Interesting competition with big relevance to off-Earth food production and our ability to thrive in new places:
Design, build, and test an autonomous system that can support plant growth without human intervention. Develop a smart system that might include sensors, cameras, and automated controllers for lighting, watering, and air circulation within a 50 cm cubic growing environment. Plant seeds of one or more of the predetermined plant varieties by hand, and grow them without any further human interaction over a 30 day period.
The contest has high school, college, and professional entry categories. Submissions are due by February 3, 2020.Your ideas could help shape and facilitate the future of space settlement!
With major social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter showing an increasing enthusiasm for suppressing content and publishers they don’t like (whether by invisibly “shadow-banning” posts, silently culling follower lists, demanding post retractions, de-platforming users outright, or footnoting posts with disclaimers) we seem to be approaching the potential end of an era — or so many of us hope, at least. What the next era might look like, we’re still figuring out, but it sure feels like a good time for freedom of speech to be cherished and championed again.
Back in the day, we had the free frontier of the Internet and its very decentralized array of offerings — forums, websites, blogs, comment sections, and all that. We used tools like RSS/Atom feed aggregators to help wrangle it all into a firehose we could more comfortably drink from (the old-school version of “following” sites and authors). We still have those things, of course, but our focus has moved away from them and toward Big Social. Seduce by greater effectiveness at connecting with others and getting substantially more eyes on our posts, we went all in and moved from a largely decentralized world to one that entrusted our ability to publish to a small handful of companies. With their growth came power over our freedom of expression that we failed to be adequately concerned about, leading to where we find ourselves today — in many ways stifled, suppressed, and distrustful of “Big Social”, and wondering where to go next. It’s an important issue if you feel, as I do, that living under conditions where you aren’t free to speak your mind isn’t living.
In looking around for good alternatives, we find both centralized and decentralized alternatives to choose from, raising some interesting dilemmas. Sites such as Parler and Gab.com have promised to remain steadfast in support of free speech, and to the extent they can be trusted to do so may provide viable drop-in alternatives to Twitter. I’m reasonably optimistic about their commitment to freedom of expression, and have been trying both out (I’m @kulak on Parler, @kulak76 on Gab.com), but having seen the pitfalls of centralized social media, one can’t help but wonder whether sites such as these will eventually succumb to the same pressures to suppress and censor. (I hope not, and I give Parler and Gab much benefit of the doubt, but the concern is hard to escape.) Gab allows for setting up your own self-hosted alternatives to Gab.com, and in that sense doesn’t quite qualify as a “centralized” service, though in practice it will be interesting to see whether alternative Gab sites end up being widely used or even necessary. (If they prove largely unnecessary, that’s a good sign for Gab.com having kept its free-speech promise.)
We can also look to the publishing, reading, and communication tools that have served us in the past: self-hosted blogs like this one, and feed aggregator apps and sites (I used NetNewsWire for years and have been using Feedly lately). While ability to connect with large numbers of readers is likely to be no better than it was before (I’m very interested in ways we might be able to surpass those limits), hosting our own content at least gives us much greater control over our own publishing. If others really don’t like you, they can put pressure on your hosting provider, but if we get to the point where hosting providers are widely bullied into de-platforming customers the world will really be in trouble. As failsafe measures go, the ability to move your site to another host remains a pretty solid safeguard.
This isn’t necessarily an either-or proposition, of course. One can use social media sites together with self-publishing, leveraging posts on the former to help promote your work on the latter, for example. That’s been a key part of how I’ve used Twitter, Parler, and Gab, and I expect will continue to be. Publishing longer-form work here has intrinsic value to me because it’s helped me work through thoughts and develop ideas, so I’ll likely continue to do it regardless, but having my writing reach a more substantial number of people who find value in those ideas would certainly be an appreciated improvement.
Yet another set of alternatives exists in networking sites with focused purposes. BillWhittle.com is one example whose thriving I’ve been glad to be a part of. Ricochet is another that I’ve used in the past. These sites give users ways to publish to and communicate with one another, while firewalling member content to keep comment sections troll-free and enjoyable. They aren’t places to publish for broader public consumption, but they serve a related and very worthwhile purpose to those looking to publish and connect.
One thing I think we’d be wise to do, in weighing our options, is to refrain from underestimating the appeal of centralized social media sites. There are good reasons why the dynamics have worked out well for them, and our effectiveness at developing alternatives will rely on understanding, appreciating, and accounting for their attractiveness to large numbers of users. They include the value of familiarity and name recognition, the network effect, and the convenience of having a single (or a few) centralized service(s) for connecting with the people whose posts interest us. If we want to succeed in developing decentralized alternatives to Big Social, we’d be wise to find alternative ways to satisfy the same wants and needs. This is a subject that’s been very much on my mind, and I expect I’ll continue to think about it quite a bit. We have diverse options and numerous possibilities available to us (some perhaps as yet undreamt of), and it’s going to be an interesting challenge to figure out how to most effectively develop and make use of them.
My short-form podcast, The No Fear Pioneer, is back with a new episode, pursuing some key questions that have been on my mind: Can a frontier culture only thrive for a sustained interval where life is relatively hard? And are there ways we might be able to extend the flourishing of a newly opened frontier?
Join me for a 12-minute whirlwind exploration of related ideas in Episode 7: “Extending the Frontier Cycle”.
I’ve released this episode with new artwork that celebrates SpaceX’s Starship — the vehicle most likely to be our ride to Mars — and the tremendously exciting test launch, descent, and landing attempt of the SN8 prototype this past week. I’m looking forward with much excitement to seeing further developments in this visionary program.
After days of delays and postponements that tested the patience of those of us waiting breathlessly on the edge of our seats, SpaceX conducted the first (and last) high-altitude test of its SN8 Starship prototype yesterday. Despite going out in a fiery blaze of glory due to insufficient fuel tank pressure at landing, in what many in the rocket business like to call “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly”, SN8 appears to have done a spectacular job of each of its test-flight tasks up to that point, in what I would consider a thrilling and encouraging series of successes.
Robert Zimmerman has a great post with lots of snapshots at Behind the Black, and points out, importantly, that “the systems for controlling the ship on its return through the atmosphere appeared to work as intended. Though SpaceX obviously has a lot more work to do to achieve an orbital return, they have made a magnificent start.” He continues: “And they have gotten this far in only two years, for less than $2 billion. Compare that to NASA and Boeing and their SLS, which is half a decade behind schedule and will likely cost $30 billion once launched.” SpaceX appears to be well on the way to its goal of revolutionizing the economics interplanetary transport, paving the way for rapid acceleration toward the opening of a new frontier on Mars, the Moon, and elsewhere.
Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc has a play-by-play with screen grabs too.
Here’s SpaceX’s official livestream of the test, fast-forwarded to just before engine ignition & launch. Note the beautifully steady ascent, paring back from three Raptor engines firing in unison to two and then one, the controlled free-fall in horizontal orientation, the engine relight and reorient to vertical, and what would likely have been a perfect landing if not for just a wee bit of excess velocity… Note also the green flashes from one of the engine nozzles during the landing attempt, which I’d have guessed might be a burst of TEB attempting to ignite the engine in vain, but John Carmack (who has earned his rocket-scientist chops running Armadillo Aerospace) remarked “is the color of a copper rocket combustion chamber eating itself”.
Don’t miss this spectacular perspective on the free-fall, flip back to vertical, and landing attempt that SpaceX posted shortly afterward.
I’m working on plans to start publishing on this site again, with a renewed focus on the development of new frontiers. This will include resuming the No Fear Pioneer podcast and adding to the post series I titled “The Way Out”.
Development of commercial space capability has accelerated rapidly in recent years, and the resultant advances have been thrilling to watch, thanks in no small part to SpaceX’s relentless achievements and bold, inspiring, and impatient vision for our off-Earth future. I’ve been following developments in this area with tremendous interest and enthusiasm, and will aim do so some useful thinking and writing about the implications here — focusing on the great and exciting potentials for space colonization, but also exploring novel opportunities to open new frontiers, physical or virtual, here on Earth.
We live in an amazing time full of immense possibilities — greater, I think, than most realize. I’m particularly energized by the potential that new places and the challenges that go with them hold to rekindle our resilience and our hunger for adventure. I foresee places where, out of great difficulty, our long-lost sense of fun and playfulness will get to emerge again. Places where those who are willing to embrace risk will have the chance to know what an easy-going, free-wheeling approach to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness feels like, and where humanity’s tremendous potentials can be set free to great benefit.
The month alone featured a successful second Crew Dragon launch to the ISS, and a couple of textbook satellite launches with beautiful first-stage landings, and it now looks like next week will hold possibly the most exciting development yet: the first 15km test flight and re-landing of a Starship prototype. Elon Musk Tweeted yesterday:
Good Starship SN8 static fire! Aiming for first 15km / ~50k ft altitude flight next week. Goals are to test 3 engine ascent, body flaps, transition from main to header tanks & landing flip.
I’ll be watching for sure, and cannot wait to see it.
Meanwhile, for your inspiration and enjoyment and a reminder of the amazing future that I believe lies ahead of us, I’ll just leave these here for now:
It’s a dramatically different world this year, in myriad ways that seem at once both obvious to all of us who have been muddling through them and too numerous to list. If there is any silver lining, perhaps it’s that large-scale foreign terrorism seems to have taken a pause, but only to be replaced by being terrorized by our fellow citizens in suspiciously coordinated violent and destructive rampages through our cities, while we simultaneously endure the combined threats of a viral pandemic, draconian lockdowns and ensuing economic hardships, and partly well-intentioned but nonetheless destructive abridgments of our freedom, autonomy, and ability to plan for the future.
I would not have remotely anticipated this new set of circumstances a year ago, nor I think could anyone. The world has given us an entirely new set of challenges to deal with, leaving prior battles that had seemed monumental and urgently important momentarily in the rearview mirror — on hiatus for now, I think, but not fundamentally solved nor gone. “2020” has come to eclipse “2001” in notoriety for the both sudden and sustained havoc it has wreaked, causing that former year of infamy to recede quietly into the past while our preoccupied minds have been mostly unaware it was happening.
It would be easy in this dramatically different time to forget what now seems like another era, disconnected from our present reality. But I will not, nor I think can we afford to. We have serious, unresolved issues related to the 9/11 attacks and the relative strength or weakness, unity or disunity of our resolve and response to them, that I expect will remain to be dealt with at some future date. Our cultural confidence and sense of self is being tested in different but not entirely unrelated ways for now, and the outcome of those present struggles is sure to have significant implications for our near-term future. While I remain resolved that we have worthwhile and important work to do rebuilding our cultural foundations in the here and now, my focus has of necessity also been on the larger long-term question of where we — as a frontier culture in need of new frontiers — will go from here. I have much more work to do on that, that’s been especially hard to make time for lately, but I have hope that determination and persistence will unite to make the necessary possible in the long run.
On this day, let us remember and honor the loved ones and fellow citizens we lost on that eerily clear September morning, as well as the “sheepdogs” and everyday heroes among us who ran toward danger and risked everything when called — on that day and in the days, weeks, months, and years that followed. Let us think on the resolve that is needed to maintain this Civilization of ours — this engine of well-being and sanctuary for people of good will — against persistent, determined forces that demand its submission, surrender, and subservience. May these hard times produce the resilient men and women we need, and may their efforts avert the self-inflicted decline that is, in the final sum, a greater danger than that any foreign enemy can hope to pose us. It’s going to take steady exertion and long-term dedication to the task, but I do believe a happy, resilient future waits to be claimed beyond this moment of gloom.
Freedom is a tremendous and precious inheritance. To develop our potential, thrive in it, and pass it along to each successive generation is our highest calling. I write here to give my thanks, and to seek ways we can cultivate the resilience, independence, courage, and indomitable spirit necessary to sustain a culture that cherishes liberty.
