Stigmergy and Space Settlement

>> In short, it just seems too fanciful to expect an idealistic volunteer
>> effort to get us out of the gravity well. A concerted and coordinated
>> effort, which will be by necessity one that is capatilistic in nature,
>> will be needed to get us off planet in a significant way.
>
> Having no money to buy expensive
> services, our only choice is volunteer labor no matter how painful that
> may be.

Great discussion on pros and cons of volunteer driven free space
settlement designs.

Another reason "free" matters is that it allows the idea of "stigmergy"
to develop. Stigmergy refers typically to how insects like termites
cooperate to build a structure -- by using the structure itself as a
form of communication and coordination. In termites, a few lumps of
sand fall together to form an arch, and others detect this and get
excited and build on this. But you need the freely accessible structure
to have this happens. So, we need to be like space termites! And we need
a free knowledge mound to all contribute to -- depending on their
visions, mars people, moon people, habitat people, ocean people, desert
people, city people, etc. A way to all work together.

See for example:
http://www.stigmergicsystems.com/
"Biological strategies in a nutshell:
1) Instead of planning and purposeful design, they use an evolutionary
strategy of self-organization.
2) Instead of database technology they use agent technology.
3) Instead of algorithms they use stigmergy."

The problem with a lot of capitalistic projects is there is so much
competition that engineers are not allowed to talk to each other even if
they are in the same company! (I've seen this first hand, sadly.)
While there is no guarantee volunteers will want to talk, they have the
choice, if they are cooperating on free content, like GNU/Linux.

As Clark S. Lindsey says at HobbySpace (thanks for the link a couple
days ago in someone's post to this list -- I didn't know before that
this site existed):
"A young bright kid comes across one of the hard-to-find space
enthusiast magazines. She finds the articles about Mars colonies and
proposed rocket designs really cool. She puts the magazine down and
never picks one up again. Why? The answer to these questions is, I
believe, the following: BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING TO DO!"

So, the more we can do to give people something concrete to do (other
than "send money") the more people will get involved and excited and the
more results we will see.

Here are some related efforts that could also be coordinated with:
http://www.bfi.org/Trimtab/spring03/initiatives.html
http://www.humaninfo.org/
http://www.thinkcycle.org/
http://www.hobbyspace.com/
Key to cooperation is using free licenses. There are various people in
Artemis, LUF, the Mars Society, and even NASA who might be willing to
contribute if the project reached critical mass, and if it proved a
useful framework (say, if it included simulation tools for testing designs).

I personally believe that if we had a very good design tested rigorously
in simulation, say for something like this:
"Self-Replicating Lunar Factory And Demonstration"
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM51.html#5
finding a billionaire or foundation to give the effort a billion dollars
to actually build a seed and launch it to the Moon, an asteroid, or Mars
would then be the easy part. (There are already billionaires active in
space, but we are probably talking about a tens of billions of dollars
of volunteer effort (many thousands of people working for a decade or
more) before grantors are going to put that much hard currency on the
line in a lump.) And of course, it might take a few tries before the
first seed works well enough to make habitats and passenger vehicles to
bring people to them.

I wish SSI could consider moving in this direction, as a way to give the
organization some new life. I think this approach is the most feasible
right now to realize Gerry's (and other's) dream of human settlements in
space, considering government's track record and business's short
attention span. There are of course several reasosn why SSI might not be
a good fit. Organizationally, SSI has laways been focused on SSPS as the
main project and short term financial reason to go to space (although
other projects are supported) using the model of raising money from many
individuals to then give to academics etc. (and of course, running a
conference, which sometimes seems to be half a reunion of SSPS people,
but still seems to have some vibrancy and I have learned much from).
Like most USA non-profits, SSI still seems locked in the model of
selling one-time access to information (selling books etc.) SSI's
constituency are used to that approach, so anything different might
offend the self-selected membership or long term directors. Also, SSI
tried something related (The Matrix) almost a decade ago but it
essentially failed for lack of getting enough people involved -- but
that was pre-widespread-web, and also I don't think it was intended to
be free (or at least, I don't think that was a big focus). Anyway, I be
delighted to be wrong about SSI if it is rethinking its mission or is
otherwise in crisis (such as indicated by a missed conference). Chances
are though, a new organization may ultimately be needed, or this project
needs to fall under the wing of an exisitng organization with a mission
closer to making free knowledge, perhaps like one of the ones linked
above. It's not even clear it needs an organization in any case (it
seems organizations mostly just hold onto money and copyrights and
patents and property and limit liability for the directors for
organizational decisions (not direct work)).

But in any case, if properly construed, the space settlement part can be
only part of a very large effort to unify manufacturing knowledge
(such as kicked around here, although I'd rename it:)
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
related to everything from living history farms, to developing nations,
to ecological cities, to space habitats and Mars and lunar colonies.
That would give it the largest pool of potential contributors, and free
contributions by any project (say, living history farms on crop growth)
might be useful in other endeavors (say, lunar greenhouse design).

Those who want to make money off this project (as a capitalistic
contribution to space settlement) could do so at the edges rather than
the core, same as with GNU/Linux. What are some of the paying edges?
1) Consulting companies could offer services to toehr companies on using
the free information to reduce costs in design and production.
2) A company like the next Amazon might use the knowledgebase to make
products which are kept in stock for quick shipment -- essentially parts
of the knowledebase become like a sales catalog
3) Academics or businesses might get grants from SSI or other groups to
to extend the free knowledgebase in a specific direction deemed of
strategic importance by the grantor
4) Groups like NASA or NIST might directly use the information to save
money on internal design processes (not directly paying, but cost
avoiding) and might then give something back as a way to get their
engineers involved in understanding what the knowledgebase offers
5) Universities and Community Colleges might offer hands on courses
about using this knowledgebase to make things

Anyway, just some thoughts. More feedback appreciated, especially on
good options of where to go from here, and I've especially enjoyed the
pro and con arguments on volunteer driven projects and the potential
pitfalls.

--Paul Fernhout