I do not expect NASA to go out and build settlements and colonies. I do not expect them to give SpaceX all the money needed to colonize Mars. I do not expect them to realize the future of humanity is contingent on harvesting the wealth of the solar system overnight and suddenly subsidize my asteroid mining project.

Rick Tumlinson

Categorized in : Realize Humanity Money Future

We face fear many times a day, in many ways, and usually we turn away from it. It often hides itself behind laziness and complacency, which are its shadows and aliases. We accept the things-as-they-are world in which we are comfortable.

Rick Tumlinson

face day fear world

When good people do bad things, it is sad, but when they reach the point where one can predict that they will do nothing but bad things, a deeper kind of sadness sets in, almost at the level of resignation.

Rick Tumlinson

good sad sadness people

There are moments in time when the coincidence of art and reality interact to allow us a glimpse into the context of history. The release of the Christopher Nolan film 'Interstellar' a few days after two catastrophes in our space endeavor gives us one of those moments.

Rick Tumlinson

space time history art

Space is big. The whole point of the frontier is that we go there to do new things in new places - not one place, and not one thing, but all of the above.

Rick Tumlinson

new place new-things space

There is in us a spark of something good, something right and beautiful.

Rick Tumlinson

spark something good beautiful

Go out tonight and look at the stars. And allow yourself to dream.

Rick Tumlinson

yourself look stars dream

It was the summer of 1968 or so, and Dad and my little brother were out camping. While up in the mountains, my brother was bitten by a rattlesnake. As they raced back to the base, my dad sucked out the venom and used his hands as a tourniquet and probably save his life, for it was a serious bite, and he was just a little kid.

Rick Tumlinson

mountains dad brother life

The exploration of space: Be it by humans or robots, based on the best choice for the mission and the most efficient means to return the data and science sought. Most of the time, this will mean we send robots due to cost and danger. But sometimes, we will need the irreplaceable judgment and descriptive abilities of a person on the spot.

Rick Tumlinson

best space time science

I've been doing a few interviews since the loss of the SpaceX Dragon on its way to the Space Station. Each one very quickly questions the viability of what they call commercial space in light of the failure. I tell them space is hard: this is what happens early in a program with new technology.

Rick Tumlinson

failure technology space light

Life is an affirmation, not a defamation. Life means living. Life means taking that one tiny or giant leap beyond what you know you can do, or simply beyond what you know. It is in these moments that we live.

Rick Tumlinson

live you moments life

Life is passion, celebration in the face of chaos, light in the face of darkness, hope in the face of despair, and joy, for the universe without life feels nothing, is nothing, and does nothing except slowly die.

Rick Tumlinson

passion light hope life

Trust in our economic system and the genius and hard work of our citizens beyond the mandate and control of government.

Rick Tumlinson

trust government hard-work work

This is what the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) represents. Experimental, explorational science. Learning about Mars as a new world. Discovering new things that will tell us about the history of our solar system, help reveal the secrets of life, and continue blazing the trail that may someday be traveled by the rest of us.

Rick Tumlinson

learning life science history

I guess it's human nature, as every group breaks into factions, yet at a time when we are trying to be taken seriously, it can confuse people - especially when it moves from being about where you want to go and what you want to do to why the others are idiots.

Rick Tumlinson

you nature time people

The opening of the Frontier is not an engineering problem. It is not a money problem. It is a challenge to our ability to decide to make it happen and to think and act the right way to get the results we want, we need, we demand.

Rick Tumlinson

challenge think money way

I want to capture and express that passion I see in life all around me to go wild, to push into anywhere we can, and make of those places new domains for life.

Rick Tumlinson

new me passion life

Space is a laboratory, an experiment in all forms of all things, an infinity of possibilities, properties, and places that cry out for investigation and exploration.

Rick Tumlinson

things exploration cry space

Our greatest theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, recently declared that humans have no more than a hundred years to get off this planet to ensure the survival of our species. And when someone such as he does so, it is with an understanding not just of the science, but of both our tenuous place and our possibility in the universe.

Rick Tumlinson

place universe understanding science

To establish human settlements on the Moon, Mars, or in the free-space between, humans will have to again rapidly adapt. Like early pioneers, there will be no nearby friendly merchants or supportive governments to replace that broken tool.

Rick Tumlinson

will like broken moon

To settle space, we will have to develop the ability to harvest and utilize the resources of the solar system, such as ores, ice, and the rays of the sun itself at levels of efficiency that will transform our relationship to our own planet Earth.

Rick Tumlinson

space earth sun relationship