Re: [TDF-2006-01] TDF ANNOUNCES THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION April 1st 2006
Adriano,
Many thanks for that - Of course I realise that you've sent
that URL to me before . . .
Actually this morning I did the last lecture in a course
on Environmental Economics, and like last term I ended
up talking about the Pregnant Earth Theory as a way of
pulling together the threads of the Open Future that the
space option offers - in sharp contrast to the 21st
Century Resource Wars that our so-called leaders offer us
today.
But what a chilling thought you offer - that Katrina's
$200 billion blow may already be undermining many
possibilities. Certainly it must be for the USA
- luckily we don't have hurricanes in Europe. If
only we can overcome the "Nothing but Ariane"
mentality! Next chance on April 1 :-)
By the way, Peter should contact you soon re Space
Future Consulting's contribution to the Conference.
Very Best,
Patrick
> Dear Patrick,
>
> Thank you for the wishes, and for your support and encouragement, that's
> very important for me.
>
> By now the only reference is the page on TDF:
> http://www.tdf.it/2005/Pregnearth.htm
>
> On that page you can find links to all the known web pages referring and
> discussing the concept.
>
> I will prepare a paper on the Pregnant Earth concept, as soon as possible.
>
> Ciao
> Adriano
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Patrick Q. Collins" <collins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <sf-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: <collins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 11:04 AM
> Subject: Re: [TDF-2006-01] TDF ANNOUNCES THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
> April 1st 2006
>
>
> >
> > Warmest congratulations, Adriano, and best wishes for
> > the first TdF Conference. A great step - and surely the
> > first of a series that will run for decades! :-)
> >
> > By the way, Is there a formal Reference I can use for
> > the Pregnant Earth Theory? I find myself referring to
> > it more and more frequently, but as you know, when
> > writing it is useful to have a hard reference. Please
> > let me know if there is one already - I apologise for
> > being so ignorant. Perhaps we can put it up in the Space
> > Future library? If there is not yet, then please draft
> > even a precis of the idea and we will put that up.
> >
> > Very best,
> >
> > Patrick
> >
> >
> >> Dear Co-planetaries,
> >>
> >> First of all let me announce the First International Convention of
> >> Technologies of the Frontier, that will be held the April 1st 2006, in
> >> the
> >> medieval castle of Moncrivello (Piedmont, North Italy).
> >>
> >> It is a not a "conventional convention". We planned it as a fusion
> >> between
> >> Vision, Science and Art. From 9.30 am to 22:00 pm, we will have talks on
> >> philosophical themes, economics, technologies, and artistic contributes:
> >> visual artists and musicians (both jazz and classical) will present their
> >> projects inspired by Space and Astronautic.
> >>
> >> Some of the biggest names of the emerging Space Economy will be present.
> >> Among others:
> >> - Jim Benson, of Space Dev (the constructor of the engine of
> >> SpaceShipOne,
> >> winner of the X-Prize)
> >> - Patrick Collins, of SpaceFuture, forerunner of the Space Tourism and
> >> SPS
> >> themes
> >> - Steven Wolfe, US astronautical philosopher, member of the Congressional
> >> Space Caucus, board of directors of the National Space Society
> >> - Aerospace Italian Industry and Research: CIRA, CGS, Blue, In and Out
> >> Space, and others
> >> - Universities engaged in the aerospace research, like the Politecnico of
> >> Torino
> >> - Researchers and Entrepreneurs in the fields of Astronautics and Space
> >> Tourism
> >>
> >> Subscribe quickly!: the castle is not very big, and places are limited!
> >> Furthermore, we need to know enough in advance the number of the
> >> participants, in order to work with a minimum needed budget, to dimension
> >> some convention services (buffet, video recording, etc.)
> >>
> >> Very much courage it took to organize such a convention in Italy, for
> >> people, as we are, which have all their professional engagements, and for
> >> a
> >> magazine that hasn't big sponsors, and it lives only thanks to the
> >> voluntary
> >> work of the editorial staff.
> >> Therefore we ask you to help us, and to participate in big number!
> >>
> >> Register on the web site web of the convention.
> >> http://www.tdf.it/IC1/TDF_IC1_Home.htm
> >>
> >> Follows an abstract of the newsletter, that you can read whole online
> >> (http://www.tdf.it/2006/nws_106_eng.htm ).
> >>
> >> At the beginning of 2003, we asked to forecast the best future and the
> >> worse
> >> future in 2033 (http://www.tdf.it/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi ).
> >>
> >> The 2033 that I dream of, and that all sincere humanists, I believe,
> >> dream
> >> with me, sees the philosophy of the open world in full development, the
> >> space economy soundly on its way, with a perspective of practically
> >> boundless growth, the planetary conflicts moving towards solution and the
> >> environmental problems at least lightening, thanks to a progressive
> >> decrease
> >> in pressure on the ecosystem of this planet, since we will have begun to
> >> transfer elsewhere the weight of our growth (see A millennium of growth
> >> of
> >> the civilization http://www.tdf.it/cgi-bin/dcforum/DCForumID17/8.html ).
> >>
> >> The worst 2033 is, instead, an apocalyptic scenery: the world remaining
> >> closed, economy with neither space nor resources to expand, all conflicts
> >> worsening, authoritarianism and barbarity progressively regaining their
> >> positions, and our civilization entering an irreversible, regressive
> >> vortex.
> >> I also wrote: in a closed world, with a human population of around 8
> >> billion, the economic, the social, and the energy problems, (both of
> >> resources and environmental) will drown us; the economy will fail, and we
> >> will no longer have the money for space. But, also, we won't have the
> >> imagination, the necessary cultural freshness, to expand into
> >> extraterrestrial space. The time window favourable for the first
> >> footsteps
> >> of our civilization toward the stars, opened in the 50's of the last
> >> century, would be closed, perhaps irreversibly. It would be difficult
> >> even
> >> to imagine if and when this regressive process could change direction.
> >> (see
> >> The victory of the closed world
> >> http://www.tdf.it/cgi-bin/dcforum/DCForumID18/4.html ).
> >>
> >> Reading those lines again today, with only two years distance, brings
> >> shivers to me.
> >> The price of oil, our main source of energy, reached very high levels,
> >> and,
> >> beyond economic fluctuations, everything makes us think that it will keep
> >> increasing on a wave of rising demand, due to Asian development (see the
> >> Alberto Cavallo's article http://www.tdf.it/2005/3/acener_eng.htm ). In
> >> general though, the global economy is stagnant, missing lines of strong
> >> new
> >> industrial development, and is restrained by the narrowness of the energy
> >> and material resources of our (currently) only planet. The conflicts
> >> multiply and worsen, rather than finding solutions. In the space of just
> >> one
> >> year we had: tsunamis, hurricanes, and, last, the avian influence.
> >>
> >> Some colleagues, participants of the IAF Congress, held in Fukuoka
> >> (Japan),
> >> October 17th-21st, reported the declarations of some of NASA's exponents:
> >> that 200 billion dollars, targeted to the reconstruction of New Orleans,
> >> would be in alternative to the new US space program.
> >>
> >> Is the worse 2033, therefore, already here? Are we already forced to
> >> choose
> >> between expansion into space, (provided such an option was really
> >> proposed
> >> as a strategic choice, and unfortunately it is not so) and a continuous
> >> series of emergencies?
> >>
> >> It would be more than legitimate to loose heart: our political leaders
> >> were
> >> not able - even before - to see space as more than an easy expedient to
> >> tap
> >> money from tax-payers, ready to tune up for other "responsible,
> >> reasonable
> >> and sustainable" songs, following fashion and popular emotionalism. We
> >> don't
> >> need professional pundits to prophesy that space would quickly drop to
> >> the
> >> tail of the priorities list, long before emergencies imposed any drastic
> >> choices. Anyone seeing the frequency of contractions of the pregnancy of
> >> Mother Earth, pregnant with a Baby Solar Civilization, likely near term,
> >> would very probably expect - as with many underweight childbirths (and
> >> still
> >> nowadays, in less lucky areas of the planet) -tragedy for the mother, or
> >> for
> >> the child, or for both.
> >>
> >> A slogan of Greenpeace comes to my mind, recently seen in the media:
> >> "Decide. Either you defend the planet, or it will defend itself alone." A
> >> firm stigmatization of the tone, almost apologetic towards natural
> >> disasters, and rather threatening towards the victims, it is obviously
> >> mandatory, for us humanists. To such a slogan, sad and gloomy, I would
> >> like
> >> to oppose with another one, much more effective and that, above all,
> >> doesn't
> >> foretell death and destruction, but on the contrary life and human
> >> solidarity:
> >> "Decide. If you don't defend your kind, nobody will defend it."
> >>
> >> The terrocrats seem to keep on ruling in the whole planet. As we saw
> >> there
> >> are several reasons (real or presumed) in our society, to maintain a
> >> state
> >> of fear, which induces the people to keep on supporting governments that
> >> are
> >> more and more incompatible with strategies of true development. Before
> >> the
> >> fall of the Berlin wall the terrorising function was covered by the
> >> ideological enemy, beyond the wall, and by the threat of nuclear
> >> holocaust.
> >> Following a short period of disorientation, after the wall's fall, the
> >> void
> >> was filled by various environmental threats, by the terrorism of Al
> >> Qaeda,
> >> by immigration and by the so-called confrontation between civilizations.
> >> All
> >> such threats are anything but scientifically proved (the environmental
> >> ones), and surely not resolvable by the logic of an eye for an eye and
> >> tooth
> >> for a tooth (the terrorist ones). As for the avian influence, according
> >> to
> >> government experts, shoudn't it have exterminated 16 million people in
> >> Italy
> >> last autumn? Obviously I don't mean to minimize the danger, it could be
> >> that
> >> worse has still to come, so don't stop taking reasonable precautions.
> >> However we owe to observe that, up to today, we didn't have cases in
> >> Europe:
> >> or we became suddendly very good in prevention (unlike thing), or
> >> somebody
> >> overdid.
> >>
> >> More than ever, the expansion into the extraterrestrial space appears the
> >> only alternative the the involution of our Civilization. Such a
> >> consciousness is by now shared by a too narrow number of persons: if you
> >> share it, please help us to spread it!
> >>
> >> In general terms we are living a situation in which some prophetic words
> >> of
> >> Pope Woytila, often repeated and written by Him in the last years of his
> >> pontificate "don't be afraid", they sound dangerously subversive! When
> >> one
> >> is afraid, he shoots before trying to understand. This is the stuff we
> >> teach
> >> to our twenty year-old boys, sent around the world, armed to the teeth:
> >> to
> >> be afraid and to inspire fear, thus feeding (and not opposing) the
> >> general
> >> state of terror.
> >>
> >> And if we gave attention to the old Pope, and we stopped being afraid,
> >> how
> >> many and what things could we do? A good question, for the crucial just
> >> begun year, 2006!
> >>
> >> A tourist, exploring the unknown, can allow terror to paralyse himself if
> >> he
> >> focuses for too long on his own lonely littleness, or instead he can
> >> enjoy
> >> the wonders that he goes on discovering... to govern in a mature way his
> >> own
> >> feelings and emotions, keeping in the background his ability to get
> >> scared
> >> (as a safety system, to warn us when we are really under threat), and to
> >> enjoy the wonder, the novelties, the discoveries, the evolutionary
> >> horizons
> >> that are progressively disclosed.
> >>
> >> Science and technology immediately lose the devil's horns, tail and clogs
> >> if
> >> we are not afraid, so we regain trust in our abilities to experiment and
> >> to
> >> govern the risks, and to expand human civilization.
> >>
> >> Even an asteroid that would strike our planet in a space of about 30
> >> years
> >> could be seen as an opportunity if we are not afraid (see Stephen
> >> Ashworth's
> >> prophetic words!: A 10-km asteroid
> >> http://www.tdf.it/cgi-bin/dcforum/DCForumID17/2.html ). It is a
> >> challenge,
> >> sure, but thirty years is a long enough period to face it: remember we
> >> reached the Moon in less than ten years, 40 years ago! In order to divert
> >> the stone that would fall upon us, and maybe to use its raw materials to
> >> build the geo-lunar infrastructure, we need to enormously accelerate the
> >> development of Astronautics. Technologies exist, know-how and motivation
> >> also. All we need is to find ways of channelling enough capital: a
> >> problem
> >> of financial engineering, a mere banality if we had a socio-political
> >> management able to think about development, rather than terrorising
> >> people
> >> to not leave their chairs.
> >>
> >> Technologies of the Frontier believes greatly in the perspective of
> >> Astronautics, and in the absolute urgency of giving birth to the space
> >> economy, thus we aim to work ceaselessly for its realization.
> >> This summer we registered our title at the court. TDF is now fully
> >> renewed,
> >> and it will still change in the next months, to pursue a greater
> >> usability
> >> for all those who share our spirit and our goals. Among other things we
> >> have
> >> launched a strategy targeted to the enterprises of the aerospace sector,
> >> and
> >> to any enterprise or commercial subject interested in Space and
> >> Astronautics.
> >>
> >> Yes, you understood well: we don't ask for any pedigree, or specialistic
> >> degrees, from anybody! We are interested in the relationship with
> >> whoever,
> >> firms, small enterprises or individuals, researchers or not, who see
> >> their
> >> future, in full or part, related to Space and Astronautics. We offer
> >> space
> >> is in our magazine, for your articles, description of your projects, or
> >> also
> >> your feelings and opinions about the perspective of geo-lunar space
> >> industrialization, and on any themes connected to space tourism, be they
> >> scientific, technological or commercial. We offer to put your business
> >> logo
> >> on the TDF home page (visited by 150-300 visitors per day, for the most
> >> part
> >> belonging to the space international community), with a link to your
> >> site.
> >> We also offer to make common initiatives, specialist forums, search for
> >> collaborators and offers of collaboration, in the aerospace sector.
> >>
> >> For the summary of this issue please see the editorial written by Jacopo
> >> D.
> >> Cordero http://www.tdf.it/2006/edi_eng.htm , our new Managing Editor.
> >> TDF 1 2006 includes many articlesi, but we have other ones, which we had
> >> yet
> >> no time to put online. Also, we didn't fully update the correspondance
> >> sections.
> >> We'll do it during the next weeks, so keep on reading TDF at
> >> http://www.tdf.it/ .
> >>
> >> Aim high!
> >> Adriano Autino
> >> and the Editorial Staff of Technologies of the Frontier
> >>
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