How A Childhood Dream Became a Reality
By: Quincy Bingham
Tags: Human Space Exploration, Space, Space Exploration

How A Childhood Dream Became a Reality

How my childhood passion for space became The Solar Republic

As a child, my mother told me I was always fascinated by stars in the sky even before I could walk or had the words to describe what I was seeing.

I remember she had to wake me and my brother up before dawn and get us dressed so that she could go to work and drop us off at our grandmother’s house.

On those dark, early mornings I paid close attention to the sky. I was in awe of how the constellations seemed to move across the sky with each passing day.

After school as the sky grew darker, I spent hours in my grandmother’s backyard with my “Stars and Planets” book, gazing up, identifying celestial objects, and tracking their path through the sky.

Later on in school, my friend and I used to bring astronomy books to class to pour over the beautiful pictures. My favorite astronomy books were those that displayed maps of foreign moons formulated using images from the Voyager probes.

I loved the fact these places were real, but so far away, so foreign, unattainable, but yet they exist, in our reality.

Those maps helped spark a new idea. The idea was simple. What if the moons had astronomical symbols like the planets? All the planets had symbols, so why not their moons? I spent weeks meticulously creating symbols that told the story of each moon in our Solar System.

The Solar Republic was born.

Our childhood is when our minds are the purest and most innocent. We don’t have the burden of learned fears and prejudices. We are free to explore and accept the world as is, with no conditions.

Those are the moments when our eyes are full of wonder, intrigue, and fascination. My journey, like all journeys, began with one step.

Creating the Solar Republic was the first step in what is my life’s purpose of bringing humankind closer to true space exploration. Whatever your childhood dream is, I hope my experience inspires you to remember, cultivate, and fulfill it.

Space exploration is not only about exploring space. Exploring the world beyond our atmosphere is about becoming better humans, reaching our potential, and understanding ourselves along with the universe that surrounds us.

You may not share my love for stars, planets, and moons but you love something. You’re passionate about something, even if you don’t know what that thing is yet.

Go find that thing and do it. Howard Thurman, one of the key mentors to Martin Luther King once quoted:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman was a proponent of a lost philosophy, Common Ground, the idea that we should seek inner spiritual happiness first, then share that experience with our community. This is essentially one of the many ideas that have sparked the creating of The Solar Republic. It helped me craft a mission statement for The Solar Republic.

The Mission of The Solar Republic

The Solar Republic is dedicated to driving awareness, support, and educational prowess of space exploration, the science behind it, and the human ingenuity needed to make it a reality. The Solar Republic accomplishes these goals by disseminating space exploration, astronomy, and science content and by selling space-related apparel and educational games.

So, to take it a step further, The Solar Republic is about more than stars and planets or space exploration.

It’s about a journey, a journey into the unknown, doing something we have never done before, and becoming something we have never been before.

It’s about living up to our potential as human beings on this planet, within this Solar System, within this universe.

We are going to need more dreamers who can see what can’t be seen and we are going to need more doers who are willing to do what hasn’t been done.

This next stage of human evolution will be spearheaded by those who appreciate the fine arts as well as the beauty of a well-balanced mathematical equation.

We are going to need individuals who embrace the competitive spirit with a desire to be great, but live and walk in love, empathy, and charity.

To that end, everything produced, directed, or created by the Solar Republic embodies our journey on the path to becoming better humans and eventually, the path to space. That’s the vision, what’s the story?