Literally Star Wars

Literally Star Wars

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2 min read

Within the past month, Crew Dragon 2 docked with ISS, Crew Dragon 1 splashed down, and Starship SN-15 had a nominal landing. This was a significant milestone in making life a multi-planetary species. SpaceX is successfully reducing the barrier of entry to space. They apply lean manufacturing to create reusable and reliable two-stage rockets.

So now we have reusable and reliable rockets. Rockets with the potential of providing safe transport of crew and cargo from earth to orbit and beyond. How far off Star Wars are we? The Crew Dragon docks to the ISS using machine learning automated piloting. The launch is still a 2-hour long affair. In literally Star Wars, their starships are instantly re-usable. Also generally they are a single state. With the second stage exception for allowing hyperspeed for Jedi starfighters.

Assume rockets may have a development rate similar to other electronic and engineering technologies. We are at dial-up internet. Still a revolutionary paradigm shift on the cultural and technological landscape. Two decades later and we have 5G and fibre optics. Internet is almost seamlessly integrated without lives at a limbic level. We speculate humanity being a multi-planetary species follows a similar timeframe. SN-15 was dial-up or the iPhone 1. A proof of concept, whose true impact is yet to reverberate through culture for at least another few decades. The multi-planetary philosophy is a paradigm shift akin to Copernicus' galaxy shattering observations. We are no longer just Earthlings, humanity is becoming galactic.