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SRI News

26
Oct
2020
The Elysium effect: a Rick Tumlinson’s small paper on Space Pioneers

The Elysium effect: a Rick Tumlinson’s small paper on Space Pioneers

Space.com published a beautiful brief reflection about the new space pioneers, how they are perceived in the incoming post covid ideological climate, and how the space community should anticipate and reverse such a possible misfelt methaphysics.A summary of the contents: Opposite of Elysium’s elite, the so called Space Barons have goals of the highest order: saving the planet and opening space to future generations. Yet these visionaries are often portrayed as rich boys with fancy toys. In the incoming anti-waste mood the space revolution-naries will be seen as stereo-typical of the wealth and power that has driven the Earth to the brink of disaster.

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Posted by Adriano in News, Newsletters, Philosophy, Space Economy
22
Oct
2020
Is this a small divergence of visions or a major philosophical issue?

Is this a small divergence of visions or a major philosophical issue?

Recently Space Renaissance International went through a two months discussion, in a tentative to unify our efforts with some colleagues, since a few years organized in the International Lunar Decade group. The envisaged new alliance was to be called ‘Global Space Renaissance’ (GSR).

However, such a tentative has aborted, after acknowledging a fundamental difference in the views of our two organizations.

One of the organizers of ILD wrote: “Our objectives cannot be accomplished by making statements that are considered unrealistic in timetable (…) We are definitely not an sole advocate of urgent human space settlements. Humans have not learned out to live sustainably on Earth and we need to learn this lesson before seeking to create settlements in space.”

After a quick email exchange, we both agreed to withdraw SRI from the GSR tentative.

I am aware that many could find bizarre to break a worth tentative of efforts unification between two space advocacy organizations due to a small divergence of visions. Couldn’t such different visions work together, for the sake of our shared ideals?

The first answer is yes, they could, if they would be allowed to hold the same priority.

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Posted by Adriano in News, Newsletters
21
Aug
2020
Gregg Maryniak – interviewed by Corrinne Graham, for the Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme

Gregg Maryniak – interviewed by Corrinne Graham, for the Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme

Corrinne Graham (Economic financial analyst, Space Renaissance USA) interviewed Gregg Maryniak, about his history, motivation and aims to inspire young generations to find their way to the outer space:

Gregg is the co-founder, together with Peter Diamandis, of the XPRIZE Foundation. The XPRIZE is recognized by the space community, as the initiative that triggered the New Space revolution, by demonstrating that private, commercial low cost access to space was feasible.

He was the Executive Vice President and Director of the Space Studies Institute, founded by Gerard O’Neill in Princeton US. He is Chairman of Space and Energy at Singularity University and keeps on restlessly working to inspire and motivate students and public opinion at large, explaining why human expansion into space is needed and very urgent, in order not to miss our “launch window”.

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Posted by Adriano in News, Newsletters, Space Renaissance Academy
04
Aug
2020
Sourav Karmakar interviewed by Bharathi Sharma and Sachika Bhatia for the Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme

Sourav Karmakar interviewed by Bharathi Sharma and Sachika Bhatia for the Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme

Sourav Karmakar, CEO of Infinos Tech LLP, and Chair of Space Renaissance India, was interviewed by Bharathi Sharma and Sachika Bhatia (Space Renaissance India), for the Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme.
Sourav Karmakar, researcher on Soft & Flexible Robotics, for med-tech, defence & aerospace applications, hold TEDx talks about “Space For Everyone”.

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Posted by Adriano in News, Space Renaissance Academy
14
Jul
2020
Humanity is not forced to choose among Earth and Space, yet

Humanity is not forced to choose among Earth and Space, yet

An article published by Lori Garver in 2019 proposed to “forget new crewed missions in space” and “NASA to focus on saving Earth.”

I thought such an extreme position was worth to be discussed, and strongly refuted.

No Lori. I strongly disagree with you.

I am not a US citizen, but NASA is a Planet Earth’s primary space agency, therefore i am speaking as a Planet Earth’s citizen.

I am not against taking care of planetary issues, that basically would mean to follow the UN 2030 17 SDGs. All initiatives that NASA and other major space agencies could undertake, to mitigate global issues, such as climate extreme phenomena, pollution, plastic in the sea, fighting against pandemics, are more than welcome, and should be pursued.

I am 100% in favor of active initiatives (opposite to passive de-growthist “solutions”), e.g. to build dams to protect coastal towns, and eventually use the water surplus (coming from ice melting) to claim deserts. Proper space technologies can be used to support such kind of active initiatives.

But we must be aware that none of the planetary global issues can be solved, none of the 17 SDGs can be achieved, without adding the 18th SDG: to kick-off civilian space development.

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Posted by Adriano in News, Newsletters, Space Economy
12
Jul
2020
The Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme

The Space Renaissance Academy Mentorship Programme

Space Renaissance Academy announced its worldwide Mentorship Programme.

The Space Renaissance Academy kicked-off a very ambitious initiative: to build the greatest planetary mentorship programme.

The programme is made by two main parts:

The SR Academy will take care of creating the link among students and mentors, for the different themes / disciplines.

We will also contact Universities, in order to coordinate this beautiful effort.

Why did Space Renaissance engage in this adventure?

In this page, the meaning, the contents and the goals of the programme are explained in more details.

 

Posted by Adriano in News, Philosophy, Science & Technology, Space Renaissance Academy
25
Jun
2020
The Great Objection and its Confutation

The Great Objection and its Confutation

(image: the recently discovered golden asteroid, worth $700 quintillion)

THE GREAT OBJECTION AND ITS CONFUTATION

— Why we cannot solve any problems on Earth before going to space —

The original version of this article was written in 2009, and reviewed by the author in May 2020

(from the old Technologies of the Frontier www.tdf.it website)

  • Before going to space, should we solve the problems here, on Earth?
  • The need for growth
  • The management of scarce resources is possible only by despotic regimes
  • The only way is space industrialization

Before going to space, should we solve the problems here, on Earth?

Whenever we speak about human presence in space to a general audience, and quite often when we talk with specialists as well, we have to hear the Great Objection: ”Before going to space, we have to solve our problems here, on the Earth”.

As soon as we reason about it we understand that the Objection is in fact a general dialectic scheme, which consists in changing the topic, pretending that the alternative is more important and urgent and so avoiding to reply to what the speaker has said. In short, it is a sort of quite-another-ism: “The problem is quite another, the cause is quite another…”.

But the Objection is Great, because too many people use it and take it for good, therefore we must face it at once and make people understand that the truth is exactly the opposite: if we don’t go to space and we don’t do it quickly, we are destined to a bad future here on the Earth. The reason is that the Earth has a finite size, to live all well we need economic growth and already now its resources are not enough, then we have to look for resources elsewhere – that is in the immense universe out there!

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Posted by Adriano in News, Newsletters, Philosophy, Space Economy