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211: Frank White | Shift Perspective With Astronaut Overview Effect

211: Frank White | Shift Perspective With Astronaut Overview Effect
Apr 1, 2019 · 42m 10s

Using interviews with and writings by 29 astronauts and cosmonauts, Frank White shows how experiences such as circling the Earth every 90 minutes and viewing it from the moon have...

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Using interviews with and writings by 29 astronauts and cosmonauts, Frank White shows how experiences such as circling the Earth every 90 minutes and viewing it from the moon have profoundly affected our space travelers' perceptions of themselves, their world, and the future. He shows how the rest of us, who have participated imaginatively in these great adventures, have also been affected psychologically by them. He provides a powerful rationale for space exploration and settlement, describing them as the inevitable next steps in the evolution of human society and human consciousness, as the activities most likely to bring a new perspective to the problems of life on Earth.

White goes on to consider the possible consequences of a human presence in space, both for the pioneers who settle there and for those who remain on Earth. He imagines how having a permanent perspective from outer space will affect our politics, our religion, our social relations, our psychology, our economics, and our hard sciences. He confronts the possibility of rebellion by a space colony and of contact with extraterrestrial beings. And, finally, he makes it clear that our fate is in our own hands, that we will shape our future in space effectively only by fashioning a new human space program, free of excessive nationalism and dedicated to the peaceful exploration of the space frontier.

Frank White, the space philosopher best known for The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, is launching The Human Space Program through his new book, The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Overview Effect (Morgan Brook Media) on March 12th, 2019. A short film called "Overview," based largely on his first work, has been seen over 8 million times online.

The Human Space Program describes an initiative that accounts for the realities and possibilities of the next step of space exploration as humanity migrates into the solar system.

White and his colleagues outline 16 content-specific task forces that the project plans to set up to explore key issues arising out of human expansion into our "solar neighborhood." These task forces would report back to a central organizing authority to construct a comprehensive, sustainable, and inclusive blueprint for exploring and developing the solar system.

The book includes a series of conversations with astronauts discussing their experiences in orbit or on the moon and their new perspective on the universe. White is well known for the in-depth and personal reporting he has done on this unique group of some 500 people and documenting the profound effect that space travel has had on many of them. Their enthusiastic and emotional messages serve as the basis for The Cosma Hypothesis, in itself an inspiring perspective on our species and the wonderful possibilities that lie before us.

Frank White's book, The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, first published by Houghton-Mifflin in 1987, is now in its third edition, and is considered by many to be a seminal work in the field of space exploration and development. White is a co-founder of the Overview Institute and founder of the "Academy in Space Initiative," which launched at Framingham State University in April of 2016, and has evolved into the Human Space Program.

White is the author or coauthor of 14 books on topics ranging from space exploration to climate change. White is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his M.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University. White worked for Harvard University for 17 years and now teaches at the Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School.

- https://overviewinstitute.org/
- https://amzn.to/2U9aKkz

Please do NOT hesitate to reach out to me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or via email mark@vudream.com

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Mark Metry - https://www.markmetry.com/

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