SSI Activity (and its rebirth?)

Vince-

Actually this reminds me of the one other space conference I attended
onceat Ames, IA; kind of forgot about it as it was a one off. Well, and
now that I think about it I went to a NASA space-telerobotics conference
too a long time ago around JPL (but that was work related).

When I was living in Ames, IA, I went to a wonderful Iowa State run
space conference about eight years ago. I heard Zubrin and others speak
there. I questioned some of Zubrin's points, but even then he seemed to
be gathering momentum (this was just before his book came out) and
clearly had the "Mars bug". I tried to question some online around 1996,
but his supporters are really hard to shake (and I can't say all their
points are wrong, just enough).
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=fernhout+zubrin&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=328E1019.16FB%40netins.net&rnum=1
Still, there is clearly support out there for space based alternatives
too, as even that thread shows.

In any case, it's hard (and perhaps pointless) to directly compete with
dreams inspired by _The Martian Chronicles_ and so many decades of pulp
fiction. Although there are some alternatives, like Bruce Sterling's
_the Schismatrix_, Peter Hamilton's writings (The Neutronium Alchemist
etc. series was quite a bit way too offensively violent for me, but he's
got self-replicating space habitats, plus a defunct space-habitat-based
alien race, so I slogged on anyway despite that), and Mike Combs's [of
this list] excellent on-line stories:
http://members.aol.com/howiecombs/hard_s-f.htm
Then there is also L5: First City in Space (IMAX). And of course B5
(although B5 is shot like the people lived on a battleship with too few
light bulbs; I questioned the series creator in an on-line chat on why
there were never any interior shots and he said the B5 interior was
supposedly 100% given over to agriculture (except for one tiny park) so
people never go there, plus he didn't have money for such sets --
although that sounded bogus to me in an age of CGI; I just think he
wanted a dark, heavy feel. He did add a few more interior shots
afterward though, so I like to think I had some tiny impact there.)

I don't think "mars fever" is stoppable, personally. I see it even in
the NASA automation people. And it is so hard to get people off their
duffs (or rather, on their duffs in front of a networked workstation
designing free stuff!), that if a passion for Mars keeps someone
motivated, well, I say let them keep it. Ultimately some people will
live on Mars, if for no other reason than the same reason people live in
Alaska (jobs, scenery, getting away from it all, following family, a
lark, joining a community with shared values, etc.). So, I think the
best hope is to create a project like I outlined, a general technology
library,
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
and let the people who love the idea of a mars colony contribute to the
library, and use their passion to help everyone (and vice versa, let
mars enthusiast freely draw from what space habitat people design or
simulate to adapt it to Mars missions). And the same goes for people who
are captivated by a return to the Moo and having a real Moonbase Alpha.
And even the same for the LUF people and projects in the oceans, or
even deserts or Antarctica. This way, we can all build on our common
ground, rather than fight each other over resources or mind share. I
feel I can personally believe space based settlements are a far, far
better idea, while at the same time respect that many people just are
fired up about Mars and try to find a way to work with them that helps
all of us. And if the first self-replicating seed gets launced at Mars,
or the Moon, well, then, so be it, I tried, and at least we have that. :-)

[Though, it would be a heck of a lot more difficult for space craft to
be built on Mars and launched back to Earth to transport people back to
Mars than it would be for transports (or habitats) to be built around
asteroids and launched to Earth for pick up of colonists, in terms of
the stresses the craft would need to handle launched from Mars' gravity
well. So maybe a target might be Mars' moons, which in essence are
likely just captured asteroids anyway, so most of the self-replicating
technology might be the same (except maybe for periodic occlusion of
solar collectors for moon based repicators as Phobos and Deimos orbited
Mars).]

While charismatic people would help promote space habitats (and I'm not
one of them), I hope even more important is a charismatic project. Now,
maybe that is misguided, and the charismatic, outgoing person is
essential. But, hopefully, a good project might draw in such people
(such as, for just one example, Bob Strong, winner of an SSI prize a
conference or two back for his NEO observatory, and also a passionate
educator and enthusiast for space settlements). There are undoubtedly
others out there too.

In any case, if this technology library is a project Mars enthusiasts
and O'Neill habitats enthusiasts can share under free licenses, then all
of Zubrin's charisma starts working for O'Neill-style space habitats (in
terms of a shared technology base), not working against space habitats.

--Paul Fernhout