Great talk with Arfan. He is a veterinarian in Pakistan. He works for a company that produces feed for chickens.
He was aware of NASA 2024 plans to land people on the moon. He had heard about it from friends. But most of the people I have interviewed had not heard of it. And it is very possible that people might pay more attention if we were sending a dog to the moon. Of course, they might seriously ask questions about why we are doing that.
But how long would it be before we start sending pets and bigger animals than mice into space? A pet could provide much comfort to astronauts on a 6 month voyage to Mars. Also, at some point we will be creating permanently crewed facilities on the moon and on Mars and beyond. At some point those facilities will have families. And eventually those families will have pets. I am willing to wager that there will be pets in space in the next 20 years (so by 2040 we will have dogs, cats, hamsters, etc. in space).
Arfan is supportive of exploration. But we need to figure out how to live in peace with each other here on earth. How do we promote understanding. The internet can help like minded people across the world to band together for common causes. But not everyone has access to the internet. And in China the internet is censored to help support the state government. How can we have world peace if we can not have open and truthful conversations across the world.
And space is going to make it much harder for governments to control what their people see online. Starlink may be the way that we free people in China. It will be nearly impossible to monitor every roof top and to stop Starlink from every house.
In order for the people of the world to be at peace with each other, they need to be free.