Space Carnival #14

The Carnival of Space #14 is online, thanks to Universe Today blog. It is packed full of fascinating space and astronomy postings. My favourite two are this one from Brian Wang about safe and powerful nuclear rockets, and this posting on extracting oxygen from lunar rock. But the other postings are worth a look, so go ahead.

All of human history up until now, is simply the story of a tumultous human infancy and the terrible tantrums of toddlerhood.

If we want to live beyond our adolescence, we as a species will have to survive our rite of passage into the larger universe. For that to happen, humans will need to stop fighting over the mere trinkets and symbols of wealth that we find on this planet. Instead we should look toward the immense, essentially infinite riches and spaces of the larger universe outside our planetary cradle.

The old world primitivist outlook of Islam and other third world ideologies must be shaken off, like the tired restraints they are, so as to free ourselves for the huge challenges in front of us. Certain political ideologies--such as Marxist socialism--and dysfunctional philosophies such as postmodernism, must be discarded as garbage to allow the more wholesome and functional development of human potential.

Large amounts of human capital and resources will be squandered pursuing the impossible promises of enforced egalitarianism. That is inevitable. What matters is how the more enlightened individuals and groups use their resources to meet the future.