[ExI] Hawking urges Moon landing to 'elevate humanity'

[Giulio Prisco]

Adrian, please repeat with me the magic word: AND. Repeat it like a
mantra, and, And, AND... it's really a magic word.

We need space industrialization. YES. We need cheap access to space.
YES. We need commercial space. YES. We need cubesats (YES). Cubecab is
awesome. YES!!! ;-)

AND we need to see people walking on the Moon to intoxicate us with
imagination highs and never ending dreams. YES. Otherwise, why should
a young and brilliant engineer want to work on space projects instead
of developing one more useless phone app and become an instant
millionaire?

On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 7:52 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not so.  Space industrialization can make that happen.
>
> The Moon landings were one thing.  Lots of people getting very, VERY
> rich (billionaires if not trillionaires) from their workings in space?
>  That's a whole other kind of sexy.
>
> On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 10:30 PM, Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Adrian, of course this depends on one's emotional triggers, but to me
>> the ISS is no powerful symbol. It's sexy like a brick. When I was at
>> ESA I used to criticize the ISS/Shuttle emphasis and the abandonment
>> of Moon exploration as a losers' choice that would make space boring
>> and uninteresting. I got into troubles with top management for that on
>> at least one occasion, but facts proved me right.
>>
>> Not to say that we don't need the ISS, and of course as you said we
>> need cheap access to space more than everything, but we need to make
>> space sexy again (as Hawking says), and only manned exploration of the
>> Moon and the planets can do that.
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 9:15 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Another moon landing would not be such a symbol.  It's been done, and people
>>> have seen what little comes of it.
>>>
>>> Just extending the ISS's lifespan, or setting up the ISS's replacement (to
>>> be launched and manned before the last person leaves the ISS), would do
>>> more.  People are in space today, and that hasn't gone away yet.  That is a
>>> powerful, ongoing symbol.
>>>
>>> On Jun 22, 2017 6:07 AM, "Giulio Prisco" <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Of course I agree that cheaper space access is needed and, once it's
>>>> there, will open many doors. But don't dismiss the power of symbols.
>>>> Apollo was all about flags and footprints, and everyone knew that. Yet
>>>> Apollo inspired a whole generation, and some of them did great things,
>>>> in space and in other sectors. We need cheap access to space, and
>>>> people like you are doing good things for that, but we also need to
>>>> start dreaming again.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 3:32 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 12:18 AM, Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com>
>>>> > wrote:
>>>> >> Hawking urges Moon landing to 'elevate humanity'
>>>> >> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40345048
>>>> >
>>>> > Even Obama said "we've been there", IIRC.  Flags and footprints won't
>>>> > help - on the Moon or on Mars.
>>>> >
>>>> > What we need is more affordable space access.  That will cause all
>>>> > other space dreams to become far more possible - and be enough to
>>>> > cause many to happen.
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