SpaceX fans should stand behind NASA and support the Artemis program
Also, review of "The Consolation" by Lincoln Cannon.
Greetings to all readers and subscribers, and special greetings to the paid subscribers!
Please scroll down for the main topics of this newsletter. But first:
Please let me know (comment or write to me) if you would like to attend a monthly Turing Church gathering, via Zoom. I’m thinking of a monthly gathering on the first Saturday of the month at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). Format: First part (recorded) - discussion on a given topic. Second part (not recorded) - free discussion.
My friend Lincoln Cannon, co-founder and former president of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, has published a second illustrated edition of “The Consolation.”
I’m happy to remember that Lincoln delivered the first version of his interpretive remake at the Turing Church workshop in 2011.
Buy the new illustrated edition “The Consolation: An Interpretive Variation on the Last General Conference Sermon of Joseph Smith” now! I’ll buy the Kindle edition as soon as it comes out, but at this moment there’s only a coffee table edition. This makes sense because the book is full of gorgeous illustrations that Cannon produced with the assistance of the Midjourney Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“The Consolation” is a remake of the King Follett sermon of Joseph Smith. “Though never canonized as scripture, the King Follett sermon,” noted Richard Bushman, “has been called the culminating statement of Joseph Smith’s theology.”
The King Follett sermon was novel and disruptive. Why was it never canonized as Mormon scripture? I think because Joseph Smith’s theology was too alien, too wholly other, and the Mormon church needed and still needs plausible deniability.
And why was Joseph Smith’s theology too disruptive, alien and wholly other? Because Joseph Smith said, loud and clear, that God was once like Man, and Man will one day be like God. He also hinted at the concept that future God-like Man will resurrect those who died in the past (e.g. “until you attain to the resurrection of the dead”).
Cannon revisits Smith’s teachings in light of contemporary scientific concepts like the simulation hypothesis (the idea, recently popularized by Rizwan Virk, that the reality we perceive could be a simulation) and quantum archeology (the idea that future humans could resurrect those who died in the past by means of ultra-advanced science and technology).
In Cannon’s words: “What if we could reach through time and space to remember - to reconstruct in detail - the history of cosmos, our world, and even the brains and bodies of our ancestors?”
“Imagine a superhuman child. Using the tools of quantum archeology, she traces backwards through time and space from effects to causes. Sampling a sufficiently large portion of her present, she rediscovers you. Attaining a desired probabilistic precision for a portion of her past, she recreates you.
The future-you is distinguishable from the present-you, but only as the today-you is distinguishable from the yesterday-you. As if awaking from a night’s sleep, you are resurrected, and you learn to do the same for your parents.”
This is visionary Mormon theology at its best, interpreted for contemporary readers.
“The Consolation” is very close to my own cosmology and theology. I’ll now move to spaceflight and the humble beginnings of our expansion into space. This seems an entirely different topic, but no, it’s essentially the same topic. Make no mistake: becoming a multi-planetary and then an interstellar species is a necessary and urgent step toward becoming God-like. See my book “Futurist spaceflight meditations.”
On August 29 I was glued to the TV, hoping to watch the launch of Artemis 1. The launch was scrubbed due to fuel leaks. Another launch attempt on September 3 was also scrubbed for the same reason. NASA and all space enthusiasts all over the planet hoped to see a successful launch on September 27, but hurricane Ian got in the way. NASA expects to try again on November 14.
Spaceflight is hard, isn’t it. They call difficult things “rocket science” for a reason.
The scrubbed launch attempts have drawn large crowds to Florida’s Space Coast, which may seem odd for a test mission without astronauts. But enthusiasm for the return to the Moon is high: spaceflight enthusiasts want to be there for the inauguration and first system test of the Artemis program - the Apollo program of the 2020s.
This time we want to go to the Moon and stay, sustainably and permanently. And then Mars. Apollo was a false start, but Artemis could be the real start.
Of course there are critics ready to point the finger at NASA and the US government. The SLS, some critics say, is a dinosaur based on yesterday’s technology. NASA can’t fix one problem without creating two new problems, and it costs far too much. Elon Musk’s Starship, some critics say, could do the job faster, better, and much cheaper.
In her book “Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age” (2022), former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver argues that NASA should stop wasting money on obsolete dinosaurs, and fully embrace commercial off-the-shelf alternatives. Garver takes credit for the first successful steps in this direction, but believes NASA should do more. “If successful, Starship alone could perform the entire Artemis mission without SLS, Orion, or the Lunar Gateway,” says Garver referring to SpaceX’s Starship, “at significantly reduced cost and increased capability,” she says.
Garver is hardly the only one to say this. Many do, and I tend to agree.
But the “wasted” dollars buy the political support without which no big government rocket can fly. This is how things work in the U.S. political system. The choice of SLS, Orion, the gateway all that, doesn’t indicate stupidity but realpolitik.
I used to be persuaded that the current U.S. administration would cancel the Artemis program soon after being sworn in. This happened so many times in the past: a new administration comes in and cancels the space programs started by the previous administration in a political gesture. But this hasn’t been the case this time. On the contrary, as we approach the U.S. midterm elections, Artemis 1 is close to the launch ramp and NASA is still committed to “sustained human presence and exploration throughout the solar system,” beginning with the Moon.
To me, this indicates that pragmatic realpolitik has paid off, and in a difficult political moment, in terms of bipartisan support for the Artemis program.
I’ve been and continue to be pleasantly surprised by the positive attitude of the current U.S. administration toward Artemis, but I’m too old to believe that politicians are really interested in space programs. Rather, I think they have come to understand the risks of not moving outward to the Moon. They understand that China wants to lead the race to the Moon and establish industrial - and likely military - supremacy in cislunar space with the support of Russia and other allies. The results would be catastrophic for the U.S. and the West.
China’s cultural supremacy would be equally catastrophic for the U.S. and the West. The U.S. established cultural supremacy through Hollywood, scientific excellence, and awesome achievements like the Apollo program. Watching American astronauts walk on the Moon, kids all over the world looked at the U.S. as the promised land of unlimited, awesome futures. Many of those kids then realized their dream to move to the U.S. (physically or mentally) and contribute to America’s supremacy.
Do we want to see China and its allies take this role in the rest of this century? If not, we all must do our best to support the Artemis program.
In particular, we don’t need a conflict between the supporters of NASA and SpaceX.
This is not the moment to criticize NASA. This is the moment to stand united behind NASA and support the Artemis program. All seems to indicate that, if pragmatic realpolitiks keeps the program alive and successful for as long as it takes, the role of SpaceX will be reconsidered. According to the current plan Artemis 3 - the first Artemis mission to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon - will use Starship as its lunar lander. SpaceX enthusiasts should see this as an encouraging first step toward the gradual integration of Starship into the Artemis program.
Once Starship has operationally proven its efficiency and cost-effectiveness in a support role, it will be difficult to keep the option to use Starship as the main Artemis launch system off the table. Therefore, I recommend patience to SpaceX and its enthusiastic supporters: if the Artemis program is successful, the time for Starship will come. If everything goes well, future astronauts could fly directly to the Moon on Starship, and live in Starship while they build permanent habitats on the lunar surface.