Wednesday, February 9, 2022, at 17.30 CET
The spiritual needs of space enthusiasts and future Moon workers and settlers need to be addressed as the settlement of the Moon advances. This webinar will explore possible whys and hows.
AGENDA
Remo Rapetti: Introduction
Giulio Prisco: Futurist Moonlight Meditations
Catherine Newell: Sacred Space
Jorge Mañes Rubio: Peak of Eternal Light
Arthur Woods: Q&A session
Giulio Prisco is a former space engineer and senior manager at European space administrations. In his book “Futurist spaceflight meditations” (2021), Prisco covers spaceflight and human expansion into space, with a special emphasis on cultural and spiritual aspects. Prisco’s thesis is that human expansion into the solar system, starting with outposts on the surface of the Moon and in cislunar space, is a cornerstone of emerging future spirituality. This new spirituality will, in turn, inform human expansion toward the stars.
Catherine Newell is a scholar of religion and science who is particularly interested in the intersections of science, technology, culture, and spirituality. In her book “Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and the Final Frontier,” Newell traces the cultural and spiritual roots of US space exploration programs and argues that they were mainly inspired by a technological and scientific faith that awoke a deep-seated belief in a sense of divine destiny to reach the heavens.
Jorge Mañes Rubio is an artist whose works rethink humanity’s relationship with the universe and all the beings that live in it. As Artist in Residence at the Advanced Concepts Team ESA, Rubio designed a Moon Temple for a future lunar settlement in Shackleton Crater. The Moon Temple wouldn’t be associated with any specific religion. On the contrary, it would be open to everyone, in particular to the fast-growing category of people who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”
Commnets by Jorge Mañes Rubio
Thank you all! I agree, shame there was no more time for Q&A and discussion with you guys. Hopefully next time. Looking forward to learning more about your work Catherine and Giulio thanks for your presentations .
With gratitude,
Jorge
Comments by Giulio Prisco
Hi all, here are my impressions and comments. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
The main points of my talk, mostly derived from my book “Futurist spaceflight meditations,” can be roughly summarized as
I liked Catherine’s evocation of Yosemite as a sacred natural space to preserve and enjoy. I have been there, and I really appreciated Yosemite’s beauty and spiritual atmosphere of oneness with nature.
But when I went to Yosemite I had to fly to LAX, rent a car, and drive to Yosemite. In theory I could have sailed to the West Coast of the US and then walked to Yosemite. But in practice, of course, I wouldn’t have done so. Without technological infrastructure in place, I would never have seen Yosemite and never felt its mind-changing spiritual impact.
I liked Catherine’s suggestion to preserve the Moon as a sacred space. But the Moon is big (bigger than Africa). We could have spaceports, observatories, research stations, mining outposts, factories, small cities, big cities, AND spiritually enriching natural preserves on the Moon.
The spaceports and the cities would enable people to visit and enjoy the sacred Moon. So, I say: not either/or, but both/and. There’s room for both, and we can/should do both.
Jorge’s ancestors, the Conquistadores, did bad things, and so did my Roman ancestors: Caesar wasn’t nicer than Pizarro. But I don’t share Jorge’s harsh opinion of Western culture. I think Western culture is not “better” (whatever that means) than other cultures, but not worse either. History shows that ALL cultures have done as much bad as they were able to, and I’m afraid this won’t change much anytime soon. But ALL cultures, including Western culture, have also done good things.
However, I totally share Jorge’s call for more and more non-Western voices to join the spaceflight community as enthusiasts and professionals, and I totally agree with Jorge’s observation that non-Western cultures have a lot to contribute to space expansion, not only in terms of philosophy but also in terms of hard science and technology.
I mentioned future super-science and the “cranes” (ref. Eric Steinhart) that lift the universe to greater heights of complexity and encourage us to expand beyond the Earth. I suspect that understanding these things will require concepts (e.g. non-linear time) found in non-Western cognitive and metaphysical frameworks.
I love the Moon Temple idea. Of course no government agencies or big companies will ever fund it. But I think crowdfunding is not to be entirely ruled out. My rough estimate of the construction costs (with ISRU, 3D printers and construction robots only, no people) is of the order of a few hundred million dollars.
This could be within reach of a well planned and executed fundraising campaign. Multi-user virtual reality models of the Moon Temple and the surrounding region of the Moon, as well as crypto tokens, could facilitate fundraising.
Best - Giulio
Comments by Arthur Woods
Thanks, Giulio for your comments on the webinar. This discussion needed to be put into a broader context which you have added.
In my comments during the webinar, I mentioned that the role of the Moon in the evolution of life on Earth which appears to have been the result of a unique astronomical coincidence and this adds another dimension to our perception of the Moon, the Earth, the role and purpose of humanity, and life itself as we know it. This is a context that I find is rarely discussed but has many implications when considering the spiritual context.
On the lunarology.space website there is a text I wrote which was included in the 2019 White Paper called the 'Sun Earth Moon System of Greater Earth'.
The text begins with the quote from Krafft Ehricke, which I mentioned:
“If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, he would have given man a Moon.”:
https://lunarology.space/the_sun_earth_moon_system_of_greater_earth.php
'Greater Earth' is a perception of our planet defined by its true cosmic dimensions based on celestial mechanics and the laws of physics. The 'Sun-Earth-Moon System of Greater Earth' describes is a dynamic, interconnected, biological and geophysical system that for billions of years has led to the emergence and evolution of life on Earth. It is a system that has enabled life to evolve into a technologically enhanced life-form that has recently reached the threshold moment that would enable it to spread beyond the home planet into the cosmos and thereby perpetuate its ultimate survival.
Catherine quoted Sallie McFague "One theological [is to] help bring about a theocentric, life-centered, cosmocentric sensibility in place of our anthropocentric one." McFague and others probably argue that 'Anthropocentrism' is at the core of today's ecological crises, yet, I may argue that they may not have fully comprehended the true role and purpose of the human species in the evolution of life within the Greater Earth system, i.e. the human species as one of life's operatives. Jorge, I think many cultures have understood this deep interconnectedness with nature and the cosmos and this consciousness has been expressed in the form of cosmological myths have been continuously assimilated into the larger shared collective consciousness that is manifested in what some call the 'noosphere'.
As Giulio mentioned all cultures have their 'moral baggage'. I say that throughout history: " humanity has had a propensity for developing the right technologies for the wrong reasons " and this indicates that we may not be 100% aware of why humanity does certain things. Evolution of life on Earth has not been linear but full of starts and stops. A self-regulation process seems to be at work, i.e., the Gaia theory.
As a higher life-form with consciousness and tool making abilities, humanity's role is to take measures to intelligently intervene in Earth’s dynamic life systems in order to adapt to the changes "it" is causing as well helping 'life' to adapt to a constantly warming Sun (long-term ) and other cosmic threats (unexpected and potentially short-term). If successful, extending human civilization to the Moon and into geolunar space will contribute to making humanity universally conscious of its responsibility to all life sharing its home planet and of the crucial role and purpose of the human species in the evolution of life on Earth and beyond.
Humanity's future on Earth is irrevocably connected to its future in space. Thus, it must soon choose between a 'Space Age or a Stone Age' - a choice I call the 'Space Option'. I think this is an aspect of the spiritual dimension we should consider.
Your comments on this are welcome.
Best regards, Arthur
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