Peggy Hollinger’s fine piece behind the paywall in today’s FT Big Read, here. Space-solar was the raison d’etre for Gerard K O’Neill’s vision for huge space colonies back in the 1970s. The colonies would support themselves by exporting virtually unlimited electrical power to Earth. No need for fusion!
I’m amazed at how our global ambitions have shrunk into our iPhones over the years. About 15 years ago, Nicholas Carr wrote a piece in the Atlantic about how the ‘newish’ internet was changing our brains (and making us stupid). I remember he interviewed me for that article and I was a bit skeptical of the notion that our minds could be dumbed down by the likes of Google.
Today, not so skeptical. Our lack of an ambitious global investment strategy for a sustainable planet that improves lives, keeps the peace and gets us out in the Solar System is palpable.
Discoverers and Discoveries 