The future of Asgardia relies principally on three pillars. One is the sociological part of nation building and includes things like law and politics. The second is research and the third is education. All three of these pillars are imperative to Asgardia’s survival, but that survival rests on one ...
The future of Asgardia relies principally on three pillars. One is the sociological part of nation building and includes things like law and politics. The second is research and the third is education. All three of these pillars are imperative to Asgardia’s survival, but that survival rests on one particular area of research more than anything else; cheap, safe access to space. If Asgardia becomes relegated to a piece of Earth somewhere mired in economy and politics or a trip to the space colony costs a million dollars and has a 40% chance of failure the dream will have failed. My platform is three-fold to reflect these pillars.
We need new technologies and clever applications of existing ones to fulfill this dream. Research is where our hope lies right now. The new space race among the nations of Earth has not been well defined, except by money of course, but one technological breakthrough will decide the winner. Whoever gets the cost of a trip to orbit down to a hundred dollars per ticket with a safety rating above 90% will win the space race hands down. What happens if another country besides Asgardia gets this technology first? It starts with an m and ends with -ilitary. I believe incredibly strongly that everyone should get to go, and that we should not bring our old nationalism and sectarianism with us.
In the sociological realm, we must clarify the representation and election process and promote in-person meetings and community gatherings. The web site and forums need a lot of work, but the end outcome should be people gathering to facilitate a government that we all feel a part of. If Asgardia remains only online, we run the risk of not looking serious and being solely a social media platform.
Lastly, we must accept that it may be generations before the colony is established and self-sustaining. We not only need great researchers now, but we must look ahead to training the great researchers of the next generation. An education program that acts as if it already is a space colony and trains the Asgardian leaders of the future can be ours now on Earth, if we will reach out and grasp it. I propose that the first community centers for Asgardia should be education and research centers to combine the bright new ideas that come from learning with the research that is so vital to our success. We should promote our ethos of fairness and secular internationalism not only in what we teach, but in who we teach to. Asgardia is for everyone who wants a positive future for all of humanity regardless of all Earthly stereotypes, borders and foolish class systems.
That’s why I believe in Asgardia and it’s mission. It’s constitution, while not perfect, is a gleaming beacon to a humanist future that upholds all the freedoms and progressive ideals that represent the very finest of human culture. I have little political experience, but I am a PhD in physics who has been an advocate for space colonization since seeing Gerard O’Neil on tv in 1977. I have been looking for and researching the breakthrough technologies that will finally free us from rockets for fifteen years now, and I am ready to lead us towards them in the name of humanity, in the name of Earth, in the name of Asgardia.
