The Astrazoic Eon

The Unfolding of the Astrazoic Eon

Almost 25 years ago, I started seriously thinking about space. This emerged from a question posed to me: “Why are you so interested in space?” I didn’t have a ready or clear answer, and this bugged me. So, I put some ideas on a PowerPoint slide to explore why I feel so deeply about our relationship with space.

First off, I’ve been interested in this subject since I was a little kid. It was the domain of nerds and social misfits, so enthusiasm about all things space didn’t translate well as a social asset. Soon enough, I found a job as a space industry analyst, which is what I’ve been doing for a long time. This, combined with being a docent at the Smithsonian’s NASM, gave me the tools to evenutally put together an answer to “Why are you so interested in space?” If I were to sum it up, I suppose it’s because I believe our greatest days lie ahead, not behind.

The PowerPoint was presented in 2003, I think, to an audience at Johns Hopkins. Needless to say, once I was finished there were blank stares. No one appeared impressed by what I presented. From then on, thinking about the Astrazoic has been limited to my own amusement, as it seemed clear most people have no patience with what one my call the “philosophy of spaceflight” or something similar. I find this thinking important because it serves as inspiration to form an aspiration, which then informs strategic thinking and a sense of purpose.

I started writing down my ideas in 2020, tweaking and so forth along the way. The result was voluminous and disorganized, so in 2025 I started to consolidate, trim, and streamline the prose until a relatively short but satisfactory paper emerged.