Email Me Daynotes Gang

Ad Luna per Conestoga Redux More thoughts about humanity's possible future in space.

I made a few comments Last Week about my thoughts on the possibilities for lunar colonization. I was "inspired" to do so by a series of comments made by Jerry Pournelle on his own site. (Link after January 8th). What I put up there was all off-the-cuff, with little detailed thought behind it; I've had similar thoughts before, of course, but I've never really put any concentrated thought into it. It occurred to me, though, that I meant it; it seems to be the best possible choice. Oh, it may not have the greatest chance for success, and it almost certainly isn't the safest method - but it's the best method.

Why? Three reasons:

1. It has possibly the smallest chance of success for each individual who makes the trip, but it creates the greatest chance of success for humanity's colonization of space - because it takes the question out of the hands of the bureaucrats and puts it where it belongs, in the hands of the men and women who will do the job.

2. There can be no return of the Apollo problem, where the interest runs out and the program is cancelled. There is no centralized source of funding, no central control, and hence there can be no program cancellation.

3. Assuming the Conestoga Project succeeds, the colony has the best chance of being, well, human. The colony will not be made up exclusively of astronaut-scientists with more doctorates per person that other people have toes; it will be made up of teachers, engineers, factory worker, children, and everyone in between. Scientists will go, I have no doubt, but it won't be the scientists who turn the Moon into a home.

So. I believe in what I said; I think that's the best way to go. Unfortunately, no one is setting up a framework for such a project. The Open Source model is perfect for it; it'll never make money, but who cares? Individuals may well become rich off od resources and materials and discoveries made possible by the Conestoga Project; companies may make money selling ships designed using Conestoga data; the Conestoga Project itself, like any other "information-only" Open Source company, won't ever make a profit - at least not in financial terms.

Did I say nobody's setting up a model for it? Silly me. There isn't much at the moment; SourceForge is excellent for this kind of project, though, as they've demonstrated with thousands of active projects. The web site isn't up yet because the shell account isn't in place yet, but it will be at http://conestoga.sourceforge.net. That site, too, won't have much at the beginning - but we have to start somewhere.

Anyone - and I do mean anyone - who wants to join the project may do so. Create an account on SourceForge - it's free, and being Open Source zealots they have an excellent privacy policy - and send me an email. Believe it or not, there's a lot to do right now that anyone can do - information gathering, mostly, but not exclusively. If you're an engineer who's already done something along these lines - designed something that might be useful to the project, that is - I definitely want to hear from you. Lawyers, scientists, doctors, farmers, programmers, artists, you name it, there's something for you to contribute.