From: jim@netlink.cts.com (Jim Bowery)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: RFD: Space Colonists' Association
Date: 12 Apr 92 16:23:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: netlink.H3L5iB1w164w
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

Dani Eder writes:
 
>REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION ON THE FORMATION OF A SPACE COLONIST'S
>ASSOCIATION
>
>I remember the early days of the L5 Society (I was in college
>at the time), and that of the Space Studies Institute.  They
>were both pretty clearly oriented to building space colonies.
>At the time, L5 was a rapidly growing organization.  Then the
>orientation of the organization changed to supporting NASA.
>The growth promptly stopped.  The Space Studies Institute has
>also lost momentum since it's focus on space colonies changed
>to non-terrestrial resource use.  
 
L5 and SSI were both predicated on a passage in O'Neill's original
edition of The High Frontier (pages 134-135 in the 1976 edition):
 
  "NASA is presently advertising a cost of about 10 million dollars
   for a shuttle launch, assuming complete recovery and reuse of all
   hardware required.  The SSME's would cost several million dollars
   each, so for economy they should be recovered from orbit after a
   number accumulate there from HLV launches.  The shuttle itself 
   would be appropriate for that recovery.  We can be somewhat more
   conservative about costs, if we approximately double the shuttle-
   launch figure and assume that it will cost $19 million for an HLV
   launch; that works out to about one hundred ten dollars per pound
   to low orbit."
 
This passage was edited out of editions of "The High Frontier" 
released after the true cost of shuttle launches started becoming
apparent -- HOWEVER -- nothing was done with the rest of the book
to recompute the impact of higher LEO launch costs on the entire
vision of space colonization.  
 
(Note: $110 (1976) is about $300 (1992)).
 
 
The inside jacket cover of "The High Frontier" begins:
 
  "By the 1990's ten thousand people of various nationalities
   may be living and working in space in communities equidistant
   from the earth and the mooon.  Their productivity may be
   shared between the building of additional communities and the
   construction of satellite solar power stations, to supply
   abundant energy to the earth from an inexhaustible source."
 
 
Most of the people who joined L5 and SSI in those heady days
were hoping to raise their families aboard the first space 
colonies as a part of an explosive renewal of economic growth.
 
 
As the years 1981 to 1986 passed and Shuttle launch figures came in
a factor of 30 greater, interest in the L5/SSI vision gradually died
and those organizations were scavanged by the NASA/aerospace cartel.
Instead of hoping to raise families in colonies of 10,000 people,
people were reduced to lobbying for Space Station Freedom so a few
astronauts could make temporary visits sometime around the year 2000.
 
>Let's face it, a chemical
>refinery is not as exciting as a space colony, from a personal
>point of view.
 
SSI was forced to expand it's ORIGINAL interest in NTR due to
the need to "bootstrap" lunar industry with much smaller amounts
of equipment, but it was not that expanded interest in NTR that 
caused its decline.  It was disappointing Shuttle performance.
 
>New technologies have cropped up in abundance, 
 
New technologies are not necessary to get the cost/lb to LEO down
to the $300 required by the original L5/SSI vision.
 
Indeed, the politics of "new technology" launchers are what led
us into the disappionting trap we now face.  The only thing that
will lower launch prices is setting up a ruthless incentive for
the launch service operators to do so.  
 
That incentive:  Profit or bankruptcy in market competition.
 
Fortunately, there have been some people working on that problem
for several years now and starting to see that effort bear fruit.
 
>What I suggest then, is a membership association.  Minimum dues
>to be set at a moderate level (such as $25/yr), with expenses
>held down (no glossy 4 color magazines), and the net proceeds to
>go to a general research & development fund for common needs
>(life support is a common need).  
 
Ah.... An L4 Society/Space Studies Inc. eh?
 
I have a better idea -- do some research, decide what companies
are contributing most directly to creating abilities that will 
lead to space colonization and invest in them.  If you can't find
any, be creative, come up with some business ideas, find some 
business types, go ahead and let them steal your ideas and all
the equity (which they will do anyway), work for modest wages and 
get a business going you can devote your life to.
 
Be prepared to spend a few years at this with a couple of failed 
starts.
 
PS:  The "mutual fund" portion of your post comes dangerously close 
to public solicitation for investors.  You'd better check up on the 
laws.  A guy got himself into trouble in Compuserv back in '82 for 
doing something like this.

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