Space colonization then and now – Santa Ynez Valley News

Many years ago, when I first went to college, I joined two off-campus organizations, both of which were dedicated to getting people living and working in outer space.

I saw expansion into space as the solution to many of the worlds biggest problems, including energy shortages, overpopulation and world hunger to name a few, and I could see myself actually doing it, going off and living or working in a space colony somewhere between Earth and the moon more specifically at L5, a point in space that is always in the same spot relative to Earth and the moon.

I became somewhat of a disciple of physicist Gerard ONeill, and his cylinder design, to the point I could explain its key features and concepts to others, including mirrors, farming pods, dimensions, rotation and scenery, and the use of an electromagnetic mass driver to mine materials from the moon and asteroids, so the colony could be constructed entirely on-site, in space.

Now, with space travel finally becoming a reality thanks to billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and their privately funded space race, I no longer have any interest in moving away from our home planet. Not that I could even if I wanted to, given the hefty price tag for a seat on any of these expeditions.

Bezos and Branson are each selling a five-minute thrill ride to suborbital space, which is about 62 miles from Earths surface, for around $250,000 a seat, while Musk is selling a one-week trip around the moon, 300,000 miles, for an undisclosed amount that is estimated to be between $35 million to $100 million a ticket.

I dont remember when it was I first stopped wanting to go into space, but my guess is it was after I moved to a place where I could live, each and every day, in close contact with the Earth and its beauty. Not that I didnt have an appreciation for such beauty before that, or I hadnt experienced its transformative effect on the heart and the senses, or I wasnt already in love with life and people, but growing up in a flat personality-less suburb, my natural impulse and inevitability was to move away and go somewhere else, and I guess a space colony was one possible place to move to, even though I knew California was the much greater likelihood.

As my love for and connection to Earth increased, my desire to leave it behind diminished.

Add to that my growing sense of self-awareness, which included the realization that I am extremely uncomfortable riding in fast cars, boats on the ocean, small airplanes performing trick maneuvers or any size plane during moments of turbulence and roller coasters and drop towers and pendulum rides and gravity rides and other such horrors at carnivals and amusement parks, and it all added up to, why would I want to ride in a spaceship of any sort?

I believe the ongoing survival of our species will necessarily involve and require space colonization. Then again, dont the Hopis say humanity already started and ended, then started again seven other times in our history, so in the big picture is it really that big of a deal? Throw in some Einstein and Mayer to remind us that energy and mass are neither created nor destroyed, but transformed, converted, redistributed, reassembled and re-expressed.

Im a fan of science, and of ever expanding our horizons, so I support space colonization efforts. But it is no less difficult or palatable for me to try and conceive of our extinction, transformation, evolution than it is to imagine us spreading our greed and war, fear and violence and prejudice and pollution to the rest of the universe.

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Space colonization then and now - Santa Ynez Valley News