Kevin Atlas is the first player missing a limb to play NCAA Division 1 basketball, he overcame the early death of his father, a challenging home environment and a legion of critics to become one of the top high school basketball players in his home state of California while earning a scholarship to join the Manhattan College Jaspers.
In our interview we talked about how perspective drives performance. How we need to be resilient and overcome obstacles. How we as humanity need to keep moving ahead.
Brett and I both share the vision and belief that, “Humans will return to the moon someday. And they will return to stay.”
But the question we need to answer, the question that must be answered, and the question whose answer will ensure it happens is “Why?”
The destiny of humans to be an interstellar species is why I see NASA’s mission to return humans to the moon (hopefully to stay) as an important first step to this.
Do you agree with me that this is our destiny?
Brett’s mantra on how to live life: “Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.” (That is a quote from philosopher Henri Bergson. If you aren’t a man then substitute the thought for “woman” or “being” or whatever works best for you.)
The unintended consequences on human space exploration after humanity saw the iconic “Earth rise” photograph from an Apollo mission.
How the nature of the universe and the human nature plays a role in our return to the moon. (This is why Brett’s is writing Goodnight Moon Base.)
The clash between the timeframes of human evolution and the evolution of human-developed technology. (A thought-provoking book on this topic is The Watchman’s Rattle by Rebecca Costa).
What if we take the extreme long view of our current point in human history? The Long Now Foundation refers to this as the year 02020. Try to think about humanity in that time scale.
Is education and our schools serving us appropriately today? We have to acknowledge that public schools in the USA were established to help kids move from the farm to the factories. Many vestiges of that system and that philosophy still exist today.
When humans first stepped onto the moon, it unleashed inspiration and motivation for an entire generation of kids to learn, study, and pursue a career in aviation or aerospace. Historic accomplishments in human space exploration do that. This will certainly happen again when humans return to the moon the next time.
Imagine looking up at the moon and seeing signs of human activity. Imagine the day when young people will never have known otherwise, and older people will remember when it was “our vacant moon.”
To protect and preserve the moon and the historic artifacts on it (such as Apollo landing sites), we have For All Moonkind.
To follow news on moon exploration efforts, I subscribe to the daily email news digest from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (the AIAA Daily Launch).
To avoid living in a bubble or silo of news and opinions, we need to live in a free and open society.
We also can’t continue to learn, grow, and collaborate as a society without valuing freedom, peace, and prosperity. How else are we ever going to understand how gravity works? (And then, how to control it?)
Only through diverse perspectives and being open to new ideas do we obtain the flashes of insight that move us forward and expose us to the magnificent wonders of the larger universe.
Some of these insights can only come from those who experience The Overview Effect – when you can stretch out your hand and the entire planet Earth is hidden behind it. Helping more people experience this transformation perspective is the mission of Space For Humanity.
The value of giving our future moon explorers free time on the moon. The value of sending artists to the moon.
If you want to do something in space exploration (or see humanity achieve tremendous progress in this regard), there is no better time to be alive. Stay alive as long as you can because the best is yet to come.
If you aren’t sure about this claim, read Brett’s book How To Be a Rocket Scientist to learn why and how. If you want to inspire future generations to live beyond Earth and venture toward the stars, sign up to be notified when my upcoming book Goodnight Moon Base will be published.
