Space Contest and the Overview Effect

I just entered a contest to take a suborbital hop into space on a private spacecraft. Metro Newspapers is the sponsor.

I made my argument for going based on my work on the Overview Effect and with the Overview Institute and cited my desire to share the Overview Effect with the world.

While I have enjoyed competing and would very much like to win, I have also been inspired by the fact that more than 350 people have entered in the American phase of the contest alone. Some of the entries are not very serious, but others are. One contestant wants to be the first deaf person in space to show what people with disabilities can do. Another person wrote an essay for their dad, who always wanted to be an astronaut.

There is an enormous pent-up demand for private spaceflight, or Ispace, as I like to call it. There is a tremendous opportunity here for entrepreneurs like Sir Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and others.

Let's open the space frontier and let's experience the Overview Effect!

Here is the link where you can read all the essays. If you like the case I have made, please vote for me (or maybe you would like to enter the contest yourself.)

http://metroinspace.com/us

Writing from Orbit

As i wrote in The Overview Effect, it would be good for as many people as possible to experience the Effect. That would help to "change the world by changing the way we see the world." However, it is still expensive to physically place a human being in Low Earth Orbit, so it makes sense to begin simulating the experience as much as possible.

Some of us are working on that in a virtual world called Second Life. We have a simulated orbital facility looking down at a simulated Earth that rolls beneath the "avatar" that represents people in virtual worlds. I've been going there and trying to do some writing while "in orbit" to see what it would be like when we eventually have a real orbital facility and are inviting "Overview Fellows" to spend time there while doing their work.

What follows is something I wrote back in June while having this experience:

"It is June 2 and I am once again sitting in the SL TOI orbital facility watching the Earth go by beneath me. I am imagining what it would be like to do my writing every day with this view. My first thought is that it might be hard to do any writing because the view is so compelling. My second thought is that the astronauts are right that there are no borders on the planet and no boundaries between the planet and the universe, or "space." Not only is it the case that the borders we create are artificial but it is also true that the Earth/space distinction is artificial. Not only do I begin to identify with the whole Earth but I also begin to identify myself as a point of consciousness within the universe and not separate from it."

I will have much more to say on this topic later.

Uniting the Space Community

The current debate over President Obama's plan for space exploration does not appear to directly affect the work of the Overview Institute, at least in the short term. Regardless of how it happens, people will still be going into orbit and beyond, they will still be experiencing the Overview Effect, and we will continue our work of changing the world by changing the way we see the world.

At the same time, it does seem likely that far more people will be able to experience the Overview Effect directly if the president's plan is accepted. His approach puts more emphasis on private enterprise and commercial activities in space, and I believe strongly that this will be the only way to bring large numbers of people into the off-planet environment. The government-dominated program that we have had in place for the past half-century hasn't done it. So far, only 500-plus people worldwide have actually had the profound experience of seeing the Earth from space and in space, while floating weightlessly in the silence of our vast universe. And NASA has been responsible for only some of those flights.

But change is difficult. We have recently witnessed some of our most distinguished astronauts opposing the new approach. We have also seen politicians from the states that are most affected by the cancellation of the Constellation program rallying and railing against that decision. I find it so ironic that many of these same people have opposed the president with great ferocity when he has extended the reach of government, but in one of the only areas where he is taking a different course, they are supporting a program that calls for more government rather than less.

The current proposals for the NASA budget have, unfortunately, split the American space community, which is a sad outcome of it. Regardless of how the inevitable compromises work out in the coming weeks, I hope they will help to bring us closer together again. We are not, by any means, the largest community in the United States, so we can ill afford high leves of disunity.

The Overview Effect for Everyone

Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic is scheduled today to unveil the spacecraft that will carry thousands of people into orbit, starting in a few years.

While this may seem like "a very small step for humankind," it is really huge. So far, only about 500 people have left the planet and directly experienced the Overview Effect. Soon,  that number will expand dramatically. What took 40 years to achieve will be accomplished in a year or so. As people bring their new consciousness back to the Earth, a quantitative change will become qualitative.

What will the change look like? We can't say for sure, but the Overview Institute is dedicated to finding out and sharing our insights with the world.

Look for more on this blog in the future.

The Augustine Commission

The Augustine Commission is about to make its report to President Obama on options for NASA in the future. The Commission has done all of us a service by pointing out that NASA cannot achieve President Bush's vision for space exploration with the funds that will be available in the near term.

This means we need a new vision, and the problem is this : a vision needs to be exciting to be meaningful, and all the options currently facing NASA are rather limited, if seen on their own. We will only become enthusiastic about space exploration again if we see it in a global context, as part of a Human Space Program.

I will have more to say about this issue in future posts.

Frank

What Apollo Was About

I was watching the Apollo 11 celebration in Washington on NASA TV last night, and I saw something significant as I looked at the logo for the 40th anniversary of the landing. Now, remember that the Apollo effort was supposedly all about going to the moon. However, as shuttle astronaut Joe Allen said in the interview that he granted for my book, The Overview Effect, "With all the arguments, pro and con, for going to the moon, no one suggested that we should do it to look at the Earth. But that may in fact be the most important reason."

It seems that whoever designed the logo for the Apollo 11 celebration knew that Allen was right, because the scene is not a view of the moon. It is, rather, a view of the Earth as seen from the moon. The perspective is from the lunar surface, with the numbers 4 and 0 in the foreground, and the Earth rising on the horizon within the 0. Think about all the choices that NASA had in designing that logo, all the people who had to participate in approving it, and in the end, think about the fact that they chose to make the view of the Earth, the Overview Effect, the centerpiece.

Now, imagine all the arguments pro and con, for going to Mars. Could it be that we will eventually realize that the real reason was to see the Earth from the surface of the red planet? And what will the logo look like for the 40th anniversary of that landing?



Frank White

Apollo 11's 40th Anniversary

On July 20, we will celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

People will write millions of words about this central event of our time, but will anyone ask and answer the big question: how did this event affect our consciousness, how did it change our awareness of our place in the universe? A second question, which is naturally linked with the first, is this: why haven't we gone farther into the universe with human exploration? If we were on the moon from 1969 to 1972, why aren't we on Mars now?

I suspect that a number of people will ask these questions, but I wonder who will have the best answer? Or the most satisfying answer?

I think that, while I may not have the best answer to these questions, I might have some unique perspectives on them, which I will share in the coming days. leading up to the anniversary itself.

Frank