(Image Credit: Tom Cross)
One of the great things about having a genius-level CEO who is hell-bent on pushing mankind into the world they expected to already exist and is a massive sci-fi fan, is that the design aesthetic for everything his companies do is very consciously ‘futuristic’. And why not? It is fantastic to boldly own the fact that we really should look like the Jestons by now, instead of something from the set of 1984’s Repo Man.
A perfect example of this is the new Crew Access Arm (CAA) that SpaceX has installed on Pad 39a at Cape Canaveral. Seeing crew-based hardware going back up on this historic pad should make anyone familiar with recent history very excited, as it was from this very location that all Apollo missions to the moon, powered by the Saturn V, were launched along with many of the more recent Shuttle missions. Restoring that capability to American soil, through American inginuity is something we should all be proud of, and is something to be recognized and celebrated.
From a broader perspective – I believe firmly that the exploration and development of space will be a unifying force for a fractured world. Certainly there will be some unexpected struggles, as there always are, but I think that humans need a sense of adventure and exploration. It’s part of our makeup. We are lacking that now, and spinning our wheels with reality shows and iPhone apps, and basically circling the drain without a shared purpose. Space will be that purpose, and I feel will allow us to lift up from the state in which we find ourselves and achieve the next, better stage of our enlightened development, together as one people.
References:
- Teslarati – SpaceX’s futuristic Crew Dragon astronaut walkway is ready for US human spaceflight revival