By Christopher Stott

’One small step for man.’ It’s hard to get a quote like that out of your mind when you’re from the Isle of Man, and were born in July 1969. Who doesn’t look at the Moon every night and want to be there? Who doesn’t anguish over the fact, for whatever the reason, that we aren’t? Being involved in a project like Odyssey Moon is the opportunity of a life time, to be a part of something both truly historic and something truly meaningful. Thank you Google for having the foresight and vision to work with X Prize to make this possible.

We could discuss all of the emotional reasons to go back to the Moon: btw – note own personal opinion – anyone who talks to you of the ‘human spirit’ and ‘exploration’ honestly doesn’t really get it. This is about ensuring the survival of the human race through accessing new resources, new forms of energy, and creating new markets in what is essentially a new continent, the first of many...and doing so through the purity of commerce. Period.

I know many will argue with that last statement, good, please do so. Right now we live in an age of freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. Yet ask yourself what will happen if we don’t move to utilize the resources of space? How constricted will our freedoms be if we are fighting for every last resource and morsel of Earth with ever increasing populations and ever heavily armed governments? See the price of oil lately? How about the price of a barrel of fresh water? (Still more than a barrel of oil)

Just when humanity is reaching its breaking point, just when the Earth is passing its carrying capacity, here we are with the proven technology and knowledge on how to harvest the resources of space. Note we have the technology. It’s just a case of working now.

No, harvesting these resources won’t solve our immediate problems on Earth, I’m not saying that, but it will buy us time to continue maturing as a species and it will open a new economic cycle for humanity. I call it the Digital Decision: we either go to space or we don’t. A yes or a no.

Understand one thing, if we don’t go to space, we don’t survive: plague / flu, war, famine, climate change, global dimming, super volcano, asteroid impact, take your pick. As Dr. Larry Niven says, “The Dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program”. That’s the essence of the digital decision – yes or no, no in between. A future or no future. Dinosaurs or not? Our choice...