Why are we still on this Rock?

I remember being a child of the 1980’s and I marveled at NASA and all their incredible feats from regular trips to the moon, to the space shuttle, and the construction of the international space station. To me it felt like we were on a trajectory to work and live in outer space as a society, and this would be something I would naturally study and get a career in the future.

As I got older, I saw that the actual trajectory, and Elon Musk hasdiscussed this, was actually trending negatively. Regular trips to the moon were scrapped, the space shuttle and its large payload capacity to allow for space station construction and repair was retired, and commercial industry settled around near Earth orbits for communication, navigation, weather, and imagery.

Now, in my mid-forties, I lament that regular work in space or on objects in our solar system is still seemingly decades into the future, and not something that my kids will get a chance to do. Maybe their kids will…but that is only if our society remains focused on that goal.

Why is this? Well, quite frankly…there is little to no money in deep space exploration at this point in history. Sure there are plenty of start-ups looking at asteroid mining, energy distribution, and rapid transport around Earth, but the motivation isn’t to stretch out across the solar system, it is to enrich our lives here on Earth.

Now every dreamer I know is going to instantly raise a fist at these words, but these words aren’t for you. I salute every dreamer and foundational executor of the technologies that will make sure we get off of this rock, beautiful and lovely as it is, and truly become a space fairing society. These words are for everyone that hasn’t considered what it means to just stay hear on Earth. There are many people that have looked at and argued this point, so I won’t delve into it further here. Instead let me open up a question with some preamble.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Allies and the Soviet Union stood tall against one another and created a cross-roads for human society, the result of American victory which has persisted through to present day. America won the space race with the Apollo Missions, and with the world at stake, the motivation to win the space race leading up to 1969 could not have been greater.

And now the question: What would it take to motivate our present day first world societies to stretch out into the Solar System? If it is merely leverage over one another, then I say this will be a long a drawn out process, where the house of cards stands to topple one or multiple times. But the conditions for humanity to transition into space will not be infinite, so that motivation…whatever it is…we need to find it and find it soon. Unless some of us have found it already…