What is DIDSA?
Didsbury Space Agency exists to explore advanced engineering and technology through projects and experiments. It is an R&D entity positioned to exploit the increasing accessibility of emergent technologies. As the barriers of cost and complexity dissolve mankind’s potential can be unleashed in an explosion of invention and creativity.
Why Space?
The nature of DIDSA is to be exploratory. With current technology, life on earth will cease to exist at the death of our sun. All of human endeavour must be focused on pushing past that threshold. People may think they are sweeping a street, building a house, growing a pension fund, or composing a sonnet. I’m fact, we are all working for a space agency to escape this doomed place. If this cannot be achieved, all we do is futile.
DIDSA Philosophy
TEST
FAIL
SUCCEED
REPEAT
Test
A consequence of curiosity, the will to try new things is present in everyone. It is pathological and without it we cannot advance. The inclination to test new ideas is balanced by aversion to risk. After all, something new is also something unknown. The alternative to trying new things is stagnation, a path upon which lies certain failure.
Fail
We learn significantly more from our failures than our successes. Learning only occurs when we operate outside of our comfort zone and when experimenting on the fringes of our abilities, failure is inevitable. It is therefore important to accept and manage setbacks. Failure should be minimised and mitigated but will never be eliminated.
Succeed
Success can be defined in a number of ways. You may achieve the goal set out at the beginning of a venture, or prove something to be impossible. More important is the perseverance to reach a well defined end. Failures, setbacks, delays, expenses and knowledge gaps all have demoralising effects. They can cause lapses in enthusiasm and stalls in progress. This must be managed with disapline and dedication. Success is not given, it is earned.
Repeat.
Answers breed questions. Such is the curse of curiosity. How cruel it is that we are finite and will never know the end. Yet, how fortunate that we see the future unfurl ahead. With each success or failure the emergent questions must be subsequently tested. The temptation to rest on ones laurels must be resisted as the quest for knowledge is never complete. So, again we must insure. Or those that come after us.
