Space, The Final Frontier

Conceptual Space Habitat - Stanford Torus, by Don Davis (1976)

I've been doing a lot of mulling about space travel lately. This sort of thing happens when I go on a sci-fi kick on the telly. If humans can go to the moon and return, then it would only stand to reason that we, as a united human race, can accomplish anything we can imagine. Because, if you think about it, everything we have ever created, started as a thought and developed into a physical object or process through experimentation and reasoning. So what is standing in our way with regard to complete human-space integration? Lack of what I mentioned earlier: a "united human race".  As of right now, most of the world is at odds with itself. People have their own selfish agendas, countries have their own selfish policies, and all-in-all we lack a unified designation as fellow earth-dwellers. If every country in the world stopped thinking entirely for itself and worked together with other countries... there would be no hunger, very little disease, and we would be focusing our efforts into the space beyond our world.

That is easier said than done. It would take a second coming of some religious prophet to reunite the world in this way. The only other way I could imagine this happening would be if extra-terrestrial beings were to make contact with earth. This would give everyone on earth a sense of belonging to a group .... Earthlings. And if you remember from your into psychology courses, if your group (earth) is threatened or at least made to realize that it isn't the only civilization out there, then there will be a much stronger self-interest amongst the group and an extremely heightened sense of resolve.

Sounds a little far-fetched, no? Well, maybe, but in the next 60 years, I predict that many of the world's internal issues will be at least under control (if not eradicated)  and we will be able to enjoy a margarita on mars.

So while our scientists work on a means to escape the speed of light and travel around the solar system at will, lets focus on getting the ground work ready for our jump into space. Get our diseases in check, be healthy, and no one going hungry. Not a small task, but I think we are up to it. Get out there and make a difference! keep aiming for those stars...