Backstage with two astronauts, before our talks on the Future of Space at the XPRIZE Visioneering event today.
Rusty Schweickart was the first Lunar Module Pilot, and during his Apollo 9 spacewalk, he had an unexpected five minute waiting period without checklists or activities to distract him. He said it changed his life. He saw the Earth streaming by at 17,500 MPH, with no boundaries between countries. “We are all Earthlings.”
He saw the precious lifeboat of Earth with its thin blue line of atmosphere and like Neil Armstrong, realized how precious and vulnerable Earth would be to the celestial onslaught of large meteorite strikes.
He went on to found the Association of Space Explorers to collaborate with the Soviets on space policy and planetary defense. He also co-founded B612, dedicated to early detection of future asteroid threats affording enough time for deflection.
We are at a remarkable time in human history where we can compute the orbital trajectories of all Near Earth Objects looking out 50 years and make small adjustments to the solar system to protect life on Earth.
Survival is computational. Intelligence allows us to see the future.
There is something poetic about the computational defense of humanity. And something that rhymes with history. The Space Race of the 60s was won computationally, not by brute force heavy-lift, which would have favored the Soviets.
With Anousheh Ansari and Rusty in Malibu; B612 visual below (I was an early donor there)
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