MMM Classics Year 10: MMM #s 91-100 - Moon Society

MMM #97 - JUL 1996
The Spiritual Aspects of Settlement
transplantation to this
unprecedentedly new
and different world
scene will force into
new directions of as yet
unexplored possibilities.
We trust you will
not be offended.
We end our series of articles on
the varied ramifications of the lunar
environment for settler culture with
a discussion of how human spirituality
and religious sensitivity might
be affected and transformed in the
process. It is the whole man and
every aspect of his existence that
IN FOCUS A better “litmus-test”
for space-friendly candidates
1. Candidates for national public office should show more than
pro forma support for the Space Station as presently budgeted:
Any and all add-ons to Space Station Alpha as presently
budgeted should be commercialized.
2. We should look beyond thoughtless support for any
resurrection of Bush’s DOA “Space Exploration Initiative”.
NASA’s deep space program must be redirected from
“exploration” to “resource prospecting”. We need more
Prospector class probes to the asteroids and other Solar System
objects, prioritized according to accessibility.
3. Candidates should support an aggressive expansion of
current NASA Research and Development programs and aims.
NASA should be charged with timely development of
critical pathway technologies. Among these are
aerobraking
pace tether applications demonstrations,
artificial gravity missions and ultimately a permanent
artificial gravity orbital laboratory for testing long-term
human physiological adaptation to fractional gravity,
demonstration of increasingly plant-assisted life support
systems and of the recycling of wastes aboard Station
Alpha
demonstration of beneficiation and extraction of elements
other than oxygen abundant on the Moon
demonstration of the feasibility of production of useful
building materials reliant on available lunar (/Martian)
resources
demonstration of manufacturing, fabrication, and
construction methods based on such materials
wireless power transmission tests from the shuttle and/or
station
remote sensing of permafrost and subterranean voids,
and similar projects to pioneer technologies needed to open
the space frontier to extended human activity.
4. Candidates should support for continued expansion of the
envelope of present Space Commercialization legislation.
Additional opportunities for entrepreneurial involvement
in space at all levels should be facilitated by Congress. (See
#1 above) The great bulk of currently enacted and proposed
commercial space legislation initiatives concern space facilities
on Earth, vehicles and payloads going to orbit, and participation
in NASA contracts.
We must begin identifying commercial opportunities
“in” orbit and beyond. A Space Cabotage Act would mandate
commercial transfer of payloads between orbits and might
include kick motors intended to boost shuttle-carried payloads
into intended higher orbits or into deep space. The intent is to
limit NASA’s transport operation to the Shuttle itself, recognizing
that NASA’s involvement in operations is not an apt
precedent for the regime of future activities in space. This
would guarantee the rise of commercial companies to handle
any Earth-Moon ferry operations for example, and pave the
way for LEO and loop-the-Moon tourism. Commercial ownership
and/or operation of any hotel-dormitory added to Space
Station Alpha’s budgeted configuration would be logical.
5. NASA should take the spotlight off of “spin-off”
“technology transfer” in which consumers get “free” benefits
from government developed technologies at taxpayer expense.
NASA should assist and facilitate entrepreneurial “spinup”
technology development. The goal is to demonstrate
potentially profitable terrestrial applications of technologies
that will someday be useful or necessary on the space frontier,
with the R&D paid for by commercial sales, and the space
applications technology going “on the shelf” for relatively
inexpensive deployment when needed. An example that comes
to mind would be the development of glass glass composites
for terrestrial applications (from furniture to architectural
elements, to recreational vehicle body components etc.)
6. “Debate” over the stalled Moon Treaty is pointless. A
government-business-industry commission should be set up
to create a new Moon Treaty with language that sets up a
regime to allow entrepreneurial use of lunar resources for
the purposes of relieving Earth’s environment-threatening
power generation problems in a way that preserves the
Moon’s naked eye visual appearance from Earth. Such a
regime would seek to set aside and protect areas of especial
geological or scenic interest, set guidelines for the territorial
extent of commercial and industrial “concessions”, enable
private property rights for eventual settlers, and set guidelines
for progress of future settlements towards political home rule
as well as economic self-reliance.
7. We should establish a University of Luna - Earthside to
include an Institute of Lunar-Appropriate Design. The ULE
would take charge of research into the use and application of
lunar materials over a wide range of areas with a view to
telescoping the transition from an initial outpost interface to an
Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 10 - Republished January 2006 - Page 63