A Little Late the Future has Arrived

If you have read any of the histories of Project Apollo, you know it was epic. In a few short years they created technologies that didn’t exist, and strapped men to dangerous machines. No fancy computers to aid them, every part was designed on paper, guided by math and physics.

Then it ended.

Mission accomplished, the government no longer saw the value of continuing at the pace established. Politicians only worry about the next election, not the future of humanity. Had the innovation continued, and Saturn 5s still rolled off the production line, we the people of the year 2023 A.D., wouldn’t be talking about “returning to the Moon,” or planning to go to Mars.

We would have never left the magnificent lunar dunes, and we’d have outposts in the red seas of Mars.

Now we are going back to the future. The Long Delay is Nearly Over.

For decades after Apollo, we suffered what Alex Dubin dubbed, “space policy whiplash.” Every administration and Congress unveiled a new plan, while terminating the previous one. Long term goals and dates were sometimes set, but they were so far out, they quickly faded into deep space. Programs floundered in the space industrial complex. There is no motivation for innovation and efficiency in a system that hands out government checks, only to change the plan every few years. Politicians saw NASA as just another jobs program to tout on the campaign trail.

NASA’s Artemis rocket is a wonder to be sure. Powerful and capable, it’s also immensely expensive and non-reusable. Designed to build off decades old shuttle technology simply to preserve the old system for just a few more years, it will be NASA’s last legacy project. Soon it will be supplanted by SpaceX‘s Super Heavy.

I remember back in the ’90s, as a member of the National Space Society, trying to convince the government space travel was important. One time, after one campaign, the International Space Station survived cancelation by one vote. Trying to get NASA to change was hard. We saw progress in interplanetary exploration, launching armadas of probes. Efforts to build next-generation, reusable spacecraft failed. Human Mars mission efforts came and went, even though perfect plans like Mars Direct were created. In the context of government-funded spaceflight, the future was delayed and never appeared on the horizon.

Or perhaps there was a glimmer of sunlight as we called for new legislation laying the groundwork for expanded privatization and commercialization of space. This was done and commercial satellites had already made billions, but sending people into space was dangerous and expensive, and only the government could accomplish such feats. Of course, as with most things the government claimed only it could do, there was much skepticism to be had.

The only truth to their claims is it was expensive to fly into space. Yet little effort had been made to bring rocketry into the 21st Century.

Then Elon Musk came along. He had money. He had a vision. More importantly, he had grit.

The aerospace industrial complex wouldn’t go quietly into the night. They thought their gravy train would never end. As Ashlee Vance, writes, “…Musk obviously rammed a new philosophy of doing business right down their throats.” The philosophy of free markets. SpaceX would fly more rockets in a few months, than had been shot off in previous decades combined.

Lori Garver, former executive director of the National Space Society, tried to change hearts and minds from the inside as NASA Deputy Administrator. It was a rough go, but NASA went from scoffing at the likes of SpaceX, to talking as if they were for change all along. Perhaps they don’t truly see what is coming. NASA of Space 2.0 won’t be the same NASA of Apollo, the shuttle, or the ISS. It will be forced — I mean transformed — back into what it was designed to do: Foster innovation and seed new technologies, and continue to explore the Solar System. For now, at least.

Once the door was kicked open, or rather broken off, there was no turning back. Vance’s new book details the upstarts at Planet Labs, Firefly, Astra, and Rocket Labs who followed SpaceX. Much like the First Space Age, the Second is full of drama, colorful characters, explosions, and grand victories. This time, though, unburdened by government bureaucracy and thoughtless politicians, the only thing in the way of these rocket engineers is gravity.

It has been a long wait. Apollo is almost mythical now. Young generations think their phones are the pinnacle of technology. Yet, while they look at TikTok videos, their grandparents, or great-grandparents, sent men to the Moon with slide-rules.

Now we are at the doorstep of the entire Terran Solar System. Its mineral wealth. Helium-3 that could power humanity for centuries. Protecting and understanding Earth. Spaceflight isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. We can’t pretend otherwise anymore.

We have permission to think grand thoughts again. Not just think about them, but make them our reality.

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How Far will the Darkness Take Her?

Her city was put to the fire; her family enslaved. For centuries she served the shadowmancer. Now, he too has been taken from her.

The Source must be reopened and the Lost Continent released. The Day of Darkness once came and nearly destroyed humanity.

It will come again and she will have her revenge.

Awakening, Watchers of the Light Book 2 Coming Soon.

Book1, Among the Shadows is out now.

#ChooseASide #DarknessIsComing #WhoIsTheNewShadowmancer?

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The Awakening is Here

In an age lost to myth, all human life nearly vanished from the Earth. War erupted between men and demon. The Blood Rain fell from the skies, the land was scorched and torn. The waters came and completed the ruin of the world.

In time, people ceased believing in such tales. This the Darkness wanted. It waited until it was forgotten, a time when most thought it foolish to listen to the warnings of their ancestors. Among the shadows malice lurked, and signs from the Light were ignored. Centuries passed.

A shadowmancer arose to launch a new Scourge. Evils unseen since the ancient wars returned from the Abyss. The modern world would soon fall. No men could stand against them. So they thought.

Six Watchers, gifted by the Light, stood to meet the Darkness and destroyed the Dark One’s legions.

While the world had been unaware, all had nearly been lost. Now the shadows had receded, their terror extinguished. The Followers had been burnt by the Light.

Except one.

If a lost land could be raised, if the ageless weapons restored, she would have her revenge. New hordes would be brought through the veil. The final merging of both worlds completed. Ancient tales of the end of days no longer legend.

An Awakening.

Will the Watchers, who had turned back what emerged from the shadows, be able to stand against a new onslaught? One that would leave every land in desolation and enslave all whom survive?

They will not fight alone. More of their kind, wielding gifts of great power, have also come forth. The Light surges in us all, but among the Watchers it is untamed and unbound. Only the can turn back what is coming.

In these last hours, they are our only hope.

Awakening, Watchers of the Light Book 2 Coming Soon.

Book1, Among the Shadows is out now. #ChooseASide #DarknessIsComing #WhoIsTheNewShadowmancer?

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Slavery is Alive and Very Profitable

We all claim to support human rights and social justice, yet our materialistic lifestyles enable the abuse of people worldwide. Perhaps many do not know where their gadgets and stuff comes from, living with the false belief horrible things don’t happen in our enlightened world.

Siddharth Kara’s new book, Cobalt Red, shatters those cognitive lies by detailing the slave labor and horrific conditions powering our devices and “green” electric cars. Listen to his interview with Joe Rogan.

Do we care about Africa and other “third world’ regions and the totalitarian nations that violate human rights to feed our wants?

We talk about the slavery of the past, but do we care about slavery in the 21st Century? It’s alive and worse than ever.

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Tell Your Story

“…of far greater power to you are not my stories but yours. Which Stories have you heard that shape your life? What do you believe? I mean what you really believe, when you are asked to lift the Swords in your life, or lay them down. What makes who you are? We can find answers in the Stories we tell.” – Randall Wallace (screenwriter of Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor).

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Political Saviors are a False Hope

As a nation we are hurting. We are trying to find a political savior, and we are blaming it on this team or that team, this color versus that color. I argue for people to look deeper than that. It is the financial system that’s broken. People need to stop looking to a political savior to break their chains of debt servitude. They can break their own chains now by opting out of the system…

I asked myself, “Why, if technology is supposed to drive prices down, why is the cost of living going up every year? Why is it so expensive to by a house for young people, stock portfolios so expensive, cost of education?” There is a real reason to that because when you flood the system which cheap money, easy capital, manipulate what should be free markets, then you have the greatest wealth transfer from the poor and the middle class to the elite. Now, finally there can be a reverse transfer.

– Natalie Brunell

Follow Emmy-winning journalist Natalie Brunell here, and listen to her podcast Coin Stories as she talks to thought leaders in finance and society.

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The Long Delay is Nearly Over

In early 1960s America, it was perfectly reasonable to imagine a world a century later with flying cars and permanent human space habitats. When Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn were orbiting Earth, you could forgive writers for their imaginations. The show was conceived during a period when people were breathtakingly optimistic about emerging technologies. But 2022 being the year of George Jetson’s “birth” is a funny yet startling reminder that such a future never came true. The cartoons many of us watched growing up with big dreams of the future have remained just that — cartoons and dreams. And people who were born after Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt took humanity’s last steps on the Moon are now old enough to have grandchildren.

But despite all this, 2022 may actually go down in the history books as the year we finally brought this long delay to an end. With the recent success of Artemis 1 — NASA’s test of the Space Launch System rocket topped by an Orion capsule, which splashed down on December 11 after a successful trip around the Moon — humanity’s return to our nearest neighbor appears to be imminent.

And for good reason: A report on the “State of the Space Industrial Base” released in August predicted that China would overtake the United States “as the dominant global space power economically, diplomatically and militarily by 2045, if not earlier.” There are potentially trillions of dollars of resources on the Moon, on asteroids, and on other celestial bodies. As with space research and development in the past, there will be spinoffs that will improve life on Earth. And space is the next frontier in the long story of human exploration.

After a fifty-year delay, we may at last be on the verge of fulfilling this dream.

Alex Dubin

Read the rest here.

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Everything We’ve Been Taught About Health is Wrong

You may have heard how Americans are unhealthier than ever, in spite of billions spent on healthcare. Not surprising since healthcare tries to fix the problems after the fact, instead of addressing root causes. How did health begin to spiral out of control? One major reason began, not surprisingly, with government meddling.

The government’s devaluation of the dollar in 1971, allowing Congress to spend endlessly and thus devaluing the dollar even further, effectively destroyed vibrant, healthy, American agriculture. Saifedean Ammous details the history in The Fiat Standard, and here are some highlights:

Government policies begun in the 1970s “killed small-scale agriculture and forced small farmers to sell their plots to large corporations, consolidating the growth of industrial food production, which would in due time destroy America’s soil and its people’s health…” This brought down the prices of industrialized foods, but “the quality of food was degraded…[and] as prices of highly nutritious foods rise, people are inevitably forced to replace them with cheaper alternatives.”

Instead of issuing dietary guidelines based on science, they are often designed “to promote cheap industrial food substitutes” and are “shaped by an increasingly powerful agricultural industrial complex…The food pyramid is a recipe for metabolic disease, obesity, diabetes, and a plethora of health problems that have been increasingly common…” Industrial foods are often full of “toxic, heavily processed industrial chemicals misleadingly referred to as ‘vegetable oils’…as well as the abomination that is margarine.”

“Refined sugar and flour can be better understood as drugs…[the process] is similar to the refining process that has made cocaine and heroin such highly addictive substances…Government subsidies for the production of unhealthy foods-and government scientists recommending and requiring we eat them…[has resulted in a] dietary transition on Americans’ health [that] has been calamitous…their mental and physical health are deteriorating…increasing obesity is not a sign of affluence but a symptom of deprivation…The ever-increasing cost of medication and healthcare cannot be understood without reference to the destruction of health, diet, and soil, and the economic and nutritional system that promoted this calamity.”

Healthy cultures “relied heavily on animal products…junk food cravings are also a result of deep malnutrition caused by not eating enough meat.”

“Americans are not fat because of prosperity and abundance; Americans are fat because they are malnourished and nutritionally impoverished.”

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Tired of Government Mandated Debt Slavery?

I’m old enough to remember when the first trillion dollar debts created outrage. Now politicians of all sides routinely sign off on tens of trillion dollars of deficit spending. If people took the time to understand economics, they would understand how detrimental this is to their lives, and to future generations. Such spending devalues an already devalued currency. This allows government to spend even more recklessly (funding endless wars and everything else), and means your wealth is a fraction of what it could be. Thus you can’t provide for the future, or even maintain the highest quality of life in the present.

Here’s some quotes from Saifdean Ammous’ books, The Bitcoin Standard and The Fiat Standard, introducing the dangers of deficit spending, and how it has ruined our buying power and wealth. His peerless books are an education in the history of economics and how it was grossly manipulated by our leaders at our expense. Someday the bubble will burst. If you want to prevent that, and provide a better future for your descendants, read Ammous’ books and help forge a brighter path.

Why deficit spending is a terrible idea:

“One of the most mendacious fantasies that pervades Keynesian economic thought [and government economics] is the idea that the national debt ‘does not matter, since we owe it to ourselves.’ Only a…disciple of Keynes could fail to understand that this ‘ourselves’ is not one homogeneous blob but is differentiated into several generations – namely, the current ones which consume recklessly at the expense of future ones…this policy…was employed by the decadent emperors of Rome during its decline…

“Debt is the opposite of saving. If saving creates the possibility of capital accumulation and civilizational advance, debt is what can reverse it, through the reduction in capital stocks across generations…[today’s] generation has to work to pay off the growing interest on debt, working harder to fund entitlement programs they will barely get to enjoy while paying higher taxes and barely being able to save for their old age.”

Why massive government spending isn’t needed:

“The end of World War II and the dismantling of the New Deal meant the U.S. government cut its spending by an astonishing 75% between 1944 and 1948, and it removed most price controls for good measure. And yet, the U.S. economy witnessed an extraordinary boom during these years…[and millions of men from the war] were almost seamlessly absorbed into the labor force…”

What this has all done to the spending power of your money:

“The average U.S. home price in 1915 was $3500. In 2021 it was $269,039…Had the fiat [government issued money] standard adopted a fixed supply in 1914…the average American house would today cost $411.”

Do you choose collapse, or freedom from slavery?

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Happy With Your Health?

“We’ve normalized being unhealthy. Some of the statistics are just truly frightening…88%…of adults in the United States today are not healthy…60% of the adults over 50…are on multiple prescription medications. Poor health has actually become the normal…We don’t even expect to be healthy anymore. We spend all of our efforts, all of our energy, trying to manage our illness, instead of trying to remain healthy in the first place…Each individual, everyone has to realize they have the power…to keep themselves healthy…and not need the healthcare system.” – Dr. Phillip Ovadia

Want to make an investment in your health? Check out Dr. Ovadia’s, Stay Off My Operating Table. This short book could be one of the most valuable reads in taking control of your own health. Check out an interview with Ovadia here and start your journey to a better life.

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