

I don’t think so. I believe we should move a few percent of the public expenditure toward the support the civilian astronautic industry. This does not preclude continuation of militaristic (defense) systems; such an high cultural maturity cannot be achieved in few months, nor years. But, considering that civilization is exposed to an incredibly high risk of implosion, if we don’t relaunch the global economy by bootstrapping the space revolution, could the military expenditure be reduced from $1.7 billion to $1.6 billion?

Can we imagine what we could do, should the space budget grow from the current $25 billion/year to $125 billion? We could develop the exploration of Mars, and the expansion into the Greater Earth, accelerating the decrease of the cost to orbit, building infrastructures at L4 and L5, on the Moon, and begin mining Asteroids. The civilian astronautic industry would be boosted, many companies founded, space tourism will take off (literally!), and the global crisis will could be overcome. Missions to Mars will move from a space yard located in L5, and not from Earth: that will be quite different book, with all my respect and appreciation to Andy Weir, and movie.

SPACE, NOT WAR!

The World Congress “Space, Not War!” (https://www.spacenotwar.org/) in preparation for 2016, will propose to the world public opinion the only real alternative to involution of civilization constrained within the boundaries of a physically and philosophically closed world.

This Call for Papers (https://www.spacenotwar.org/call_for_papers.php), still evolving, will be soon opened to abstracts submission.

It is already possible to express interest for the congress, using this Pre-Registration form (https://www.spacenotwar.org/congress_pre-registration.php)

[English review by Susan Singer]

download pdf version here: The Martian, a movie, and a book, still to be written

Sep

2015

MIGRATION AND EXPANSION – EARTHLINGS LOOKING FOR OTHER WORLDS

SRI NEWSLETTER – SEPTEMBER 11^th 2015 – by Adriano V. Autino

As always, I avoid commenting on hot news, on the the emotional wave of media images. I do this so as to not confuse myself with those who profit from the death of innocent children to gain visibility. However, my reflections aim to a higher and wider horizon, and a week more or less cannot change the substance.

On the exodus of almost biblical proportions of Middle Eastern peoples escaping massacres by wars and by ISIS, I do not pretend to be neutral and above. God forbid: I could no longer call myself a humanist, if I did. So I state now my conception of a world open, friendly and free, in all its meanings and directions, incoming, outgoing, and especially upwards, through the interface between our Earth and the Cosmos. I therefore welcome not only the position of the German government, probably dictated not only by humanitarianism, but also and much more the decision of those German citizens who put gifts and aids in their car, and went on to take in refugees. This is definitely the Europe that I like. But it’s already been said by many, and I do not intend to waste your time by repeating what has been already read and heard.

The matter is not, in fact, to decide whether to open or close the door to the refugees, because it would be like trying to stem a tsunami bare handed. The real point is: what are we doing, while we welcome the refugees (which I hope), or close them off? I’ll explain. Those who want to erect walls speculate on the fear of some potentially negative effects of mass immigration. Some of these effects can not be denied, however. I contend that such effects would be the same even in the case of closure. What causes them is not, in fact, the actual movement of migrants from their unfortunate countries to these (so far) less unfortunate countries of Europe. The real danger is the strong tides of possible cultural involution that the ongoing extensive social phenomena can contribute to determine. In other words, the social fear, both by migrants and by residents of destination countries, is the real destabilizing agent, which can retract the civic consciousness of centuries in a few seasons. The social fear affects both the people “invaded” by migrants and populations locked within neo-medieval physical and mental walls.

So the real problem is, what we, the so-called advanced societies, do in order to maintain and improve the level of culture and civil advance hard-won during the industrial era, thanks to the sacrifices of our fathers and grandfathers, who threw the blood, sweat, tears and brain synapses in the factories, in the fields, in the research laboratories? I know this probably sounds a little rhetorical and “twentieth centuried,” but please see it with “today eyes”. The real threat is that the intellectual and business vanguard born from the industrial revolutions at some point may throw in the towel and surrender before the tide of violence, of war and neo-feudal vulgarity and arrogance boarding at all levels. If that happens, the genocidal regime of ISIS, and all it represents, in terms of absolute primitivism and destruction of civilization, will have won. Why? Because the so-called advanced societies will not have been able to offer anything to young people, leaving them adrift, prey to the forces of evil and destruction.

When we leave our body still and idle for a long time, it is very easy that some disease will arise. In a culturally stagnant social context social ills develop and, if the context is the globalized world, diseases are global. It will not be the erection of walls, to be anyway overwhelmed, that will cure diseases, indeed: the closed world stale air can only worsen the condition of patients. The great migration is a reaction to great social ills: extreme poverty, bloody dictatorships, stagnant and abominable bureaucracies. People sets off in search of new worlds … Closing the doors and remained bounded in a rotting immobility will be useless. And, the ones who believed they had done enough welcoming in the refugees, would be making a mistake just as glaring! Accepting the migrants and remaining inert it would mean giving up any projects and to be submerged. We urgently need to restart the cultural progress, to open the world, a clear commitment to space, providing us with a more scientific and humanistic governance, and less corrupt, short-sighted, opportunistic and degrowther in facts. There is an urgent and indispensable need to defy civil unrest on the planet by exponentially increasing our design effort, aiming high, expanding the androsphere in space, building villages on the moon, constructing rotating O’Neill cities at Lagrange points, triggering new industrial development, all of which the free and peaceful civilization is in dire need. And no, Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama, the world today will not understand why the “powers” should feel the need for a military confrontation between themselves, triggered with the help of useful idiots like the Ukrainian aspirant tyrant or the unfading Syrian despot! The only understandable and sustainable use of force today is to unite and remove butchers, tyrants and despots.Much more important, however, is to bring the industrial revolution to the countries involved in the Arab Spring movement and in all countries striving for democracy. And what is the only ground on which a new industrial development can now be developed, especially in light of the recent vertical crisis of the BRICS countries? I know I’m repeating myself, but it can never be said enough: the only ground is outside the earthling ground! The geo-lunar industrialization, space tourism, spaceports, low cost vehicles to transport passengers into space, the use of lunar and asteroidal raw materials, the creation of millions of new jobs both on Earth and in space! The globalized world of today no longer offers to its seven and a half billion people, any possibility of low-cost expansion: unavoidable then that the people looking for peace, development and democracy are oriented to migration. While the so-called advanced nations fall into an endless spiral of increasingly devastating conflict. The only possible way is to expand upwards, to start to exploit the incalculable resources of our Solar System. Then the youth will have a very worthwhile perspective, from which to study and engage. And the future will continue to exist, in spite of the Sorcerer’s Apprentices who fomented the birth of ISIS.On October 7, 2015, at the Politecnico of Torino (Italy), the conference “The fledgling industry of civilian space flight” https://www.spacerenaissance.it/eventi/la-nascente-industria-del-volo-spaziale-civile/will discuss these issues.

This Call for Papers (https://www.spacenotwar.org/call_for_papers.php), still evolving, will be soon opened to abstracts submission.

[English review by Susan Singer]

download this article in pdf format

Jul

2015

The SRI UK Chapter to be incorporated the 11th of July, in Dornie, Scottish Highlands.

The incorporation of the UK Chapter will be on the 11th of July. The meeting will start 11.00am at the Dornie Village Hall Committee Room, and will continue after lunch.
9.30 visit of the Dornie Castle.
Introductory speeches (at least) by:
– Marianne Rugard (chair of the SRI UK Chapter),
– Adriano Autino (Space Renaissance International, President),
– Patrick Collins (SRI, VicePresident),
– David Ashford (Bristol Spaceplanes).
The founders will discuss the basic strategic plan for SRI UK, and how to promote space tourism and civilian astronautics development. The main projects and activities to be developed will be presented and discussed as well.
The official incorporation ceremony of the SRI UK Chapter will close the meeting.

Jun

2015

WELCOME BACK SAMANTHA!… AND WHEN WILL WE TAKE OFF?

Samantha Cristoforetti is safe back on Earth, after personal record of 200 days in space.

Turin, June 11, 2015 – Today is a day worthy of celebration. AstroSamantha has returned to Earth after a historic stay on board the International Space Station. Welcome back Samantha, and thank you for the scientific, popular and human commitment that you have demonstrated.

It seems logical, however, to ask some questions of the space agencies:

Why, 54 years after Yuri Gagarin’s first flight in orbit, are there still no space transportation services for civilian passengers?
Why is space flight still, in effect, accessible only to military astronauts, and to a few “tourists”, able to spend $30 million after signing a total liability release?
Why do we still not have fully reusable spacecraft, 46 years after the NASA X15 space plane was developed and made 200 flights at suborbital altitude? Why did NASA stop this very promising line of development, despite the huge number of studies in the ‘70’s, proving fully reusable two-stage vehicles, are technologically feasible?
Why today, to reach the Space Station, are we using the same machine, Soyuz, whose first flight was 25 years before the space shuttle, in 1966?
Why are courageous enterprises, like Space X, Virgin Galactic, Bigelow, ShipInSpace and others left to their own devices to attempt to downsize the cost of Earth-Orbit transportation, and are, in fact, opening the space frontier to private activities and to civilian passengers?
Should it not be the main objective of space agencies and governments, to boost the recovery of the world economy, to create opportunities and jobs for young people?
And why is the so-called “Astronautic Club” still restricted to the US, Russia and China, while Europe has given up developing its own orbital vehicle suitable for transporting humans into space?

We will try to answer these and other questions during our next conferences:

in Dornie (Scottish Highlands), July 11th, on the occasion of the founding of the SRI UK Chapter
in Torino (Italy), at Politecnico University, October 7th, during the conference: “THE RISING INDUSTRY OF THE CIVILIAN SPACE FLIGHT”
at the 2016 SRI World Congress “SPACE, NOT WAR!”; see the call to action

The development of civilian astronautics can create millions of new skilled jobs, and in this scenario, opportunities for integration of young graduates and undergraduates in the working world will be increased by several orders of magnitude: space planes, orbital hotels, factories and yards for space vehicles assembly and logistics infrastructures, energy and manufacturing, toward the geo-lunar space industrialization. A thrilling perspective, toward which Space Renaissance is working hard, with its restless public support.

BECOME ONE OF OUR MEMBERS: REGISTRATIONS ARE OPEN
To register, simply visit www.spacerenaissance.space, the membership registration page

Membership offers the following advantages:

A membership card 2015 Space Renaissance International
The right to vote in plenary meetings of the Space Renaissance International
Invitations and possibilities for active participation in the organization’s initiatives, conferences, seminars, annual projects, call for papers, etc.
Privileged access to conventions and congresses of the Space Renaissance International
The free access to much of the material produced by SRI

We conclude with our warmest congratulations to AstroSamantha, for her great contributions to experiments performed on the ISS, and also for being able to talk to and with the people, especially the younger ones, during her stay in orbit. It is because of people like this that space is a bit more accessible to the general public. We invite you warmly to join our initiative, as many of your colleagues did, a task of great dissemination of accessibility to the space, for future generations.

Feb

2015

Call to action!

Facing continuing brutality despite all of its advances, civilization, forced into the now narrow space of the pre-Copernican closed world, needs all humans to embrace the arms of culture, science, philosophy and technology to open the world to a new renaissance, the space renaissance.

We do not like to comment on events the same day or too close to their occurrence — even when they are so horrendous — like the ones we have seen a few weeks ago in the attacks on the editors of Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris. But every day we have to record new merciless abominable murders. We, sincere humanists, are shaken, even personally, when death is caused intentionally by ideological madness, in France or anywhere. We are shocked by the massacre of 140 students at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, recently perpetrated by Taliban, and by the mass exterminations by Boko Haram in Nigeria and other senseless killing. In the same way we are morally devastated by Western military reactions, when they cause the death of civilians, women and children, and further jeopardize already badly hit economies, instead of bringing relief and aid to the honest citizens, eager to work and progress.

We opted therefore to leave anger and pain to subside a bit, before our say. In fact, should we allow anger and pain to dictate our agenda, we would do nothing but support the terror. Keeping a cool head and a calm and mature reasoning skill, we definitely pronounce, not to fight Islam, or to embark the Western countries in a fruitless “clash of civilizations.” We shall acknowledge the reality for what it is: the worsening conflicts and the global economic crisis, raging for almost seven years, are due to the growing fear that pervades all of the populations of the world. The people of the so-called advanced countries are seeing their privileges gradually decaying, due to lack of new industries. The emerging countries already glimpsed the limits of their hope for growth, due to the finite resources and energy of our mother planet. The people of the so-called Third World still do not even perceive this time as mature for their industrial development. Abortive revolutions and unfulfilled hopes are fertile ground for all terrorism.

Read the whole newsletter here: SRI Newsletter 03 February 2015