SRI

Oct

2016

The space frontier is opening! The outcomes of the SRI 2nd World Congress

The Space Renaissance International 2nd World Congress took place on Skype, from September 30th until October 2^nd, 2016, and it was a great event, with participants from all continents. During the three days, five thesis documents and a final resolution were discussed, amended and voted upon. The SRI Board was renewed, to represent the active and collaborative international team that is now leading SRI, and that signed important results. These include, the incorporation of the Space Renaissance USA chapter, in April 2016, the more than doubled SRI presence on social networks and the application to the MacArthur 100&CHANGE prize (link at the bottom of this page).

The SRI first World Congress was held five years ago, in 2011. Since then, many things have changed and finally the space frontier has initiated the opening process. Fully reusable rockets have had their first successful experimentation this year and the obsolete monopoly of expendable rockets is now finally broken. This is also a good time for assessing SRI’s capabilities to understand and foresee the social processes, since this is one of the conditions that justify the existence of an organization like ours. The result is the Final Resolution of our recent Congress that we agreed to. Below is a large excerpt from the resolution. The complete acta of the Congress will be available soon.

Fully reusable rockets are now a reality thanks to a collaboration between the NewSpace industry — Elon Musk’s SpaceX — and NASA. Space tourism is a growing and meaningful part of the Newspace segment, endowed with a high capability to develop on its own capital: Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, Skylon, XCOR, and many other space companies are working hard to initiate commercial flights. The paradigm change has finally arrived: reusable rockets reduce the cost of launching into Earth Orbit. So we were right, when we said that the NewSpace industry, in order to meet this unprecedented evolutionary challenge, needed, and still needs, the support of public money as well as a positive public opinion. If this awareness was more largely shared, maybe the history would have been different. However we are working restlessly for the space frontier to be opened in time.

The experience of SpaceX demonstrates that private industry, working with government agencies contracts, can in fact reach the goal of lowering the cost of the Earth-Orbit transportation by several magnitudes. As such, many other objectives can now be targeted, including a substantial industrialization of the geo-lunar region. Space tourism and other civilian space activities, such as orbital manned services, asteroid mining, advanced research settlement and space based solar power will all benefit from the reduction of the Earth-Orbit launch costs. That’s why our main commitment, during next four years, will be to work towards a general extension of such a method: a broad collaboration among the government agencies and the NewSpace private industry.

If most people continue thinking that the world is closed, it will remain so. Instead of this, if we are able to build on these recent achievements and extend these into a meaningful vanguard, then the space-enabled future can become a reality. The first essential step on such road is to accelerate the development and the marketing of technologies that enable low cost civilian passenger transportation into space.

We are not working for a revolution, but for a renaissance of civilization. A revolution is violent, while a renaissance is fundamentally joyous and peaceful. The true conflict nowadays is between those who aspire to growth and change (the Renaissance), and those who want de-growth, de-industrialization, cultural involution, which will eventually lead to the implosion of civilization. The global crisis of the closed world has worsened, but the renaissance is going ahead and aiming to reach space. We do not fear robots: humans do it better, are more efficient and more cost effective in the space environment.

The next 10 or 15 years will see the technical and social opportunities brought about by the renaissance of the last 500 years to balance the threats, the conflicts, the huge risk of a World War III, that could be the last global war that humanity wages, since the next wars will be fought with sticks. A peaceful expansion of civilization into outer space via a peaceful development of civilian space activities, will be the core of our celebration of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which will have its 50th anniversary in 2017. We will bring our proposals of principles for a space law, which development is urgent, to the United Nations in order to provide democratic rules for commercial and industrial activities to be conducted by private entities in outer space.

SRI will develop a narrative of our near future, of our possible present civilian life in space, requiring artists to represent what cannot yet be photographed because it doesn’t exist, yet. Elon Musk announced his Interplanetary Transport System, to carry passengers to Mars for a relatively modest ticket price in few years. Jeff Bezos announced his plan to start migrating heavy industries into outer space, making of Earth a beautiful garden. Jeff Greason is working to develop manned activities in Earth orbit. All of these great space programs are not very well known by the general public. They are not yet part of educational programs in schools and colleges. SRI wants to raise such awareness and push the urgent narrative in throughout society.

SRI entered its 2.0 phase, going over the mere “propaganda”, toward a concrete engagement in the social reality. We will be open and collaborative in order to be able to listen to all of the voices which can be available to work for the renaissance. We shall reach out to many renaissance persons, creative minds which can contribute to the renaissance, if given the proper tools and channels.

During next four years, towards 2020, we shall bring the awareness of the extreme urgency to open the space frontier to civilian and industrial activities to the broad general public. We will support the quick development of low cost launch vehicles, promote public support for the NewSpace industry, promote a space industrial political platform, promote space based solar power, contribute to space law and promote a “presentist” vision and narrative of our immediate future life in space. We begin by lobbying governments, space agencies and international institutions. We will try to create collaborations with all the renaissance initiatives, which are not limited to the Space Renaissance’s ones. In order to realize such an ambitious program, SRI will initiate a major world-wide program:

The Space Renaissance Tour

We want to bring the space renaissance message to all five continents in the next 2 to 3 years. This will be achieved with public conferences having their focus on few key themes, namely: accelerating the development of low cost Earth-Orbit passenger and cargo transport vehicles, promoting civilian space development as an alternative to conflicts and the risk of a World War III; celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and to reaffirm the Human Right to Development as stated by United Nations in 1986. To lead such a grand tour which we will call the true renaissance vanguard of our time: we salute all of the NewSpace industries making the Space Renaissance happen!

Now, to realize all of the above we must rely upon the help of all the renaissance persons in the world. By registering as a member of SRI, you will help us by creating a seed fund, by which we can hire proper services and build up our very ambitious but urgently needed program. We need your financial contribution as well as your ideas and your projects, but mostly we need your activist volunteer commitment.

please join us, join the renaissance,

JOIN THE SPACE RENAISSANCE INTERNATIONAL!

The SRI participation to the MacArthur 100&CHANGE prize

Also download the pdf version of this article.

Sep

2016

We will not be astronauts!

Dear SRI Members, Supporters and Friends, Renaissance People,

As you might already know, Space Renaissance International will hold its 2nd World Congress from September 30th to October 2nd. The Congress will be held online, via SKYPE chat, 3 hours per day starting at 15:00 GMT.

Though SRI needs to increase its public visibility, we chose not to hold a live congress this time. Our main goal is to update our analysis and strategy, and to share this discussion with the highest number of renaissance men and women, that we are sure greatly outnumber SRI supporters, worldwide! Holding an online chat congress, participants will be allowed to register for free, avoid any travel expenses and be able to comment and participate even when everyone else is offline. During the three days of the congress we will discuss five “theses” or thought documents, covering what we understand to be the key issues during next four years, up to the SRI 3rd world Congress, in 2020.

The title of the congress is “From Space Exploration to Space Settlement”.

We propose that world leaders need to understand that humanity urgently requires a change in direction from exploring space to developing civilian activities in space, finding ways to create human space settlements. A global renaissance is fighting the global crisis, producing social, technological and scientific transformations: in order to win, it needs to be taken off planet, to be a space renaissance!

“Thesis 1 – Our Committment to Astronautics” is an update of our analysis, about the current status of the civilization, faced to the challenges of nurturing the needs and industrial development of seven and half billion humans, avoiding further deterioration of the planetary environment, addressing the ever-increasing shortages of raw materials and energy sources. We will compare the history of the last five years, to the forecasts we made during the 1st SRI World Congress, held via SKYPE in 2011, especially as far as the development of civilian astronautics is concerned. We ask: “How can we influence global public opinion, demonstrating the extreme need for humanity to expand beyond Earth’s limits?” “Which are the most promising social and industrial processes, to be supported and further expanded?” And, “Is the science fiction scenario we used to love during the past century nothing more than a nostalgic dream, characterized by a romantic, vaguely retro, flavor?”

It is likely the term “astronaut” doesn’t apply to the civilian space passengers: Astronauts were sci-fi heroes, and are now military trained individuals who are carefully chosen and prepared for their missions. What we are talking about is our dream of taking a space vehicle as if we were taking a normal air flight, flying to the Moon or a Lagrange city whenever we desired. During such travels, one would not expect to go outside the vehicle in a space suit, just as we are not likely to sit on the wings of a jumbo jet during a flight from Milano to NewYork. We will not be “astronauts” at all, not even when we will reach our destination in space, where we will mostly live in closed environments.

Does a proper narrative exist, already, to stimulate people’s curiosity and make them feeling interested in space life? Do we need a new “futuristic” art movement? Perhaps we had enough futuristic visions, that always postponed to a more or less distant future the human expansion into space. A new art movement is deeply missed, but it should talk about our possible civilian life in space now, more than about future. An avant-garde awareness that we are late, from all points of view, and we have nomore time to waste. A word for defining such a movement doesn’t exist, yet. Usually, movements have birth before definitions.

Our duties, as awakened and conscious renaissance people, are enormous, and we could be terrified by the challenge… but we will not surrender. When looking up in the night sky and see the majesty of the Milky Way we know the possibilities waiting there … Looking at the sky is our power, the stars are our evolutionary destination. Like the first hominids who strained to stand up in upright position, we strive to think ourselves among the stars, in a 3d environment, limitless in every direction and degree of the space sphere.

“Thesis 2 – Space for Peace” discusses the rise in global conflicts that constitutes the biggest threat to the future of civilization. The underlying causes for these conflicts are numerous but most have to do with exerting control over natural resources and territories and the populations living in these regions by financial and geopolitical interests. Any major war that may occur in the next few years would have unpredictable consequences. As an alternative to the possibility of global war, we propose a civilian space development program that expands human activities into geo-lunar space, as the only valid counter measure to mitigate the risk of a global conflict and avoid an implosion of civilization. This theme will be a key part of our next four years program having a key place in all of our public events.

“Thesis 3 – Building the Space Renaissance” defines our program for next 4 years, including a primary initiative that will touch the five continents, distributing our space renaissance proposal around the world by lobbying the governments, collaborating with space agencies, trying to reproduce the exemplary experience of SpaceX to the entire “NewSpace” industrial segment. And, in addition, developing our proposals in the area of space law in the context of the 50th anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty – the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies – which entered into force in October 1967 and provides the basic framework on international space law.

“Theses 4 – A New Communication Strategy” defines how we plan to multiply our out-reach, making a growing number of people aware of our proposals and initiatives, and encouraging them to join SRI and work with us, to wake up other renaissance people.

With “Theses 5 – Space Renaissance Academy” we will describe and set up our education program, that in its first phase will see the development of webinars (soon to be available online).

Please register to attend the congress for free, if you want to be sure you will be part of the SKYPE chat.

Registration only takes a few seconds, and will allow us to optimize the organizational process.

We also want to invite you to check out the theses documents, and feel free to propose a paper of your own or amendments to what you read:

An online form is available to upload your proposals to the congress.

Should you like to add any contribution/proposed amendments to the theses documents, please follow this procedure:

read the theses documents (the above link)
identify which theses document(s) your proposal(s) apply
in case you want to submit a paper, use the proper template
upload your text or paper

Are you a renaissance person? Do you think what we do is useful? Please also consider joining the Space Renaissance!

Download a pdf version of this article.

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:

https://spacerenaissance.space/build-sri-with-us/space-renaissance-newsletter-registration/.

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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]

Jun

2014

The SRI international Congress to be held in July 2015 (SRI Newsletter)

The SRI Executive held a meeting Sunday June 22nd, and decided that the second international congress will be held in July 2015, as it was scheduled by the first congress in 2011. It was unanimously agreed that several relevant reasons exist, to undertake the congress works, not only to respect the four years frequency established by our statute.
First of all the radical innovation in our strategic plan. SRI was born as a philosophical international association, and this is what it is and wants to keep on being. End of 2012, SRI decided to build national chapters, strongly rooted on territory, where members can work together, seeing themselves in face, organizing local events, talking to the people. Nowadays we have a working chapter in Italy, Space Renaissance Italia, a new chapter in the US, Space Renaissance International USA, a chapter on the way to be incorporated in India, Karnataka, and another chapter to be incorporated in UK, Scotland.
Our Theses, written in 2011, need to be updated as well. Many things occurred in the world, confirming our analysis, that expanding civilization into space is an essential condition to its survival: the conflicts for the remaining earthly resources are worsening. Opening the high frontier will allow the advanced countries, thanks to their technology, to “unplug” from the disastrous confrontation with tribal societies, and to become a moral model for the young people of those countries, removing them from the suicidal philosophy of the Jihād, and achieving them to the noble big project to assure new resources, energy and space for the whole civilization.

Read the whole newsletter here: SRI_Newsletter_24062014: The SRI international Congress to be held in July 2015

Jul

2012

SRI to hold inaugural conference: spring 2013 meeting date eyed

[box]The Space Renaissance International will hold its inaugural conference in Boulder, Colorado, tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2013. Scott Brown, the head of the new U.S. chapter, said the conference will provide an opportunity to focus attention on what Space Renaissance International has to offer the space community and how it differs from many other related organizations. Read the press release: SRI Inagural Conference in CO [/box]

Oct

2009