Outward Focused

KMO welcomes Bruce Damer back to the C-Realm to talk about the renaissance in space exploration driven primarily by private ventures known collectively as "New Space." Bruce has designed a mission to capture an asteroid with a vehicle he calls SHEPHERD. This technique could usher in the long-delayed era of large scale construction projects in space. Lifting all the components for large structures into orbit from the surface of the Earth is just too costly, so to realize a genuine human space age, we'll need to find a way to use what's already up there. Unlike David Graeber, Bruce does not believe that the shiny high tech future of the mid 20th Century was deliberately switched out for a high-tech surveillance state in which technologies meant to discipline labor and squash rebellion received all the funding. Bruce has a different vision of what's kept our space dreams on hold for so long and what could break the logjam.