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Space Tourism

At the Long Future Foundation, we love the idea of space tourism. Why? Because we humans deserve to have awesome experiences and to work in engaging jobs.

Plus, space tourism helps to communicate science and demonstrate human endeavour. It also potentially triggers deep empathy for the global ecosystem as a result of the Overview Effect.

“The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface.” Wikipedia.

So, if space tourism can help get billionaires to ‘cognitively shift’ and start throwing money at saving the planet, this could only help the Long Future, right?

Hmmm. Lets think this through.

As it turns out, there are two key reasons why the global space tourism industry is actually fuelling the Short Future:

• SOOT – a component of rocket exhaust that contributes to baking the living systems off the surface of our planet

• HELIUM – a finite and rare element this is a critical technical nutrient to modern society and is fast running out Lets deal with soot on this page.