The Futuof the National Space Society

NSS could get their membership behind something like this project
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak
presented by me at SSI conferences and in this paper:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/SSI_Fernhout2001_web.html
This may sound like tooting my own project, but seriously, at:
http://www.nss.org/about/index.html
it is claimed the NSS has more than 22,000 members. If 10% of these
members are committed enough to cut down on watching broadcast TV and
spend 10 hours a week (about 500 hours a year) working on free
manufacturing knowledge and designs for space habitats (created perhaps
by self-replicating seeds), that is about 1,000,0000 hours a year of
work put into crafting the future. Such a group could accomplish a lot
with that effort even with essentially no money or other donations. (It
helps to have some full timers (paid or volunteer) to coordinate such an
effort of course, although it isn't entirely needed, as long as at least
one person sets up and runs a decent infrastructure.) The NSS membership
could become the core of a serious effort having ramifications beyond
just outer space. The problem with NSS and other organizations
(including eventually SSI?) is they didn't build on what the internet
makes possible by greatly expanding the SSI Senior Associate model of
getting interested amateurs and hobbyists involved with a problem (and I
mean those terms respectfully -- a "hobbyist" or "amateur" can often be
better at some things and more knowledgeable and dedicated in an area
than a paid "professional".)

In any case, a free library of manufacturing knowledge is a way for
organizations with different roadmaps for human development (Mars, SPS,
Moon, Habitats, BFI/Earth) to collaborate in creating such a free
library because they can all draw from the free information for their
specific projects. However, to date, organizations, including SSI,
attempt to keep their work proprietary so they can control it tightly
and make money off of it to fund other paid efforts. The internet
mediated volunteer development approach modeled after GNU/Linux and the
free software movement is a way forward IMHO.

The problems I have with, say, taking over an existing non-profit
organization going through convolutions or wound down (having explored
this before) though is they rarely rethink how they accomplish their
missions once they get invested in an approach (membership becomes self
selecting to support their plans) and they often come with liabilities
(including internal political issues, but also financial and legal ones
including contracts etc.) from previous steps or misteps. I don't know
enough about the NSS to know if those issues apply significantly in its
case. I've tried to start a non-profit for these activities myself
http://www.pointrel.org/
and so far got hung up some on the composition of the board (giving out
free software and free content and can be risky these days, and I want
an active board who cares about the issues) plus some other
distractions. :-)

--Paul Fernhout