Space Education & Strategic Applications Volume 1, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2020 | Page 11

Space Education and Strategic Applications Journal • Vol. 1, No. 1 • Spring / Summer 2020
Editorial
Melissa Layne
American Public University System
The editors and advisors, together with the American Public University
System(APUS) and in collaboration with the Policy Studies Organization
(PSO), are pleased to introduce the first edition of the biennial Space
Education and Strategic Applications (SESA) Journal. Our goal is to inform the
industrial, military, education, and civilian sectors of advances in Space Education,
Space Research, and Space Applications. More than ever before, our world
is developing a focus upon and is enthusiastically supportive of these advances.
This excitement was part of our new, “fourth” industrial revolution—one which
provided us a glimpse of what was yet to come in the space industry, as well as a
rekindling sense of community.
Unfortunately, an ominous cloud blanketed the earth, abruptly silencing
this enthusiasm in November 2019. By many accounts, this event was anticipated
by scientists and health organizations for some time, however no one was prepared
for this. Our newfound focus on space was called back to earth and forced to
re-examine biology. More devastating, our sense of community was immediately
extinguished. The human mind and body suddenly became hostage to a force that
many of us have never before experienced. This is not a natural disaster—we have
been immobilized by an unforgiving COVID-19 pandemic. Kate Brown, MIT
professor and author of The New Yorker article, “The Pandemic is Not a Natural
Disaster”, poses some important questions to consider,
“In the midst of the Coronavirus outbreak, this idea of a body as
an assembly of species—a community—seems newly relevant and
unsettling. How are we supposed to protect ourselves, if we are so
porous? Are pandemics inevitable, when living things are bound so
tightly together in a dense, planetary sphere?”
The rapid, global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have infected millions
of people and have cost hundreds of thousands of lives. We’ve endured several
months of quarantine during which faith, trust, hope, and community has also
been lost. Across the globe, our physical and mental well-being has been put to
the most challenging of tests. The term “unprecedented” will forever describe this
period in history.
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However, from this catastrophic human crisis, our generations have witnessed
faint glimmers of light emerging; representing the beginnings of our healdoi:
10.18278/sesa.1.1.1