This is what will matter 1000 years from now.
Not your politics. Not your stupid tantrums about who platformed who on some website. Not your incomprehensible desire to send NASA's entire budget to the third world.
This guy reignited the Space Age.
He spent his own money, hired a bunch of dudes, and reignited the Space Age. And together, they underbid and outdid NASA and its pet dinosaur corporations on every conceivable level.
This is history happening before you.
If you are a puddlefish, if you think this is a wasteful showpiece or science project, then you don't understand physics, economics, astronomy, or in fact the basic layout of the universe you live in.
We live in a tiny puddle at the bottom of a well.
Out there is an entire universe, full not only of stuff to explore, but full of stuff to build things out of.
Big things. Wonderful things. Things that are going to make all of the cool stuff you have today, all of human civilization to date look like early Assyrians writing stuff down on wet clay with a reed.
Infinite resources. Infinite energy. Infinite space.
Instead of fighting over little patches of land, we will have an infinite 3d volume. Enclose it in steel, pump it full of air, spin it, and it's a habitat.
Instead of scratching tiny scraps of metal out of the crust of one planet, we will break down entire asteroids and smelt them.
Instead of drilling for hydrocarbons and turning water wheels, we will harness entire suns, split the atom, and eventually draw our fuel from the substance that makes up 99% of the entire universe.
None of your local, temporal Earth politics matter compared to this. This is more important than pride parades and abortions, more important than tribal conflicts in eastern Europe and southwest Asia, more important than tensions with Russia and China.
More important, in the long run, than the United States of America.
America's most important function, its one most vital purpose, is to serve as an incubator for this.
Because this changes everything.
All of our arguments about conditions on this planet become obsolete, because the whole planet becomes just one suburban neighborhood.
All of our wars over resources and territory become obsolete, because no one has time to brawl when we're all sitting on top of a dragon horde with sacks and shovels.
Everyone who was alive at the time remembers where they were when Kennedy died in Dallas. When the towers fell. When the Eagle landed. When the Wall came down.
But this... this is the real moment, one of the first of many. They are what every child will know about a thousand years from now, even if they have four arms and are genetically engineered for zero-g, or are sentient blocks of code running on a sphere of computronium enclosing an entire star.
You may not live to see that, depending on what we do or don't invent, and when.
But it will happen, and you will live to see wonderful things.
If the puddlefish don't get in the way.
Don't be a puddlefish.
Big milestone for our space systems team. The first payload module for our constellation of 17 spacecraft for @MDA_Space and @Globalstar has been shipped!
Learn more about this $143 million contract: https://t.co/VGLstVtiGU
Three minutes of full throttle, in a normal launch #Ariane6 would now be 100 km above Earth and its nose cone would have separated. 🚀
As for this test Ariane 6 is staying on the launch pad @EuropeSpacePort it is creating its own clouds of water vapour. ☁
My departure from the company I've spent the past 7 years helping grow is starting to feel real. My personal effects and wall art are packed up. I've emptied my office and shared any items I didn't want to take with me. All that's left is the paperwork on Friday. Surreal.
Very cool technology developed by some of my friends from SpaceX. As the article says, I believed in it enough to be an early investor.
https://t.co/FrotBgFK9n via @BW
Today we successfully expanded our launch footprint with our first mission from U.S. soil.
Thank you to the teams at @NASA_Wallops, @Virginia_Space, @FAANews and @hawkeye360 for helping to make that happen. We're just getting started 🚀
30 ans d’@AeroIPSA : l’IPSA a retrouvé son fondateur !
Spécialisée dans la conception de lanceurs, l’association rythme la vie des futurs ingénieurs de l’école depuis 30 ans. Son fondateur, @FranckMx, a accepté de revenir sur la genèse de l’association.
👉 https://t.co/83trjUSstq
WATCH 📺 | Josef Aschbacher (@AschbacherJosef) at our #StateofEU session on the new #SpaceRace commented on the weaknesses of the European space industry. Watch the full session now ↪️ https://t.co/BgOb4CiUnU
Help us make the next generation of electric propulsion a reality? Join us! We have multiple job openings with more positions coming online soon.
https://t.co/5WxKrQGeLQ
There's a video going around today from @melnessce featuring a look behind-the-scenes at Orbex from late 2019. It's quite old now, but here's the original story in case you have missed it first time around: https://t.co/OB02kwGM3r