Water on the Moon: What Next?

NASA recently ran an experiment in which they crashed a spacecraft into a lunar crater to see if they might detect water there. As it turned out, they did, which should be a paradigm-shifting view of the moon and of our debates about space exploration.

The fact that there is water on the moon changes our view of our own satellite from that of a desolate planetary body to a place with a lot of potential for us as a spacefaring species. Moreover, water is the essence of life as we know it. I haven't really heard any speculation about whether there is some form of life on the moon, but water certainly enhances the chances for us to live there.

There should be even more to it than that, however. In the Overview Effect and other writings, I have proposed that we move beyond seeing the Earth as a living system (The Gaia Hypothesis) and see the universe in the same way. I have, in homage to James Lovelock, called this idea "The Cosma Hypothesis." (cf, The Overview Effect, p. 93 and Living in Space, pp. 8-9) It really isn't all that new, and other authors, such as C.S. Lewis, have argued that space is not a dead vacuum, but rather a place teeming with life and beauty. Much of our recent exploration of the solar system, including Mars, confirms this perspective. More recently, Duane Elgin and Deepak Chopra have published a book on this topic called The Living Universe.

This matters because so many people, in my experience, oppose human evolution into the universe precisely because they see a stark contrast between Earth and space, with the former being friendly to humans and the latter being unfriendly. Of course, we cannot survive in a vacuum, and we would still need technological support to live on the moon or Mars, but let's begin to look beyond our neighborhood and see if we can't think of the universe, as well as the Earth, as our home.

Frank White

The Human Space Program

In The Overview Effect, I proposed a "Human Space Program" that would be global in scope, and would transcend all national programs. It would last for a millennium, and would be a "central project" designed to unify humanity in a common purpose, i.e., exploration of the universe.

There are signs that this kind of thinking is now seeping into the global consciousness, and I want to report on it in some detail in future posts. I have read several references to NASA/ESA cooperation, and to a proposal by a thought leader in India for a new, global vision of space exploration. The Augustine Commission is also clearly pointing in this direction.

For now, suffice it to say that it is very exciting to see this taking place. I hope we can nurture this new thinking and make it a reality.

Frank

Big Space, Little Space

Portions of the Augustine Commission's report to President Obama have now been made available, and it appears to me that they have gotten some of it right. First, they have recognized that President Bush's vision for space exploration may not be viable because of the costs involved. If this insight is recognized and handled honestly by the president and congress, it will be a major breakthrough. For too long, NASA has been pursuing plans that could not be supported by their budget. The agency should either be fully funded, or the plans should be scaled back.

The Commission also emphasizes the global nature of space exploration and the value of NASA partnering with private enterprise to realize some of our more ambitious goals as a nation. Again, this is a paradigm shift away from a NASA-centric view of space exploration that is long overdue.

I don't know the final shape of American space policy, but our thinking does seem to be coming into alignment with reality, which is a good thing. Still, whatever NASA does will be a variation on the theme of "Big Space," i.e., lots of government money being spent on relatively large space exploration efforts. By contrast, I was struck recently by reports of a different approach, a kind of "little space program" if you will. Two MIT students have apparently sent a weather balloon high into the atmosphere and have taken pictures of the Earth from space! Their total cost was $150, and I could only think, "Wow, that is the least expensive experience of the Overview Effect so far!"

These students proved to me that any barriers that might be preventing the opening up of the space frontier are not financial in nature---they are simply failures of the imagination!

Frank White

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

Living in Space

If you ask most "space enthusiasts" whether they would like to live in space, they will say, "Yes!" If you tell them that they are already living in space, it may take a while for them to understand what you mean.

Language is important. How we say things influences how we think about them. Ever since I wrote The Overview Effect, I have been working on creating the understanding within myself that we are already in space. We are in space, we have always been in space, and we will always be in space because the Earth is in space and can't be anywhere else. (In the book, I tell the story of a young man in a daycare center who helped me to see the importance of this insight.)

The challenge before us is to find ways to be elsewhere in the universe. Right now, we are more or less imprisoned on this planet. It is a beautiful prison, and one that we can enjoy greatly. However, we are not yet free to leave it if we want to do so.

What we are really talking about is finding a way for those of us who want to do so to leave the Earth, and be in space in a different way. Not everyone will go, of course. Sometimes, when there is a prison break, some of the prisoners stay inside. Sometimes, when the restless members of a society go exploring, others stay at home.

In the meantime, though, how would it change our lives to just relax a bit and realize that we are in space. Another methphor, coined by Buckminster Fuller, is that we are on Spaceship Earth, traveling through the universe at a high rate of speed.

As I pointed out in The Overview Effect, everyone on the spaceship is either a passenger or a crew member ("Terranaut"). Wouldn't you rather be a Terranaut?

Frank White

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

Wow: NASA TV!

I've become a fan of NASA TV. Okay, I know it is sometimes like watching paint dry when they have those shots of mission control and no sound whatsoever. I'm thinking, "How can they make space exploration so boring?"

But then, suddenly, they switch to live shots from the International Space Station or the shuttle, and there it is, the Earth rolling past. It is what I am talking about all the time, the Overview Effect! It's what the astronauts see!

The views aren't perfect, because there is often a lot of hardware in the way, but can still be impressive. The other day, they offered commentary, which was even better. The NASA person told us we were over the Pacific Ocean, then over Saskatchewan, and so on.

Now I have an idea, and if anyone reads this, please let me know how to do it. I would like to create a screensaver that is made up of edited NASA TV videos of the Earth from orbit. Ultimately, I'd rather have live video, but this will do for now. The Overview Institute could distribute these screensavers for free, and spread the word (and the images) of the Overview Effect.

I like the concept, now I just have to figure out how to do it.

Suggestions welcomed.