The Futuof the National Space Society

>
>>>
>>> Vis-a-vis the Internet: We need to examine things like Slashdot and
>>> the
>>> Dean campaign (whatever else you think of the guy, he seems to have
>>> come
>>> up with an effective Internet strategy). The current NSS website is
>>> very lame.
>>>
>>>
> Hi Chuck - that's been a point of contention I know between various NSS
> board members and the executive leadership. But the volunteer-run
> alternative - nsschapters.org - isn't much better as far as
> interactivity goes

Check out http://www.amsat.org/amsat/AmsatHome.html>

These guys are building and flying actual hardware in space. Note the
absence of a flashy website. Just a bunch of links to practical
information for people doing hands-on stuff.

NSS is irrelevant because they aren't doing concrete things. Magazines
and websites exist to help members *do* stuff, not as ends in
themselves. If NSS can't find a way to recreate itself in terms of
members doing things themselves, then it should be allowed to wither.

Whether it is really possible to create such an organization is an open
question. I think that there are possibilities for amateur rocketry to
grow into something really relevant, at least as far as providing
hands-on training for the people who will go on to found or work for
companies doing stuff in space. Another area worth exploring is amateur
robotics. People are already building semi-autonomous robots in their
garages. A small shift in emphasis might be enough to get some of them
building robots relevant to lunar and asteroidal exploration.

Imagine a convention where instead of talk after talk about building
lunar colonies or space elevators there were hands-on workshops on how
to make robotic arms that won't lock up in hard vacuum, or on recovery
systems for sounding rockets reentering from 200 km up. Imagine a
contest between robots to navigate simulated lunar lava tubes. A
society that could put on a convention like that would *not* have a
member retention problem :-)

I don't know if this is a realistic vision or not. The robot idea
certainly has some promise. I'd like to see NSS reinvent itself as an
organization of doers rather than dreamers, but if it doesn't, there
will still be plenty of dreamers without NSS. When it comes to space,
there is no shortage of dreamers.

......Andrew