Rachel Lyons: To Space, for Earth | ETHDenver

everybody [Applause] it's such a pleasure to be here i'm appreciating this like this audience all it's helpful when audiences are all like together and close for the speakers so i'm just appreciating that um anyways so my name is rachel lyons i am the executive director of space for humanity um and you guys can see it and what we are working to do is sponsor people from all over the world to go to space which might sound crazy might you know you might not understand just yet but i look forward to sharing that with you so um [Music] some of you might remember the apollo era or learned about it when we sent astronauts to the moon and in the very first mission we went around the moon we came back around the other side and for the very first time ever this is in the 60s we saw the earth as a marble in the sky so we saw the earth so small from that perspective that it could be covered with your thumb imagine being an astronaut back then and gaining that perspective this image was plastered across screens all around the world it was on the cover of newspapers of magazines and ultimately it created a much greater shift in society than just the simple image many historians actually say that this image sparked the modern environmental movement and so what is it that makes them say that well within just a few years the environmental protection agency was founded earth day was founded a number of the leading organizations in the modern environmental movement were founded doctors without borders was founded which that phrase without borders did not exist prior to seeing the earth from this context and a number of acts specifically around the preservation of our environment were enacted the clean air act clean water act and native species act and so why is it why is it that this image is said to have caused all of this it's because this image created a collective paradigm shift which i think this is something that you are all interested in um and what do i mean by that what do i mean by a collective paradigm shift well if we look at it from a systems thinking perspective we look at earth as the complex system that it is a complex interconnected system we all complex system have leverage points so so this is i found this research i i basically you know getting really interested in this image and how it how it is said to have sparked the modern environmental movement i was like okay how did this happen how what how did this cause this and i was pointed to the work of danella meadows who's a systems change expert who died in the early 2000s and she talks about these leverage points where small they're places within a system where small shifts lead to greater change and so she talks about these leverage points in a complex system and she says that there's 12 of them in the two most powerful places in a system where small shifts lead to great greater change is one around transcending paradigms and two is around trans is around recognizing the mindset or the paradigm out of which the system arises so this is what this image did it allowed us to transcend the paradigm that we existed in it allowed us to see that we actually live on an interconnected floating fragile planet and that allowed us to then have all of these shifts in the system afterwards so this is what we care about here at space for humanity and i'll get into more about what we're doing and who supports us and why um but it's basically about all of the complex challenges that exist on earth exist from this systemic lens and so we need to be looking at them from that perspective we were founded by a man named dylan taylor who's actually local here he's one of blue origin's most newly minted astronauts so he just went to space a few months ago and he's one of the most active space investors in the world and he founded space for humanity as the philanthropic arm of his efforts we have a number we have six this is dated we now have six astronauts on our advisory board supporting these efforts um a lot of really amazing people across the industry and outside of it and we recently got support from richard branson um i don't know if everyone here knows but richard branson went to space just a few months ago and he came back down and he announced an initiative where anyone from anywhere in the world could pay ten dollars to enter to go to space with them and space for humanity my organization was the beneficiary um we selected we randomly selected a woman from antigua to go and she's going to be bringing her 17 year old daughter on their next flight they'll be the first people from the caribbean to go to space which is super awesome yeah thank you um and then just when we thought life couldn't get any better we got a million dollar gift from blue origins club for the future they're they're granting organizations so it's it's been a fun ride over the past year and what we care about what inspires us is this thing called the overview effect and what the overview effect is the definition is it's the cognitive shift in awareness that happens to astronauts when astronauts go to space and they look back and they see our planet they see this reality of our existence as i was saying before astronauts come back down changed people a lot of times they come back down humanitarians and environmentalists and with a completely new view on what's possible for our future i can i can name some of the astronauts but like you know anusha ansari the first iranian woman to go to space she came back and she's now the ceo of xprize foundation which is working to create moonshot solutions to all of our greatest challenges astronaut scott perezinski he came back and he started an initiative specifically to get political leaders into space because he saw how important this perspective is for our leadership um and we're working with researchers as well that are studying the psychological impacts of this experience of this paradigm shifting experience and how it can even impact a person's well-being and their sense of purpose and just them as a human being in general and as i was mentioning before we we have now entered this new era in space exploration so as of this past year virgin galactic has gone has had their first fully crewed mission blue origin has sent multiple crews to space this is all this year by the way space perspective which is a stratospheric balloon company they're going to be sending people to to the edge of space in 2024 and um we've actually had more people minted as astronauts in the past year than than in any other year prior in human history and so what we're working to do is space for humanity which i think the overlaps between the blockchain community and space for humanity is just the the future that we're working to create together this new paradigm that we're working to enter and what we're working to do is sponsor people from all over the world to go to space to have this paradigm shifting experience of the overview effect and then come back down and be like seeds sharing that perspective far and wide and from a systems change perspective that is that the number one way to create greater change in the world is by transcending paradigms and so it's not just about sending singular people to space it's about the collective impacts that they will create when they return and i'm just now i'm just thinking about how much more i want to share so i'll just briefly name it what drives us is perspective it's shifting perspective it's transcending paradigms it's thinking bigger it's looking at the world looking at this reality of our existence for the truth that it is and letting that impact the way that we behave two is leadership we believe that all sorts of leaders not just the ceos and the presidents but any anyone who's a leader and anyone who's a human honestly needs to understand this and needs to go and let this inform the way that they lead as well and then three is collaboration we we cannot do this without collaboration we are not spaceflight providers we're not making the technology you know we're doing this with collaboration across the industry as well as outside of it so if anyone here is interested also in collaborating with this mission please come talk to me um yeah and so i'm yeah i would say that's like the whole of the mission and and right now we're working to bring this perspective in a lot of different ways via our educational initiatives as well um and we're really interested in in integrating with more communities with people outside of the industry with with the blockchain and crypto world as well and um i've been really amazed at how this mission has been received by the crypto community like of all the communities that i talk to and that i work with i would say that for the most part you all have been the most receptive and excited about this mission and i think that there's something about the the world that we're all working to bring and build together that there's a lot of overlaps so if this mission is something interesting to you i would be happy to chat and and see ways that we can work together um and with that i think i think i've i think i've shared it all yeah thank you and i do think i was quicker than time so if anyone has any questions it's possible that i missed some actually no i got one more thing for you um so so we take applications on our website we're basically a fellowship program so you apply we're looking for people that are leaders in their communities we're going to select our first crew this year we're right now talking to all the fight providers about who that's going to be with we have flights reserved with space perspective the stratospheric balloon company we have flights reserved with world view which is another stratospheric balloon company and we're also talking to both virgin galactic and blue origin right now about getting flights reserved with them soon so you apply on our website we select you we help prepare your mind for this experience because like any transformative experience you can't just go in and like hope that it's great you know you've gotta you've gotta prepare your mind so that you're open to it and you're ready for it and then we help people in integrating it so we'll help them when they come back down really just make sense of this and use it as a way to use it as a way that's like applicable to their life and then we support people in the social impact portion of this so creating the impact when they return and what i want all of you to know before i leave today is that we're actually closing our applications on tuesday just so happens that i'm speaking here you know a couple days prior so if this mission is something that's interesting to you if being involved with this community is something that inspires you i invite you to apply space for humanity.org apply thank you