If a single country can figure out how to do inexpensive space travel, they stand poised to be the dominant force of the 21st century. Not so much in terms of “victory”, but in terms of deciding what humanity is to become. The primary reason for this is advanced materials and manufacturing that are made possible when you put your “factories” into a micro-gravity environment. They potentially allow us to build hugely more powerful… everything. Whoever maintains that lead gets to decide the course of the next stage in human history as we colonize the solar system and then the galaxy beyond.
At 9:30 AM EST Monday morning Burt Rutan's civilian Spaceship One will launch, carried aloft by the White Knight, the first totally privately funded and developed manned space mission. Spaceship one will fly to 62 miles in height, the boundary of where our little planet ends and the vast reaches of outer space begin. CNN should be playing it, and there is a live webcast over at MSNBC assuming they don't get flooded with viewers. There is more info over on the Scaled Composites page as well.
Seriously, how much more exciting could the future be? This is an awesome time to be alive… We are simultaneously watching the governments of superpowers bring their nations to the verge of collapse with the ignorance of war, while at the same time watching the passion of small groups of single individuals rocket us into a new era. We humans have done amazing things before, but this is the only path that will allow us to become Gods, to become immortal, and to survive our sun's death billions of years from now.
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