The Greater Earth Manifesto

Concepts for a New Humanistic vision of the World

Issue 3,Rev. 2 - 30 may 1998 [updated: 28.05.2003 to change some email addresses]

...

CONTENTS:

1. PHILOSOPHICAL AND CULTURAL CONCEPTS
2. ETHICS OF THE NEW HUMANISM
3. SPACE DEVELOPMENT
4. ECONOMY
5. POLITICAL
6. GREATER EARTH INITIATIVE DEFINITION ACT

OTHER SCRIPTS:

• Space Power Systems on Moon or in Orbit - by Michael Martin-Smith
• A short story to define human economy and basic ethics - by Adriano Autino
• A preamble to the Greater Earth's Manifesto - by Arthur Woods
• About the Name of the Greater Earth - by Arthur Woods

The following people gave contributes to the Greater Earth Manifesto:

1.PHILOSOPHICAL AND CULTURAL CONCEPTS

PC.100 - Purpose

• We advocate and defend humanity's expansion into space as the most ethical task of the immediate future, as an enterprise both natural and urgently necessary to enable the continuity of (terrestrial) life and (modern) civilization confronted with the apparent limits of their (growth) success.

PC.200 - Definition: Greater Earth

• By the term 'Greater Earth', we mean a spherical region of space, centered on the Earth, where the gravitational influence of our home planet dominates the motions of any object. This region has a radius of approximately 1.5 Millions km, thus extending up to the L1 Lagrange point, marking the border of Greater Earth. We regard this region as the truer extension of Earth.

PC.300 - Life's imperative and human Right toExpand

• We acknowledge that Life strives to penetrate, occupy and utilize all locales within its reach to further its survival and expansion. We defend the right, for Humanity, to accede to a greater ecological niche.

PC.400 - Range of action

• We assert the high ethical value, for the Human Kind, to expand its activities, for its procreation and survival, in the entire Solar System, and in all the territory in the range of its cultural, technological and philosophical means.

PC.500 - Defense of our cultural history andfuture and humanity survival

• We defend Humanity and its further development as a cultural and sentient species, against any against any restrictive programmes. We are dedicated to the survival and continuation of the development of Humanity in all aspects.

PC.600 - Recognition of directed evolution

• We recognize that the human species, above all terrestrial species, has demonstrated its success by exerting conscious control and direction of its own evolution, and by becoming able to actively avoid extinction.

PC.700 - Human resources

• People are resources, not problems. A real problem is bureaucracy, since it is not able to involve and to turn into account the human patrimony.

PC.800 - The Open World

• Against the obsolete and dangerous paradigm of the Closed World (or "Spaceship Earth", according to the Club of Rome definition), we affirm the concept of an Open World, with new horizons of development for all humanity and all life.

PC.900 - Urgency to Implement the Space Option

• We recognize the urgent need to find new ways to accommodate and to integrate the growing human population into viable ecological and economical systems.

PC.1000 - Right to Develop the human innatepotential

• We reject any concept that places limits (even involuntary) on the rights of human beings to develop their innate potential.

PC.1100 - Cultural Openness declaration

• We are for cultural Openess, without discrimination based on skin colour, gender, religion, or creed, except where these are themselves anti-Human! We apply the concept of Open World in all aspects of human activities and relations.

PC.1200 - The culture of modern man

• We trust in the Human Scientific and Technological Culture, as tools that can take the Humanity over the present crisis of growth. We point out the error of relying on the Nature as the presumed repairer of human errors. We support and promote the scientific method, everywhere, at any level.

PC.1300 - The Cosmic Destiny

• We propose a Cosmic Destiny for the Human Species. Unconscious life expands to occupy all available niches: yet, it's unable to escape extinctions imposed by the natural cycles of the parent planet. Only Intelligent Life can now prevail, thanks to technology, taking beyond the blue planet its civilization and its culture, gardening the otherwise empty and barren spaces.

PC.1400 - Towards an evolutionary ethics

• We consider Humanity master of its home planet and of the Solar System, as the only self-conscious species and the only one with means to exercise its responsibility over the rest of Nature.

PC.1500 - Space scale of issues

• We perceive the present ecological issues as being soluble only on a human and cosmic scale, not on a natural and terrestrial one.

PC.1600 - Human thought

• We praise Human Thought as the maximum expression of Life on this planet and declared its varied creativity of supreme essence. We defend all achievements of Human Thought be they cultural, scientific, moral, technological, or civil.

PC.1700 - Scientific Studies

• We are for the analytical study of Nature, in order to understand its functioning and to copy its mechanisms in order to perpetuate the conditions of a life sustaining environment for our species.

PC.1800 - Possible Development or New Growth

• We promote the New Growth concept, based on a quantitative and ethical analysis of the character of finiteness of the Earth compared to the Universe, and we reject the anti-libertarian, empty and hopeless plan of "sustainability".

2.ETHICS OF THE NEW HUMANISM..

HE.100 - Committment

• Our first duty and committment is toward the human people.

HE.200 - Definition of New Humanism

• We call ourselves New-Humanists, because we add, to the classical Humanism, a new vision, determined by the specificity and extreme criticality of our epoch.

HE.300 - Definition of Astronautical Humanism

• Since we believe that the above duty can be completed only taking the Road to Space, we also call ourselves Astronautical Humanists.

HE.400 - Dynamic vision

• Our humanistic vision is not due to an old fashioned anthropocentric ethic. We see the history and evolution of the life as dynamic processes. Our analysis brings us to state that Humanity must take care of itself, expecially in this critical phase. This historical passage sees us humans at our maximum success and maximum risk of failing the next evolutionary step that, for first time, is strictly dependant on our intelligence.

HE.500 - Survival of Civilization

• Our engagement is not only to help the survival of Humankind (as an animal species), but to help the continuation of the growth of human culture and civilization. We consider the human developing culture and civilization as the highest essence of our nature. When we speak about Survival of the Humankind, we mean cultural continuation and growth, because the survival of Man as an unconscious animal would be a nonsense.

HE.600 - A concret concept of Humanity

• We reject any abstract concept of humanity. When we speak about Humanity we mean the ensemble of the alive human beings, with their charge of hopes and desperations.

HE.700 - Responsibility toward environment andother forms of life

• Taking humans at the first place, and rejecting any mythization of Nature, we take care of the environment, as it is indispensable for the human survival. And we accept the responsibility toward the other terrestrial forms of life as a duty of our intelligence.

HE.800 - Human growth faced to limitedresources

• Human Growth cannot continue on this planet beyond a certain limit, since the resources of our Mother Planet are not infinite.

HE.900 - The danger of a closed environment

• Even if our science cannot yet say precisely what the above limit is, we are dramatically aware of the danger represented by uncontrolled human growth in a closed environment. Lack of resources, and several environmental problems, are warning Humanity to provide solutions urgently.

HE.1000 - The danger of a declining, evenolder, society

• While we are aware of the danger represented by too large a population, we also point out the danger, for Humanity, represented by a possible declining society, as a result of the politics of demographic inversion, as proposed, with surprising superficiality, at the conferences held at Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, and Kyoto.

HE.1100 - Factors of Human Development

• We observe that the largest numerical growth of Humanity took place in this last century (from less then one billion to six billions), and that this process has accompanied our unprecedented technological and cultural growth.

HE.1200 - The social node of the present age

• The present age is possibly the most critical that Humanity has ever had to face. We have an enormous patrimony -- six billion intelligences -- but this patrimony could quickly become our ruin, if we fail to turn it into account for projects of real development.

HE.1300 - No growth without growth

• We also observe that the human economy and progress have positive developments while the growth (of markets, technology and culture) continues.

HE.1400 - The importance of the numericalconsistence

• We proclaim that the human population in toto represents Earth's greatest resource, and is the ultimate source of its creativity, dynamism, and hope.

HE.1500 - Importance of a growing trend

• In general terms, a growing trend is very important, for different factors, namely: to have fresh and increasing intelligences, to keep the spirit of human enterprise high, to keep the economy growing. The above factors are all very important, for a Humanity taking the high road to Space.

HE.1600 - The extraterrestrial imperative andglobal solutions

• In order to continue its growth, Humanity must provide long term solutions. Among such solutions, to decide the development of Space is a sine qua non condition, a real imperative, without which all the other solutions will give no positive results.

HE.1700 - Increasing standard of living is theonly acceptable birth_control

• It was also observed that, when living standards increase, and women attain higher social positions, the birth rate decreases naturally. We think that an increased standard of living for all humanity is the best birth_control, and we trust that a new space economy can greatly help this process.

HE.1800 - The need of a new hope for Humanity

• We remark that in the anthropologic behaviour of the advanced societies are also present some negative factors: fear of the future, unwillingness to bring babies into this imperfect world, personal fears and a personal sense of guilt for consuming too many resources. These factors bring the most sensitive personalities to exclude themselves from the continuation of the species. We believe that the advent of the Greater Earth will bring hope, and especially confidence in the future, for our babies, to advanced and developing societies alike.

HE.1900 - The need of a positive, controlled,growth

• We are for a politics of controlled growth, able to keep the growth positive, and not in collision with the available resources and environment. At the same time we declare that we are, and will be, against any coercion (be it physical or psychological) of the human right to procreate and to continue the individual genetic lines of each human being.

HE.2000 - The need of a larger home forhumanity

• And we clearly indicate, as a priority, the building of new life-sustain environment for the growing Humanity. If the family increases, the solution is not eliminate some of its members, but to involve them all in building a larger home!

HE.2100 - Our sustainability

• In the next century, the number of human beings should be controlled within limits sustainable, beyond the ecosystem of Earth alone! Our concept of sustainability encompasses the space, territory, energy and resources contained in the Greater Earth!

HE.2200 - Handling the human biologic naturewith cultural sensibility

• We assert the human right to use the non-human forms of life (animal and vegetable) for feeding, survival and development of the scientific knowledge. At the same time we are against any form of avoidable cruelty against the animal and vegetable forms of life.

HE.2300 - Behaviour toward other life forms

• We assert that the human dominion on the rest of the nature in our range of action must be gentle and respectful to all forms of Life.

HE.2400 - Specifical attention for possibleextraterrestrial forms of life

• While the terrestrial science has reached a certain capability to classify the animal species on our planet, the analytic behaviour is to be multiplied several times when we will approach extraterrestrial environments, because non-terrestrial life could present itself in very uncommon forms.

HE.2500 - The need of new life-sustainenvironment

• We are aware that, expanding in extraterrestrial environments, Man will reconfigure the territory to support terrestrial life. We consider this step unavoidable for our survival and cultural continuation, as well as the continued use of animal and vegetable forms of life for our feeding.

HE.2600 - Extraterrestrial forms of life

• Toward all possible new discovered non intelligent forms of life we shall observe the following ethical behaviour: (i) assure our survival, isolating us from possible dangers (ii) be gentle as much as possible, (iii) analyse their biology (iv) try to understand if they can be useful in some way for our survival.

HE.2700 - To insert the astronautical humanismin the social life

• In general terms, we say that no human being should be left alone, without the help of his fellows. The astronautical humanists will do their best to link to social real life structures and instances, in order to build together the thought and the language of the new humanism.

HE.2800 - Interdisciplinary contamination

• No scientific discipline should be left alone, without the help of the other diciplines of the human knowledge. We stand for a much more integrated approach to the subject of Science Ethics: we are for an horizontal, global, interdisciplinary cross-fertilization of all the scientific research project teams.

HE.2900 - Science and humanistic disciplines: awall to break

• The scientific community needs the help of the humanists. Humanists, as well as social structures, need the help of the scientific community. All co-operations and cross fertilizations between these communities are highly auspicious.

3.SPACE DEVELOPMENT

SD.100 - Scope and Purpose

• Modelling our new-humanistic vision of a Greater Earth, our main purpose is to nurture and expand human activities beyond Earth's athmosphere, in order to harness the resources there available. This is our clear political choice and commitment, against any future conflict for the control of the decreasing terrestrial resources.

SD.200 - Available Resources

• We identify those resources contained or transient within the gravitational sphere of Greater Earth as natural resources belonging to Humanity, and thus subject to utilization for its benefit. This includes the energy passing through this sphere as well as the physical resources of the Moon and various asteroids.

SD.300 - Strategic Target

• All Humanity is strategically interested in the expansion of human activities into Greater Earth and beyond and in the acquisition and use of the available resources to fight its impoverishment, its disenfranchisement and oppression, the degradation of the Biosphere and the destruction of terrestrial life forms.

SD.400 - Urgency

• We recognize the urgency of exploring, acquiring and utilizing the resources within Greater Earth for the survival of all terrestrial Life. Furthermore, a failure to utilize the natural territory of Greater Earth will result in the eventual decline and destruction of the present human civilization.

SD.500 - Plans

• We envision the following strategic goals:
  1. Space Power Systems on the Moon and/or in Orbit (see MMS short paper on this topic);
  2. Permanent industrial and scientific settlements on the Moon and artificial orbiting platforms;
  3. Artificial Small Ecosystems research settlements on the Moon and/or in Orbit;
  4. Orbital and lunar defenses against potential impacts by other celestial bodies;
  5. Orbital Medical Research Centers and hospital complex;
  6. A Shielded Astronomical Observatory compound at appropriate loaction (e.g. SE-L2).

SD.600 - Astrobiology

• We emphasize the importance of the Astrobiological aspects of space research into the development of new ecosystems, to sustain Life within the boundaries of Greater Earth and to spread Life beyond its borders.

SD.700 - Point of Liberation

• We indicate that the radius of Greater Earth is delimited by the "Point of Liberation", for the spread of Life originating on Earth throughout the Cosmos.

SD.800 - Significance of Astronautics

• We assert the importance of related space developments as they interface with all other aspects of human endeavors within Greater Earth.

.

..

4.ECONOMY

EC.100 - Promotion of the Greater Earth's Economy

• We believe that all means are to be used, private and governmental, to develop a new economy based on the occupation and exploitation of Greater Earth. All the means that encourage and give rise to human creativity, association, and reaching forward to occupy this new territory should be promoted.

EC.200

• We maintain that developing the environment of Greater Earth will not only enhance prosperity and well being of its occupants but will also promote the survival of the species.

EC.300 - Specificity of the Greater Earth Economy

• We believe that the economic aspects of the Greater Earth development are quite different from anything before.

EC.400 - Historical vision of the Economy

• We believe that real wealth is not measured in monetary terms but in human progress and potential human work. Humanity has never had such great wealth before in its history.

EC.500 - Social aspects of Economy

• Economy deals with inflation and depression, not only with Return of Investment: the opening of a New Horizon will generate enthusiasm and push the economy.

EC.600 - The Space Economy as trailer of theWorld Wide Economy

• The emergence of a space-based economy and culture will rejuvenate the terrestrial economy over the years, giving birth to a commonewealth far greater than mere monetary investment.

..

..

5.POLITICS

PL.100 - Ideological openness

• Our beliefs are liberal, democratic, libertarian and antiauthoritarian. We act in the interest of all humanity.

PL.200 - Evolutionary social behaviour

• We aim for a new spirit of cooperation among all Humans as brothers and sisters.

PL.300 - Human responsibility

• We trust in the great capability of Life to industrialize and express itself in its diversity. Humans, which are the highest expression of Life and the dominant species on planet Earth, has the responsibility to promote the survival and well being of all other Life which shares this planet.

PL.400 - Human Patrimony

• We praise and promote the diversity of Nature in general. On Humanity in Nature, we proclaim the value of all cultures. The next Einstein could be born in a bidonville! We fight for the full realization of the human potential.

PL.500 - Defense of the Scientific Research

• We reject the idea that Scientific and Technological research is guilty of the environmental and ecological problems and any assumptions which would limit progress in these areas.

PL.600 - Refuse of irrational solutions

• We are against the idea that Humanity can resolve the environmental and ecological problems by diminishing Scientifical and Technological Research

PL.700 - For an open scientific world

• We defend an open concept of Scientific and Technological Research and the universal dissemination of its results.

PL.800 - The human try_error_retry methodology

• We claim that the Scientific Method belongs to the whole of Humanity, and not only to an elite part of it. Even an illiterate farmer, when he experiments with different ways to grow his plants, and takes note of the results in his mind, applies the scientific method. The first scientist started the Neolithic revolution!

PL.900 - Education

• We maintain that intelligence can and must be educated and incremented, by all the humans. We need the help of all the complanetaries willing to apply themselves to solve the Humanity’s problems.

PL.1000 - Equal opportunities

• We propose that the opportunities of Greater Earth should be shared without exclusion.

PL.1100 - Reject of repressive practices

• We reject and condemn any repressive political practices that prohibit the freedoms of expression and the rights to life, happiness, prosperity and justice.

PL.1200 - Call for help and assistance

• We welcome all assistance to promote the vision and the potential of the Greater Earth concept and the goals of the "GreaterEarth" society.

PL.1300 - Responsibility

• We accept the responsibility to take the discussion and the politics of the Greater Earth concept to the general public.

6.GREATER EARTH INITIATIVE DEFINITION ACT

DA.100

• The Greater Earth initiative, without any other formality, is a common, non-profit, initiative to which the Promoters refer, and not an official society.

DA.200

• The present definition act is not aimed, in any way, to disable future constitutions of societies, consortia, or associations, or anyway better defined acts, among the promoters, in the name of the Greater Earth.

DA.300

• Promoters of the Greater Earth Initiative are the following organizations and individuals:

• Spage Age Associates (UK)
• Technologies of Frontier (IT)
• Adriano Autino (TF)
• Michael Martin Smith (SAA)
• Daniel Christlein (SAA)

DA.400

• Each organization, promoting of the Greater Earth, keeps on in absolute freedom with its own initiatives. Each Promoter is encouraged to add the reference to the GE Initiative as an added signature, to its initiatives, i.e., in case of a letter to newspapers:

"Dear editor,

text text text

Yours Sincerely

Name and FamilyName, President of x Organization

[The x Organization promotes and subscribes to the Greater Earth Initiative [link to the site with presentation, manifesto, etc...]"

DA.500

• The Manifesto of the Greater Earth is issued on the Technologies of Frontier's web site. All the Promoters will link to the Greater Earth initiative Manifesto (and other presentation pages, if any) from their home pages.

DA.600

• Each Promoter engages itself to call for signatures under the Manifesto and to give to the Greater Earth initiative the largest information as possible.

DA.700

• Each Promoter engages itself to call for affiliation of other organizations and single persons to the Greater Earth Initiative: the new affiliated are simply requested to add a banner (supplied by the Greater Earth) to their home page. The banner will report the sentence: “This organization subscribes to the Greater Earth Initiative and its Manifesto”.

DA.800

• The promoters define the pursuing of a Greater Earth independent website, as a goal to be achieved during the first year of activity.

DA.900

• The promoters establish that any possible future revenues of the Greater Earth initiative (i.e. books, pubblications, possible financial helps, etc...) cannot be exploited by singles: the promoters must constitute at least a consortium among the persons or among the organizations, to manage any future business.

DA.1000

• All the possible revenues will be first of all used to continue and develop the Greater Earth initiative and/or to promote space development projects.

DA.1100

• The Manifesto and the present Definition Act are printed on paper, and manually signated by each Promoter.

Signatures:

Adriano Autino - President - Technologies of the Frontier (Italy) - adriano.autino@tdf.it

Michael Martin Smith - President - Space Age Associates (UK) - martin@lagrangia.karoo.co.uk

Daniel Christlein - Space Age Associates (Germany) - dchristlein@as.arizona.edu

Arthur Woods - President - The OURS Foundation (CH) - astra@spaceart.net

Marco Bernasconi - MCB Consultants (CH) - marco.bernasconi@tdf.it

Eagle Sarmont - TriPlanetary - cocorico@wrightwood.net

I am in total agreement with what you are saying! Sign me up! You can put my name, Eagle Sarmont, my company name TriPlanetary, or my website address http://www.affordablespaceflight.com on your website, what ever you think will help. Also, please send me the advertising banner for my website as I would like to include it along with a link to your site. If there is anything else I can do let me know.

Sincerely, Eagle Sarmont

 

Adelia Bertetto (Belgique) - European Commission - Adelia.Bertetto@sdt.cec.be

Patrick Collins (Japan) - SpaceFuture, NASDA, Spacetopia - Patrick.Collins@nasda.go.jp

Dale M. Gray (USA) - Idaho Regional Director-Historian Archaeological & Historical Services - DaleMGray@compuserve.com

Luisa Spairani (Italia) - Technologies of the Frontier - Ivrea (Italy)- spairani@netsurf.it

Andy Nimmo (United Kingdom) - Space Settlers - andy.nimmo@net.ntl.com

Flaviano Farfaletti Casali - Joint Research Centre - Ispra (Italy) - flaviano.farfaletti-casali@jrc.it

I totally agree on the relevance of the challenging task of turning the Space and its resources into account! [...] By my side, I'm fighting to defend my Laboratory of Robotics. [...] I'd like that this relevant part of the research, the Robotics, already recognized by ESA and the whole space research Community, had the proper reviews in any promotional activity concerning the spreading of Man in the Space. Sign me up among the Promoters of the Greater Earth Initiative, and please keep me informed on the future development!

Ing.Flaviano Farfaletti-Casali
COMMISSIONE EUROPEA
JRC-Ispra (VA)
ISIS-STA-RT TP210
I-21020 Ispra (VA)
Tel. +39.332.78.9707
Fax +39.332.78.9576/9150
E-Mail: flaviano.farfaletti-casali@jrc.it

NOTE: the listed organizations are quoted only to specify the affiliations of the members, and don't mean necessarily that the organization itself subscribes to the Greater Earth