Civilization

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

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