4.0 Challenges
Technological challenges are only one of the four challenges to be met in interplanetary flight and colonization. The other three are:
- Our physiological, psychological and communal ties to earth
- Our acceptance of change and long term confinement.
- Our human nature and how it affects us in our interactions with others
Although our intent is to colonize other worlds the realization of those dreams will require a fundamental change in our perception of us. We are humans of earth and as long as we see ourselves as such we will not be able to entirely accept the conditions of the new realities we strive to achieve.
The near advent of interplanetary flight (IPF) is opening our solar system to a modern day gold rush. The opening of the planets or even a lunar base will have immense monetary potential for businesses and governments, who will, by human nature, seek to control the resources for themselves. This is already evident in our current space laws which began as far back as 1919.
Our history shows that when money is to be made or new territory to be claimed, the worst in humanity dominates our desires for control of what has suddenly become available to us.
The challenges noted above can be rephrased as:
- Reliable and inexpensive technology for both IPF and colonial environments
- Freeing the human species from its Earthly environment
- Modifying the human condition to accept a different reality
- Change the values humans use to measure success
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