A ‘GALACTIC VISITOR’S’ ESSAY, PART III Going to the moon and beyond – For nuclear energy by Gary Young, retired engineering manager Fort Collins, Colorado The single greatest issue standing in the way of building the proposed mega nuclear sites is political will. After reading her memoirs of our planet’s president that inspired our first attempts to reach our moon, I was struck that she had a flash of incite as she was walking to the podium. In her prepared speech, all focus was to reach the moon. The flash of incite was that the moon was too limiting a goal. Once the moon was reached, all the motivation to go further would dissipate. Instead, she adlibbed that the goal was to explore space and getting to the moon was only the first step. It was that insight that eventually led to being a galactic visitor. One of the hardest parts is finding a political champion that could inspire the way that President Kennedy did about reaching the moon. That inspiration was so motivating that NASA had no problem recruiting the best and brightest for the Apollo Program. What Kennedy missed was limiting the vision to only going to the moon. The unintended consequence was that after that success, NASA did indeed nearly collapse while searching for further reasons to exist. Going to the moon was simply self-limiting. If Kennedy had aimed ‘for the moon and beyond,’ the motivation could have been perpetual. By the way the shuttle disasters were a product of NASA not retaining the best and brightest. It will take charismatic leaders to inspire the vision that nuclear power is safe and the proposal can and will greatly improve the living standards for all the earth’s peoples. So part III offers deeper insights that would aid such a leader to succeed. Why I kept referring to high EROI (Energy Return on Investment) in parts I and II as the key to making the old planet rich enough to afford galactic travel is to help create the vision that nuclear has the highest EROI and is vital to part of the ‘vision’ that the whole world would enjoy better livings standards under the proposal. If the United States led the way and the richer nations joined in, it would ‘free up’ more low cost conventional energy sources for the rest of the world to advance economically. National commitment: National commitment means full backing of the majority of the people and their government. Today, energy systems are in chaos because there is no real energy policy, neglect by government, meddling by organizations like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and individuals like Amory Lovins who are generally wrong but still followed. Perhaps worse are the politicians who go along with them out of ideology or to get votes.
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