Larry Bell: An Architect of Space Reflects on Science, Power, and Humanity

Larry Bell is an internationally recognized space program architect and entrepreneur, national award-winning industrial designer, and author of numerous leading magazine features and books addressing a great variety of topics.

Following service as a U.S. Air Force air traffic controller, Larry attended the University of Illinois where he received an undergraduate degree in Architecture and Master of Industrial Design degree… then immediately upon graduation headed that graduate program for eight years rising to full professor rank.

Larry later accepted faculty position at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) in 1987 and as an Endowed Professor of Space Architecture he continues to teach.

Professor Bell also co-founded multiple aerospace companies including Space Industries International (SII) in partnership with renowned former NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Chief Engineer Maxime Faget. Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong and the first two JSC directors, Robert Gilruth and Christopher Kraft, served on SII’s board of directors.

Larry is a recipient of two of the highest honors awarded by Russia’s prestigious Institute of Astronautics and Cosmonautics, and his name along with four others was placed on the large Russian Proton rocket that launched the first crew to the International Space Station.

Larry has authored more than 1,600 Forbes and Newsmax articles in addition to the 14 books including one co-authored with longtime friend and colleague Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin which are all summarized in the narrative that follows.

When journalist Klemen Breznikar reached out, the resulting exchange bypassed the standard Q&A; Breznikar’s questions served as a catalyst for Bell to step back and synthesize his fourteen books into a broader perspective that unites his life’s work.

Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax (2011)

John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel, wrote:

“Larry Bell has cut through the heavily funded bad science of global warming advocates, the outrageous claims of politicians, and the scare threats from extremist environmentalists to explain the truth about earth’s climate and man-made and natural forces that change it.

This book is clearly presented, detailed, and documented, so you know Larry Bell is giving us the real story. He had done an amazing job of sorting it out and putting it in proper perspective.

Joseph D’Aleo, former Weather Channel director of meteorology and weather producer for ABC’s Good Morning America, wrote: “Larry bell’s Climate of Corruption details a timely, compelling narrative concerning the high jacking of science and demonization of carbon by power brokers and eco-evangelists.

Fred Singer, former director of the US National Weather Service wrote: “Larry Bell’s insightful overview of global warming hysteria will open eyes of many who still believe in science as propagated by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and in the promises of politicians to save them from disasters.

After two decades of corrupt science, we are finally able to learn about the politics behind the conspiracy among a small group of influential scientists to manufacture a global warming scare from data that showed none.”

As my friend the late Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham noted on a back cover statement: “Those of us fortunate enough to have travelled in space bet our lives on the competence, dedication, and integrity of the science and technology professionals who made our missions possible.

In the last twenty years, I have witnessed the high standards of science being violated by a few influential climate scientists including some at NASA, while special interest opportunists have dangerously abused our public trust.

This important book shines light on the self-serving agendas and shady political dealings behind the global warming hoax we absolutely must change while there is still time.”

Although having had no particular interest in climate prior to enormous media buzz about Al Gore’s alarming An Inconvenient Truth movie and book, many of us in the space engineering and science community began to note inconsistencies between suspicious data representations and logical facts.

This is the same Al Gore who as a climate doom prophet, wealthy green energy hedge fund investor and active anti-fossil fuel lobbyist was poised to make windfall profits selling carbon dioxide offsets if a proposed United Nations sponsored cap and trade agreement known as the Kyoto Protocol was passed.

Speaking before a 2007 Joint Hearing of the Energy and Science Committee, former Senator and Vice President Gore testified: “As soon as carbon has a price, you’re going to see a wave [of investment] in it…There will be unchained investment.”

Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom (2015)

My Climate of Corruption book attracted the interest of Forbes which invited me to write a regular weekly series of op-ed articles that expanded to address a wide variety of other topics under a column by-line “The Bell Tells for You.”

Whereas I hadn’t intended to write a second book, I ultimately yielded to flattery from some climate scientists including Fred Singer whom I deeply respected who urged me to write a follow-up drawing upon additional information and revelations in some of those Forbes articles.

I initially resisted the temptation – like haemorrhoids, some itches are best left unscratched – reasoning that articles which are far quicker to write than books and reach enormously larger and broader audiences. In addition, the idea of rehashing patchwork material from previous columns held little motivational appeal to me.

Nevertheless, the ceaseless media echo chamber drumbeat of special interest agenda-driven climate alarmism masquerading as science finally provoked a comprehensive book-length response which, briefly summarized, elaborated five key conclusions:

• No sane person will deny that dramatic, often abrupt climate changes have occurred throughout our planet’s multi-billion-year-long history.
• No informed person will believe climate change events are more frequent or severe since the Industrial Revolution…the past few decades in particular
• No honest person will claim confidence in the ability to predict the long-term future, warmer or cooler, for better or worse, based upon highly theoretical climate models which entirely omit poorly understood influences.
• No honorable scientist will compromise objective research principles in order to influence political policy agendas.

And no concerned citizens should be willing to tolerate abuse of climate and public trust. Climate alarmists support unwarranted economic burdens which fall heaviest upon those least able to afford them.

MECOPTICS: Where Energy Comes from and How Much (2025)

The greatest cost burden from incompetent and corrupted climate representations has resulted from scientifically unsupportable anti-fossil policies pushed by the United Nations and massively taxpayer subsidy-dependent green energy companies – primarily wind and solar.

The Kyoto Protocol was essentially a global wealth redistribution scam to punish developed countries for unfair fossil-energized prosperity premised on carbon dioxide influence on climate – global warming – as an excuse.

Enron, a large Houston company with large national gas investments and political ties with former VP Gore was centrally involved in the fraud, viewing the treaty as an opportunity to compete more aggressively with coal which produced higher carbon emissions.

The U.S. Congress was fortunately wise in unanimously vetoing Kyoto participation, Enron dealings were exposed as fraudulent, and the company’s CEO Kenneth Lay subsequently died in prison.

Massive deceptions later became publicly exposed through releases of scandalous ClimateGate emails in 2009 that revealed corrupt collusions among prominent scientists who cooked the UN’s temperature books to drive those ideological and political anti-fossil fuel agendas that demonize carbon dioxide that supports all plant life we depend on for oxygen and food.

MECOPTICS tells the real story of where America and the world get energy and how much.

This book title term is an acronym that incorporates initials of seven general categories of processes that produce energy: mechanical, electrical, chemical, organic, photonic, thermal, and isotopic – along with the connectivity that ties multiple processes together and the synergy that creates integrated systems to increase capacities and efficiencies.

As characterized by Charles McConnel, Executive Director of the University of Houston Center for Carbon Management in Energy: “MECOPTICS is not a menu of solutions, but rather, offers a comprehensive and objective discussion of available ingredients to make the future sustainable.”

How Everything Happened, Including Us (2020)

It’s important to recognize that while climate change is very real, it certainly isn’t new.

Some of those changes occurred over billions of years, others in cosmic blinks; some were unfathomably large, others imperceptibly small; some had catastrophic impacts upon certain regions and species, benefiting others more fortunate; and some were wilfully tragic, while others spiritually inspiring.

The world’s ecosystems experienced some big setbacks along the four billion year-long evolutionary life highway.

Five separate mass extinctions attributed to major climate changes, catastrophic asteroid impacts and massive volcanic eruptions variously killed between three-quarters and 96 percent of all life species.

A sub-branch of some very lucky surviving mammals eventually grew brain frontal lobes capable of self-awareness and tribal social behaviors. About 300,000 years ago, a single branch of these “primates” underwent a genetic mutation that allowed speech.

Within only the last ten thousand years some of those Homo sapiens ancestors of ours invented agriculture; battled and domesticated larger animals for food and clothing; competitively warred against each other and Neanderthal hunter-gatherers; established settlements, cities and empires, built great pyramids and cathedrals; formulated complex cultures and laws; developed advanced scientific methods and philosophies; and composed inspirational literature, music and sonnets.

Some inventive and adventuresome Sapiens contemplated the architecture and workings of the celestial universe and applied that knowledge to guide voyages of discovery, trade, conquest and migration to extend domains and dominions.

Others, within little more than the last century, have harnessed the power of lightening and atoms; mastered flight; traveled many times faster than the speed of sound; transmitted information from everywhere to everywhere else via orbital satellites; walked on the Moon and deployed roving vehicles on the surface of Mars; and created artificial brains that can outsmart their human creators.

And, for better or worse, we’re now really only getting started.

Reinventing Ourselves: How Technology Is Rapidly and Radically Transforming Humanity (2018)

So yes, today’s society is experiencing the earliest beginnings of an inevitable, irreversible and unfathomably impactful information technology revolution which is dramatically impacting our lives, careers and societal values.

Dystopian predictions warn that artificial intelligence and AI-enabled automation will cause catastrophic unemployment and income inequality impacts along with ever-increasing personal privacy sacrifices in exchange for conveniences and security.

More optimistic prognostications contend that just like previous technological revolutions, AI and the Internet will create new types of rewarding jobs, careers and lifestyle choices supported by unbounded information access and social networking resources.

Although this book strives to be neither apocalyptical nor utopian, readers will find both views – and many in between since the time a group of scientists, mathematicians and engineers from many organizations held a first meeting of a series at Dartmouth College in 1956 to consider a rather preposterous idea – the notion that it might be possible to create “thinking machines” that could duplicate or surpass human intellectual capacities.

The big question remains: are we outsmarting ourselves?

Or as the late physicist Stephen Hawking warned about AI in responding to a questioner during an Ask me Anything session on Reddit: “One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out inventing human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.”

The Weaponization of AI and the Internet: How Global Networks of Infotech Overlords Are Expanding Their Control Over Our Lives (2019)

Whereas the information revolution exercised through the minds, hands and free choices of the many affords limitless benefits, when controlled by special interests and agendas of but an increasingly powerful few, the applications for social control and exploitation are equally boundless.

Remote surveillance and monitoring technologies follow and record us virtually everywhere- even in our homes.

Ever-present smart phone “voice assistants” listen in on our private conversations and snitch on us to uninvited outsiders.

Electronic eavesdroppers catalog our special interests, analyze our psychological profiles, and micro-target us for messaging.

Personal viewpoints expressed in social media exchanges are monitored and censored by politically biased algorithms.

Expansively wired-together Internet of Things (IoT) networks and rapid emergence of “smart cities” openly invite autocratic control.

Be very cautious of all-to-seductive invitations to trade away precious privacy for promises of increased convenience, efficiency, and security from predators.

Instead, consider the fate of a frog in a shallow pan of water placed over a flame complacently adjusting to the temperature change until it’s too late to jump out.

Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure, and Our Future (2020)

Meanwhile, foreign state-sponsored computer cyberattacks move at the speed of light to infiltrate information networks, disrupt vital energy grids, extort money from banking systems, and perpetrate disinformation campaigns.

America’s extensive electronic infrastructure dependence comes with the disadvantage of being the glassiest house in a low-cost stone fight.

Not just a field of military engagement existing “out there,” the cyberspace battlefield encompasses all that connects to the Internet, involving everyone with a cell phone, laptop, car GPS device, or even – in some cases – a TV that is unknowingly listening to bedroom conversations.

Cyberattacks often differ from traditional attacks because instead of inflicting physical damage, they virtually always first invade another computer and steal information from within it. And being delinked from geography, political boundaries and even physics, they can simultaneously occur in multiple places with multiple targets at the same time.

The cyber era has therefore dramatically changed challenges and necessities for America to project dominant “strength” against a growing number of technically emboldened adversaries whereby possession of devastatingly potent weaponry capable of shutting down our energy and communication infrastructures, banking systems, air traffic control networks, and other vital services are no longer restricted to wealthy nations.

Economically impoverished North Korea, for example, actually enjoys a cyber-defensive advantage in that unlike America, the technologically backward country lacks dependance upon highly vulnerable power grid and advanced information infrastructure.

Meanwhile, China’s all-out economic commitment to challenge America’s security in cyberspace is beyond question with their hackers known to have penetrated thousands of U.S. communications networks and to have inserted prospectively destructive computer malware into our power grid.

Russian cyber operatives are also known to have penetrated the control systems of U.S. electric power companies.

As former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has observed in 2018, the danger of Russian cyberattacks is similar to dangerous U.S. threats that existed before 9/11: “The warning lights are blinking red again…Today the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.”

What Makes Humans Truly Exceptional (2021)

But what about that other remarkable side of humanity, the exceptional one that isn’t bent upon warfare for tribal conquest against other nations, communities, political parties or disfavored individuals?

After all, applied as an adjective, the forming of an exception can be unusually good, bad or entirely neutral. Performance of a task can be far better than average just as crimes can be unusually callous and cruel, or the weather can be uncommonly warm for January.

This book explores viewpoints wherein “exceptionalism” connotes values and achievements that are broadly deemed truly worthy of our highest aspirations including selfless deeds, excellent abilities and accomplishments, insightful inventiveness, and impactful decisions and actions.

Some of these exceptional groups and individuals invented languages, cultures and cooperative societies; sought spiritual and scientific understanding of the world and Universe; created marvelous art, architectures, tools and machines inconceivable to previous generations; and who continue to surprise us with transformative discoveries and inventions.

Exceptionalism is also a quality that often goes quietly unnoticed and underappreciated by adoring throngs: something that each of us can aspire to and exhibit in the process of simultaneously enriching both our own lives and those of others.

Achieving true exceptionalism doesn’t really have anything to do with acquiring wealth or fame. Rather, it requires us to contemplate other more fundamental considerations.

Am I consistently trustworthy to be a good spouse, parent and friend?

Do I possess a generous nature where it comes to sharing credit and effort which recognizes the worth and contributions of others?

Have I touched the lives of others in a constructive way simply because I could?

Am I comfortable with that person that inhabits my own skin?

In short, exceptionalism is an inherently human quality accessible to all of us.

Cosmic Musings: Contemplating Life Beyond Self (2016)

Among the big questions self-aware humans have asked from the beginnings of civilizations is whether we, as individuals, have lived before, and if so, will again in a spirit world or as reincarnated versions of current and past selves.

Previous revelations into such mysteries draw upon diverse, often divergent sources including ancient and contemporary philosophers, influential world religions and cultures, and prominent scientists including classical physicists and quantum theorists.

My earliest personal memory of self-revelation is when I was a child, probably about seven or eight years old, sitting quietly alone outside my house. The long Wisconsin winter had retreated, and grass began to appear amidst remaining patches of melting snow. The sun was warm on my back, and the musky fragrance of wet earth was strong.

It suddenly dawned on me that I was directly connected to that magical world of my backyard. The materials that comprised the soil, grass, trees and even stones were the same stuff I was made of.

I wasn’t just a spectator experiencing nature. I was actually part of nature, and somehow always would be, long after the trees were gone.

That awareness was very exciting to me then and continues to be now in recognizing myself as a creature of a vast Universe possessed of planetary elements that passed through other fiery stars, now gone long before our mother sun was born.

That Universe of more than 100 billion galaxies that spawned us and estimated to have existed for about 13.7 billion years remains constantly changing, like a garden where new plants bud as others wither on a cosmic time schedule.

From our vantage point on a remote spiral arm of our galaxy it is difficult to grasp the reality that distant stars, and the planets and ghostly clouds that surround them, are part of our personal world.

Humankind has a history of resisting any observation that places us outside of the Universe, most particularly a changing one where planets, stars and even galaxies are constantly being born, only to later die.

One answer is perhaps to recognize that change is the essential nature of life and spirit, and that everything we have the good judgement to enjoy is dynamic, revealing new dimensions of possibility with each transformation and discovery.

The exciting news, if we accept it, is that nature is eternal, or as close to it as we dare imagine.

And as manifestations of that wonderous condition, we are too.

Reflections on Oceans and Puddles: One Hundred Reasons to be Enthusiastic, Grateful and Hopeful (2017)

Like viewing the Universe, the conditions and opportunities we recognize in mortal life depend much more upon vision than location.

Wherever we are, what we see is influenced by viewing angles we choose and the ways we focus our minds, and how we interpret what we see also reflects back to ways we view ourselves in those settings.

Visualize yourself the way a sighted microbe would see you from inside your body as an endless universe of incomprehensible size.

From an ant’s point of view you might appear as a big foot that threatened to trample his or her life and handiwork.

A small child looking up at you would see you as being bigger than you see yourself in the mirror, partly because they are shorter, and also because the spacing of their eyes makes everything appear larger.

All of these creatures might exist in proximity to one another yet live in separate worlds quite unaware of the others’. Similar circumstances apply to people who live together yet view conditions from different perspectives.

As we learn to see ourselves from the outside, we can begin to observe our relationships, opportunities and choices within more objective frames and references.

Focusing close-up, is the self that you witness cheerful and enjoyable to be around?

Does he or she appear to be interested, involved and proactive in what they are doing, or are they sitting on life’s sidelines awaiting opportunities to be presented by someone else?

Now let’s at least pretend that the self you have been observing from these different vantage points is someone you really love and care about and wish to have a happier, more fulfilled life. Would you listen to and trust their advice?

Perhaps in doing so we might each discover a person who has special capabilities that we have never recognized, exciting potentials we never appreciated, and a new friend we enjoy being with.

Thinking Whole: Rejecting Half-Witted Left & Right Brain Limitations (2018)

Chances are that you may have bought into a limited but popularly accepted notion that divides personality types into predominate logically analytical and technically oriented left-brained thinkers versus more creative right-brained free spirits, and that these are mutually exclusive traits.

Instead, each of our two brain hemispheres share and support both of these intellectual capacities.

Whole brain thinking is evidenced in everyday life through our awareness of surrounding environments. It is expressed through curiosity which compels our interest in how and why natural and man-made things work the way they do…interconnected relationships between ourselves and others…patterns and rhythms observed in nature…spiritual lessons and explorations that motivate higher purposes and values…inspirations experienced through image forms, literature and stories of the past…music…everything combined that our whole minds can contemplate.

A chapter of this book titled “Inspiration from My Friends” proposes five general categories of people who think whole along with individual examples, inviting readers to correlate such characteristics with their experiences and personal qualities.

Humanitarians, including teachers, medical and hospice workers, and yes, parents to name but a few, are people whose lives tend to center upon caring engagements and primary satisfactions involving assistance to individuals and groups.

Visualists are people whose interests and activities center upon creatively exploring and expressing subtle impressions and profound ideas in graphic, linguistic, choreographic, and spatially tactile forms, whether for passion, profit or both.

Scientists are people who seek, above all, to address and solve elusive mysteries, seemingly large and small, applying replicable methods and proofs that build scaffolds of understanding to advance human knowledge with or without known applications.

Innovators are people who, more than broadly generalized “inventors,” seek to produce novel and improved products and services with measurable benefits over traditional or competitive offerings – the “better mousetrap” solution.

Explorers are risk-tolerant people who readily trade assured comfort and security for psychological and physical challenges and experiences that prioritize adventure, discovery and personal growth.

Whereas none of these characteristics are mutually exclusive – most of us likely exhibit more than one example cited in perhaps different amounts – where would you prioritize yourself in each category?

Imaginings and Amusements: Carving Doorways to Dreams (2025)

Ranking my own interests and passions, my longest and most personal as visualist dates back about eight decades to carving fanciful forms of early childhood amusement from end pieces of wood peach crates with a jackknife gifted to me by trusting parents.

That engrossment and delight in peeling away chunks, chips and dust to release imagined sculptural possibilities from inanimate lumber and rocks continues today amidst competing interests and responsibilities that constantly vie for attention.

Sculpture became a very special activity in my life because of the unlimited freedom it affords to think – meditate – and become self-indulgently possessed by any vague notion that gives me pleasure at a particular time.

My exhibited gallery and museum works began in the early 1970s while pursuing graduate studies in Industrial Design at the University of Illinois and continued immediately upon graduation with an appointment to head that graduate program over an eight-years period.

These sculptures tended to be relatively large freely imagined thin-shell organic forms expressing space, balance and implied movement carved from laminated lumber, while also including some more representational stone carvings.

Three of these wood pieces were purchased for permanent collections by the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, the University of Illinois Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Champaign-Urbana, and the Distelheim in Chicago’s prominent Oak Street gallery district.

Sculpture passion followed me to Houston in the late 1970s where upon joining the University of Houston Architecture faculty, I continue to produce numerous smaller pieces carved in wood and hard wax – many of them cast in bronze – as represented in the book that follows this narrative.

Most of the rest of my time is currently devoted to designing space stations and lunar/planetary outposts.

Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life by Design (2022)

The girding premise of this book views life – everyone’s – as our most important design activity.

Having said this, I also recognize that it is overly simplistic to visualize the life process as a singular “project” guided and pursued in accordance with a static master plan.

Intervening events, opportunities, challenges, and setbacks make life design a constant work-in-progress to fully become the person we wish to be. Each change, whether intentional or through serendipity – or for better or worse – warrants and instructs renewed assessments. We become more or less of that ideal person through practice and habit.

Whether or not that person we are constantly in the process of becoming is the same individual we most admire entails some important questions.

For example, we might ask ourselves whether we truly care enough about that goal – each goal – to take on all the burdens of responsibility it demands.

Are we confident enough about our preparation and abilities to accept worthwhile risks? Have we demonstrated the innovative persistence to prevail over daunting obstacles and to rebound from setbacks?

Although each of our lives are uniquely ours to design, I’ll offer a few lessons from my own experience in hopes they may somehow be useful to you.

• Lesson One: If you can’t sit still, then really get moving!

You can’t rely entirely upon the swift current of events to carry you through all the obstacles. Instead, you sometimes have to paddle like hell to take command of your options so that they aren’t left to chance or fall under the control of others.

• Lesson Two: Make it regular practice to look at the BIG PICTURE so that you don’t get lost in the details.

In your personal life, try to be clear about what it is that you care most about. In a new job or position assignment, work to understand the broad priorities and scope of the business or service environment of the organization, and the ways that your designated role fits into and contributes to them.

• Lesson Three: Define your opportunities, responsibilities and prerogatives as ambitiously as possible.

Push the boundaries of your personal expectations and job descriptions to the limit. Be more than anyone expects you to be.

• Lesson Four: Value your resources and abilities.

If you don’t know how to solve a problem someone else’s way, then devise your own approach. Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by things you don’t immediately comprehend merely based on a lack of background information and experience…just absorb what you can and make it a point to later investigate points you missed.

• Lesson Five: Learn from others but be yourself.

Everyone has their own unique strengths and styles. When you attempt to emulate others or compete with them on their terms, you are likely to fail. Doing that often clouds awareness of your own unique qualities, impairs natural creativity and keeps you off balance.

Besides, being who you are can be a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.

Beyond Flagpoles and Footprints: Pioneering the Space Frontier (2021)

Co-authored with Gemini 12, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, this book resulted as a product of a close friendship full of endless conversations dating back more than four decades, some of which discussed how global space developments have profoundly influenced both our worst fears and highest hopes…and where they might lead.

In this broad context, international space developments drive and mirror human society, providing both lethal weapons of destruction and limitless wonders of discovery.

Conceived in the minds of visionaries and gestated in wombs of governments during times of international conflict, humankind gave birth to a cosmic dream child of peace that would mature to achieve inspirational goals.

Orbiting satellites have erased global communication boundaries; spawned a transformative internet information-sharing network; monitored natural and man-made events that affect our safety; coordinated and guided air and surface transportation movements; and have supported unlimited international business opportunities.

Advancements in rocketry, spacecraft and instruments of exploration have opened an epic new era of cosmic discovery. And yes, the complex challenges driving such achievements have yielded countless technological advancements and business opportunities that continue to enhance the quality of our everyday lives.

This book chronicles an unfinished story of remarkable events and people who caused and lived them along with opportunities and challenges ahead for those who will charter new courses of progress and destiny.

Although iconically famed for planting the first human footprints on the Moon along with those of the late Neil Armstrong – also a friend of this author – I have seldom talked with Buzz about that great adventure and achievement.

Instead, the topic that dominated most conversations with Buzz viewed the Moon as but a steppingstone in human exploration and evolution to a much further geographical and technical destination – Mars – and he has also devised an orbital highway roadmap to get there.

Buzz’s Aldrin Cycler concept offers promises of rocket trains operating on endless round-trip pathways that travel around the Sun between Earth and the Red Planet and beyond. The plan envisions a Mothership continuously ferrying crews and cargo between the two planets with deliveries to and from the Mars surface via smaller lander and ascent vehicles similar to the successful method used for Apollo missions.

Our University of Houston Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) is currently advancing technical development of this approach in connection with a proposal to establish a permanent Aldrin Settlement on Mars capable of supporting 16 people by the year 2045.

And yes, this is a serious plan.

As Buzz urges: “We are at an important inflection point in human history. The decision is whether to look upwards and gain strength from vision and commitment to worthy goals beyond ourselves – beyond the here and now.

It is time we sailed the sea of space once more with bold vision. To achieve this we need strong leaders, for sustaining a growing and momentous effort in space will require that we reject defeatist mentality that mires us in the past.

We must set our sights higher and be prepared to sail against the wind.

Some Additional Book Handouts and Lesson Takeaways

Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax:

Yes, climate changes, and it has been doing so for natural reasons over billions of years since before humans introduced smokestacks and SUVs – and no, extreme weather conditions haven’t become more frequent nor severe since the Industrial Revolution.

Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom:

Beware of scaremongering tactics that urge us to disbelieve our lyin’ eyes and instead accept dire predictions of theoretical climate models that have never occurred in the name of protecting the planet from carbon dioxide that all plants we eat depend on.

MECOPTICS: Where Energy Comes from and How Much:

A comprehensive U.S. and world energy picture reveals that fossil sources provide more than 80 percent, wind and solar about 3 percent combined, and much more modern nuclear will be required to meet escalating AI data center demands for reliable 24/7 power.

How Everything Happened, Including Us:

Although it took about four billion years for Earth to become teeming with single-celled organisms, in little more than a century we Sapiens have mastered flight, walked on the Moon, and created artificial brains that are outsmarting us – and we’ve only just begun.

Reinventing Ourselves: How Technology Is Rapidly and Radically Transforming Humanity:

Today’s society is experiencing the earliest beginnings of an inevitable, irreversible and unfathomably impactful information technology revolution that is not only changing our lives and lifestyles, but perhaps also what we can all agree that it means to be human.

The Weaponization of AI and the Internet: How Global Networks of Infotech Overlords Are Expanding Their Control Over Our Lives:

Exercised through the minds, hands and free choices of the many, such emerging information technology benefits are limitless: controlled by the special interests and agendas of but an increasingly powerful few, the applications for social control are equally boundless.

Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure, and Our Future:

Unfettered from ocean and other geographic boundaries, criminal and government-sponsored cyber hackers can strike our internet-connected personal information and nation-wide energy and communication infrastructures from everywhere at the speed of light.

What Makes Humans Truly Exceptional:

Nevertheless, let’s give ourselves more human credit exemplifying higher aspirations than warfare or mere survival: capacities to perform selfless deeds; to seek understanding of wonders of the Universe; and to create marvelous art, architectures, tools and machines.

Cosmic Musings: Contemplating Life Beyond Self:

As we ponder our place in the incomprehensibly vast Universe containing countless galaxies larger than ours, rather than think of our lives as imperceptibly tiny and temporary, perhaps let’s instead realize we are each part of something truly big, impowering and eternal.

Reflections on Oceans and Puddles: One Hundred Reasons to be Enthusiastic, Grateful and Hopeful:

Like viewing the Universe, the conditions and opportunities we recognize in mortal life depend much more upon vision than location, influenced by viewing angles we choose and ways we focus our minds to discover, recognize and act upon opportunities we see.

Thinking Whole: Rejecting Half-Witted Left & Right Brain Limitations:

Whole brain thinking is evidenced in everyday life through attentive awareness of surrounding environments, curiosity which compels our interest in learning, caring relationships with others, and spiritual lessons and explorations that motivate higher purposes and values.

Imaginings and Amusements: Carving Doorways to Dreams:

Accepting personal stereotypes as primarily left or right-brain thinkers and doers unnecessarily limits our full human potential to indulge, express, celebrate and share joys that make life more interesting and satisfying both for ourselves and others.

Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life by Design:

Intervening events, opportunities, challenges, and setbacks make life design a constant work-in-progress to fully become the person we wish to be, with our response to each change whether intentional or accidental – shaping the person and life that we ultimately create.

Beyond Flagpoles and Footprints: Pioneering the Space Frontier:

As coauthor Buzz Aldrin urges, we are at an important inflection point in human history demanding a societal decision to look upwards and with bold vision and commitment to worthy goals beyond ourselves and the here and now that mires us in the past.

And Some Personal and Professional Life Lessons:

Writing and reviewing these several books has challenged me to attempt to determine the most important life lessons I can confidently present to you, so that I can share them with myself with assurances.

Some key priorities which readily come to mind are summarized in the chart that follows.

My ongoing design plan is to keep practicing these lessons until I get better at them.

Respect Your Own Values and Strengths:

• Allow personal interests to introduce you to great opportunities.
• Don’t accept boundary limits. Give yourself room to work and grow.
• Pursue success rather than approval. It’s easier and more fun to achieve.
• Take sensible and worthwhile risks. Security is only a myth anyway.

Continue to Learn and Grow:

• Look at the big picture. Keep that image in mind when you design for parts.
• Observe and apply lessons from nature. They never go out of style.
• Trust your experience and intuition above conflicting advice from experts.
• Learn to be your own worst critic. Don’t waste good time on bad ideas.

Recognize the Importance of Relationships:

• Your choices of partners may be your most important decisions in life.
• Be a team player. Put common goals above your ego and self-interest.
• Share ideas and credit others generously. You just can’t afford not to.
• Always try to be honest and fair. Trust is more important than popularity.

Interview and introduction by Klemen Breznikar
It’s Psychedelic Baby! Magazine