A panel discussion sponsored by the SETI Institute on the DARPA initiated 100 Year Starship program:
The panel included:
The 100 year Starship organization is holding its 2014 Public Symposium in Houston, Texas over Sept. 18-21. Here’s the agenda:
The 100 Year Starship’s purpose:
We exist to make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system a reality within the next 100 years. We unreservedly dedicate ourselves to identifying and pushing the radical leaps in knowledge and technology needed to achieve interstellar flight, while pioneering and transforming breakthrough applications that enhance the quality of life for all on Earth. We actively seek to include the broadest swath of people and human experience in understanding, shaping and implementing this global aspiration.
Taking up this task ignites not only our imagination, but the undeniable human need to push ourselves to accomplishments greater than any single individual.
A simulation of : Approach to Island One – PROJECT ION
Another great animation from Steve Gunn, here we see an approach to an Island One space habitat. This is part of the British Interplanetary Society‘s Project SPACE on space settlement.
Island One is a space colony with a population of 10000 people, located at L5.
I expect that our crowd crafted space future will be quite different than what a crowd-funded space plan could ever predict. Nevertheless, should a plan can be an interesting exercise. Check out the : Integrated Space Plan – Envisioning Humanity’s Future by Integrated Space Analytics — Kickstarter
The campaign is supported by several space advocacy organizations. From the National Space Society and Space Frontier Foundation:
The National Space Society has now become a $500 logo backer to the “Integrated Space Plan” Kickstarter and encourages NSS members to help this Kickstarter effort reach its goal. Many NSS members have already done so, but with only 5 days left, this Kickstarter is still $3000 short its $18,000 goal.
Become a “Backer” — visit the Kickstarter page to pledge your support.
The “Integrated Space Plan” project is to remake, maintain, and expand the uses of the Integrated Space Plan, a graphically detailed timeline of our future in space for the next 100 years. NSS leader Ronnie Lajoie writes “The five team leaders are all NSS members, including Jay Wittner, a past NSS Officer and Director, and current chapter officer. The ISP will complement and supplement our Roadmap to Space Settlement.”
Jay Wittner writes “20 years ago a detailed long term plan was created showing what was needed to develop a robust space infrastructure. It was called theIntegrated Space Plan (ISP). It was an early infographic developed to depict our future in space. The original plan by Ron Jones was a hit in the space community and it’s time to update the ISP and post it online so everyone can see the path forward!” Ron Jones is part of the new team.
NSS leader Gary Barnhard adds “While no one has a monopoly on insight into the future, the combination of perspectives should be integratable into a common framework which provides a context for understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we could go.”
As an extra incentive, all Backers at the $25 level or higher will get a free year of membership in the Space Frontier Foundation, one of our sister space advocacy organizations.
From the Moon Society:
There are any number of plans for the exploration of space out there in the marketplace of ideas. In the absence of much real-world progress, there is an inclination to plan for when there might be progress in the future. This often becomes a competition in the marketplace of ideas as agendas come into play, and some aspects of space exploration (and maybe development) are highlighted to the detriment of others as personal goals come into play.
One effort to address this was the Integrated Space Plan, which tried to take a meta- approach to looking at our space efforts and determine which activities and technologies fed into what aspects of humanity’s move out into the Solar System. Which aspects of exploration and development should be highlighted? How might they connect? What can help enable what else? Where are the synergies?
The Integrated Space Plan (ISP) was created in the 1980s as a wall-sized poster that ended up in universities and aerospace offices across the country and around the world. Its voluminous content encouraged exploration of how different goals could be achieved, almost like the technology tree structure of many civilization-type video games. It also encouraged many systems engineers, who thrive on complexity.
Now it’s time to revisit the Integrated Space Plan for a new generation of future space explorers, and update it for the new companies, new technologies, and new ideas in regards to things like the cislunar economy, interplanetary superhighways, and relevant resources.
Freeman Dyson discusses a wide range of futuristic possibilities : Freeman Dyson Predicts the Future – IEEE Spectrum