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SRI News

May

2022

Space Renaissance International & Partners are happy and proud to announce the Space Renaissance Art & Science Festival of Berlin

The Festival will take place, from 7 to 9 July 2022, at the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin (Germany).

You are welcome to join the Festival in presence, sizing an excellent opportunity to visit the historic Archenhold Observatory and the beautiful city of Berlin. However, the Festival will be an hybrid conference, therefore virtual attendees are welcome as well.

Register here for free

A detailed programme, and all the information – including logistics and hotels accommodations – are available on this page.

The agenda, in brief:

The first day, 7 of July, focuses on “Space Philosophy & Policy”, with a Panel on Civilian Space Development – How to accelerate it? How to support new space industry to achieve the goal of kicking off civilian space development within 2030? What should space agencies do, and what should the space activist organizations do?
The 8 of July, “Astronauts and Civilians, Science & Tech Day”, will see two panels: on Space Habitats and Analog Training; Space Night, after dinner: Night Observation at the giant telescope
The 9 of July, the “Space Art Day”, with two art panels, in German and English language

The programme includes several keynote speakers, e.g. Seth Shostak (SETI), Giuseppe Reibaldi and John Mankins (Moon Village Association), Michelle Hanlon (NSS President), Bob Zubrin (Mars Society Founder), Jan Wörner (former ESA Director General), Bernard Foing (SRI President, chair of ITACCUS and EuroMoonMars). Many experts will tell us what’s going on on the edge of space settlement, science, art and exploration.

Several space artists will present their artworks, including: Priscilla Thomas, Mary Kuiper, Barbara King, and many members of the MoonMars art group.

The Festival will host the GALIX Congress 2022.

The Partners contributing to organize the Berlin Festival:

Space Renaissance International
Space Renaissance Germany
ITACCUS – IAF Committee for the Cultural Utilisation of Space (ITACCUS)
The Mars Society
Support Association of the Archenhold-Observatory and the Zeiss Gross Planetarium Berlin e. V.
Society for Culture and Space e. V. (Gesellschaft für Kultur- und Raumfahrt e. V.)
LUNEX EuroMoonMars
Stiftung Planetarium Berlin (Berlin Planetarium Foundation)
SZ-Rechtsanwälte Steinhäußer & Zieschang
GALIX – Global Alliance for International Collaboration in Space

Registration is open, for free

The participation is free, however all attendees are kindly requested to register, to help the organization of the conference: https://spacerenaissance.space/register-to-the-space-renaissance-festival-berlin-2022/

May

2022

“A greater world is possible!”, the book, presented by the author, Adriano V. Autino

Monday 16 May 2022 Adriano Autino held a lecture, in the frame of the Space Renaissance Academy Webinar Series, conducted by the unparalleled Sabine Heinz.
The topic was his last book, a philosophical essay titled “A greater world is possible!”. Already in the subtitle we can understand what this book discusses: “The expansion of civilization beyond the limits of our home planet is the moral issue of our time”.

DISCLAIMER BY THE AUTHOR This book contains many highly infectious ideas. So read it at your own risk: you might come out with a completely changed perspective and view of the world, i.e. a hopeful one, and a fresh will to do semething in the good direction.
So, if you feel comfortable watching the desctruction of the civilization in tv, then don’t read this book, nor watch the lecture.During his presentation, Autino proposes a deep look into several concepts, as they are described in the book, connecting them to the nowadays situation. In a random way:

the long promised utopian future still not realized, and the gloomy future already foreseen during last 40 years by dystopian sci-fi already awfuly present.
the controversial relationship between humankind and the rest of nature, and the deep awareness that we are part of nature, and we cannot resign from our responsibilities, as the most intelligent and aware species
recrudescence of resource wars and anthropology devolution in the closed world
morals: humanist scheme of values vs. nihilist sov
Prometheus today: giving 100% reusable transportation vehicles to humans, to faciitate the imminent evolutionary step
to kick-off civilian space development before 2030, in order not to loose the “Launch window” (a comversation with Gregg Maryniak)
all of the 17 UN SDGs depend from the 8th: “Decent work and economic growth”, and that is possible only expanding into outer space
the indivisible knot among energy, pressure and evolution (Kardashev and more)
the metaphysical warming on planet Earth, and its byproducts
value of human life and patrimony, vs. de-growthist doctrines
Earth is part of a cosmic ecology, and not a separate special object
demography and human fertility decline
ideologies, utopias and other dangerours yet necessary tools
the hope: evolutionary factors and how to sustain them

The lecture can be vieved on the Space Renaissance Youtube Channel https://youtu.be/1HNyjLkfyAI
(don’t forget to subscribe to the channel: it is free, but very important, to raise our audience!)

The book can be purchased on Amazon, in ebook or paperback format

Follow the Space Renaissance Academy Webinar Series

Last, but not least: do you like what we do? Want to help?
Then join the SRI Crew, for a very modest yearly fee, and come on leading the Space Renaissance!

May

2022

The SRI webinar with former ESA Director General Jan Wörner

Dr. Johann Dietrich “Jan” Wörner gave a beautiful lecture a few days ago – in the frame of the Space Renaissance Academy Webinar Series, coordinated by Sabine Heinz –, illustrating his favorite concept “Not going back, but going forward to the Moon”. Btw, that was also the subject of a brief speech he gave, as one of the keynote speakers, at the SRI 3^rd World Congress, end of June 2021.Dr. Wörner was the Director General of the European Space Agency since 2015 to 2021.His mandate was somehow revolutionary: while the ESA’s strategy was still focused on Telecommunication, Science and Earth Observation, he dared to put on the table the concept of a Moon Village, a permanent human outpost on the Moon, dedicated to experiment life, to explore and conduct scientific research on the Moon.

The Moon Village is one of the main topics illustrated during the lecture: the Moon is the next interesting part of the Solar System. The Moon Village is proposed as a multi-partner open project, to develop many operations on the Moon surface, human and robotic, public and private, exploration, outreach, cosmology/astronomy, transportation, communication, logistics, resources management.

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Apr

2022

A dialogue with Pope Francis on Peace and Sustainable Development

Pope Francis re-proposed a few days ago what He already had proposed in His Encyclical Letter “All Brothers”[1] of 2020:“With the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, let us establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favour development in the most impoverished countries, so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory solutions, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life.”How could we disagree on such a proposition of the Holy Father?

In the quoted Encyclical Letter, He also talks about the dramatic lack of big projects, widely shared world-wide, to inspire and motivate people to work for the development of the whole humankind. He also talks about the philosophy of expendability, according to which certain parts of humanity are seen as expendable, when they are not productive, such as the elderly, and the lack of children, which causes an aging population, and a culturally decaying society.

Considering all of these negative conditions together, the current age, characterized by a multiple global crisis, could appear hopeless. Namely, the complain about lack of children sounds as a desperate call, when the widely shared sentiment is that there are “too many humans on planet Earth”.

Yet, we think that Francis’s calls are right and fully worth of support, though they are not properly sustained by concrete programs and strategies. The real question should be: how to assure proper sustainability to human growth, in the 21^st Century?

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Mar

2022

Why civilian space development is key today, for us humans, to overcome the global crisis

The crisis of Cuba in 1962 – mentioned in the Lord Rees’s book “Our Final Hour” (2003) — was the event that brought us closest to a nuclear war. According to the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of Kennedy’s counselors, at that time: “This was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in human history. Never before had two contending powers possessed between them the technical capacity to blow up the world. Fortunately, Kennedy and Khrushchev were leaders of restraint and sobriety; otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be here today.”

I believe this is the main argument to respond to the nowadays under-estimators of the current war in Ukraine, and its effects on global economy, space policy and destiny of civilization at large. In addition to the Schlesinger Jr.’s statement, nowadays we have several leaders which are all but restraint and sober. First of all the new Zar, grown up in the paranoid environment of KGB. Yet we have other recent cases, in the western world too. Moving beyond the obvious condemn of the absurd invasion of Ukraine, suffocating any possibility for people to decide whether they want to be Ukrainian or Russian, the danger for civilization is extremely high, indeed. The availability of thousands of nuclear warheads in the hand of psychopathic leaders makes a WWIII extremely much more dangerous than the previous world wars, the very likely trigger of a global civilization implosion.

Relying on wars to solve conflicts and to relaunch economy through destruction was always a wrong way, yet nowadays is a total nonsense. It is not superfluous to restate this, since we perfectly know that, among Earthers, many secretely plauded to Covid19 pandemic as a “natural” agent to reduce population – the thought runs back to Nicolò Machiavelli, who plauded the pest, as a “purge” of society. The absurdity of such concept should be clear: a pandemic kills both bad and good people, useless and useful, including many which could offer solutions to thousands of shared small and big problems. And now such fellows of Armageddon, publicly sad for thousands deaths and million refugees, secretely plaud to the war, as another knight of Apocalypse, to “moderate” human growth.

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Jan

2022

JWST LAUNCH: EuroMoonMars & Space Renaissance Virtual Event

The Webb Telescope gave humanity a great Christmas present on last 25th December, when it successfully completed its launch and the first steps of the mission. It was an epoch-making event that marked the beginning of a new era in the observation of our Universe. With all eyes on it, this cutting-edge technology — whose value is approximately $10 billion — was launched aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana and it is currently undergoing the Deployment Process. Among the eyes that watched the event with particular expectations and excitement, were also those of the EuroMoonMars community, an ILEWG initiative that brings together researchers, experts and students with a strong passion for Space.It was with this spirit and enthusiasm that EuroMoonMars decided to organise a virtual event in preparation for the launch. The initiative took place on 24th December at 1pm CET and it was organised in collaboration with Space Renaissance International, a global non-profit organisation dedicated to bringing humanity closer to interdisciplinary space-related topics. The event — which was broadcast live on Space Renaissance International official youtube channel — was a fruitful moment of explanation, debate and questioning on different aspects of the Webb Telescope. The initial idea behind the organisation of the virtual session was to meet in the presence of some guests and experts to follow the launch in real time. The launch had in fact been scheduled by the Space Agencies for 24th December. After the announcement of its postponement, the programme of the event was revisited. The guests’ contributions covered different topics and highlighted the complexity of this innovative instrument.

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Nov

2021

Space Renaissance 2021: Highlights and Perspectives, and a Special Invitation

As we are progressing towards the end 2021, let’s summarize what we did and where we are for Space Renaissance International. It was a quite intense and fruitful year.

A first Key Performance Indicator is membership: we have grown more than 110% in membership since November 2020, but we need more registrations, and partnerships!

Since November 2020 to June 2021 we held 6 webinars in preparation of SRIC3, the 3^rd SRI World Congress, with many panelists, top experts of space themes, e.g., among others: Patrick Collins, Sam Coniglio, Andreas Bergweiler, Al Globus, Rino Russo, Tommaso Sgobba, Jonathan Tate, Luigina Feretti, Stefano Antonetti, Joe Pelton, Michelle Hanlon, Rick Tumlinson, Bernard Foing, Thomas Matula, Shaun Moss, Jerry Stone, Susan Jewell, Dan Cottita, Bruce MacKenzie, Isaac Arthur, Howard Bloom, Bart Womack, Giorgia Pontetti, Enrico Feoli, Alessandro Sciaraffa, Emanuele Pensavalle, The Cometan, Giulio Prisco, Alberto Cavallo, Tsvi Bisk, Steven Wolfe, Paul Ziolo.

On 18-19 March 2021, SRI was main partner in organizing GALIX Inaugural congress to EuroMoonMars Earth Space Innovation EMMESI Leiden/Hybrid workshop. SRI will be partner in GALIX 2022/EMMESI workshop planned on 14-17 March 2022.

End of June we held the 3^rd SRI World Congress “The Civilian Space Development”, 5 days of intense discussion, 70 papers presented, a final resolution and two theses documents discussed and voted. The Congress elected the new President, Prof. Bernard Foing, and the new Board of Directors, that will lead our association during next five years, towards 2025.

The Congress was a great success, with 10 keynote speakers and more than 1000 attendees over the 5 days. Among the keynote speakers we had: Jan Wörner, Rick Tumlinson, Michelle Hanlon, Bob Zubrin, Gary Barnhard, Susan Ip-Jewell.

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