From his opening remarks for the Space Manfacturing Conference.
Didn’t want to be in the rocket business, just wanted a ride. Believed all the claims about the Space Shuttle, and they didn’t happen and got tired of waiting, so now in the rocket places. No point in going just to go — have to have some reason, something to do when you get there. If you haven’t figure out how to use this new land, what’s the point? People have seen that there was no point, but there still can be, but not a focus of what we’ve been doing in space. The point is to live there.
In the 21st century, with amazing technological powers, living twice as long as previously imagined. But we’re not proud of what we’ve done, but seemingly ashamed of it. Almost cowering and unwilling to take on the responsibility of wielding the power we’ve created. It’s a symptom, the disease is the closing of the frontier. New things bring new problem, with new opportunities, but in a society when you think we’ve got all we can, change is a threat. From feeling of running out of resources to thinking that it’s time to shift from creating to redistributing. While we sit on the edge of an ocean full of limitless resources. Worrying about our impact on earth’s climate and environment when Mars sits there begging for an impact on its climate and environment, just to warm it up a little. Time to reach out and grab what the universe is offering us. Picked up a book by Heppenheimer called “Colonies In Space.” Can look back with thirty years of experience and see that some of the technical concepts weren’t quite right, and some of the economics weren’t quite right, but one could say the same about Newton. Someone had to be the first to stand up and say, don’t these people need jobs, something to do to pay their way there? Don’t they need a cash crop, just as every migration has had. Gerry O’Neill was that man, we’re all Gerry’s kids, and it’s time to pick up where he left off, and start thinking afresh about how we get out there, make it pay, leave this earth with people who will not come back, and make it the next part of this great human adventure.