With all that has been going on in my life over the past several years, my focus on space exploration and space settlement has waned significantly. This has been primarily due to two factors that began several years ago: (1) my promotion to management, and (2) my obsession with trials biking.
Recent Inspiration
On a whim, I recently took the day off from work to attend the virtual “A Day in Space 2020” hosted by the National Space Society (NSS). While I didn’t really learn much during this event since most of the content was fairly high level (I was already aware of most of what was presented), it was still inspiring. Around the same period of time, I got a copy of Space is Open For Business, by Robert Jacobson, via the author’s recent interview on The Space Show. I’m about halfway through the book now. The third coincidental factor was that Michael Laine started posting regular videos again on the Liftport YouTube channel. I had connected with Michael online over a decade ago, just a few months before Liftport went into hibernation.
So, now I feel more energized and inspired to get back into space exploration and settlement. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it. While I hadn’t participated too much in the “space field”, I had avidly read space related books for decades and had been reading news updates online daily for years. I even went to a few events such as the NSS International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Tucson, AZ back in 2000 and a Space Day at the New England Air Museum about a decade ago. I’d even done some volunteer work editing some YouTube videos for Liftport, also over a decade ago.
Mining Materials for Space Settlement
Mining asteroids and other heavenly bodies for materials to use for supporting space settlement has been on my mind for probably close to three decades now. I think that might be my starting point. We’ll see where it leads. Maybe I’ll just research and read up on it. Maybe I’ll get more ambitious and see if there is some way I can do something to advance the technology or the cause in some way.