At 05:40:56 GMT on 14 December, 1972, Apollo 17 Mission Commander Gene Cernan returned to the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) Challenger, ending the last Extravehicular Activity (EVA) of what would prove to be the final expedition of the Apollo program. To date, no other humans have yet returned to set foot on the Lunar surface, foisting on Captain Cernan the dubious honor and title of being “The Last Man on the Moon.”

Gene Cernan, along with the rest of us who were space enthusiasts in that era, expected our off-planet explorations would continue, expanding our knowledge and reach across the cosmos at the same time.  Long before he passed away on  16 January 2017, Captain Cernan wrote “Too many years have passed for me to still be the last man to have left his footprints on the Moon. I believe with all my heart that somewhere out there is a young boy or girl with indomitable will and courage who will lift that dubious distinction from my shoulders and take us back where we belong. Let us give that dream a chance.”

It’s now fifty (50) years later, and still no one has set foot on soil beyond this globe we call Earth.  It’s time to go back, to the Moon and beyond, because there’s not enough room or resources here for the 8+ billion people living on our planet.  We need SPACE to grow, and a frontier where society can let off steam.  Government funded space programs are floundering in politics, and the only way commercial space will work is if investors can be shown a profit at the bottom line.  That’s a reasonable expectation on their part, and I believe I can make it happen.  Please see Race To Space, Space Power Now, L5 Condos, and some of the other projects I’ve got cooking to wake this up.

Given sufficient interest, I’ll reissue the Last Man on the Moon t-shirt.  Note that the shopping cart on L5Development.com isn’t working at this point (bit rot due to lack of time for attention), so you’ll have to email me or contact me on LinkedIn to let me know you’re interested.

          

In case you missed it in my Deja vu post on the 11th (buried three quarters of the way down the page), I’ve decided that, absent any other proposals for working on one of my other current projects, I should spend my time working on selling reservations for condos in the colonies I’m proposing to build at L5.

For most of my working life, I’ve had a dream of being able to fund what I now estimate to be a $50 trillion dollar project because when we get to the bottom line in 30 years, there’s going to be a huge profit for everyone who invested into the effort.  The problem has always been – how do I get the first million? so that I can actually spend my time working on said project, and attract other people to work on it with me? i.e., how can I start hiring enough people to have a reasonable chance of getting it done?

The idea is actually quite simple:  I’m asking people to invest into reserving a condo in the colonies, secured by a deposit of $10,000 (for the first 100 units).  The final purchase price is obviously going to be much more than that, but if I can sell one reservation a week for two years, that’s the first million dollars that has been my stumbling block all this time.  I’m building L5Condo.com as the vehicle for making those sales, actively constructing the site while I look for visionary investing customers who can see the value of financial participation in the project at this early stage.

Part of my problem is that I don’t personally know many people who would be interested in signing up to join this project at that level.  Consequently, as mentioned in my Deja vu post, I’m willing to pay a 10% commission – $1,000 – to anyone who introduces me to a customer who does reserve a condo and puts down the $10,000 deposit I’m asking.  Even if, like me, you don’t necessarily know anybody who fits the bill, tell your friends they have an opportunity to earn a commission:  The more people spreading the word, the sooner I’ll be able to start hiring people – maybe even you – to get the whole system built.

Let’s work on this together – let’s all make money – lots of it!

Money is a tool, just as a hammer is, or a screwdriver. Like any other tool, money can be used to do good or to do evil: That choice is made by the person using the tool, not the tool itself. Don’t condemn money as evil, any more than you would another tool.

I want to make money, enough to support myself and let me build the dreams I have of a better future. In order to do that, I expect the people working with and for me will likewise make enough to support themselves, and build their dreams.

Change is always going to happen.  Even if you do nothing to move the world forward, change is still going to happen.  Please join me in working to make the world a better place, because if we don’t, it’s still going to change – and if it’s not getting better, …

          

I’ve been through this cycle more times than I want to count, starting when I left college after the first semester of my sophomore year:  I run out of money, so I go get a job, building other people’s dreams while mine whither on the vine for lack of attention.  Working for some time, I get to where I’m frustrated or the project gets to a milestone and the job goes away.  With some resources set aside, I start working feverishly on one of my projects, trying to get an income that supports me.  Instead things break, everything takes longer than it does, so I run out of money, go get another job, and repeat the cycle.

Being hypercreative, I’m inventing things, coming up with new projects faster than I could possibly finish them – sometimes two, three, or even more in a single day.  I’m sure there are drugs that could curtail that “problem” – but would I want to be the person they turned me into?  I strongly suspect not.  Consequently, going to get a job to “solve” my money problems is going to lead to my being frustrated, even if the work is something that enjoy.  This is simply because I spend all of my productivity working on someone else’s dreams while mine get left behind when I think up another one in the mean time.  Throw in daily 45 minute to two hour “stand up” meetings that require everyone in the company’s attendance, or work that is mind-numbingly different from what I originally thought I was being hired for, and many jobs, especially “FTE” (full time employee) ones, end up causing me to have attendance issues.  Any job I take is going to end up being a “temporary” one because either the contract will run out, or my interest in participating will.

One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing, over and again, expecting different results.  From my perspective, going to get another J.O.B. (just over broke) simply because I’ve used up my immediate resources fits the definition of insanity:  I’d be starting the same cycle again, expecting it to lead to having the time and resources to work on my projects long enough to get (one of) them done.  After all these years, after all these repeats of the same cycle, I know it just ain’t gonna happen!

Clearly what I need to do is find a way to be able to work on at least one of my own projects long enough to get it to where it’s supporting me.  My Current Projects page describes many of things I’d like to be working on.  Any one of them could lead me to where I’ve got people working for me, to get more and more of them done, ultimately leading to building space colonies, solving the pending oil shortage crisis and opening doors that can only be found on a frontier, and saving humanity.

I’m looking for one or more investors who not only can see the value in what I’m trying to achieve, but also expect to make money on the deal, too:  Talk is cheap, and those who give me valid advice can expect the same in return.  When someone puts up cash to make things work, though, I expect to give them a handsome reward in return for their investment.  Terms are negotiable, depending on the project, the size of the investment, and other factors as appropriate.

I also recognize the need to pay commissions when someone brings me a lead that results in a sale.  For example, if someone introduces me to an investing customer who wants to reserve a condo in the colonies that we will be building at L5, and that customer puts down a $10,000 deposit toward the property, I will pay the referrer a 10% commission – $1,000 – for the introduction.

Money is a tool, just as a hammer is, or a screwdriver.  Like any other tool, money can be used to do good or to do evil:  That choice is made by the person using the tool, not the tool itself.  Don’t condemn money as evil, any more than you would another tool.

I want to make money, enough to support myself and let me build the dreams I have of a better future.  In order to do that, I expect the people working with and for me will likewise make enough to support themselves, and build their dreams.

Let’s work on this together – let’s all make money – lots of it!

          

These “products” are simply rebranded copies of Blender – a free and open source 3D creation suite that you can download and use for free.  3DMagix, 3DMagixPro and IllusionMage are scams because they are selling you software that don’t have to pay for.  They advertise heavily via email, and get away with their scam only because people don’t know any better.

If you want to do 3D animation, do yourself a favor – go to Blender.org and download the software for free and help put the scammers out of business.

For more information, see the page about the 3DMagix, 3DMagixPro and IllusionMage scam on the Blender Web site.

To support my work, please buy a pre-publication copy of  Race To Space.  For more info about the project, see the Race To Space site, subscribe there to be kept abreast of its progress.

We are going to run out of oil. Before that happens, we MUST have a replacement source of energy and feed stock for our civilization that has become so dependent on plastic. The time to act is NOW!! Please visit SpacePowerNow.org to help build a solution.

          

Everything.

How does this happen?  A buyer and seller come to agreement on the cost of something.  The buyer gets out his money to pay for it, and the seller says “Wait, I have to add the sales tax.”

How much is the sales tax?  Depending on where the transaction is taking place, the state, county, town, city, and who knows what other government, wants “their” percentage added on.  What percentage?  Well, that depends on where you are – and how many of those governments are reaching into your wallet to take your money, and how much each of them thinks it can get away with.  For example, in New York City, the rate is 8.875% – 4% going to New York state, 4.5% to the city, and 0.375% for the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District – and that’s not the highest rate in the country:  According to the Tax Foundation, that ignoble title falls on Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama, each with a 10% tax rate.

We now return to our regularly scheduled transaction, already in progress.  The seller announces a new price, not the one that had previously been agreed on, but a higher one that the buyer has to cover.  The hapless buyer pays the new price, feeling shafted, and the seller, if he has any morals at all, feels guilty about taking more than they’d agreed on in the first place.

Admittedly, the seller doesn’t get to keep any of the additional money he collected as sales tax, he just has to hold onto it, keep track of it, and at the end of the month, or quarter, or whatever the local rules say, promptly send it off to the government(s) in whose name he collected the tax.

Do you see something else wrong with this picture?  How much does the seller get paid for collecting, keeping track of, and sending the sales tax to the government(s)?

Zero.

That’s right, the seller is an unpaid tax collector, extorting (tax) money from the buying public without receiving anything in return.  Why, then, would anyone commit such a crime?  Because if they don’t, the government(s) will confiscate their business, impose fines, or send the merchant to jail:  The seller, under duress, is paying protection money to the government(s) to keep them off his back.

Now we have states arguing that because a buyer is in their state, that gives them jurisdiction over an Internet seller who is not in their state:  They are trying to forcibly deputize every merchant in the country as their tax collectors – without pay.  Instead of being a non-consensual unpaid worker (i.e., slave) for one, two or three jurisdictions as they are now, they want to have every business in the country collecting, counting and sending money to any jurisdiction a buyer happens to come from.  That would be like saying if someone from Omaha got off a cruise ship and walked into a shop in Key West to buy something, the Florida merchant would have to collect and manage Nebraska sales tax.  In addition to being a bookkeeping nightmare for American merchants, it will turn buyers to overseas sellers who don’t have these ludicrious rules to follow.  This has to be stopped, or it’s going to destroy the American economy.

As of today, May 8, 2018, eBay has a petition they are circulating to gather voices against states being able to impose taxes on Internet merchants who are not physically located within their jurisdiction.  Please go to https://t.co/JMhYbuZvlV to add your signature, it will only take a minute.  The money you save will be your own!

How did this all get started?

Some time in the early 1930’s, during the USA’s Great Depression, many state governments were in danger of going bankrupt.  In order to avoid such a failure, they would either have to cut expenses to stay within a balanced budget as a business would (heaven forbid!), or raise taxes.  Raising existing taxes could only be done on a limited basis before a tax revolt took place, what they were looking for was something with a broad base, so lots of people could be taxed “just a little bit” but they’d make up for it in volume.  A direct tax on labor didn’t seem like a good idea because it was feared it would endanger productivity.  Instead, some genius in West Virginia or Kentucky came up with the idea of a tax on the sale of goods where every merchant in the state was deputized as a tax collector, whether they wanted to be or not.  For the states, it was a win-win situation:  They got lots of money so they didn’t have to worry about nuisances like balancing a budget, and they didn’t have to pay anybody to collect it.  Once the pioneering states pulled it off, and got away with it, the idea spread like wildfire until nearly every state in the union has a sales tax.  And if the state can get away with it, why not the county, or the city, or some other synthetic jurisdiction?  After all, once the merchants had been convinced they had to collect the sales tax for the state, how could they object to collecting taxes for more localized governments?

It all stems from the “divine right of kings” (assumed by any government in power) to impose whatever laws and taxes on their subjects that they feel are appropriate.  The fact it was elected officials who enacted sales tax laws does not make it a voluntary choice of the populace:  It was the government adding a new cost onto the public without their consent:  Did anyone vote for a legislator whose platform included adding a new type of tax on their life?  No, it is, in fact, taxation without representation – it was an act undertaken by the government, for the government’s sole benefit, without asking for agreement from the governed.

Taxes, per se, are a crime against the populace, committed by the government imposing them:  Without a prior agreement, stating what was being purchased, for how much, and under what terms, the government presents a demand for money to the subject being taxed.  That person may decline to pay the demand on the grounds that they never agreed to it in the first place.  However, the government will impose whatever sanctions it feels are necessary to collect the money until, under duress, the subject pays.  This is a classic case of one entity initiating the use of force to cause another to do something against their will, or otherwise deprive them of their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.  That is the fundamental definition of the commission of a crime.  I cannot imagine a rational argument wherein the mere fact that the action is undertaken by a government makes it not a crime:  It may be lawful – conveniently, since the government wrote the law – but it is still a crime.

But, you say, the government has to have money to pay for essential services!

If the services are essential, people will pay for them when they use them if they are not already being subsidized, and therefore expected to be “free.”  (Maybe railroads would still be viable if “free” roads weren’t sucking all of the traffic off them.)  There are plenty of (business) models that can be used as templates for how to do this, even within the governmental system itself:  Every toll road in the country adds more to the government coffers than it takes out.  Water and sewer services are metered and paid for proportional to use.  Similarly, if people bought police and fire department insurance, the cost of calamities could be spread across the populace without the imposition of taxes.  Even national defense could be handled the same way:  The government could offer broad-based “defense insurance” with a mix of services, or people could selectively buy “army insurance” or “navy insurance” or “air force insurance” depending on who they think is going to provide the best defense for the country.  (I suspect the real “danger” with such a plan – from a government perspective – is that with such an option, people might not buy military insurance at all, and then we’d have to all just get along instead of parading our weapons systems all over the globe.)

Governments should be providing their services within a balanced budget just as any other corporate entity is required to.  If a government wants to provide an unprofitable service, such as underwriting the cost of housing for disadvantaged families, it should be providing that service from the profits it makes on the other services it provides.  Using taxes to arbitrarily pay for programs leads to spending without contemplation of the cost or consequences:  It’s really easy to spend money when it’s not yours and you have a blank check in hand.

So, what’s wrong with sales tax? Everything.

If you’d like to support my work, please buy a pre-publication copy of the Race To Space book.

We are going to run out of oil. Before that happens, we MUST have a replacement source of energy and feed stock for our civilization that has become so dependent on plastic. The time to act is NOW!! Please visit SpacePowerNow.org to help build a solution.

          

I’ve finally gotten the initial version of the new site for the Race to Space project up and running. There’s a teaser on the Home page, an opportunity to pre-order copies of the book at discounted prices, and the “Corporate” section has a copy of the investor goodies I first published on the L5 Development Group Web site.

Check out the new site, and if you’re sufficiently intrigued, pre-order a copy of the book.

          

Someone told me they thought the name of my #BlowUpTheTunnel campaign was promoting domestic terrorism – really?!?!?!?  That idea was so totally out of my perspective when I built the campaign I couldn’t believe it.

Now the project has grown in scope, and a new name is in order:  It’s now called #RaceToSpace. Instead of just resulting in a book describing how to get space colonies and solar power satellites built, there’s a full-length “predictive fiction” action novel thrown into the mix – and maybe a major motion picture, if things go right.

The campaign to underwrite the project is on GoFundMe, donations are now being accepted…

          

I launched my #BlowUpTheTunnel GoFundMe campaign, looking for support so I can spend my time writing a book (about a long term energy solution that will create thousands of jobs) instead of going to another 9-to-5. Please check it out now at https://www.gofundme.com/blow-up-the-tunnel and add your support:

We’re going to run out of oil .

You may not see it, your children might not, but your grandchildren probably will.

When we do, two things are going to happen: Everything that depends on cheap, abundant energy will become impossible, and there will be no more plastic. Those electric hand dryers in rest rooms – where do you think the electricity for them comes from? Electric airplanes could provide local air travel – if there’s electricity – but transcontinental or transoceanic travel? Forget about it! Washing machines? Electric stoves? TVs? Cell phones? The Internet? They all need cheap, readily available electricity. “But we actually don’t need plastic” you might say. Really? Look around you, and notice where plastic is used – cars, furniture, cell phones, ATMs, computers, disposable forks, spoons and cups – the list goes on and on and on: I’ll bet there’s not a room in your house that has no plastic in it.

Eventually the demand for oil and oil products is going to exceed the total production capacity. When that happens, civilization will start to collapse. Look forward to widespread starvation … rampant civil unrest … WAR … and if things get really out of hand, a nuclear winter that makes life itself “difficult” anywhere on Earth.

I’m sure you want to save your descendants from this horrible fate. I’m asking you to help me save the future of mankind: There is a way to avert this disaster, but only if we act now:

Fossil fuels – oil, coal, gas – stored the Sun’s energy falling on the Earth in the past; in essence, they are fossilized sunshine. Over the course of the last century and a half, we used up a large portion of the Sun’s energy stored over millions of years, and the gas tank is getting low.

The only feasible energy source to replace oil is large scale direct collection of solar power: The Sun ultimately powers everything on Earth. However, trying to collect solar power at the Earth’s surface to run our entire modern civilization is not practical: In any given location, the Sun is overhead only part of a day. It may be obscured by clouds in the air or snow on the ground. Solar collectors take up a lot of space, and the power consumed by a city far exceeds the amount of solar power falling directly on it.

Because of these problems, solar power is generally ruled out as a viable replacement for oil power. It is those very problems that make it imperative for us to build a network of solar power satellites in orbit, where the Sun always shines, and beam the power to the ground. Only then can we hope to have enough area in the collectors to gather the energy needed by a power-hungry civilization and make it cheaply available.

Oh, and don’t forget: We’re going to need to replace the source of our plastics. How is that going to happen? By using more energy, of course, to power the recycling plants that convert old plastic into new.

Building a constellation of solar power satellites will require a tremendous investment. Thousands, if not millions, of people need to work to make it happen, and the construction is not going to happen overnight. We must get started NOW or the end of civilization predicted above will befall us.

Here’s my problem, and this has happened before, too many times: I’ve gotten to where I can “see the light at the end of the tunnel.” I know if I can keep going, I’ll come out on the other side where I can “stretch my wings and fly” – to put the story together that gets this project off the ground. However, I’m fighting an uphill battle against a strong current that’s sucking everything out of me. The tunnel is channeling the flow, pushing me to return to where I’ve struggled to leave. The pressure is making forward progress impossible. I’m losing my grip. If I don’t do something to relieve the pressure, I’ll end up falling back to where I started – or further behind. It’s time to “#BlowUpTheTunnel,” to shatter the lid that’s holding me down, and to give the current somewhere to go that doesn’t involve eroding my progress.

I’m running this campaign to raise money to finance writing and publishing a book: When it’s done, my thesis will have realistic estimates of the costs involved, how many jobs will be created, and how long it will take to finish. It will define a specific course of action that we can “take to the bank” to get the funding to put the plan in motion.

For those who don’t know me personally, here’s a brief introduction:

I am a Capitalist (spelled with a capital ‘C‘, please) in that I believe that voluntary trade for mutal profit is the only proper form of human interchange: for profit because expecting to gain is a good reason for doing something; mutual profit in that both parties should enjoy a benefit; trade since interchange must be a give and take thing; and voluntary in that both parties must enter into the trade of their own free will or a crime is occurring: Initiation of the use of force (i.e., the victim is not acting voluntarily) can be shown to be the root of any act that is properly considered a crime. Trade and profit need not necessarily be goods or money, for example, the reason you feed your cat and give it a warm bed is for the love you receive in return.

Although I am a Capitalist by philosophical ideals and on moral grounds, I am not a “capitalist” according to the definition Google returns – “a wealthy person who uses money to invest in trade and industry for profit in accordance with the principles of capitalism” – I didn’t start with an inheritance of money to invest. Instead, my wealth derives from the two things that are fundamentally mine, by their nature: my TIME, and my ABILITIES. Using nothing else, I have to trade my life for everything I want or need to maintain my existence.

Most people are basically happy with their lot in life, even without a lot of money and the “life of leisure” that it could theoretically bring. An average person goes to work each day, buys a house, gets married and raises a family, and retires when they get older. The details vary, but the pattern fits the vast majority of the population. They expect to have a job, bills to pay, a fairly comfortable routine where the biggest excitement is going to football games, planning for vacation, or four-wheeling in the mountains.

Unfortunately for me, that doesn’t work: I was born with an eager mind, a fertile imagination and a creative streak that won’t quit, a desire to change the world and build a better future for all of mankind. There are times when I wish I could have a simple life, wanting nothing more than a quiet home, a family and a steady future. Those bouts don’t last long, though – usually because I find something else I want to try.

When I was five years old, I decided I wanted to be an astronaut. I’m still working on it.  One way or another, nearly everything I’ve done in my life has been working toward that goal – although sometimes the connection has been “rather obscure.” A more accurate term for my goal would now be that I want to be a “space man” – I want to move off-planet (live in space), and make a lot of money doing it. Toward that end, I’m trying to attack three problems:

* providing a grid-scale energy source before we run out of oil, that energy also being needed so we can recycle resources and continue to have plastics that currently come from oil,
* building a new frontier where there is (also) space for displaced populations to resettle and grow, and for dissidents to live independent lives,
* creating planetary diversity to help ensure the survival of the human race in case something happens to make the Earth uninhabitable.

I’m trying to build a system, a private enterprise run for profit that will address those three issues. Neither NASA, the ESA, nor the Russian, Chinese, Indian or Japanese space programs are going to make them happen: Any politically controlled space program cannot have the managerial stability necessary to provide general civilian access to space, except perhaps by dictatorial decree – in which case general access would probably be denied by similar decree. In addition, space programs run as not-for-profit operations have no economic incentive to succeed. They are likely to merely be an expensive play toy as long as taxpayers can be convinced to support the effort – then either discontinued or curtailed as much as is needed to quell the public outcry. A massively complex and expensive industrial system is needed to make human life possible beyond Earth’s bounds. The only way it will be built is if investors can be reasonably assured they will have a profit at the end of the day – and I believe I can make that happen.

I need to write a book that explains my plan in sufficient detail that a realistic budget can be defined, and work can be started. I expect that effort is going to take 6 months or so. While I’m writing, there will be bills to pay, groceries to buy, things that need fixing, infrastructure to put in place, etc. On top of that, I have to get the book printed once I’m done writing it. I expect the effort is going to cost about $75,000, which is the goal of this GoFundMe campaign. To top it off, getting the cash flowing is an urgent problem, because I’m already a bit behind on covering expenses.

If you read through the material I’ve written on the Space Power Now Web site (hashtag #SpacePowerNow), you’ll see I’m offering contributors there a “matching funds” deposit in an L5 National Bank account once the Bank is set up, convertible to L5 bonds once everything else is in place. I’m making the same offer here: The US dollar amount you donate to this campaign (before GoFundMe takes their fees) will get you an equal L5 dollar amount deposited in an L5 National Bank account in your name. This is in addition to all of the other benefits described for various donation levels in this campaign.

I’m trying to protect the future of humanity. I want future generations to enjoy a life that’s at least as good as what we have today. I’m asking you to help me in that effort through donations to this campaign. Please help with a donation today, for as much as you can reasonably afford.

I will sincerely appreciate any contribution made to support this campaign. Your grandchildren will thank you as well.

We are going to run out of oil. Before that happens, we MUST have a replacement source of energy and feed stock for our civilization that has become so dependent on plastic. The time to act is NOW!! Please visit SpacePowerNow.org to help build a solution.

          

In today’s Space History Newsletter, you will find this information:

Program information, NASA manned space flight after 1969

Two major directions were identified for NASA’s manned space flight in the next decade on 11 September 1969. These were further exploration of the Moon, with possibly the establishment of a permanent Lunar surface base, and the continued development of manned flight in Earth orbit, leading to a permanent manned space station supported by a low-cost shuttle system. To maintain direction, the following key milestones were proposed:

• 1972 AAP operations using a Saturn V launched Workshop
• 1973 Start of post-Apollo lunar exploration
• 1974 Start of suborbital flight tests of Earth to orbit shuttle
•   Launch of a second Saturn V Workshop
• 1975 Initial space station operations
•   Orbital shuttle flights
• 1976 Lunar orbit station
•   Full shuttle operations
• 1977 Nuclear stage flight test
• 1978 Nuclear shuttle operations-orbit to orbit
• 1979 Space station in synchronous orbit

By 1990

•   Earth orbit space base
•   Lunar surface base
•   Possible Mars landing

(The acronym “AAP” stands for the “Apollo Applications Program” established by NASA headquarters in 1968 to develop science-based manned space missions using surplus material from the Apollo program.)

Obviously, things didn’t work that way – in effect none of those objectives were achieved:

• the Saturn V Workshop was downgraded to Skylab, with only one workshop launched, and which was later abandoned (see 11 July 1979 Skylab fell – and the American public was robbed)
• Lunar exploration stopped after Apollo 17, never mind putting up a Lunar orbit station or surface base, foisting on Gene Cernan the dubious title of being the Last Man on the Moon
• the “low-cost shuttle” turned into the “Space Transportation System” which proved to be one of the most expensive launch options whose first flight didn’t occur until 1982 and never achieved the number of flights per year that was predicted when the project was proposed, and now discontinued, leaving America without a way to send humans to orbit on our own
• the space station in synchronous orbit never happened, and the Earth orbit space base that was supposed to be in place by 1990 devolved into the International Space Station now with a “permanent” crew of 3-6 occupants
• NASA’s initial space station operations didn’t begin until the first ISS resident crew consisting of one American (commander) and two Russians arrived in November 2000 in the Russian Soyuz TM-31 capsule
• the nuclear stage and nuclear shuttle for orbit to orbit operations have been completely abandoned
• the first human Mars landing hadn’t occurred by 1990, current predictions are that the earliest it will happen is in the 2030’s

So, what went wrong? Essentially, it boils down to politics – President Richard Nixon decided that the American public wasn’t interested in space travel, and cut NASA’s budget drastically, putting the money into the military and social welfare programs. Rather than continuing the peaceful development of space exploration and travel which was driving innovation and economic growth at an amazing pace, America was turned to a weapons manufacturer where “need” is given higher precedence than ability or reason. Among other things, that led to the September 11, 2001 attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and the subsequent “war on terror” that has stripped American citizens of so many of their fundamental rights, and to an economy on the brink of collapse due to uncontrolled expansion of the “entitlement” mentality.

Can this be fixed?

I believe it can – but not if space travel and the economy are left in the hands of the government.

Historically, two things have led to growth of the American economy – expansion into new frontiers, and innovation – creation of new industries, and new methods for existing ones. Since there are no longer any frontiers available on the Earth, there’s only one option left: Innovation is what has to drive economic growth. While there have been bursts of development such as introduction of personal computers and the whole set of industries that grew out of that innovation, and there are many fields where incremental innovation can be seen today, the whole-economy blast of innovation painted in broad strokes that led to six pairs of astronauts landing on the Moon hasn’t been seen since the government-funded space program was castrated in the early 1970’s. Developing a strong space exploration and development program, one that can and will achieve the kind of plans laid out in NASA’s 1969 outline, will require a lot of innovation, in nearly every field of endeavor. That is how to solve the economic woes the country now finds itself mired under.

Does that mean the only way we can get back on track is through another expansion of the government-run space program, by pouring more dollars into NASA? No! For example, America’s transcontinental railroad system wasn’t built as a government project – it was built by investors who recognized a tremendous market opportunity and put their money into it. The “advantage” of using tax dollars to put money into space programs is everybody participates – whether they want to or not. Wouldn’t you rather make your own choices about how your money is being invested, and where future growth will come from? I know I would – which is why I think the government needs to get out of the space “business” and let private enterprise take over.

In order for a healthy space exploration and development business to come to reality, funding has to come from everywhere – from kids bagging groceries, from multinational corporations, and everywhere in between. People and institutions that want to invest into the project need to have a mechanism for doing so, with an understandable and believable way to get a return on their investment. The L5 National Bank bonds briefly outlined on the Space Power Now Development Plan page are a system I am trying to build to make that possible: The objective is to provide investors, large and small, with a good way to invest in the future, to build a space program that will open new frontiers, solve the world’s energy problems, and boost the American economy back into high gear. Building the space business will make the military-industrial complex obsolete, creating jobs that will reduce dependency on social welfare programs, the only realistic solution to their cancerous growth.

It’s going to take political action to stop the “war on terror” and its cohorts – unconstitutional domestic surveillance, militarization of police departments, etc., and people will find it a lot easier to focus on those issues if they don’t have a failing economy about to bury them.

Space – the next frontier – the cure for what ails you!

We are going to run out of oil. Before that happens, we MUST have a replacement source of energy, and feed stock for our civilization that has become so dependent on plastic. The time to act is NOW!! Please visit SpacePowerNow.org to help build a solution.

          

It’s been forty five years since the Apollo 11 mission first landed humans on another planetary body – the Moon: At 20:17:40 UT (4:17:40 pm EDT) on 20 July 1969, astronauts Neil A. Armstrong (Apollo 11 Commander) and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. (“Eagle” Lunar Module (LM) pilot) landed the LM in Mare Tranquilitatis (the Sea of Tranquility). Meanwhile, the “Columbia” Command and Service Module (CSM) continued in Lunar orbit with CM pilot Michael Collins aboard. During their stay on the Moon, the astronauts set up scientific experiments, took photographs, and collected Lunar samples. The LM took off from the Moon on 21 July for the astronauts’ return to Earth.

NASA photo ID S69-42583, taken by the Apollo Lunar surface camera as Neil Armstrong took humanity’s first step onto another planetary body, the Moon
“One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
From http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/images/a11tvarm.jpg

Apollo 11 Lunar Module on the Moon, NASA photo by Neil Armstrong
From http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=1969-059C

NASA’s Viking 1 lander was originally planned to land on Mars coinciding with the US Bicentennial on 4 July 1976, but was delayed until a suitable landing site was located. As it worked out, the landing took place at Chryse Planitia at 11:56:06 UT on 20 July, roughly eight and a third hours less than exactly seven years after Apollo 11 had landed on the Moon. The robotic probe returned the first ever close-up pictures of the Martian surface, collected the first-ever samples taken from the surface Mars, and continued to communicate with ground controllers on Earth until 13 November 1982.

The first photograph ever taken on the surface of the planet Mars, obtained by Viking 1 just minutes after the spacecraft landed
From http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00381

The Apollo missions continued through 14 December 1972 when Apollo 17 Mission Commander Gene Cernan returned to the LM “Challenger” ending the last Extravehicular Activity (EVA) of what would prove to be the final expedition of the program. As yet, No other humans have returned to set foot on the Lunar surface, foisting on Captain Cernan the dubious honor and title of being “The Last Man on the Moon.” As illustrated by the L5 Development Group “Last Man on the Moon” T-shirt, I think it’s (well past) time for us to go back: During the Apollo years, technology and science were advancing rapidly, the economy was booming, and it seemed as though anything was possible. We thought that within a few years there would be people living in space, and by the turn of the century, there would be hundreds, or even thousands, living on the Moon, with human exploration of Mars well under way.

“Somehow” the dreams got lost: President Nixon cut NASA’s budget because space exploration “wasn’t popular,” just as NBC had canceled Star Trek because of its “poor ratings.” Star Trek went on to become the most widely re-broadcast program in the history of television, and the general public still gets excited about space travel – when the news media lets them know something is going on. Look, for example, at the excitement that was stirred when NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars, and the on-going popularity of the intrepid rover Opportunity as it continues to explore more than ten years later.

Since the six Apollo missions that landed men on the Moon, no one has gone anywhere beyond low Earth orbit. NASA’s Shuttle was supposed to be a “space truck” that would fly hundreds of times each year and drive the cost of access to space down. Instead, only 130 flights were made over the entire life of the program by the five spacecraft that went to orbit, two of which were destroyed in flight. Once they got done building the Shuttle, NASA had to find something to do with it, so they started working on a space station. Initially it was going to be a multi-disciplinary facility with a price tag of just a couple of billion dollars. By the time it was built, the International Space Station had lost most of the capabilities first envisioned. It had also ballooned into a hole in space that will have sucked in between $150 and $200 billion by the time it’s currently planned to be retired in 2028. The ISS is “permanently occupied” by a (constantly changing) crew of 6, but the U.S. doesn’t have a way of its own to get astronauts there now that the Shuttle has been taken out of service. In many ways, the question of “what is it there for?” is still unanswered.

The thing that’s missing from this picture is commercial development. Space programs have been the playthings of governments, subject to the whims of whoever is in power at the moment and their perception of what their subjects (the public) want. Until there’s a profit to be made, nothing else is going to happen. Witness the development of airplanes in the early twentieth century: The first ones were fragile machines cobbled together by experimenters trying out new gadgets, but they weren’t widely available until enterprising types found they could charge passengers for fast travel between distant points and the airline industry evolved. True, the U.S. government helped make those initial airlines more profitable by taking contracts for delivery of mail, but airplanes became ubiquitous by selling something valuable – fast transportation – to private individuals at a relatively low cost.

It’s true there are space business market segments that are already well established and profitable: Satellites in geostationary orbit provide television programming and communication around the globe. The U.S. GPS constellation enables drivers who would otherwise be lost to get to their destinations. Weather satellites let us plan picnics and find out when schools will be closed by snow, and Earth resource data from space is used in a broad range of industries. Robotic satallites have permanently changed the way we live, and the companies behind them are making solid profits, even though their entire staff is still on the ground.

The human space flight industry, however, basically doesn’t exist. There are companies such as SpaceX and Orbital Sciences making “commercial” cargo flights to the ISS, and SpaceX is well along toward developing their Dragon capsule for carrying crews there. Lockheed Martin and Astrium are building the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle for NASA and the ESA, assuming public funding continues throughout the program’s development. Bigelow Aerospace, while still proposing their own network of low-cost space habitats, is now building an inflatable module to be attached to the International Space Station. These are all government projects, though, technology looking for a market, not businesses selling something valuable to private individuals.

This is where Space Power Now fits in – the immediate commercial project of The L5 Development Group space program. Space Power Now is promulgating a constellation of solar power satellites in geostationary orbit. Those satellites will collect solar power in space where the Sun is always shining and cheaply beam it to the ground for consumption by everybody on the planet in lieu of fossil fuels that are both in limited supply and damaging the environment. Simply building those satellites is going to create millions of jobs; operating and maintaining them once they are installed will require a significant permanent human presence in space.

Visionaries in the space travel, exploration and development (space T/E/D) field know there are unimagineable benefits that will come from opening space and the resources “out there” to make them available for the benefit of humanity. We know there’s energy from the Sun that can eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels. There are more resources just within our Solar System than we could use in thousands of years. From the research that’s been done on the International Space Station, we know protein crystals can be grown in microgravity to help cure diseases that would otherwise be intractible. What we don’t – and can’t – know is how much more we’re going to find after we have actually started getting out and exploring a lot beyond Earth.

Once we get to where there’s a critical mass of infrastructure in space, it will be a lot easier for smaller businesses to get a piece of the space pie: Rather than having to figure out how to get to space in the first place, entrepreneurs will be able to focus on what they’re going to do once they are there. That’s another reason why Space Power Now is such an important project: By undertaking a project requiring thousands of launches, it will enable launch companies to develop capabilities that bring costs down, and make travel to space almost as mundane as a flight across the ocean.

Please visit the Space Power Now site, and become part of the project. I really believe our future depends on it!

BTW, I feel sorry for the “22% of Americans in 2009” who don’t believe we ever went to the Moon. I know better – and I am anxious to get us back there…