Reviving a web-based SSI?

>
>>I wonder if SSI would consider a "merger" with the National Space
>>Society [...]
>>
>[...] I think the L5 merger with the NSS was one of the worst
>things to happen for space habitats, since NSS seems pretty Mars
>oriented, and I got the feeling reading publications (when I decided to
>join L5 and then found out it merged) that the L5 mission just
>evaporated under NSS.
>
Actually, the L5 people pretty much run the society these days. The only
reason for a Mars orientation is that a lot of current members care
about Mars (in part thanks to Bob Zubrin's evangelism) - in fact NSS has
recently emphasized the Moon as the next important step in space
development - see this position paper from last year:
http://www.nsschapters.org/policy-cmte/files/NSS_NextSteps_03.html
which is believed to have fed into the details behind the new "national
space exploration vision".

> Just look at the NSS home page -- Moon, Mars,
>where is asteroids or space habitats?
>
Well, there's no mention of space elevators either. The web site could
use some improvement - and an SSI contingent would likely help to
revitalize that. That said, if you go to the chapters resource "hub":

http://www.nsschapters.org/hub/

you'll see a nice image of some sort of off-planet habitat.

Arthur