How Ireland inspired this man to save our PLANET
Cypriot George says four years living here showed him his true purpose now he’s leading a space research facility trying to save Earth from catastrophi solar storm
GEORGE Danos does not look like your typical space hero — he’s a diminutive, softly spoken man with eyes that glisten with sincerity and concern. But he could be the planet’s best hope of survival — and he thanks Ireland for making him step up to the challenge.
For the first time in history, the world’s space organisations — in both the public and private sectors — have agreed to physically join forces in an effort to ward off the potential disaster wrought by climate change and space weather.
While cooperation is not unknown in the space game, it’s the first time a designated international research facility will be in operation on Earth, and it’s Danos who is boldly taking the lead in this new frontier.
Danos is president of the Cyprus Space Exploration Organisation, an NGO that has played a pivotal role in getting multi-agency agreement to build the world’s first international space research facility.
‘It’s a place where all the countries of the world can cooperate for a common goal and work together, away from politics,’ explains Danos, adding that the realities of global warming and coming solar storms mean ‘there is no time to lose’.
In 2024 and 2025, solar storms are scheduled to impact Earth and though scientists don’t expect huge problems this time round, it is generally agreed that solar flares from the sun have the potential to wipe out satellite communications, creating a monstrous cloud of debris that could close space exploration for future generations.
‘Everything in our lives is currently dependent on space technologies,’ says Danos. ‘If we lose all that, we are back to medieval times.
‘It may not happen now, but does that mean we behave like ostriches and put our heads in the sand and say it won’t happen? We need to be prepared.
‘I don’t want to be a doomsayer, but it is necessary that we learn to work together for the sake of our planet. Not doing this is no longer an option.’
When Danos speaks it is with a controlled, but very real sense of urgency. Sitting in the conference room of a government building in the heart of Cyprus’s capital Nicosia, the 53-year-old’s eyes shine with the fervour of the missionary — and he admits to a belief that it is his role on Earth to do what he can to save it.
It’s a sense of destiny that came to him while living in Ireland.
Having been at the cutting-edge of technology from an early age — Danos was 27 when he founded Virgin BizNet, one of Virgin Group’s most financially successful business ventures — he decided to step back from the rat race to contemplate life.
Having turned down a lucrative offer to work for Sony Entertain
‘If we lose space technologies, we are back to medieval times’
ment, Danos moved to Dublin.
‘I chose to go to Ireland to find a different side to the person I was,’ he says. ‘I chose to go there not for a job opportunity, but as a soul quest. I wanted to discover what the purpose of me being on this planet was, as well as the purpose of life.’
Keeping Dublin as a base, Danos spent three years travelling the length and breadth of the country, with notable stays in Kerry, Galway, Cork and Killarney. Brandishing a walking stick, he rolled up his sleeves and his trouser legs to scale Croagh Patrick, ‘climbing into clouds’, he visited lakeside monasteries and
embarked on pilgrimages that ran into weeks.
At Trinity College Library, he studied the Tuatha Dé Danann, finding a connection to the mythical descends -ants of the goddess Danu and his surname, Danos. He also studied links between the Mediterranean and Irish cultures, finding Ancient Greek footholds in ceremonies still taking place in Ireland today.
But above all of this, Danos credits Ireland with giving him the space and the spiritual support to find himself.
It was a very interesting journey because I went from county to county and met so many different people who allowed me to understand that special kind of spirituality that Irish people have,’ says Danos.
‘It was an amazing, inspiring journey and it gave me a message for life. It changed me. I realised that I am not here to just live this life; there are responsibilities for the people coming after us. I saw the need to protect this planet.
‘My time in Ireland gave me many answers to the questions I had regarding my purpose in life and it recharged my batteries and gave me the motivation to move forward.
‘When I first went to Ireland, I thought I was moving further away from my island, but I was actually coming closer to my return home. For this, I have so much love for Ireland.’
When Danos returned to Cyprus in 2006, he embarked on a mission to establish the Cyprus Space Exploration Organisation, partly because he had always had an interest in space, and the answers to protecting the Earth lay there, but also because no one else on the island was doing it.
Danos realised this dream in 2013, with successive Cyprus governments then continuously getting behind the NGO.
For the past 12 years, Danos has also received physical help from Ireland, as well as spiritual, in the form of his chief of innovation, Colm Larkin, who has been ‘pivotal in stimulating space innovation in Cyprus’.
Once CSEO was up and running, the first goal of the NGO was to help Cyprus join the European Space Agency, a milestone achieved in 2016. The CSEO then went on to represent Cyprus at the international Committee on Space Research, the International Astronomical Union, the International Astronautical Federation, and the Global Experts Group for Sustainable Lunar Activities, among other groups.
Next month, Danos will further see his vision and tireless dedication to it culminate in the official launch of the Cyprus Space Research Centre. Though it is a three-year project, the facility in the heart of Nicosia is expected to be partly up and running within the year.
‘We are coordinating international partners from our panel in Cyprus,’ he says.
‘The innovation panel doesn’t have a laboratory currently, so we are creating an international space innovation lab with a presence in Cyprus so that all of these people will have a physical location to carry out research. This is the hub, the international centre from where we can do our activities, and this is just the start.’
The consortium is made up of international agencies and associations, including NASA researchers, as well as Cypriot partners.
‘The Cypriot people really embraced what we were doing from the start,’ said Danos. ‘We were the pride of Cyprus and that was such a driving force to get things right.’
Part of that mission to get it right is to find a way to mitigate the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change.
For the next two years, the Earth is in the firing line of solar storms — huge bursts of energy from the sun, emitted in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections, that send a stream of electrical charges and magnetic fields hurtling towards the planet at a speed of three million miles per hour.
It is solar storms that produce the Northern Lights and their increasing intensity is the reason why places as far south as London recently got to see the aurora borealis.
While a surge in these storms, known as solar maximum, occurs every 11 years, the sun has been more active than expected and scientists are keen to use 2024 and 2025 to prepare for the worst, should it happen, because solar storms don’t only result in beautiful auroras.
Eleven years ago, one solar flare was so intense that the US agency forecasting weather and atmospheric conditions had to alter its charts. In 1989, Canada suffered power outages for more than nine hours, and in 1859 the largest solar storm ever recorded, called the ‘Carrington Event’, reached the earth within 24 hours, rather than days, causing telegraph machines to burst into flames.
With the Earth currently in the firing line of another solar maximum, scientists now have a window of opportunity to study, analyse and experiment with new technologies that might one day save the planet should there be a catastrophic solar eruption.
‘Studies show it can cause heart issues, cancer and leukemia’ ‘Earth could end up like Venus, a hell planet’
‘Contracts were signed at the start of this month and we — along with other agencies, including NASA — are working to send assets into space to further monitor the impact of space weather,’ reveals Danos.
‘We will take a treasure trove of data from our partners, Finland especially, and analyse it with the latest AI technologies. We will have a ground station here on earth, in Cyprus, and we will send assets there while sending experiments into space with NASA and other research institutions to monitor the impact of space weather not only on the planet as a whole, but also on our technologies in space and on the ground, as well as our biology on the ground.
‘Some studies have shown a solar maximum can cause cancer, leukemia and heart issues, and we need to further study that, which is why in the consortium we also have a hospital in Cyprus.
‘We have two factors now. It isn’t just us and what we are doing to the planet, it’s what the sun is also doing to the planet, and the two together form a vicious loop that can drive us into an impossible situation or certainly an unwanted situation.
‘We are depositing more and more CO2 in the atmosphere and the sun is bombarding us and heating up the planet, meaning we are getting into a runaway effect. Only recently, a NASA study said it wouldn’t take much for Earth to get into an irreversible runaway situation, which would see us end up like Venus, a planet that has extreme temperatures and acid rain. It’s a hell planet.
‘Now is the time to put our political differences aside. We are all the same under the one sky and we need to protect our home. We don’t have a Planet B. We don’t even have a Plan B. We’ve got to get things right, and we have to move on that now.’