July 20, 2017 - Jack Burns

Download talk (PDF file, 18MB) or watch the video.

Abstract: For those of us in the space sector, we rarely spend time asking “why go to space”. The answer is so obvious, so much a part of our DNA, that we don’t need to spend time articulating, or even discussing amongst ourselves the “why”. Unfortunately, as a community, we take the “why” so much for granted that when we reach out to connect with those outside of our space tribe, such as our national leadership, whether that is Congress or the Administration, or our colleagues from other economic spheres, or to the public, we stumble to deliver a coherent narrative to explain the importance of human expansion into space. Instead, when discussing space exploration, we dive straight into the gory details of the “how” and describe with passion and excruciating detail all of the hardware we need and are building to achieve our endeavors. We talk about rockets, space stations, space vehicles, habitats, fueling depots, resource extraction equipment, life support, and so on. And then we don’t understand why our audiences are not as excited or inspired about the concept of humans venturing, permanently, beyond our planet’s boundaries. Failing to inspire the same excitement in our listeners, we inevitably change conversational tactics to highlight the practical and expound on the economic benefits that society reaps when we push the limits of what humans and technology can do. Sometimes we receive a flicker of interest in this argument, sometimes not. In this talk, I will suggest a more unapologetically inspirational and aspirational approach, and only then follow with the practical, emphasizing positive outcomes. The science case for exploration will be made followed by solar system destinations that evolve with time and technology.