21st Century Fertile Crescent
By Glen Hiemstra, 2001
The Fertile Crescent is an image that has long captured imagination about the ancient bronze-age civilizations of the Eastern Aegean and the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. These civilizations spanned millennia and included Babylon, Sumer, Akkad, Uruk, and the Egyptians among others. Although little is known about many of these civilizations, it is generally accepted that significant advances in technology and societal organization sprang from this region.
Will a new “fertile crescent†appear in the 21st Century? If so, where will it be? Perhaps you might assume Silicon Valley, or Puget Sound, or elsewhere in the world, perhaps SE Asia, or the Southern coast of China.
What if I was to tell you that the 21st Century Fertile Crescent would be centered in…Mississippi?
The University of Southern Mississippi Campus Coordinator Website for the Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions , formerly known as the Mississippi Space Commerce Initiative, may well form the center point of a fertile crescent for a space faring civilization to emerge over the next century. The crescent itself could span the Gulf Coast, from the space center in Houston, Texas to the launch center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Mississippi Space Commerce Initiative is a cooperative effort among the State of Mississippi, universities, NASA, and high-technology businesses. The ambitious program aims to leverage commercial uses of remote sensing satellites, in conjunction with the John C. Stennis Space Center, home of the Commercial Remote Sensing Program. Part education effort, part technology company recruitment effort, and completely visionary in its hope to make Mississippi a leader in space, the effort is something worth watching.
Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video host and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.
