The Overview Effect, the profound shift in human perception that occurs when one sees Earth from the outside, has the power to foster peace and global brotherhood. This underscores the urgent need for an increasing number of people, not just machines, to venture into space.

The concept encapsulated in the title above is the culmination of a two-day discussion held in New York under the auspices of the Summit of the Future. The Space Renaissance International and its 102 allied organizations, the Space 18th SDG Coalition, played a pivotal role in organizing these two events.

The first event^[1] took place at the United Nations Plaza 777, NYC, in the heart of the U.N. Headquarters Plaza, thanks to the generous hosting of Henk Rogers^[2]. Approximately 50 participants, both in person and virtually, engaged in a robust discussion on the necessity of amending the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The key proposal was the addition of an 18th SDG, with a specific focus on Civilian Space Development. This discussion was furthered during a Side Event^[3] at the Consulate General of Jamaica in NYC, organized and hosted by Dr. Claire Nelson^[4]. Robert Katz^[5] and Adriano V. Autino^[6] expertly co-chaired both events.

For the first time, ISA is considering the revision of deep-sea mineral exploitation regulations [3]. Commercial deep-sea mining has attracted increased attention, particularly owing to potential oceanic challenges, including pollution, overfishing, biodiversity, and habitat loss, acidification, rising water temperatures, and climate change. Those favoring commercial mining highlight the need for a supply of materials necessary for global energy transition. Recent meetings in Kingston, Jamaica, have focused on revising the draft regulations for deep-sea mineral exploitation. While some progress has been made, several areas of disagreement remain, particularly regarding environmental protections and the speed of issuing commercial permits. The ISA is aiming to finalize the new regulations by July 2025, but there are concerns that this deadline may not be met.

On the commercial side, The Metals Company (TMC), Canada, anticipates submitting an application for a mining exploitation license in 2024, potentially starting mining operations in 2025, even before the regulations are fully in place. While ISA has not granted any commercial licenses for deep-sea mining, some countries are moving forward independently. Norway already passed a bill in January 2024, which authorizes prospecting for deep-sea minerals, accelerating the hunt for the precious metals that are in high demand for green technologies. Environmental scientists have warned such oceanic exploitation could be devastating for marine life. The outlook concerns Norwegian waters, nevertheless, agreements on mining in international waters could also be reached this year.

AbstractThis talk will delve into the intricate web of space radiation, focusing on its three primary components – galactic cosmic rays, solar energetic part…

The first thing many media seem not to understand is the methodology followed by Space X, which is completely different from what the traditional aerospace builders do. While the latter prefer to spend their money on a long project life cycle, including long requirements discussion, and meticulous and detailed test engineering and integration phases, Space X opts for a methodology closer to the experimental scientific method: draw essential requirements, build a prototype, test, fail, learn from failures, build a new improved prototype, and try again. Each reiteration adds quality to the project, up to a point when the prototype is working well, and Falcon 9 (as a sample) becomes the space workhorse with any more competitors in the world. Is that so hard to be understood, for journalists?When a traditional project fails, many billions are wasted, and many years of work are canceled. When a “normal” failure occurs during Space X’s reiterative project development, very less resources are wasted. And, after all, during the expendable rockets’ age, all the rockets were always wasted, at every launch! The difference is incomparable. Another advantage of this method is its high flexibility. If a project lasts 10 years, it is difficult to take advantage of the technological advances: switching to new technology in a project initiated many years ago forces heavy requirements reviews and unavoidable delays. In a fail-and-repeat project, new technologies and new ideas can be adopted more easily and more quickly, as demonstrated by the thousands of changes and improvements applied to the different starships, super-heavy boosters, and raptor engine prototypes throughout history. Despite the misfortune bearers and the envious, the methodology works. The success of Space X in the launchers market doesn’t lie.

Starship 28 and the Super-Heavy Booster 10 made most of the expected work, and even more than what was expected: while the suborbital altitude was planned, the Starship spacecraft reached 230 km, a low Earth orbit altitude at more than 26,200 km/h. several tests were conducted after the engine cutoff, including a propellant transfer demo and payload dispenser test.

Only two operations have failed. The booster couldn’t make it to descend vertically on its engines, since only 3 of them reignited, and splashed in the Mexican Gulf at little more than 1,000 km/h. The Starship failed during the re-entry in the atmosphere, in the Indian Ocean. We could observe many insulating tiles flying away from the Starship’s body during the first part of the re-entry. At an altitude of 65 km, telemetry from Ship 28 was lost, and the vehicle was destroyed before splashing in the sea.

In the XXI century, the world of orbital launchers has started a revolution, a fundamental change of paradigm: the replacement of expendable rockets with reusable ones is well underway. This presentation summarizes the situation at the beginning of year 2024.

A short bio.
Alberto Cavallo is an Electrical Engineer, graduated at the Politecnico di Torino in 1985. He began his activity with designing electric systems in Fiat Engineering, the engineering and construction company of the FIAT Group, moving soon to control and automation systems in the same company. He was involved in all business areas of the company, which included revamping and new projects of car factories for the FIAT Group as well as large infrastructures, power and cogeneration plants for external clients. Among the projects of that time were the new FIAT factories in Melfi and Pratola Serra, the high speed railways Torino-Milano and Bologna-Firenze, the district heating system of Torino Sud, combined cycle power plants for several hundred megawatts in Italy and in Brazil. Since Fiat Engineering was transferred from the FIAT Group to a new EPC group and then merged with a large EPC company in Milan, he has been involved in large oil and gas and petrochemical projects all over the world. Besides his professional activity, he has always taken part in several cultural activities. He was a member of the Associations of Alumni of the Liceo Classico Vittorio Alfieri of Turin, active in promoting humanistic culture as well as its connection to the technical and scientific area. He manages his own website www.eurinome.it (in Italian only) about philosophy, science and politics/geopolitics. Due to this he got in contact with Adriano Autino and his TDF, then becoming one of the founding members of Space Renaissance International. Besides several papers in his professional area he has written several articles for his own site, for TDF and SRI, coauthoring the book “Three Theses for the Space Renaissance” with Adriano Autino and Patrick Q. Collins. He is currently member of the Board of SRI.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to let us know that Spaceship Earth is in deep trouble. Humanity is operating as if we did not live on a finite planet with…

Alfred Anzaldúa talks about inevitability of human expansion into space and the proposal to add an 18th SDG, focused on space development, to the U.N. 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

The SRI President Bernard Foing and the SRI CEO and Founder A. V. Autino are in agreement on the text of this newsletter, but not on the title(!). We decided therefore to issue it with two titles. The first one, by A.V. Autino, establishes an ideological distance from the governance model that brought the civilization to the current situation, refusing any direct co-responsibility. The title proposed by B. Foing implies that “we” (the global society) are responsible for the general failure since we voted for the current leaders. He also suggested that should “we” (space humanists) be governing, he’s not sure that we would be able to do better than current leaders, for peace and development. Better than warmongers for sure! Replied Autino. However, both titles are true and have their reasons. That’s why we don’t want to choose one…

Only by expanding the domain of life into space can we fulfill the 17 SDGs on Earth in the long term. Therefore, the Space Renaissance International and the…

As soon as the U.N. 2030 Agenda ^[1] was published, some relevant criticalities appeared. The general criteria supporting the concept of sustainability developed by the agenda is an unquestioned limitation to the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, was conceptualized during the traditional aerospace age: outer space was not considered, as a dimension that helps to increase the sustainability of development. Space science and technologies are supporting social and environmental goals on Earth, for many years. Yet that will not be enough, to warrant a really sustainable development. To allow a real sustainable development, it is indispensable and urgent to start civilian space development, outside Earth boundaries. Therefore the UN 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals needs to be updated.