 |
The Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy was a group of prominent US citizens concerned with the space policy of the United States of America. It is no longer active.
|
The Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy was a group of prominent US citizens concerned with the space policy of the United States of America. It is no longer active.
The Council's roots date to 1980 as a group which prepared many of the Reagan Administration Transition Team's space policy papers. [1] The Council was formally created in 1981 by joint action of the American Astronautical Society and the L5 Society to develop a detailed and technically feasible space policy to further the national interest. [2] Participant Gregory Benford would in 1994 describe the activities of the council: [3]
The Council, a raucous bunch with feisty opinions, met at the spacious home of science fiction author Larry Niven. The men mostly talked hard-edge tech, the women policy. Pournelle stirred the pot and turned up the heat. Amid the buffet meals, saunas and hot tubs, well-stocked open bar, and myriad word processors, fancies simmered and ideas cooked, some emerging better than half-baked...Finally, we settled on recommending a position claiming at least the moral high ground, if not high orbits. Defense was inevitably more stabilizing than relying on hair-trigger offense, we argued. It was also more principled. And eventually, the Soviet Union might not even be the enemy, we said - though we had no idea it would fade so fast. When that happened, defenses would still be useful against any attacker, especially rogue nations bent on a few terrorist attacks. There were plenty of science fiction stories, some many decades old, dealing with that possibility. The Advisory Council met in August of 1984 in a mood of high celebration. Their pioneering work had yielded fruits unimaginable in 1982 - Reagan himself had proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, suggesting that nuclear weapons be made "impotent and obsolete". The Soviets were clearly staggered by the prospect. (Years later I heard straight from a senior Soviet advisor that the U.S. SDI had been the straw that broke the back of the military's hold on foreign policy. That seems to be the consensus now among the diplomatic community, though politically SDI is a common whipping boy, its funding cut.)
Participant David Mitchell added this history update on March 18, 2021:
Dr. Pournelle held many meetings at “Chaos Manor”, his home in Studio City. These were more formal meetings than the annual party/meetings Gregory Benford describes at Larry Niven’s home. As someone who worked closely with Dr. P. on BIX (the Byte Information Exchange), it was a natural follow-on to assist when and where I could on council-related matters. Henry Vanderbilt’s Space Access Society events and meetings helped focus the agenda. I created the Lunar Teleoperations Model I to test telepresence research and generate publicity. The critical council focus was on affordable access to space during the period of the late 1980’s to the late 1990’s. Meetings were held at Chaos Manor, the “Making Orbit 93” conference in Berkeley, and in Las Cruces, NM during DC-X test flight events. I hosted events at various space activist forums and created events such as “Minds In Space”.
The critical path in affordable access to space was (and is) SSTO – single stage to orbit. In meeting with Max Hunter, he was kind enough to provide me a copy of RITA, his “Reusable Interplanetary Transport Approach”. Daniel Graham ruled out queries for mass drivers to move items to LEO, due to treaty violations. I have been discussing with Benford the concept of lunar mass drivers for zero cost transport of materials to Mars. (I favor solar powered mass drivers, he prefers plutonium reactors to prevent downtime during the 14 day lunar night.)
To achieve affordable access, the council focused on 2 paths. The first was X-projects and demonstrators. Peter Diamandis really stepped up to the plate with the X-Prize Foundation. Pournelle, Hunter, and Graham were able to get $60 million of BMBO money allocated to DC-X. Dr. Gaubatz, John Garvey, Andy Karlson and many others made the DC-X happen – over and over again. The DC-X marked the “birth” and pivot point of demonstrating reusability. Pournelle always kept emphasizing “bending metal”, something Elon Musk has embraced and brought to a new level.
The second path was (and still is) creating an environment legally to allow the creation of profit-seeking new space companies. This meant working the beltway on a non-partisan basis (so much easier then than now). Pournelle once told me of a meeting he had with Gingrich in his kitchen at Chaos Manor. Critical laws were enacted moving launch process to the DOT and therefore to the FAA, creating a bit of symmetry between civilian air and the new civilian space domains. Always aware that for a profit-seeking company to be successful, NASA must take the long-term research and exploratory role, with affordable access to space moving incrementally to the private sector to unleash the growth potential.
I don’t think any of us ever thought we would hit a dual jackpot of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
November, 1980
July, 1983
May 9–11, 1986
? 1993
? 1995
August 10, 1997
Spring, 1981 28 September 1983. Substantial portions of this report were later published in the book Mutual Assured Survival (Baen Books, 1984) by Jerry Pournelle and Dean Ing.
February 15, 1989
Jerry Pournelle, Chairman
Buzz Aldrin, Gerald Carr, Fred Haise, Phil Chapman, Pete Conrad
George Merrick (North American Rockwell, Space Division), George Gould, Gordon Woodcock, Gary Hudson, George Koopman, Maxwell Hunter, Art Dula
Lowell Wood, G. Harry Stine, Eric Laursen, Chuck Lindley, James Benford, Maxwell Hunter, George Gould
Lt. General Daniel O. Graham, USA Ret'd; Brigadier General Robert Richardson, USAF Ret'd; Major General Stewart Meyer; USA Ret'd, Col. Jack Coakley, USA Ret'd; Col. Francis X. Kane, USAF Ret'd.
Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Robert A. Heinlein, Gregory Benford, Dean Ing, Steven Barnes, Jim Baen, Larry Niven
Stefan T. Possony, Bjo Trimble, Alexander C. Pournelle, James Miller Vaughn, Jr.
Jerry Eugene Pournelle was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in Gizmodo, he is described as "a tireless ambassador for the future."
Laurence van Cott Niven is an American science fiction writer. His 1970 novel Ringworld won the Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. With Jerry Pournelle he wrote The Mote in God's Eye (1974) and Lucifer's Hammer (1977). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America gave him the 2015 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor. Musk is the founder, chairman, CEO and chief technology officer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, chairman and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$219 billion as of November 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $241 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
Niven's laws were named after science fiction author Larry Niven, who has periodically published them as "how the Universe works" as far as he can tell. These were most recently rewritten on January 29, 2002. Among the rules are:
The International Space Development Conference (ISDC) is the annual conference of the National Space Society (NSS). Now in its 41st year, these conferences connect the general public and the NSS membership with leaders of contemporary space efforts. The ISDC provides a nexus for industry, government, scientists, advocates, and the public to meet and discuss the latest issues in space technology, science, policy, commerce, medicine, exploration, settlement and much more. Winners of the annual NASA space settlement Contest annually attend the conference, with several interesting activities and programs. With National Space Society's major goal being to accelerate the process of space exploration and development they also foster astronautics for students by encouraging them and getting them involved.
Dean Charles Ing was an American author, who usually wrote in the science fiction and techno-thriller genres. His novel The Ransom of Black Stealth One (1989) was a New York Times bestseller. He wrote more than 30 novels, and co-authored novels with his friends Jerry Pournelle, S. M. Stirling, and Leik Myrabo. Following the death of science fiction author Mack Reynolds in 1983, Ing was asked to finish several of Reynolds' uncompleted manuscripts.
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) was a NASA program to coordinate the development of vehicles for the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies. The program was announced on January 18, 2006 and successfully flew all cargo demonstration flights by September 2013, when the program ended.
American private space transportation company SpaceX has developed and produced several spacecraft named Dragon. The first family member, now referred to as Dragon 1, flew 23 cargo missions to the ISS between 2010 and 2020 before retiring. With this first version not designed for carrying astronauts, it was funded by NASA with $396 million awarded through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, with SpaceX being announced as a winner of the first round of funding on August 18, 2006.
Maxwell White Hunter II was a prominent American aerospace engineer. He worked on the design of the Douglas B-42 and Douglas B-43 bombers, the Honest John, Nike-Ajax, and Nike-Zeus missiles, the Thor IRBM, and on parts of the Strategic Defense Initiative. In later years he worked on space-launch vehicles and was a proponent of Single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) designs. He was honored in 1995 by the National Space Society for lifelong contributions to the technology of spaceflight.
A fix-up is a novel created from several short fiction stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material, such as a frame story or other interstitial narration, is written for the new work. The term was coined by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt, who published several fix-ups of his own, including The Voyage of the Space Beagle, but the practice exists outside of science fiction. The use of the term in science fiction criticism was popularised by the first (1979) edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by Peter Nicholls, which credited van Vogt with the creation of the term. The name “fix-up” comes from the changes that the author needs to make in the original texts, to make them fit together as though they were a novel. Foreshadowing of events from the later stories may be jammed into an early chapter of the fix-up, and character development may be interleaved throughout the book. Contradictions and inconsistencies between episodes are usually worked out.
The space policy of the Barack Obama administration was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama on April 15, 2010, at a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center. He committed to increasing NASA funding by $6 billion over five years and completing the design of a new heavy-lift launch vehicle by 2015 and to begin construction thereafter. He also predicted a U.S.-crewed orbital Mars mission by the mid-2030s, preceded by the Asteroid Redirect Mission by 2025. In response to concerns over job losses, Obama promised a $40 million effort to help Space Coast workers affected by the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program and Constellation program.
Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo into Earth orbit, and beyond. It is designed, manufactured and launched by American aerospace company SpaceX.
Lunar tourism may be possible in the future if trips to the Moon are made available to a private audience. Some space tourism startup companies are planning to offer tourism on or around the Moon, and estimate this to be possible sometime between 2023 and 2043.
This is a complete bibliography by American science fiction author Larry Niven:
A super heavy-lift launch vehicle is a rocket that can lift to low Earth orbit a "super heavy payload", which is defined as more than 50 metric tons (110,000 lb) by the United States and as more than 100 metric tons (220,000 lb) by Russia. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass to orbit, exceeding that of the heavy-lift launch vehicle classification.
Arch Mission Foundation is a non-profit organization whose goal is to create multiple redundant repositories of human knowledge around the Solar System, including on Earth. The organization was founded by Nova Spivack and Nick Slavin in 2015 and incorporated in 2016.
Starship is a two-stage super heavy lift launch vehicle and spacecraft under development by SpaceX. It is the heaviest, tallest and most powerful space launch vehicle to have flown. Starship is intended to be fully reusable, which means both stages will be recovered after a mission and reused.
SpaceX Starship flight tests include ten launches of prototypes of the Starship spacecraft on suborbital and low-altitude tests, and two orbital trajectory flights of the entire Starship launch vehicle with the Starship prototype atop the Super Heavy first-stage booster. Designed and operated by private manufacturer SpaceX, the flown prototypes of Starship so far are Starhopper, SN5, SN6, SN8, SN9, SN10, SN11, SN15, Ship 24 stacked with Booster 7, and Ship 25 stacked with Booster 9.
Starship HLS, or Starship Human Landing System, is a lunar lander variant of the Starship spacecraft that is slated to transfer astronauts from a lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back. It is being designed and built by SpaceX under the Human Landing System contract to NASA as a critical element of NASA's Artemis program to land a crew on the Moon no earlier than 2026.
In 2022, amidst the Russian invasion, Ukraine requested American aerospace company SpaceX to activate their Starlink satellite internet service in the country to replace internet and communication networks degraded or destroyed during the war. Starlink has since been used by Ukrainian civilians, government and military. The satellite service has served for humanitarian purposes, as well as defense and attacks on Russian positions.