My GNLD Vision Board

Yesterday I made a connection between my passion for space travel and my interest in health and nutrition. At the multi-level marketing company GNLD office in Stockwell several of the Distributors kicked off the year with a training session led by Barbara Cawley. We all cut out pictures from magazines and got present to what we are building and creating over the coming years in 3 different areas - Financial, Personal and Business. Here's my vision board.

I started to wonder if GNLD products could be taken into space. Maybe they can be used in the future by people living in the International Space Station, on the Moon or Mars.

Find out more about GNLD?

www.gnld.com

SpaceX Travel

Last week I watched a TV series Brave New World on C4 presented by Steven Hawkins. It was good to hear him making perfect sense without finding myself getting too lost in curved space or multi-dimensional universes. In this episode he was talking about a brave new world of technology. What caught my attention was the creation of the zero-carbon Mazda city near to Abu Dhabi where people will be travelling by electric car under ground with no drivers! The pedestrians will get to enjoy strolling safely at ground level through the car-free, low-rise and beautifully designed city streets. It looked amazing.

Another brave new world technology talked on the program was about a space rocket company called SpaceX happening and expanding right now. Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal, has created the first private company to successfully make reusable space rockets Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and the Dragon space capsule.  Musk’s goal is to considerably reduce the costs of space flight and there are planned private and funded launches over the nest 7 years. NASA is proposing to fund a Mars mission utilizing Falcon Heavy as the launch vehicle and the Dragon capsule to enter the Martian atmosphere. The concept called ‘Red Dragon’ is planned to launch in 2018 and arrive at Mars a few months later. The science objectives of this NASA Discovery mission would be to find evidence of life such as DNA or bio molecules that might be lurking in pools of water ice known to exist 1m below the surface of Mars.

Dragon Spacecraft with Solar Panels deployed

It’s very exciting to read about such missions to Mars. As well as looking for evidence of life what if we had a mission to start creating life on Mars?! If we can build amazing zero-carbon cities like Mazda in the desert I wonder what it would take to build a city on Mars or on the Moon.

Take a look at www.spacex.com for info about SpaceX including past and future missions.

Thought experiments come true

THANK YOU whoever gave me the Christmas present 'The Pig that Wants to be Eaten' by Julian Baggini. How rude of me not to remember who gave me the book and only start reading it now! 99 thought experiments is just what I want to read right now. Coming from my new context of us living on the Moon within 20 years some of the more out of this world thought experiments might well become true.

Thought experiments are short scenarios that make present a philosophical problem in a vivid and distinct way. In 'The veil of ignorance' twenty civilians, selected to live on a Mars colony, are given the unusual task of deciding, before they set off, what would be the fairest way of distributing good, accommodation, food and luxury items. What if some colonists refuse to work or participate? Does fairness mean giving everyone the same?

The-Columbia Hills on Mars as seen from the Spirit Rover

According to political philosopher John Rawls, the colonist are in an ideal position to decide what is fair as they are behind a veil of ignorance.  He thinks if we want to know what fairness is on Earth, we should imagine ourselves in a similar position. Imaging not knowing if we are smart or stupid, dextrous or clumsy, fit or sickly. That way we can come up with rules for distributing goods fairly without discriminating.

The thought experiment made me wonder what lunar colonists might consider to be valuable luxury items. Would they be the same as on Earth or would new non-material luxury items start to become more valuable? Maybe the gifts of loving life, generosity, joy and creative arts would be considered more valuable.

In another thought experiment 'A Byte on the Side' Dick has been married for several years and is bored with his relationship. There was no passion left and he and his wife rarely slept together. But Dick had no intention of leaving his wife. He loved her and she was an excellent mother of their children. So rather than having an affair, Dick finds a company called A Byte on the Side Inc which offers the perfect solution: A complete computer simulation of sex with all the experience and excitement of an affair with no third person.

What's useful about this thought experiment is the wife's reaction to Dick's virtual affair. If she has no objection then it indicates what matters to her is that there is no other person. Their monogamous bond of affection is what matters. If she does object to the virtual affair then it indicates what matters and hurts is that Dick has turned away from her and to something else to express his sexuality.

This thought experiment made me wonder if within a small lunar colony infidelity might become an important issue. It would be an opportunity for the colonists to be clear about the difference between sex and love. It would be important not to let bonds of affection be broken by the biologically driven act of copulation. Wouldn't it be great if sex could be one of those non-material luxuries we can give to each other without damaging our bonds of affection. Safely!

Transit of the International Space Station

So great to look at photographs from the Astronomy Photographer of The Year 2011 run by the Royal Observatory and the Sky at Night Magazine.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14792580

All images subject to copyright. Music courtesy KPM Music. Slideshow production by Paul Kerley. 

Here' an astonishing image of the International Space Station flying across the disc of the Sun. It crossed the surface in half a second so the photographer had to be very skillful to capture the image. The Space Shuttle Endeavour can be seen docking with the ISS.

Colonel Catherine Coleman is as free as her hair!

On the August Bank holiday I was working from home with the radio on in the background.  I suddenly stopped everything when I heard Space Station and was instantly back in touch with my passion for space travel. It was a special programme about Women in Aviation where a NASA astronaut was being interviewed after spending 5 months on board the International Space Station. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b013ptf4

Catherine ‘Cady’ Coleman shared what it was like to be the only women in space with 5 male astronauts. By accepting her team as colleagues and being open she had different relationships than expected with everyone, all for the better.  She missed conversations with girl friends and family but had a weekly video conference call. Cady also loved going into the space station's observatory deck, the Cupola. See loved seeing Cape Cod and her home in Massachusetts coming towards her and thinking about her family. Then is a few minutes it would be gone. But in an hour and a half she would be back to see her home again!     

   

Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola

I could hear Cady is a stand for women to travel into space and to see it as something not just for other people who are specially chosen. She see’s women very much part of us going back to the Moon and to Mars.

The programme also made me wonder about music in space. Would instruments sound any different? Cady performed the first ever earth-space flute duet with Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull. She said the music sounded the same but holding the instrument took some getting used to.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c9b_1303330482

Presenter Jenni Murray asked Cady why she didn't tie her hair back while the duet was filmed. She said she normally would when working or with people but she liked to let her hair be free. It reminded her what a special place she was in.

What a stand Catherine Coleman is for women going into space. Being as free as her hair and inspiring women to be who they really wants to be.
Uh huh uh huh !

New project - 'Back to the Moon'

Having completed 'Being On the Moon' I'm starting to write a prequel called 'Back to the Moon.'
It will be about what it would take to create a lunar settlement. For us to go back and live on the Moon. Wouldn't it be great if we actually do that over the next 20 years? By 2032. I'm selfish - I want to be there when it happens!

But it will take more than writing a book. It will take a team of people believing it will happen and completing all the critical actions needed. It will take people willing to lead groups of people on this project.
There are many resource issues to put in place first, like:
- How to produce Oxygen without transporting it into space
- How to get into Earth orbit most efficiently
- How to raise funds now and future income opportunities
- How to generate power on the Moon efficiently
- How to train and prepare people for the low gravity environment
- How to identify the best landing sites
- Many more how to's

Do you know anyone who wants to be part of this Living on the Moon project? Without NASA it's going to take something new. It's going to take some new thinking. I'm inspired but as Money Magnet author Marie-Claire Carlyle says 'to get really inspired you need to take on something bigger than yourself'. And as Lady Gaga says 'Honour your vomit' (Gagavision no. 43) which I'm taking to mean stay present to the short creative process of a big project. The possibility of a project that inspires and empowers team members intro action.

Should we go to the Moon?

Tranquility Base

People who think too much about the moon used to be called lunatics. Is that what I’ve become? Maybe J F Kennedy was a lunatic when he gave his “we choose to go to the moon” speech in 1962...

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong

There were other reasons too. What about now? With NASA’s 30 year space mission at an end should we choose to go to the moon or should we choose to stop thinking about it any more?  I say we should go there, but then I’m biased. I was a teenager at the time of the Apollo missions and was convinced that by now there would be space colonies, settlements on the moon and on mars.

In my short story Being on the Moon, set 100 years in the future, a community of settlers create an extraordinary and exciting life on the moon. Here’s some of the things they love about their life:

• We get to see the night sky at any time without clouds or atmospheric distortion with huge telescopes which are much better than those on Earth.  What’s more we get to see the Earth in its full glory every day. We have the best views of the other planets both within our Solar System and around our neighbouring stars.
  
• We really enjoy the low gravity. Imagine playing tennis, football, golf, skiing and crater climbing when you are 1/6th of your weight. In the story we host the first ever Olympic Games on the moon and use Newton’s laws to work out how far the athletes can jump and throw things.
  
• We’ve created a successful care centre called ‘Old Town’ which is a kind of heaven for elderly people with mobile disabilities. As well as loving the low gravity they get to re-live life when they were 30 years younger and recreate long lost actions, feelings, emotions. They love it here!
  
• Creating a new community from scratch was fun. We were guided from the past but continued to invent new possibilities. We have created sustainable well-being, treat crime as an integrity breakdown and have have done away with money replacing it with a reward system.
  
• We are in open communication with Earth people and communicate fully with love and affinity at all times.
  
• We have become a port and ‘mission control’ for spaceships on route to other planets providing rest and resources.
  
• We have become the leading research centre for solar energy generation from cosmic rays using a Dyson-Harrop satellite.
  
• We are a big mineral exporter and importer from other planets.
  
• Best of all we don’t get caught up in all those Earth scandals and conflicts.