Space Colonization
Most transhumanists are very pro-space,
for a variety of reasons. Remaining limited to Earth is not only contrary
to the transhumanist mindset of expansion, growth and evolution but also
downright dangerous: killer meteors, nuclear wars, resource scaricity and
customized plagues are real possibilities in the present, and in the future
nanotechnology might give tremendous destructive power to very small groups.
There are also positive reasons to explore and colonize space, ranging
from sheer curiosity, the will to explore and the search for freedom to
pragmatic reasons such as gaining resources and energy, living space and
safety.
Sections
Other Sites
Books
See Also
Space Organizations
The First Millennial Foundation
has a detailled plan for getting into space, based on several step starting
with ocean colonization. See also Distant
Star, their electronic magazine.
British
Interplanetary Society
Island One Society. A quite complete
website about space colonization a la Gerard O'Neill.
Space Studies Institute
Lunar Resources Company (The
Artemis Project) "Going to the Moon using shameless commercialism"
- it might work.
National Space Society
International High School Space Settlement
Design Competition
Space Activism Web Sites
Planet MARS
Home Page. A private enterprise directed towards mars colonization.
Has a somewhat assertive "can do" attitude that may attract
some, repel some.
Mars Direct Home Page. Supports
a manned Mars mission in the near future. Has some interesting papers.
PERMANENT, Projects to Employ
Resources of the Moon and Asteroids Near Earth in the Near Term.
Mars Society
Alex Michael Bonnici's
Space Exploration Pages.
The
SpaceGeek Page. Links to space technology.
Space
Colonization in Yahoo
General
Has
Space a Future? by P. Creola (Address to the Annual Meeting of the
Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, Bern, 22/23 September 1994)
Forum: Gerard
K. O'Neill on Space Colonization and SETI (from Cosmic Search Vol.
1 No. 2).
Our
Future in the Cosmos - Space by Isaac Asimov (from Impact
of S cience on Society) Review
of The Millenial Project, by Jonathan Burns.
Space Technology and Science
The Case for Mars,
International Conference for the Exploration and Colonization of Mars.
Plenty of Mars resources.
Basics of Spaceflight. Introductory
textbook from NASA.
Propulsion
Starship
design page of the
Lunar Institute of Technology.
Canonical List of Space
Transport Methods V0.76. All kinds of space transport methods, ranging
from the traditional (chemical rockets) to the very unconventional (beanstalks,
ionospheric current loops and gamma ray thrusters).
Propulsion Systems
Launch
A Rocket a
Day Keeps the High Costs Away by John Walker. About the logistics
and economics of space launch.
Earth-to-orbit Transportation
Bibliography. Ranges from the conventional to the utterly original.
The Electromagnetic
Propulsion Homepage. Using coilguns to send cargo to orbit.
Black Horse. A single stage
to orbit reusable launch vehicle. The idea is to refuel it from a tanker
aircraft in the air.
Tethers
Unlimited. Using cables in space to change orbits or launch payloads.
The Lorrey Loop.
Solar Sails
Solar Sails
The Physics
of Solar Sailing
The Microlight Solar
Sail
SailAway R/D Project
Solar Sails
Nuclear
Project Orion: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth
by Michael R. Flora. One of the classic "Big Science" designs.
Antimatter Space Propulsion.
Group at Penn State University studying how to use antimatter to augment
fission and fusion for space propulsion.
Hydrogen
Ice Spacecraft for Robotic Interstellar Flight by Jonathan Vos Post.
A surprising design.
Interstellar
Small Laser-propelled Interstellar Probe by Geoffrey
A. Landis
Proposed
Methods of Interstellar Travel by Nathan Millard. Looks at solar and
laser sails, particle beam acceleration, microwave propulsion, antimatter
and nuclear pulse propulsion .
Habitats and Survival
Orbital Settlements:
Space for the Rest of Us. A good introduction to space settlements.
Humans
in Space. About space medicine, describing the health problems of
space.
Romance
to Reality: moon & Mars expedition & settlement plans collected by
David S. F. Portree. An annotated bibliography of Moon and Mars colonisation
papers from the 50's to the present.
Space
Colony Art from the 1970s. Classic pictures (although they reminds
me a bit the pictures in the pamphlets of Jehova's Witnesses - always
sunny, happy people and pleasant parklands. Reality will probably be quite
a bit less elegant.)
Technologies, Economy and Raw Materials
The World's Energy Future Belongs
in Orbit by Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill.
The Molecular Manufacturing Shortcut
Group (MMSG) Position
Paper on nanotechnology and its use in space-colonization.
System
Architectures For Space Systems Using Molecular Nanotechnology by
Thomas L. McKendree.
Implications
of Molecular Nanotechnology Technical Performance Parameters on Previously
Defined Space System Architectures by Thomas Lawrence McKendree.
Comet Mining, An
Overview by Nick Szabo.
NASA and Self-Replicating
Systems. About the NASA study about the feasibility of a self-replicating
factory.
Institute for Teleoperated Space
Development. It might be a good idea to send robots into space first.
An
Evolutionary Path to SPS by Geoffrey
A. Landis.
Solar Energy
on Mars and on
the Moon. How much energy is available, and how can it be used?
Future
Spacecraft Sensors by Jonathan Vos Post
On the Economic Viability of Mars by Robert Zubrin.
Terraforming is closely related
to mega technology, since
it literally changes whole planets. The goal is to create a planet where
a viable biosphere can live, hopefully also habitable for humans (or posthumans).
Currently nanotechnology
appears to be the most versatile tool for achieving this.
The
Terraforming Information Pages. Maintained by Martyn J. Fogg. Reviews,
bibliographies, simulators etc.
Terraforming
and Ecopoesis. Page with technical references, speculation and fiction
about terraforming. A bit of everything for everyone.
Bringing
Life to Mars by Christopher P. McKay (Scientific American March
1999).
Mars
the final frontier (New Scientist 1994).
Die
Terraformung des Mars - Der Weg zu einer zweiten Erde by Christoph
Kulmann.
Artesian
Basins on Mars: Implications for Colonizing, the Search for Life and
Terraforming. by Martyn Fogg (New Mars).
Terraforming Mars using self replicating molecular
machines by Robert J. Coppinger.
The Drexlerian
Terraformation of Mars: A New Ark for Humanity by Robert J. Coppinger
(in The Assembler,
First Quarter 1996). An extension of the above paper, going into more
detail on how to terraform Mars.
Biology
and the Planetary Engineering of Mars by Julian A. Hiscox. How can
various forms of life be used in ecopoiesis and terraforming.
Planetary
Engineering Bibliography by Martyn J. Fogg
Genesis:
an Epic Poem by Fred Turner. 10,000 lines of iambic pentameter describing
the terraforming of Mars.
Other Sites
Books
Gerard K. O'Neill The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space.
William Morrow & Co., N.Y 1976
See also
Relevant Newsgroups: sci.space, sci.space.tech,sci.space.science
and rec.arts.sf.science.
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