The Beginning of a New Era
To get away from all of the noise out there, I wanted to highlight an event that took place from Thursday-Saturday this past weekend. In my opinion it is one of the most significant events that has taken place in years and arguably in decades. This event is the beginning of the change I see taking place over the coming decades that will revolutionize the world we live in. This event is the first all Civilian Space Flight in history taken on by the incredible innovation hub we all know of as SpaceX. You might ask yourself, “this isn’t going to change my life” but overtime you would be sorely mistaken.
Over the last couple decades, it has been SpaceX’s goal to develop a fully reusable rocket system and eventually to make life a multiplanetary species. Some will tell you that this is a pipe dream, but over the coming years/decades we will see more dreams becoming a reality outside of the beautiful place we call home, Earth. This change will not at first be civilian space flight. Overtime though, there is potential for spaceflight to be affordable for the average citizen. For the time being this is not a possibility. The noticeable innovation will be in robotics and AI to help us build infrastructure for humans to live in outside of the safety of Earth’s atmosphere. For instance, there are companies out there trying to build machines that could potentially mine asteroids. Why would they do this? Well, for example there is a known asteroid out there that has rare earth minerals within it. Actually, the asteroid is supposedly very dense in these minerals. If I remember correctly, if something could mine this asteroid fully and sell it for the prices here on Earth it would be worth Quintillions of Dollars. For reference, one quintillion would equal 1,000,000 Trillions. Obviously, if someone could mine this cost effectively it would destroy pricing which is why that dollar amount would never be realized. This just gives you an idea on actually how much resources are out there for us to use. Actually, we would never be able to bring these resources back to earth due to trying to land them on the ground after falling from the atmosphere. This is because the weight would make the space capsule come into Earth like a meteor which as we all know would be devastating. So the resources in space will most likely be used to construct things in space.
Then once proper infrastructure is created, humans will begin exploring other planetary body’s probably starting with scientists. Then once more robust infrastructure is developed it could eventually be common to live off of Earth. This will probably take longer than any of our lives, but it is still happening and future generations will live in a society that could potentially be multiplanetary. As of now, NASA is working on the Artemis Program. This will bring the first humans back to the moon since Apollo but with one large difference. We will be going to the moon to stay. They will be researching ways to actually have people on our moon 24/7. This is something that will occur over this decade and is the beginning of a new age in society.
Lastly, eventually terraforming a planet such as Mars will become possible. As of today, our biggest worry as humans is Global Warming. What are we trying to do to solve this? We have people working on ways to change the makeup of our atmosphere on Earth. This is technically “terraforming” a planet. So basically we are working on terraforming Earth, and if us as humans survive for the next few centuries there is potential we could use this knowledge to work on making other planets habitable.
Space is hard, and this will take trial and error. But innovation is opening doors our great grandparents would never of thought possible. I believe this will continue to happen where we will be in the same shoes as them with our great grandchildren. This SpaceX launch should not only open our eyes, but also should inspire future generations to keep innovating. Also, this Space venture’s funder Isaacman donated $100 million to St. Jude. So far the flight has raised $160 million for the children’s hospital. I find it amazing that someone was willing to do this, and I think this will inspire other wealthy individuals to do similar philanthropic ventures. Nonetheless, the main takeaway from this article should be that even through all the noise day-to-day, the world is changing. Sometimes it might not seem for the better. But in my opinion problems are essential because it gives youthful minds things to innovate to make us as a society more efficient than ever before. Stay positive, the hardest times are when the world is pushed to make the largest changes. The catch is it takes time. Be patient and willing to let time play its roll in the changes that are beginning to take place that will revolutionize all of our futures.
-Riley Sisson
Any opinions are those of Riley Sisson and not necessarily those of Raymond James.
