Skip to main content.
Space colony art: Don Davis


13th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference
Arlington, VA
February 10-11, 2010

Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference
(NSRC 2010)

Boulder, CO
Feb. 18-20, 2010

Next Generation Exploration Conf
NASA Ames, CA
April 5-8, 2010

Space Access '010
Phoenix AZ
April 8-10, 2010

NSS ISDC 2010
Chicago, IL
May 27-31, 2010

New Space 2010
NASA Ames, CA
July 23-25, 2010

Tip Jar
Regular readers can support HobbySpace
with a contribution via credit card:

Space Settlement at the NSS

The National Space Society (NSS) is building up an extensive set of on line resources concerning Space Settlement.

For example, the complete book Colonies in Space (1977) by T. A. Heppenheimer is available on line for free.

There is also a big archive of L5 Society materials. Check out the Orbital Settlements section, as well.

Here is the roadmap to large scale settlement.

Don't forget to buy your 2008 Space Settlement Calendar. The competition for artwork for the 2009 calendar is now underway.

Comments

Reading the NSS roadmap overview, I'm struck by the following statement and its implications: "An unexpected failure [...] that would likely be fatal on Mars might be recoverable on the Moon." It may sound cold-blooded, but if the goal is to learn how to survive in these environments, wouldn't we learn a lot faster by being willing to accept losses? I mean, people die on virtually every large construction job, be it bridges, tunnels, or office buildings, yet if a crew died on a Mars mission it would be deemed a catastrophic failure regardless of how much was learned. People seem least willing to accept losses when risk-taking is most crucial to getting the ball rolling, and yet casual about losses when nothing is learned from them (i.e., a stupid construction mistake). So we need to be aware of how distorted our priorities are in this respect and correct for it.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 11/29/07 18:45:06

This also caught my eye in the full NSS roadmap: "Before we can commit to sending people to a space settlement without firm and definite plans to return them, we must know that long-term survival and quality of life is assured." Really? Survival and quality of life have to be *assured* before we can even TRY? This doesn't sound like a plan for settling the most hostile frontier humans have ever faced - it sounds like a suburban zoning plan. I hope NSS is less timid than they sound.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 11/29/07 20:08:50

Let's just hope that the National Space Society is not the only entity working on settling Space.

Posted by Rob Abiera at 11/30/07 17:43:45
Add Comment

Note: HTML code will not work except for bare URLs (i.e. http://www...). Also, for postings older than 1 week, comments are filtered manually to prevent spam and so may not appear for a few days.
Note: Trash talking and name calling, especially in anonymous comments, won't be tolerated.



More Sponsors
Auto Transport
Best Aviation Jobs
Computer Help
Dish Network
Home Security
Metal Spinning
Metal Stampings Co
Promotional Pens
Promotional Products
Satellite Broadband
Satellite Internet
Survey Your Customers

Blog Search

Google
Web
HobbySpace