Collaborative web site for engineering development

It has been a while since I have been on an SSI email list or actively
thinking about SSI other than remembering to pay dues every year. For
the last several years I have been creating web services as at home
projects and when I rereading some of the SSI site I realized that
something that I always wanted to do may be possible now, "Actually
participating in some other way then just paying dues". So here is the
body of an email message that I would like to distribute to high
visibility technocrats. Think of this one going to somebody like Vice
President Gore. You can get the concept from it. I would like to start
laying the foundation for this site soonest and would like everybody's
opinion.

Vice President Gore, 20 December 2000

I am seeking advisors/board members/suggestions for a web based
collaborative development effort that I think that you would be
interested in spending a few hours of time on in the next four years.
If not, I would appreciated it if you and your team would take a few
minutes and think of some names of people who you think would be
interested in helping.

Background:
Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill, http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html, developed a
conceptual plan for permanent space habitation many years ago. Since
then the Space Studies Institute has conducted low cost research in
areas critical to achieving this plan. I have been a member of SSI for
fifteen years beginning as a college student and now as a middle aged
member of the Aerospace Industry. I was rereading some of the
information at the SSI web site and realized that while SSI has
continued to sponsor small research programs that we have made very
little real progress in achieving Dr. O'Neill's vision. Many years ago
most of the effort was defined as just engineering that needed to be
done because we already had most of the technology required to make it
happen. But that engineering work has never happened. Fifteen years
from now I would like to reread Dr. O'Neill's works and be able to
compare his plan to actual design and implementation.

While mentally reviewing why nothing has happened in the last fifteen
years, I was thinking about what has changed that could enable the
vision to move forward. There have been advances in material science,
computer technology, and biology. However the biggest enabling advance
has been the Internet, a subject that you are well acquainted with.
What is interesting about the Internet is the rise of collaborative
software development by individuals with nothing in common but an
interest in a particular subject. "Linux" and the "GNU" utilities and
compilers are good examples. I personally have developed a site,
www.InnerTransit.net, that provides a service that is not possible
without the Internet. Fifteen years ago the only way to implement a
project of the size envisioned by Dr. O'Neill would have been to give
the task to a single organization like NASA who would have spent
millions in just managing the task. With the Internet and collaborative

development we the people of the world could implement the vision at a
small fraction of the cost that would have been spent by NASA.

The Concept:
Using collaborative development via the Internet in the style of "Linux"

and "GNU" implement Dr. O'Neill's vision starting with terrestrial
demonstrations.

The Plan:
I have enough aerospace and web site development experience to know that

just throwing up a web site will not work. There is a technology and
management aspect which I understand but there is also a people aspect
which needs high profile personalities with an interest in technology
and the Internet. So my goal is to assemble a group of advisors/board
members to evaluate and plan how to implement what could be a ground
breaking advance in how large technology projects of public interest are

implemented.

I realize that you and your team receive a lot of email and hope that
this one comes to your personal attention.

Thanks
Mitchell James
Mejames@...