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SRI News

Oct

2021

Howard Bloom: billionaires in space are helping us look up

Howard sent us this short article, that he wrote after the recent flight of William Shatner to the edge of space.

Three weeks ago, Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, blasted billionaires for joyriding “to space while millions go hungry on Earth.”His spokesman reaffirmed that complaint October 13th after William Shatner’s flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket from Van Horn, Texas, to the edge of space 65.8 miles high.

Guterres’ complaint was dead wrong. What the rich do today, you and I will do in 20 years.

In 1983 only rich people could afford a portable phone. A Motorola DynaTAC 8000X cost the equivalent of $11,000, weighed two pounds, and only had enough battery life for half an hour of talk. Today even the homeless people in my neighborhood in Brooklyn have portable phones with ten hours of battery life. And those phones have an additional feature that only mega-corporations could afford in the 1960s. Computers. Computers millions of times more powerful than the computers NASA used to send humans to the moon in 1969.

Again, what the rich do first, the rest of us will do in 20 years. And when the rich pay outlandish sums for something new, they subsidize the manufacturing process that brings that new thing down to you and me. The rich bought the first Hamilton digital watches in 1981 for the equivalent of over $12,000. They subsidized the supply chain that gives you or me a smart watch for $40 today.

Switching from gadgets to the depths of soul, Bill Shatner’s experience during his three minutes on the lower fringes of space hit him with an emotional power he never expected. When he came out of the New Shephard space craft, he hugged Jeff Bezos who was waiting outside the hatch to greet him. And at one point Shatner broke out in tears. The former Star Trek captain said his three minutes in space were the kind of experience that changes your life. Here are some of his quotes after he returned to earth, ‘Everybody in the world needs to do this,” said Shatner, “To see the blue color whip by and now you’re staring into blackness…. The covering of blue, this sheath, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around, we say, ‘Oh, that’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it all, and you’re looking into blackness, into black ugliness.”

Continued the former Captain Kirk, “As you look down, there’s your blue down there with the black up there. There is Mother Earth and comfort and there is — is there death? I don’t know. Is that the way death is?’ Concluded Shatner, “This air, which is keeping us alive. It’s so thin. It’s thinner than your skin. It’s a sliver. It’s immeasurably small when you think in terms of the universe. What we’re looking down upon is Mother Earth and it needs protecting”. Shatner explained to Bezos: ‘I’m so filled with emotion with what just happened. I hope I never recover from this.”

But Shatner’s most important words were these. “You’re looking down on the earth and looking up into space but you’re also looking up at the future and looking down at the past.” Space, Shatner implied, is your future. And there’s a reason for the space future that Shatner never said. Space can save the earth.

If you harvest solar power in space and transmit it to earth, you can almost completely eliminate greenhouse gases emitted by energy production. You can end most of the man-made contribution to global warming. If you mine the asteroid Psyche 16, you can produce resources worth more than the entire global economy. And you can end the need to blast away mountain tops to dig for metals, minerals, and even the rare earth elements we need to manufacture green cars, windmills, and a green economy.

The bottom line is that a nation that look up goes up. A nation that looks down goes down. The space billionaires and passengers like William Shatner are helping us look up.

Oct

2021

A Planet B strategy, taking care of Planet A!

This is the right time to embark on grand epochal projects, fit to change our world and our future.
The Green Transition may only be useful if accompanied by a powerful development plan.
The internet society and digital money may require much more energy, not less.
The Green Transition alone has a high cost, and may produce new social inequalities.
Capable sustainable development is “off our planet”: kick-off civilian space development.

With reference to our analysis of the status of Civilization[1], updated in the 3^rd SRI World Congress 2021, we propose that the issue of the Climate Change should be approached within a widescale and holistic view, also addressing all SDGs Sustainable Development Goals and identifying other interrelated threats to civilization: the Covid19 Pandemics, the global economic crisis, raw materials and energy crisis, water scarcity, the growth of conflicts and refugees, the pollution of the seas, the loss of biodiversity and, in more general terms, the enormous social effects of such Armageddon. Specifically, the Coronavirus pandemics have quickly demonstrated how eight billion citizens, constrained within the narrow spaces of our mother planet, may see dramatically decreasing freedom to move, socialize, work together, love and have children. What we need is a Global Sustainability Initiative and a Global Sustainability Agreement to identify both threats and opportunities what would allow the global community to accomplish these tasks.

The “Green Transition” as undertaken by several Countries, will be useful, in obtaining a grace period, and allowing the development of strategies to combat the multiple crisis and retake the path of growth and evolution. Yet this incidental process is exactly the point: the Green Transition, alone, in being focused mainly on passive actions, does not represent an active strategy. It can be helpful, but only if sided and supported by a powerful development plan. Continue reading →

Sep

2021

Space Renaissance International to participate to the International Astronautical 72° Congress, at Dubai

The Space Renaissance International will participate to the International Astronautical 72° Congress, at Dubai, next 25-29 October 2021. Several representatives of SRI will present papers: Prof. Bernard Foing, SRI President, Executive Director of ILEWG International Lunar Exploration Working Group, manager of EuroMoonMars programme, guest professor at VU Amsterdam/Leiden Observatory; Adriano V. Autino, SRI Founder and Former President, SRI Ambassador; Susan Ip Jewell, SRI Vice-President, CEO/Co-Founder of MMAARS,Inc, (Mars-Moon Astronautics Academy & Research Science). The SRI representatives will participate to several activities, such as: B. Foing will coordinate A3 Space Exploration Symposium 25-29 Oct, and chair 5 sessions, coordinate many committees, in the frame of ITACCUS. SRI will hold meetings with members, partners and friends. SRI will also handle a leaflet to all of the participants to the Congress.See some more detailed information about the SRI mission to IAC2021.

Jul

2021

THE 2021 SPACE RENAISSANCE CONGRESS FINAL EVENT JULY 15TH, A GREAT EVENT!

The 2021 Space Renaissance Congress held its final event July Thursday 15yth, and it was a great event! In case you missed it, you can watch it here.

Our new elected President, Prof. Bernard Foing, chaired the event with great competence and verve, and pronounced a brief address, unveiling the next five years period, towards the SRI 4^th World Congress, in 2026.

The Congress had 300 registered attendees from 43 Countries: Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brasil, Bulgaria, Canada, Ch, China, Denmark, Deutschland, Equador, France, Germany, Ghana, Hawaii, India, Iran, Iran, Italia, Japan, Malaysia, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Nl, Norway, Pakistan, Peru’, Philippines, Polska, Republic Of New Afrika, Russian Federation, Slovakia, South Africa, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey, Ucraina, Uk, Ukraine, Usa, Venezuela.

The Congress sessions had more than 1000 visualizations on the Space Renaissance Youtube channel.

Three Motions were approved during the June 30th 2021 Voting Session, and confirmed during the following 15 days by the online voting mechanism:

the 2021 Space Renaissance Congress Final Resolution – got 97.83% AYE, 0% NAY, 2.17% ABSTAIN
the motion on Congress Thesis 1 – got 93.48% AYE, 0% NAY, 6.52% ABSTAIN
the motion on Congress Thesis 2 – got 93.48% AYE, 0% NAY, 6.52% ABSTAIN

65.71% of the having right to vote expressed their vote for the 3 final motions.

The SRI President, Prof. Bernard Foing, was elected with 95.35% AYE, 0% NAY, 4.65% ABSTAIN

61.43% of the having right to vote expressed their vote for the new President.

The SRI Board of Directors was elected with 93.02% AYE, 0% NAY, 6.98% ABSTAIN

61.43% of the having right to vote expressed their vote for the new Board of Directors

The detailed SRIC3 Acta, including all the presented papers and oral presentations (Youtube videos)

The SRI President, Prof. Bernard Foing, was elected with 95.35% AYE, 0% NAY, 4.65% ABSTAIN

61.43% of the having right to vote expressed their vote for the new President

The SRI Board of Directors was elected with 93.02% AYE, 0% NAY, 6.98% ABSTAIN

61.43% of the having right to vote expressed their vote for the new Board of Directors

The detailed SRIC3 Acta, including all the presented papers and oral presentations (Youtube videos)

1) The complete and detailed Acta of the Congress is online, for all of us to be viewed and reviewed. On this page you can find:

The presented papers, for download
The pointer to each live presentation, in the recorded videos on YouTube (hyperlink-pointer to the hour:minutes:seconds)

When watching to any video on the YouTube Space Renaissance channel, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel!

Soon we will also begin the work to assemble the Acta Book, to be published on Amazon, let’s say, within September 2021.

Prof. Bernard Foing — for 30 years ESA officer and tireless space activist — is the new elected President of Space Renaissance International.

Here’s the brief address Bernard pronounced during the Final Party:

“Thank you very much Adriano and all of you, dear friends and colleagues. It is really a honor and a pleasure for me to step into this task, of leading the Space Renaissance International, and all the initiatives we have been discussing. I want to give a special tribute to the Founders, our fathers founders! They gave us a great initial Constitution, the Statutes and also the initial direction. Thanks to all of you, who contributed to the recent Space Renaissance Congress. We discussed many ideas, concepts and contents, and we discussed the Theses documents, converging to our Final Resolution, that was adopted for the next five years. So, this part is a very clear line roadmap for what we could do. I am a man of soul, but also a man of action, I like to think with my hands too, well knowing they can help my brain. I want to pay tribute to the leaders of Space Renaissance International, in particular to Adriano, who has taken a very commitment and motivation to all of us. Then I rise this glass in honor of Adriano and all of our Directors.”

Taking the maximum cultural profit from our Congress. What is the main outcome of our Congress? It is constituted by the concepts that emerged during the presentations and discussions, the things we understood, or better clarified, thanks to the great collective work we made, since October 2020 to July 2021, through the webinar series and the five days of the Congress. During the next weeks and months we will produce several newsletters and articles, “mining” the conceptual contents. A few non exhaustive examples:

the social inclusivity, as a 4th parameter to assess the level of a civilization (with reference to the Kardashev-Zubrin-Sagan scale)
the solution of the energy issue on Earth, by moving the industries outside the planet, in the cislunar space
the key and indispensable role of the new space industry to save and lead the global economy growth, overcoming the multiple crisis
a gas strategy to kick-off the civilian space development before 2030
a new enthusiastic aim to bring art in space, giving voice and visibility to many passionate space artists
a new enthusiastic rush to give voice and representation to all of the Countries of Planet Earth, wherever there’s somebody aiming aim, out of this world
the urgency and the opportunity to start recovering and reusing space debris

Just to name some of the many key concepts we discussed in this congress.

Keep on following and supporting the Space Renaissance!

Also consider joining the SRI Crew…

Join the Space Renaissance Crew today, to help us implementing the civilian space development!

Long live the Space Renaissance!

Mar

2021

Astronism, and Space Renaissance

After a quite interesting conversation between myself and Brandon Reece Taylorian – the Cometan – we followed up trying to understand how the Space Renaissance and Astronism can work together, synergizing and even amalgamating their main concepts, for the sake of raising the Space Renaissance in the whole society. Space Renaissance is a highly humanist philosophy, having humanity expansion into outer space as the main goal, both an urgent need and a long time strategic scope.
Astronism is the seed of a new religion. Not a theist religion, based on unprovable dogmas. Maybe a religion in its deepest original meaning, from latin ‘religere’ = ‘unifying’. Yes, since realizing this fundamental evolutionary step – bootstrapping a solar civilization – requires to put together the best forces humanity ever has put together: fair competition, collaboration, sharing of ideas, concepts, efforts. In the awareness that this is the greatest challenge our civilization ever dared to face and win. Shouldn’t we see that as a kind of new religion?

Continue reading →