Virgin Galactic has suffered a seemingly crippling blow in confidence because of last weeks accident. As unpleasant as it may be, it is also part of the vision that Burt Rutan (the inventor and designer of all the gadgets Virgin Galactic is using) espoused at a lecture that he gave in 2013.
Where I just happened to be at the time. In fact, I briefly met him and shook his hand. And he has talked about this subject many other times (see link below).
Burt explained that, as a child, seeing Sputnik and the space race start, he reasoned that he would be able to go to space in his lifetime. But that didn’t seem as if it was going to happen, and he wondered why. He compared the development of flight, to that of the exploration of space.
He pointed out that when people started figuring out how to fly, many people killed or injured themselves trying to figure it out. It was a completely new beast- how COULD anyone figure it all out at once, and without incident?
The great thing about the development of aviation, however, was that it wasn’t too difficult to get into the game, if you were prepared to take some gambles. The resultant prestige and possible profit were worth the effort, and in just four years form the first flight there were thousands of aircraft flying. But development has seriously stagnated, and stalled in the exploration of space.
Burt reasons that the discovery of space would never really develop to its full potential if it was believed that you had to have the budget of a government to make it happen. His goal was to figure it out as the flight pioneers had, and accept that you cannot make it 100% safe 100% of the time. You do your level best to anticipate any problems, but you’re exploring virgin territory. You’re going to make mistakes.
Burt argued that these mistakes, and one hopes that they involve less and less loss of life, are essential to the development of sustainable and useful space travel.
This little bit of universe that we live in, as in all other bits, has many potentially lethal threats to life’s existence. NASA has been tracking an asteroid, named Apophis, the size and mass of Everest. It is on a potential collision course with earth- in 2036. In 2029 it will pass so close that we will see it flash through our atmosphere. If an interesting gravitational interaction, called a Gravity Keyhole, wobbles it in the right way, it will return to earth in 2036. This time it will not miss.
A great percentage of life on this planet will cease to exist in a remarkably short time- hours, if I understand it correctly.
This is why it is so important to pursue the journey into space. Presently we may actually have the technology to potentially divert the Apophis catastrophe, and there is determined international collaboration to pursue this end.
One thing is sure, we need to quit squabbling, we need to figure out how to use the abundance that we have on this planet, to serve everyone. This asteroid does not care if you are yellow, green, blue, red, black, brown, white, religious, spiritual, atheist, or indifferent. If it all goes tits up, and if we didn’t have the ability to see, track and asses it, we’d all end up as superheated gases when Apophis hit our planet at 18 times the speed of sound (psst… that is EXTREMELY fast).
The majority of life will be vaporised in the first few hours, the remainder will perish in a few days.
So we damn well had better get our shit sorted out; we need to toss aside differences, figure out how to help one another so that we can all help in the massive effort that will be required to protect all of life’s existence, as we know it. Toss idiotic and archaic beliefs out and get with the program!
In 1914 Ernest Shackleton posted the following advert:
Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.
He had to turn people away, so popular was the allure of taking part in such a voyage of discovery. I hope that Michael alsbury, the pilot killed in the Virgin Galactic accident was similarly motivated by what he had, and has, helped to achieve in this discovery; and that he accepted the concomitant risks associated with such a journey. I would.
Its 100 years since Shackletons journey launched; the present journey has far greater implications for the survival of life (not just human life), and it should proceed with the same spirit.
It should also focus and direct our best understanding for the betterment of ALL life as we know it, else none of us will survive.
Yours Sincerely
Horrible Hyde
Apophis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcGrQaHMd_4
Search google on the subject; it looks kooky, but there is substance.
Burt Rutan and Space
Rawhyde's Blog- a subsection of HorribleHyde 