Universes like Star Wars and Halo have captured our imaginations and interests since we watched Sputnik shoot past the night sky back in late ’57. Culturally we could see this transition in the ideas for movies and media. There was even a reference that went over all our heads back in 1999’s Toy Story 2. “Two words: Sput-nik. Once the astronauts went up, children only wanted to play with space toys.” It felt like overnight we shifted from looking at the past for adventure and into the future. Huge fleets of mining ships, battle stations that dwarfed stars, and adventures for everyone’s tolerance of danger.
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This future could be soon, maybe in ours or our children’s lifetime. The dependence on terrestrial resources and the limitation of such resources is a fallacy. There are asteroids within our reach that have more resources than we could imagine. There is a false common knowledge belief that Uranus or Neptune rains diamonds and, even though this is not exactly true, it is telling of the opportunities that are outside our atmosphere.
The moon itself is abundant in metals and oxygen. Aluminum, iron, sodium, magnesium, titanium, silicon, all molecularly paired with oxygen atoms are abundant on the moon’s surface. Trace amounts of gases like methane, helium, argon, and ammonia are also present. China has been debating the rights to the helium 3 on the moon that could power the future of the human race. Helium 3 is an isotope that could fuel fusion reactors of the future and could finally destroy our dependence on fossil fuels, and change the geopolitical status quo of the world we live in.
Most of our foreign policy in the US is heavily based on the acquisition and domination of resources and markets. We fought wars based on resources, oil kingdoms have risen and fallen in the oil rich region of the Middle East. Iran’s regime is based on their export of oil to most of the world, and by closely examining the conflict in Ukraine and the oil rich offshore fields of Crimea, it’s easy to see that international conflict is based on scarcity. but in a solar system full of resources and elements that are just sitting there, could scarcity even be considered a real issue? It seems more like it benefits us to pretend that resources are finite, and a lot of wealth would be ripped out of peoples mouths if we transitioned to something different, and nation states would collapse economically if oil became worthless.
The divisions and chaos of this world stems from being trapped on an island with 1 coconut tree, and the coconut tree is getting older and more frail every day. If we could just build a boat to the mainland that we can see glowing in the distance every night, we could have more than the coconuts we keep fighting over. Earth is an island we are slowly out growing, we are running out of space, food and resources here and the powers at be keep trying to keep us rooted in the sand.
Every year we keep looking for someone to save us. A strong leader is supposed to show up one day and save us, like Warhammer 40k. The emperor of mankind is supposed to unite us and lead us into the stars, but the reality is that there is no immortal, golden clad, godlike leader that is going to carry us into prosperity. We need to rally behind an idea, a goal, something that could be carried on past the lifespan of a mortal man. We as a people have to realize that our future lies beyond the clouds above. Maybe the old stories of a heaven above still have some merit. That the glory of a kind empathetic god who only wants the best for us is really hidden behind the clouds. It’s just not in the form of a bearded old man with snow white hair, but in giant rocks and moons floating in the abyss.
After reaching the moon America had proven their point. They did something spectacular to prove their dominance over communism and… we left it at that. We stopped funding NASA, we stopped going to space after the soviets conceded defeat on the last frontier. It was never the point that we wanted to go to space or gather resources on the moon. It was a goal post, not a stepping stone to us. Now private corporations like Space X and Disney star Bridgit Mendler’s satellite start up are trying to tread where governments saw no more glory. The new pioneers of a stellar western frontier, and I can’t help but notice that these people’s goals don’t line up with the status quo. In response the media has been demonizing SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for years. Just for clarification I’m not a huge fan of him myself, if the rumors of his strange ideas, lifestyle choices, and wild stories are true, but he is still revolutionizing space travel and making it more and more financially feasible.
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The one thing he is trying to do, he does exceptionally well. He finds needs, and then fills those needs with competent and qualified people. This is another example of good leaders not being these god-like beings. Good leaders are people that enable other’s success where they can. The idea and the goal is what keeps them together, like a company’s mission statement. We need a mission statement for humanity, and we need to enable each other to achieve our success.
We need to shoot for the stars, where new fortunes, futures, and frontiers lie. We need an easy to communicate goal to propel us forward. What we don’t need is men to rally around them and their cults of personality. Even the achievements and kingdoms of incredible successful men like Alexander The Great and Genghis Khan disintegrate once they pass away, and the vultures with no vision pick apart the remains. Ideas are immortal and live on past us. To fuse two quotes from Andrew Ryan and V for Vendetta’s titular hero, No gods or kings, only men and their bullet proof ideas.
