Charting America's path spaceward

(In this article, I request your help to "follow" my company's LinkedIn page to boost the number of followers to 150 so that I can begin a newsletter on my company's page called "Spaceward".)

https://www.linkedin.com/company/spacefaring-institute

On 25 May 2007, coming up on 20 years ago, I began a blog called "Spacefaring America". The first posting, also titled "Spacefaring America", introduced why I thought the blog was needed:

In the book Engines of Creation (K. Eric Drexler), I was introduced to the concept of a “meme.” Rhyming with theme, a meme is a replicating mental pattern identified, by Richard Dawkins, as being analogous to genes. Memes “propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain.” Dawkins cites one example of a meme–catch-phrases. It is in that sense that I want to introduce a new catch phrase to you–Spacefaring America.

The phrase “seafaring” is well recognized. Related terms are seafarer, mariner, and marine. As the purpose of language is to communicate thoughts and ideas, new words and phrases to describe the ability of a people to use the sea for travel, transportation, and commerce were developed. Humanity has been seafaring for over 6 millennia. Becoming seafaring created new internal knowledge and industrial capability. Being seafaring enabled societies to reach beyond their land borders to gain additional knowledge, wealth, and security. Many (perhaps, most) great nations in history became great through their seafaring capabilities.

Whereas becoming seafaring was humanity’s expansion in two dimensions to seek knowledge, wealth, and security, becoming spacefaring will be humanity’s expansion in three dimensions to seek knowledge, wealth, and security. And just as, today, seafaring creates a mental image of humankind in command of the sea through technology, in the future, spacefaring will create a mental image of humankind in command of space through technology.

“Spacefaring America” is, hence, a new catch phrase to portray a mental image of America as a spacefaring nation with command of space through technology, enabling Americans to seek knowledge, wealth, and security in space.

How this can be accomplished and why it is critical that America now becomes a true spacefaring nation is the focus of this blog.

That same day, I posted the second blog entry that addressed "What it means to be spacefaring" by introducing the meme "spacefarer".

A spacefaring nation is one that has command of space through technology to enable its citizens to seek knowledge, wealth, and security in space or from space. No nation has yet reached this level of technological capability in the broad sense of what spacefaring should mean. An increasing number of nations have the capability of launching expendable vehicles into space and to use these to place unmanned satellites into space. Three nations now have the capability of transporting humans to low Earth orbit, while others could to do this should they wish. However, these capabilities fall short of those of a true spacefaring civilization.

In a seafaring civilization, its citizens have the freedom, by virtue of technology-enabled seafaring logistics infrastructure, to traverse the seas as travelers and mariners. In a true spacefaring civilization, its citizens will enjoy the freedom to access and travel in space as travelers or as spacefarers (those who by occupation work in space). While some argue that Russia, the U.S., and China are currently spacefaring nations, I do not concur. Substantial new spacefaring logistics infrastructure capabilities are required before citizens of any country will be able to regularly and safely access and work in space.

The meme of a Spacefaring America can now be further defined to be where Americans are spacefarers, utilizing spacefaring logistics infrastructure to access and work in space to reap knowledge, wealth, and security from space.

To my great disappointment, in the last nearly 20 years America has made little true progress in becoming a true human spacefaring nation. In fact, it has receded from where it was in 2007. Thus, while I have made 127 long-form blog posts since 2007—and will continue to do so—I now see the need to address more of the day-to-day spacefaring interests of America and its free-world allies with a special focus on "astrologistics" and "astroelectricity".

I wish to begin a LinkedIn Spacefaring Institute LLC newsletter called "Spaceward". However, to start this, I need to have 150 followers on the Spacefaring Insitute LLC page. I have not used the company page for many posts, thus it has only a few followers.

Please go to the Spacefaring Institute LLC page and follow it.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/spacefaring-institute

My best regards,

Mike Snead