Afro-Futuretyping Generation Starships and New Earths 05015 CE

"We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire--a crackpot machine--that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate." Edward Abbey Abstract: The Long Now Clock hit 05015 CE on Earth and trillions celebrated as the signal was relayed across starships and space colonies now arrayed across a rather small part of the galaxy but considered miraculous nonetheless as faster than light travel now added some capability similar to a Prius and its combination of gas and electricity. Some received the signal earlier than others as Earth's year moved further from 5015 by the time the last human space outpost signaled back. A dazzling combination of human speciation, various forms, and future-types of humanity challenged what we originally thought humans could be. In addition, the tired notions of command and control systems shrunk as a percentage of how to live aboard and run a starship andlor space colony. The limiting assumptions for circulating stories of space exploration perpetuate, confirm, and challenge our assumptions about gender, cultural, and racial identity. One rampant assumption is the perpetuation of segregation simply by virtue of how the crew and its generation starship will be constructed. Generation starships were originally imagined by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1928 (as cited in Caroti, 2009) to solve the real problem of sending spaceships between stars since the length of the voyage would span a number of human lifetimes. Without the warp engine envisioned by Star Trek to enable us to go at faster than light speed, the generation starship was envisioned as a possible solution and is a persistent science fiction genre. The fascination with how human beings might govern themselves, create societies, and live in space has taken several forms in literary fiction and film from Robert Heinlein to Harlan Ellison (1970) and Kim Robinson (2015). The human beings who finally reached a new Earth-like world would be the remote descendants of the original long deceased crew with intervening generations taking care of and maintaining the journey or not, living and dying during the interim. The ubiquitous presence of rank and hierarchy are built into the assumption that the command and control structure will be the best approach for long sojourns for starships. From this perspective, inclusivity is negligible. We have to survive in a dangerous environment and we need specialized experts in command, logistics, security, and work similar to being in a naval submarine or the International Space Station or in any space adventure futuretype we have seen from Star Trek to Star Wars. What other visions or futuretypes can we imagine to envision leadership in the stars? The generation starship captures my imagination as the most interesting genre to look at in terms of communication and the anthropology of the interstellar journey. Right now, as much as we appreciate Star Trek, we are not quite there yet, although we are trying as the 100 Starship Project has launched--at least on the ground. Mae Jamison, the first African-American woman NASA astronaut in space leads this project and explains that: We exist to make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system a reality within the next 100 years. We unreservedly dedicate ourselves to identifying and pushing the radical leaps in knowledge and technology needed to achieve interstellar flight, while pioneering and transforming breakthrough applications that enhance the quality of life for all on Earth. We actively seek to include the broadest swath of people and human experience in understanding, shaping and implementing this global aspiration. (Jamieson, 2013) In the spirit of Jamieson's progressive vision, let us try to reimagine the generation starship as the epicenter for a new postcapitalist democracy, the city-state-starship akin to a renewed Greek and multicultural reenvisioning of governance. …