Mars Society

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Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World by Oliver Morton

Apollo 11, Charles Babbage, classic study, Colonization of Mars, computer age, double entry bookkeeping, Dr. Strangelove, Kim Stanley Robinson, Mars Rover, Mars Society, Menlo Park, Mercator projection, Neil Armstrong, nuclear winter, planetary scale, RAND corporation, Richard Feynman, sexual politics, the scientific method, trade route, undersea cable, V2 rocket, Works Progress Administration

Once he was founding president of the Mars Society, though, it became an issue. The Mars Society is an undeniably utopian and escapist organization, and there is nothing wrong with that. As J. R. R. Tolkien once remarked, to be opposed to escape is to put oneself on the side of the jailers. What the society’s members think they are escaping, though, is a matter on which opinions differ. Zubrin wants to escape the stifled world that lacks a frontier for a utopia of human victory over natural obstacles. But many of those who came to the founding convention of the Mars Society wanted to cherish the environment, not overcome it.

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With the help of Richard Wagner, a journalist who edited the National Space Society’s magazine, he wrote up his ideas as a book, called The Case for Mars. And when hundreds of readers wrote to him eager to become Periclean heroes to future generations, Zubrin set up a new organization of his own, the Mars Society. The founding convention of the Mars Society took place in Boulder in 1998. In some ways it was a successor to the series of Case for Mars conferences, which had fallen on hard times. They had started off small, tucked into little rooms in the basement of the university’s arena; as interest had grown they had swelled until they filled the Memorial Center, the university’s main public forum.

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People who argue like this may, for the most part, actually believe that having their fantasy made real will improve the world for the poor and suffering that current prosperity leaves behind (the “people are supposed to die” man turned out, when I talked to him, to be sweet and smart). But they can hardly make a case that it’s the best way to do so—or the quickest. These resentments add an ironic twist to the Mars Society’s attitudes toward government. Their mindset is largely that of people who want government to get out of their way. But in practical terms the government is not in the way: It is the way. No one will get to Mars without some government or other footing most of the bill. Many people at that first Mars Society convention, and since, have tried to find a way around this fact. They’ve talked of sponsorship deals with media companies, of private philanthropy, of bond deals financed on the basis of future earnings from Martian resources.

The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility by Robert Zubrin

Ada Lovelace, Albert Einstein, anthropic principle, Apollo 11, battle of ideas, Boeing 747, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, Colonization of Mars, complexity theory, cosmic microwave background, cosmological principle, Dennis Tito, discovery of DNA, double helix, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, flex fuel, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gravity well, if you build it, they will come, Internet Archive, invisible hand, ITER tokamak, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kuiper Belt, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, Menlo Park, more computing power than Apollo, Naomi Klein, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, off grid, out of africa, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, place-making, Pluto: dwarf planet, private spaceflight, Recombinant DNA, rising living standards, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, SpaceX Starlink, Strategic Defense Initiative, Stuart Kauffman, telerobotics, Thomas Malthus, three-masted sailing ship, time dilation, transcontinental railway, uranium enrichment, Virgin Galactic, Wayback Machine

At the same time, press reportage of these missions—which has appeared in the world's leading media, ranging from the New York Times, CNN, and the Discovery Channel to the BBC and Russian, Chinese, and Japanese national television—has helped make the vision of human exploration of our neighbor world tangible to hundreds of millions of people around the globe. The Mars Society holds its international convention every August. You can join either through our website at www.marssociety.org or by sending $50 ($25 for students) to Mars Society, 11111 W. 8th Ave., Unit A, Lakewood, CO 80215. If you want to reach me, you can write in care of the Mars Society address above. If you want to help, sign up at the website so we can put you on the Mars Society electronic mailing list. If you join the Mars Society, you will also get access to our online library. You can get a fair number of my technical papers there, as well as those of many other authors, covering topics ranging from interplanetary propulsion technologies to the ethics of terraforming.

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In 1996, I published my book The Case for Mars, which laid out how we can reach Mars using present-day technology and why it is a societal imperative that we accept the challenge to do so.2 This book was very successful, resulting in a deluge of more than four thousand letters and emails from a wide variety of people and, ultimately, the formation of an organization, known as the Mars Society, devoted to making the human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet a reality. The Mars Society engages in public outreach, political work, and private projects, the most important of which have been the construction and operation of Mars analog research stations (for learning how to explore Mars on Earth) in both the Canadian Arctic and the American desert.

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Under the circumstances, I thought it best to put this grievance aside and sought Musk out, meeting him for a very long cup of coffee before the fundraiser and then inviting him to spend a day with me at my company near Denver afterward. This kicked off a very productive interaction. Musk donated $100,000 to the Mars Society, which helped us fund the deployment of our Mars Desert Research Station, and he joined our board of directors for a while. He took a keen interest in the Mars Society's concept for the “Translife” (later “Mars Gravity”) mission to fly a group of mice to orbit in a rotating capsule which would provide them with a long-duration life support system and a 38 percent gravity environment, thereby yielding the first data on how mammals—both those from Earth and those born on Mars—might thrive and develop in Martian gravity.3 I hooked him up with a very sharp engineer I knew named Jim Cantrell to be his technical adviser, and together they went shopping for a low-cost launcher for the mission in Russia, where Cantrell had many contacts.

Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration by Buzz Aldrin, Leonard David

Apollo 11, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Lindbergh, Colonization of Mars, Elon Musk, gravity well, high net worth, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, private spaceflight, Ronald Reagan, Scaled Composites, Strategic Defense Initiative, systems thinking, telepresence, telerobotics, transcontinental railway, Tunguska event, Virgin Galactic, X Prize

To explore these possibilities, the Mars Society has been running simulated Mars missions in order to test supply requirements, mission hardware, and the ability of crew members to work together under Mars-like settings. Over the years, volunteers have peopled the society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, located on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic, and a Mars Desert Research Station, set up near the southern Utah town of Hanksville. Other outposts are in position in the Australian outback and Iceland. Simulating Mars exploration on Earth (Illustration Credit 7.7) The Mars Society’s call to attract volunteers to take part in simulated life on Mars scenarios is as direct as Zubrin’s plan for settlement of the far-off world: “Hard work, no pay, eternal glory.”

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Lastly, building off experiences gained from the International Space Station, astronauts exploring Mars will need to fabricate hydroponic growth labs where vegetables can be grown. These crops will provide Mars settlers with added nutrition and variety. An initial goal of a settlement is to build up an infrastructure at one location, Mackenzie reported in 2012 at the 15th annual International Mars Society Convention. “Assuming the settlement is located near the resources it needs, such as an ice deposit, we only need mobility to get to those resources. A variety of spare parts are needed for exploration missions. But a settlement should have manufacturing facilities. Since we can manufacture replacement parts, fewer spare parts are needed.”

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It is the closest planet that has all the resources needed to support life and technological civilization. Its complexity uniquely demands the skills of human explorers, who will pave the way for human settlers. These words are from Robert Zubrin, a creative astronautical engineer and president of the Mars Society, a group dedicated to further the exploration and settlement of the planet Mars. He is an energetic, effervescent, vocal, and steadfast spokesperson for putting into high gear what he terms the Mars Direct approach—a sustained humans-to-Mars plan that he has scripted. As author of the pioneering and highly detailed book The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, Zubrin advocates a minimalist, live-off-the-land approach to space exploration, allowing for maximum results with minimum investment.

Notes From an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O'Connell

Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, California gold rush, carbon footprint, Carrington event, clean water, Colonization of Mars, conceptual framework, cryptocurrency, disruptive innovation, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Donner party, Easter island, Elon Musk, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, Jeff Bezos, life extension, lock screen, low earth orbit, Marc Andreessen, Mars Society, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, New Urbanism, off grid, Peter Thiel, post-work, Sam Altman, Silicon Valley, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, surveillance capitalism, tech billionaire, the built environment, yield curve

John’s words toward the end of the Book of Revelation: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.” It was Zubrin and the Mars Society that had drawn me to Los Angeles in that late summer of 2018, at a time when the worst wildfires in California history seemed at last to be submitting to a weeks-long containment effort. I was attending the Mars Society’s twenty-first annual gathering at the Pasadena Convention Center. The organization had thousands of members, and chapters in twenty-eight countries, and it acted as both a public outreach organization and a political lobbying group for the cause of Mars settlement.

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He seemed to me, in that moment, neither a divinely gifted moron nor a vicious robber baron, but rather a child, an innocent boy who wanted nothing but to go to Mars, and to inspire others to want to go with him. The series ends with an inspirational speech from one Robert Zubrin, a former aerospace engineer at the defense contractor Lockheed Martin who in 1998 had founded an organization called the Mars Society, which advocated for the human settlement of Mars. Leaning toward the camera, eyes wide with a kind of anguished joy, Zubrin whispers urgently as though trying to awaken the viewer, the world, from a deep sleep: “Look up! Look up! There is everything out there! There’s trillions of other Earths!

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There were numerous talks on the kinds of difficulties colonists might face on Mars, from natural disasters to teenage delinquency to the lack of a clearly defined legal regime for recognizing property rights in space under current US and international law. There was a talk by a Lutheran bishop entitled “Is Mars Exploration Virtuous?” (Given that the Lutheran bishop was also a founding member of the Mars Society, I felt confident in predicting that the answer would be yes.) All these questions were in themselves interesting, but what I really wanted to know was where this fixation on colonizing Mars arose from, what it revealed about our relationship with the future of our own planet. I had long been of the opinion that there was no more lurid symptom of our current cultural malaise than the notion that we needed a “backup planet” for humanity.

Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin

Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Boeing 747, Charles Lindbergh, Colonization of Mars, gravity well, Johannes Kepler, Kevin Kelly, Kim Stanley Robinson, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, planetary scale, seminal paper, skunkworks, spice trade, telerobotics, three-masted sailing ship, uranium enrichment

We have an internet journal called New Mars, edited by Richard Wagner, and are embarked on campaigns including broad public outreach, political lobbying, and the construction of a human Mars exploration simulation base in the polar desert on Canada’s Devon Island. International conventions are planned for every August. You can join the Mars Society either through its web site at www.marssociety.org or by sending $50 ($25 for students) to Mars Society, Box 273, Indian Hills, CO 80454. If you want to reach me, you can write in care of the Mars Society address above. If you want to help, I’d like you to send me a postcard so I can put you on the Mars Society mailing list. Be sure to include your e-mail address if you have one. If you have access to the internet, I have a web site at http://www.nw.net/mars.

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The Space Frontier Foundation sponsors one national conference per year. You can join the Space Frontier Foundation by sending $25 to: The Space Frontier Foundation, 16 First Avenue, Nyack, NY 10960. The Mars Society is the newest of the space organizations. Together with many other members of the Mars Underground, including Chris McKay, Carol Stoker, and Tom Meyer, as well as science fiction authors Greg Benford and Kim Stanley Robinson, I founded the Mars Society with the purpose of furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars by both public and private means. Our founding convention in Boulder, Colorado, in August 1998 drew 700 people from 40 countries, featured 180 papers and talks on everything from Mars mission strategies to the ethics of terraforming, and attracted international press coverage.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO If you want humans to get to Mars, then you need to become a space activist. As we saw, Miller’s study of the space-interested public identified a group of close to 40 million. Yet, the three main domestic space activist organizations, the National Space Society, the Planetary Society, and the Mars Society, boast a total of perhaps 100,000 members. We have immense latent support for space exploration in this country, but only a tiny fraction of it is organized. Permanent organizations allied with large memberships are needed to generate the kind of political muscle required. In a nutshell, Mars needs you.

How We'll Live on Mars (TED Books) by Stephen Petranek

Apollo 11, California gold rush, Colonization of Mars, Dennis Tito, Elon Musk, Hyperloop, Jeff Bezos, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, Neil Armstrong, nuclear winter, out of africa, Richard Feynman, TED Talk, trade route

He foresaw, as von Braun did, that everything we needed was at hand. His proposal—called Mars Direct—outlined plans for an inexpensive and simple manned mission to Mars. NASA liked it, but when the agency kept delaying action, Zubrin wrote a comprehensive book called The Case for Mars and formed the Mars Society in 1998 to help promote his idea. More recently, Dutchmen Bas Lansdorp and Arno Wielders formed the nonprofit Mars One to launch one-way trips to the Red Planet, which they say are scheduled to land in 2025 (after previously landing cargo craft, habitats, and rovers). It plans to pay for the venture by selling broadcast rights.

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The Mars One timeline, published on its Web site, calls for sending cargo flights to the Red Planet in 2022, then sending four humans every two years after that, beginning in 2024. The Web site’s home page currently shows six Dragon-like capsules neatly lined up on the Martian surface connected to one another by tubes. That’s basically the strategy that many Mars enthusiasts, like Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, have been backing for years. The plan is heavily dependent on significant cooperation from SpaceX. Mars One says on its Web site that it has “visited” SpaceX and received a letter of interest. But no deal has been inked between Mars One and SpaceX, and Musk is dubious that the Falcon Heavy rocket can be used for a Mars trip.

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About 4,200 plants were grown from seeds, and every seed planted in the simulated Martian soil germinated. Cress, tomatoes, rye, and carrots were among the species that seemed to thrive in the Martian-like soil, which held water well, as expected. Other experiments continue, including Canadian experiments on Devon Island and a Mars Society greenhouse in Utah. No matter how successful we are at growing food on Mars, in the early days it will be only a small part of the diet. Most food will come from Earth. “I don’t think you’ll ever get to the point where one hundred percent of what you eat you will be grown,” Vermeulen says. “Honestly, if we get to where we can grow ten percent of our food, that will be a good start.”

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

addicted to oil, Burning Man, clean tech, digital map, El Camino Real, Elon Musk, fail fast, Ford Model T, gigafactory, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, industrial robot, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Kwajalein Atoll, Larry Ellison, low earth orbit, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Society, Maui Hawaii, Max Levchin, Menlo Park, Mercator projection, military-industrial complex, money market fund, multiplanetary species, off-the-grid, optical character recognition, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, PalmPilot, paypal mafia, performance metric, Peter Thiel, pneumatic tube, pre–internet, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, Scaled Composites, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Solyndra, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, technoutopianism, Tesla Model S, Tony Fadell, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, X Prize

They could help him refine any ideas, and there would be plenty of recruits to join his next venture. Musk’s first interactions with the aeronautics community were with an eclectic collection of space enthusiasts, members of a nonprofit group called the Mars Society. Dedicated to exploring and settling the Red Planet, the Mars Society planned to hold a fund-raiser in mid-2001. The $500-per-plate event was to take place at the house of one of the well-off Mars Society members, and invitations to the usual characters had been mailed out. What stunned Robert Zubrin, the head of the group, was the reply from someone named Elon Musk, whom no one could remember inviting.

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“Cameron was chatting him up right away to invest in his next movie, and Zubrin was trying to get him to make a big donation to the Mars Society.” In return for being hounded for cash, Musk probed about for ideas and contacts. Stoker’s husband was an aerospace engineer at NASA working on a concept for an airplane that would glide over Mars looking for water. Musk loved that. “He was much more intense than some of the other millionaires,” Zubrin said. “He didn’t know a lot about space, but he had a scientific mind. He wanted to know exactly what was being planned in regards to Mars and what the significance would be.” Musk took to the Mars Society right away and joined its board of directors.

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“He said, ‘The logical thing to happen next is solar, but I can’t figure out how to make any money out of it,’” said George Zachary, the investor and close friend of Musk’s, recalling a lunch date at the time. “Then he started talking about space, and I thought he meant office space like a real estate play.” Musk had actually started thinking bigger than the Mars Society. Rather than send a few mice into Earth’s orbit, Musk wanted to send them to Mars. Some very rough calculations done at the time suggested that the journey would cost $15 million. “He asked if I thought that was crazy,” Zachary said. “I asked, ‘Do the mice come back? Because, if they don’t, yeah, most people will think that’s crazy.’”

Space 2.0 by Rod Pyle

additive manufacturing, air freight, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, barriers to entry, Boeing 747, Colonization of Mars, commoditize, crewed spaceflight, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, experimental subject, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, mouse model, Neil Armstrong, overview effect, Planet Labs, private spaceflight, risk-adjusted returns, Scaled Composites, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, SpaceShipOne, stealth mode startup, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jurvetson, systems thinking, telerobotics, trade route, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, wikimedia commons, X Prize, Y Combinator

It publishes a quarterly magazine, organizes volunteer political activity, holds annual conferences, and produces a weekly radio program and podcast called “Planetary Radio.” Membership is open to all. Address: 60 South Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101 Phone: (626) 793-5100 Email: tps@planetary.org Web: planetary.org THE MARS SOCIETY The Mars Society is focused on enabling and accelerating human exploration of Mars. It holds an annual conference, organizes various other events, and runs two Mars analog research stations—one in the Utah desert and another in the Arctic. Membership is open to all. Address: 11111 West 8th Avenue, Unit A, Lakewood, CO 80215 Phone: (303) 980-0890 Email: info@marssociety.org Web: marssociety.org TAU ZERO FOUNDATION The Tau Zero Foundation sponsors research into breakthrough propulsion and technologies, participates in annual conferences in interstellar spaceflight and near-term space and energy technologies, and publishes technical papers.

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O’Neill at Princeton University. The Planetary Society, which focuses primarily on robotic exploration of the cosmos and, as its name suggests, planetary science, was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, all of whom were major figures in planetary exploration from JPL. The Mars Society started in 1998, operates two Mars-simulation stations in Utah and the Arctic, and promotes the exploration of the Red Planet, as laid out by cofounder Robert Zubrin and others. These and a number of similar organizations are listed below. Each of these organizations has a unique set of goals and activities.

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., 106–107 Maezawa, Yusaku, 129 magnetic field, on Earth, 22, 83, 84, 90 Manber, Jeffrey, 106 Mangalyaan Mars orbiter, 177, 177, 178 Mao Zedong, 192 Marius Hills, 243, 243–244 Mars Aldrin Cyclers on, 213 as candidate for human spaceflights, 62–63, 63 capsules orbiting near, 55 Chinese intentions of reaching, 197 collecting resources on, 218 colonies on, 34–35, 89, 238, 244 cost of sending humans to, 27 as destination, 60 and Earth’s gravity, 16 European probes on, 173 galactic radiation on, 84–85 and Gateway, 242 Indian orbiter, 177, 177, 178 JAXA plans to reach, 175 journeys to, 66 landings on, 46, 249, 250 as long-term goal for space travel, xiv, 161, 172 moons of, 60 orbiting of, 60, 249 and Orion capsules, 52 robotic rocket, 249 rovers on, 196, 239, 239 settlements on, 249–250, 253 simulation of bases on, 78–79 SpaceX plans for, 125–126, 129 successful trips to, 177 survival on, 20, 21 timeline to get to, 240–250 and United Arab Emirates Space Agency, 180 water-ice shields for living on, 91 water on, 206, 219 Mars-500 simulator, 79, 79 Mars Base Camp, 63 Mars Exploration Rover, 196 Mars First advocates, 62–63 The Mars Institute, 270–271 Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), 177, 177, 178 Mars OXygen In-situ utilization Experiment (MOXIE), 239, 239 Mars Sample Return, 249 Mars Science Laboratory, 84 The Mars Society, 265, 266 mass, of spacecrafts, 77, 87–88 mass reduction, 122, 123, 123 Maxar Technologies Ltd., 179 medical research, 27–28, 72–76 Mercury program, 2, 18, 19, 43, 44, 53, 59, 137, 178 Mercury Redstone 3 (MR-3), 43, 44 Merlin engine, 126, 128, 131 metamaterials, 107 Meyerson, Rob, 137–141, 139 microgravity, 82, 292 Microsoft, 102, 107 militarization of space, 170, 170–171 Mir space station, 2, 44, 46–47, 48, 54, 73, 166, 166–167, 184–185 Mitchell, Edgar, 32, 33 Mojave, California, 94 Mojave Airport, 94 Mojave Desert, 98, 111 Mojave Spaceport, 94–95 MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission), 177, 177, 178 moon (Earth’s), 20, 158, 161 bases on, 247 as candidate for human spaceflight, 62 capsules orbiting near, 55 collecting resources from, 205, 206, 218 as destination, 60 exposure to radiation on, 83 first humans on the, xiii–xiv galactic radiation on, 84 and Gateway, 242 landing on, 247 manufacturing on, 247 mining on, 88, 89, 247 north pole of, 62 as objective for SpaceX, 125 orbiting of, 59, 59, 60 orbit of, during SELENE mission, 175 and Orion capsules, 52 outpost on, 237 as short-term goal for space travel, 172 space settlements on, 242–245 storage depots on, 221 surface of, 60 travel to, 66 water ice on, 206 Moon Express, 211, 218, 220 Moon First advocates, 62 moons (in general) of Mars, 60, 175 Saturn’s moon Titan, 170 “Moon Village,” 65, 173, 242, 243 Moscow, Russia, 28, 79 MOXIE (Mars OXygen In-situ utilization Experiment), 239, 239 Mueller, Rob, 251 Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, 2 Murray, Bruce, 265 muscle mass, reduction in, 73 Musk, Elon “billionaires’ club” and, 151, 154 Charles Bolden and, 116 on colonizing Mars, 34–35 and creation of SpaceX, 115–119 on doing something that is important, 1 Falcon rockets and, 255–257, 259–261 and international space agencies, 181 Steve Jurvetson and, 158, 159 lunar base supported by, 244 on moving humans to space, 236 prediction of launch prices by, 148 and reusability, 39 and SpaceX, 7, 118, 123–126 Tesla roadster, 260–261 mutual funds, for private investors, 154 Myhrvold, Nathan, 107 N N1 booster, 43 N1 moon rocket, 185 NAFCOM (NASA Air Force Costing Methodology), 215 NanoRacks, 105, 105–106, 154, 157, 198 nanosats, 103 NASA. see National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Air Force Costing Methodology (NAFCOM), 215 NASA Ames Research Park, 106 NASDA (National Space Development Agency), 174 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 290. see also Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) asteroid detection systems, 224 and Bigelow Aerospace, 54 budget of, 26–27, 178 Bill Clinton’s changes to, 167 Commercial Crew Program, 135 and cost of launching water into orbit, 88, 89 and crewed landings, 247 and Dream Chaser, 52, 52 and European Space Agency, 170 and Falcon Heavy launch, 257 history of, 1–13 and human spaceflight missions, 61, 65 legal constraints around, 168–170 Lunar Orbiting Platform-Gateway, 60 mapping of asteroids by, 224, 226, 227 medical professionals from, 73–74 MR-3 flight timeline from, 44 National Space Council and, 213, 214 partnerships with, 9, 129–130, 140–141, 153, 158, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 247 and permanent space settlement, 237–239 psychologists/psychiatrists working at, 77–78 and public-private partnerships, 209–211 safety regulations at, 99–100, 107 simulations created by, 78 and SLS/Orion, 52, 53, 55 and spaceflight-capable nuclear reactors, 90 space infrastructure and, 209–217 Space Portal, 199 and space race, 42–44 and space settlements, 237–239, 241–244 and SpaceX Dragon, 50, 50 sponsored events for start-ups, 156 study of space colonies by, 236 study of space radiation by, 84 use of robotics by, 239 US workforce and spending by, 29–30 National Aeronautics and Space Council, 213, 214 National Defense Authorization Act (2016), 119 nationalism, 163–164 National Laboratory, 216 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 235 National Space Council defined, 290 NASA and, 65, 213, 214 Scott Pace and, 171, 198, 237 reactivation of, 10, 10 rules of the new, 218, 220 National Space Development Agency (NASDA), 174 National Space Society, 266 defined, 291 founding of, 264–265 International Space Development Conference, 35, 36 Bruce Pittman and, 199 Space Settlement Summit, 204 George Whitesides and, 97 National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), 99 Navy, 76, 77 near Earth objects (NEO), 290 New Armstrong, 51 New Glenn, 51, 136, 136–139, 244, 245, 290–291 New Horizons Pluto mission, 132 New Line 1 vehicle, 194 New Shepard, 51, 51, 136–139, 137, 139, 290–291 NewSpace, 137, 152, 291 new space race, 135–148 Blue Origin and, 135–141 United Launch Alliance and, 141–148 New Zealand, 104 normal bone density, 72 North Korea, 180 Northrop Grumman Corporation, 102, 121, 152, 154 Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, 12, 102, 152, 174 Northwestern University, 125 Norway, 153 NSS (National Space Society), 291 NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), 99 nuclear reactors, for spaceflight, 90 O Obama, Barack, 6, 9, 56–57, 219, 226 “offshoring,” 178 OffWorld, 250 O’Neill, Gerard, 240–241, 250, 265, 269 O’Neill space cylinders, 240–241, 241 One Space, 194 OneWeb, 131 Orbital ATK, 12, 102, 103, 152, 153, 154 orbital refueling depot, 205 Orbital Sciences, 152, 158 orbiting stations, 63–64, 71–72 ore, from asteroids, 64 organizations, space-related, 266–271 Orion, 291 Altair and, 8 capsule, 78 for deep-space exploration, 53 as government spaceflight, 246 rendezvous with asteroid, 56–57 Soyuz and, 186 and Space Launch System, 9, 10, 52, 55, 246, 249 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 165, 165, 218, 219 outposts, 237–238 overview effect, 32, 32 Oxford University, 235 ozone layer, 228 P Pace, Scott, 171–172, 196, 198, 214, 237 Paleogene era, 223 partial-gravity environments, 22, 81 Passengers (movie), 81 passive radiation shielding, 90 payloads, 119, 126, 194, 259, 261, 291.

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

4chan, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AltaVista, Apollo 11, Apple II, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, artificial general intelligence, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, Burning Man, carbon footprint, ChatGPT, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, Colonization of Mars, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, Dogecoin, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, drone strike, effective altruism, Elon Musk, estate planning, fail fast, fake news, game design, gigafactory, GPT-4, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, hive mind, Hyperloop, impulse control, industrial robot, information security, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Jony Ive, Kwajalein Atoll, lab leak, large language model, Larry Ellison, lockdown, low earth orbit, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Mars Society, Max Levchin, Michael Shellenberger, multiplanetary species, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, OpenAI, packet switching, Parler "social media", paypal mafia, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, QAnon, Ray Kurzweil, reality distortion field, remote working, rent control, risk tolerance, Rubik’s Cube, Salesforce, Sam Altman, Sam Bankman-Fried, San Francisco homelessness, Sand Hill Road, Saturday Night Live, self-driving car, seminal paper, short selling, Silicon Valley, Skype, SpaceX Starlink, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Streisand effect, supply-chain management, tech bro, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, the payments system, Tim Cook: Apple, universal basic income, Vernor Vinge, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, wikimedia commons, William MacAskill, work culture , Y Combinator

“I figured it had to be soon, because we went to the moon in 1969, so we must be about to go to Mars.” When he couldn’t find the schedule, he rummaged deeper on the site, until he realized that NASA had no plans for Mars. He was shocked. In his Google searches for more information, he happened across an announcement for a dinner in Silicon Valley hosted by an organization called the Mars Society. That sounds cool, he said to Justine, and he bought a pair of $500 tickets. In fact, he ended up sending in a check for $5,000, which caught the attention of Robert Zubrin, the society’s president. Zubrin sat Elon and Justine at his table, along with the film director James Cameron, who had directed the space-war thriller Aliens as well as The Terminator and Titanic.

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The proposal was called Mars Oasis, and Musk estimated he could pull it off for less than $30 million. He had the money. The biggest challenge was getting an affordable rocket that could take the greenhouse to Mars. There was, it turned out, a place where he might be able to get one cheaply, or so he thought. Through the Mars Society, Musk heard of a rocket engineer named Jim Cantrell, who had worked on a U.S.–Russian program to decommission missiles. A month after his Long Island Expressway ride with Adeo Ressi, Musk gave Cantrell a call. Cantrell was driving in Utah with the top down on his convertible, “so all I could make out was that some guy named Ian Musk was saying that he was an internet millionaire and needed to talk to me,” he later told Esquire.

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The two had made an agreement that they would not compete for each other’s investors. When it became clear that Musk was not going to invest in AC Propulsion, Gage offered him to Eberhard. “I’m giving up on Elon,” he said. “You should give him a call.” Eberhard and Tarpenning had met Musk earlier, when they had gone to hear him speak at a Mars Society meeting in 2001. “I buttonholed him afterwards just to say hi, like a fanboy,” Eberhard recalls. He mentioned that encounter in an email to Musk asking for a meeting. “We would love to talk to you about Tesla Motors, particularly if you might be interested in investing,” he wrote. “I believe that you have driven AC Propulsion’s tzero car.

Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything by Kelly Weill

4chan, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, algorithmic bias, anti-communist, Apollo 11, Big Tech, bitcoin, Comet Ping Pong, coronavirus, COVID-19, crisis actor, cryptocurrency, disinformation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fake news, false flag, income inequality, Internet Archive, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Society, mass immigration, medical malpractice, moral panic, off-the-grid, QAnon, recommendation engine, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, tech worker, Tesla Model S, TikTok, Timothy McVeigh, Wayback Machine, Y2K

I Wasn’t,” Medium, May 23, 2020, https://fightfortheftr.medium.com/facebook-told-my-followersi-was-spreading-misinformation-about-government-surveillance-i-wasnt63622dd7ae56. 204 “harassment and bullying” Sam Levin, “YouTube Under Fire for Censoring Video Exposing Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones,” Guardian, April 23, 2018, www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/23/ youtube-alex-jones-sandy-hook-media-matters-video. 204 purge in 2019 Kelly Weill, “YouTube Crackdown on Extremism Also Deleted Innocent Videos,” Daily Beast, June 6, 2019, www.thedailybeast.com/ youtube-crackdown-on-extremism-also-deleted-videos-combating-extremism. 205 accidentally flagged factual content Jay Peters, “Facebook Was Marking Legitimate News Articles about the Coronavirus as Spam Due to a Software Bug,” Verge, March 17, 2020, www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21184445/ facebook-marking-coronavirus-posts-spam-misinformation-covid-19. 205 Ethiopia passed a law “Ethiopia: Bill Threatens Free Expression,” Human Rights Watch, December 19, 2019, www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/19/ethiopia-billthreatens-free-expression; Simon Marks, “67 Killed in Ethiopia Unrest, but Nobel-Winning Prime Minister Is Quiet,” New York Times, October 25, 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/world/africa/ethiopia-protests-prime-minister .html. 205 basis to arrest a journalist Edrine Wanyama, “Ethiopia’s New Hate Speech and Disinformation Law Weighs Heavily on Social Media Users and Internet Intermediaries,” Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa, July 22, 2020, https://cipesa.org/2020/07/ethiopias-new-hate-speechand-disinformation-law-weighs-heavily-on-social-media-users-and-internetintermediaries; “Ethiopian Journalist Yayesew Shimelis Detained Following COVID-19 Report,” Committee to Protect Journalists, April 1, 2020, https:// cpj.org/2020/04/ethiopian-journalist-yayesew-shimelis-detained-fol/. 205 leaked documents obtained by the Guardian Alex Hern, “Revealed: How TikTok Censors Videos That Do Not Please Beijing,” Guardian, September 25, 2019, www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/ revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing. 206 when and where to vote “Fighting Digital Disinformation,” Warren Democrats, https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/fighting-digital-disinformation. 206 exclusive banner Kelly Weill, “Flat Earthers Call Trump’s Space Force Idea ‘Impossible,’ ” Daily Beast, August 10, 2018, https://www.thedailybeast.com/ flat-earthers-call-trumps-space-force-idea-impossible. Notes 245 207 Flat Mars Society Elon Musk (@elonmusk), “Why is there no Flat Mars Society!?” Twitter, November 28, 2017, 10:13 a.m., https://twitter.com/elonmusk/ status/935572279693516800. 207 “Hi Elon” Flat Earth Society (@FlatEarthOrg), “Hi Elon, thanks for the question,” Twitter, November 28, 2018, 3:01 p.m., https://twitter.com/ FlatEarthOrg/status/935644892721762305. 208 grand reopening Flat Earth Society, “Officially Reopens.” 209 “other untruths are trivial” Weill, “Space Force Idea.” 214 psychology of why people believe SeekTruth SpeakTruth, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8QUo98zQ7HlFFykAc0Z3EA. 214 arguments are bogus Jose JG, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCMv0iw6N8xRFvggBignzK8g.

…

” Pete Svarrior, the Flat Earth Society spokesperson, told me internet virality brought the group much-needed attention as it was losing ground to other Flat Earthers in 2017. That’s when Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of the space travel company SpaceX, tweeted a joke about the lack of a Flat Mars Society. Svarrior answered sarcastically from the Flat Earth Society account. “Hi Elon, thanks for the question. Unlike the Earth, Mars has been observed to be round,” Svarrior wrote. “We hope you have a fantastic day!” Svarrior’s tweet went viral, making headlines and sending the society’s Twitter following sky-high.

Elon Musk: A Mission to Save the World by Anna Crowley Redding

Albert Einstein, artificial general intelligence, Burning Man, California high-speed rail, Colonization of Mars, El Camino Real, Elon Musk, energy security, Ford Model T, gigafactory, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, Internet Archive, Jeff Bezos, Khan Academy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kwajalein Atoll, Large Hadron Collider, low earth orbit, Mars Society, Max Levchin, Menlo Park, OpenAI, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Solyndra, SpaceX Starlink, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jurvetson, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, Wayback Machine

So Elon and Justine packed up and moved to Los Angeles, to the heart of America’s aerospace industry. Writing a check for five grand, Elon attended a fund-raiser for the Mars Society, where he met other space fans and sought out as much information as he could. He broke down the humans-stuck-on-Earth issue into smaller problems to solve. At the top of the list: getting the public’s support. As his reading, research, and connections began to coalesce, he formed a plan. MARS SOCIETY: This nonprofit organization is committed to exploring and colonizing Mars. It was founded in 1998 by Dr. Robert Zubrin, who has a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics and a doctorate in nuclear engineering.

Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race by Tim Fernholz

Amazon Web Services, Apollo 13, autonomous vehicles, business climate, Charles Lindbergh, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, deep learning, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fail fast, fulfillment center, Gene Kranz, high net worth, high-speed rail, Iridium satellite, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kwajalein Atoll, low earth orbit, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Society, Masayoshi Son, megaproject, military-industrial complex, minimum viable product, multiplanetary species, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, new economy, no-fly zone, nuclear paranoia, paypal mafia, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, pets.com, planetary scale, private spaceflight, profit maximization, RAND corporation, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Ronald Reagan, satellite internet, Scaled Composites, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, space junk, SpaceShipOne, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, trade route, undersea cable, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, VTOL, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, X Prize, Y2K

Whereas his efforts to bring the advertising business and then the financial sector into the digital age had essentially been opportunistic, his new companies would also have a mission. With millions of dollars on hand after the sale of Zip2, Musk began exploring philanthropy. Among his early moves was writing a check for $5,000 to make his way, uninvited, to a Los Angeles fund-raising dinner given by the Mars Society, a nonprofit founded in 1988 to advocate for human colonization of the Red Planet. The organization is led by a Lutheran bishop and a nuclear physicist, which gives you a clue about the exact mix of faith and reason needed to sustain an effort like this one. The nuclear physicist is chair Robert Zubrin, a former Lockheed engineer who runs a small aerospace consulting firm.

…

“It’s not like we drive Russian cars, fly Russian planes, or have Russian kitchen appliances,” Musk said later. “When was the last time we bought something Russian which wasn’t vodka? I think the US is a pretty competitive place and we should be able to build a cost-efficient launch vehicle.” Zubrin, who led the Mars Society, was not impressed, now that Mars had been put on the back burner. His impression was of something like another BlastOff: “The techies end up spending the rich guy’s money for two years, and then the rich guy gets bored and shuts the thing down.” Yet that missed what set Musk’s approach apart: he was not sold on this idea by his coterie of engineering advisers, who had recommended buying available technology.

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See also Atlas V; Titan IV rocket financial failures, 32–33 joint venture with Russian state rocket company, 59 NASA space taxi program bid, 113 Proton rocket, 171–73 X-33 failure, 226 Low, George, 136, 151 Lueders, Kathy, 165, 168 Luxembourg, 174–75 commercial satellite backers, 52 M; MacDonald, Alexander, 47–48 Mars, travel to, x, 54, 58, 197–98, 243–44 financing issue, 46–49 history of interest in, 48 Mars Curiosity rover, 198 motivation for, 47–48 pro-ams in Mojave desert, 50–51, 58 “Red Dragon” program, 41–42, 44 Mars Society, 45 Marty, Alan, 113, 167 Masayoshi Son, 234 Maser, James, 99–100, 118, 131, 192 McAuliffe, Christa, 23 McCain, John, 185, 186, 190, 192 McCaw, Craig, 2 McDonnell Douglas, 18, 27, 69, 125. See also Boeing; DC-X, prototype reusable orbital rocket; Delta II rocket orbital rocket contract, 19 McGregor, Texas, 87–88, 137, 225, 248 Melvill, Mike, 95–96 Merlin rocket, 92, 113, 153, 165 Block V engineering for CCDEV, 165 design upgrades, 90 development of, 87–88, 108 engineering design, 134–35 in the Falcon 1, 133–34 Metzger, Phil, 68 Meyerson, Rob, 124 Microcosm, 64, 66 Microsoft, 2, 27 Mikulski, Barbara, 143 Millennium Falcon, 81 Mir (Russian space station), 53 Mojave Desert, 50, 63, 87, 211 Mojave Desert Advanced Rocket Society, 51 moon and moon landing debate on exploration, 243–44 manned lunar orbit and outpost, 244 motivation for, 242–43 NASA public-private lunar research, 244 South Pole’s Shackleton Crater, 241–42 volatiles, 240–41 Moon Express, 242, 244 Mosdell, Brian, 20–22, 146 Mueller, Tom, 54, 62–63, 66, 87–90, 108, 192, 243 Muilenburg, Dennis, 244 Musk, Elon, x, 1.

Red Rover: Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, From Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity by Roger Wiens

Apollo 11, computer age, James Webb Space Telescope, Mars Rover, Mars Society, military-industrial complex, Ronald Reagan, Skype

In the meantime, by early November we had funds for only about one more month. Politically we had done all we could. Our letter-writing campaign had pretty much run its course. We had talked with administrators and committees at all levels and their recommendations had been made. I had visited the Planetary Society, talked with the Mars Society, and contacted every advocacy group I could find. We had cut our costs to the bone. There was nothing left to do. If something didn’t happen very soon we would go broke, our team would disperse, and it would become impossible to finish. I refused to think about this possibility. We were in bad shape—our engineering model’s electronic parts had been burned up, and we were at a standstill.

…

See Mars Hand Lens Instrument (MaHLI) Malin, Mike, 168 Malin Space Science Systems, 168 Mariner 9, 9 Mars, 65 ancient riverbed detected on, 213 ancient site on, 179, 180, 183 atmospheric density profile of, 202 atmospheric samples from, collecting, 87 claims about life on, 8–9 close approach of, to Earth, 8, 9, 94, 147, 149 decade devoid of explorations to, 13 deserted terrain of, feeling evoked by, 214 dominant rock types on, 173, 174 dust-collection concept for, 86–87 Earth passing, cycle of, 87, 147, 149 failed missions to, 60, 88 first-ever landing movie of, 212 gravity of, 145, 202 habitability of, 213, 214 half-ellipse configuration involving Earth and, 201 ideas for small missions to, 20 land area of, 177 landing ellipse for, 203 large crater on, (ins. img. 11, 12, 14), 179, 181, 182, 183, 207, 208 large valley on, 179 lava on, 214 life-detection experiments on, 10, 142 looking for water on, 109 meteorites from, 11, 73, 86, 87, 88 moon of, mission to, 189 motivation to explore, renewed, 73 new missions to, calls for concepts for, 73–74, 85–86 night-sky guides on, 186 number of successful landings on, 191 orbiting the Sun, 8, 147 possibility of a sample-return mission to, 87–88 purported discovery of microscopic fossils on, 73, 88 race to, 10 seeding terrestrial bacteria on, risk of, 178 soil composition of, measuring, 212 spacecraft flybys of, 8 sulfur on, 175 telescope observations of, 8, 9 temperatures on, rovers and, 101, 146, 151, 154 unexpected rock compositions on, 213 Viking program and, 10, 11, 13, 29 water on, issue of, 98–99, 109, 141, 142, 171, 178, 212, 214 wind on, 202, 214 See also specific Mars missions and spacecraft Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), 88 Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO), 44, 193, 202 Mars Descent Imager (MarDI), 168, 212 Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs), 172 and APXS, 109, 171 ChemCam rock observations versus observations from, 213 imagers on, 102 improved versions of instruments on, 109 launch of missions involving, 93 leadership of, 167, 177, 206 limitations of, 143 motors for the MSL versus, 146 MSL design changes from, due to size issues, 144–145 naming of, 147 payload budget for, 110, 127 payload capacity of, 99 plans for, 77 Raman spectroscopy and, 106–107, 169 thermal spectrometers for, 106 threat to cut funding for, 140, 141 total cost of, 160 twin, 88–89, 98, 102, 128, 143, 147, 167, 206 See also Opportunity; Spirit Mars Express, 179 Mars Hand Lens Instrument (MaHLI), (ins. img. 15), 168, 212, 214 Mars Instrument Development Program, 100 Mars Observer, 14, 22 Mars Odyssey, 98–99 Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA), 72 Mars Polar Lander, 44 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter analyses from, 179 caliber of camera on, 199 image captured by, (ins. img. 12), 210 relying on images from, 179 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) additional funding needed for, 140, 147 capsule for, 144–145, 144–145 ChemCam cost review and, 140 delayed launch of, 147, 148 electrical motors for, 145–146, 148 engineering model for, 112, 142 instrument selections for, 108–110 list of cutback options for, review of, 128–129 motors for, temperature issue with, 127 naming contest for, 148 new landing technology developed for, 145 parachute for, 144 payload budget for, 110, 125–127 payload selection for, 99–100 proposals for, arrival of, 105 radiation and, 117 reviewing proposals for, 107 RTG-powered, 117, 144, 145 size issues affecting, addressing, 144–145 as a successor to Mars Exploration Rovers, 98, 143 versatility of, features intending for, 144 See also Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory InterfaCE (MSLICE), 195 Mars Scout program, 86, 89, 91 Mars Society, 135 Mars 3 mission, 10 Mars time, adjusting to, 211, 213 Martian rocks, 11 Martin, James S., Jr., 29, 30, 31, 32, 93 Mast motors, 145, 146, 155 Mast unit, 75, 78, 98, 112, 113, 114, 122, 123, (ins. img. 15), 126, 138, 145, 160, 161, 162, 164, 194, 212, 214 Mastcam as a sentry, 109 as a set of imagers, 168 view from, (ins. img. 14, 16), 212, 214 Maurice, Sylvestre, 95, 96–98, 100–101, 108, 122, (ins. img. 7), 131, 162, 186, 187, 197, 206, 212 Mawrth Valles site, 179, 180, 181, 183 Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry, 171 McKay, Christopher, 101 McKeegan, Kevin, 63 Mennonite Central Committee, 170 Mercury, ideas for small missions to, 20 Mercury program, 5, 187 MERs.

How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight by Julian Guthrie

Albert Einstein, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Charles Lindbergh, cosmic microwave background, crowdsourcing, Dennis Tito, Doomsday Book, Easter island, Elon Musk, Fairchild Semiconductor, fear of failure, fixed-gear, Frank Gehry, Gene Kranz, gravity well, Herman Kahn, high net worth, Iridium satellite, Isaac Newton, ITER tokamak, Jacquard loom, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, Larry Ellison, Leonard Kleinrock, life extension, low earth orbit, Mark Shuttleworth, Mars Society, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, Murray Gell-Mann, Neil Armstrong, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, packet switching, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, pets.com, private spaceflight, punch-card reader, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Ronald Reagan, Scaled Composites, side project, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, SpaceShipOne, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, urban planning, Virgin Galactic

Mars would take at least half a year to reach, using optimal energy cost. It would take a year and a half for the planets to realign,* and then it would take another six months to return. Elon said he thought such a mission sounded entirely doable. Earlier, in May, Elon had attended a Mars Society event with Jim Cameron, who was working on a six-episode TV miniseries on the Red Planet. Over breakfast the next morning with Mars Society cofounder Robert Zubrin, Elon had pledged $100,000 to the cause. Peter, who had been in constant pitching mode for what felt like an eternity, tried to sit back and listen, but he kept finding himself back in the mode of selling.

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., 91, 167, 169, 262 McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, 53 McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, 107 McDowell, Mike, 127, 208–9 Mach, Ernst, 1n Mach 1, 1–2, 1n Mach 5, 5 McKinney, Bevin, 130–31, 184, 324 Macklin, Frank, 352, 358–59 McLucas, John, 75 Magellan, Ferdinand, 150–51 Man Vehicle Laboratory (MVL), 39–40, 47–49, 68, 69–74 Man Who Sold the Moon, The (Heinlein), 135, 179, 228, 392 Maritz, Bill, 206–7 Maritz Inc., 206 Mark, Hans, 44 Mars, 240–42 Mars Global Surveyor, 204 Marshall Space Flight Center, 93 Mars Pathfinder, 204, 225–26 Mars Society, 242 Maryniak, Gregg, 112–13 Hawley memorial, 149 International Microspace and, 101–5, 110 O’Neill memorial, 122 SEDS and, 101, 104 XPRIZE and, 125, 170, 173, 177, 206–7, 214–15, 236, 292–94, 375 Erik Lindbergh’s anniversary flight, 261–62, 264–65, 282–87, 290 Maryniak, Maureen, 104 Massachusetts General Hospital, 66–67, 94, 111 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Infinite Corridor, 30–31, 37, 38, 39, 402 International Space University at, 91, 92–94 Man Vehicle Lab, 39–40, 47–49, 68, 69–74 Peter Diamandis at, 29, 30–33, 37, 38–44, 47–49, 64, 69–75 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), 28–29, 31, 39 Mass drivers, 41, 105, 105n Mayflower II, 274–75 Mayo Clinic, 216–17, 259 Melton, Dave, 189–93 Melvill, Graham, 157 Melvill, Keith, 157 Melvill, Mike, 153–62 background of, 154–55 flight testing for Rutan, 159–63 Proteus, 162–63, 196–99 love of flying, 154–56 SpaceShipOne and, 317, 355–57, 360–62 flight day one, 375–87 flight day two, 394–95, 396, 398, 401 flight tests, 1–7, 323–24, 330–35, 338–50 update on, 407 Voyager One and, 57–59, 60–62 Melvill, Sally, 58, 153–57, 159, 160 SpaceShipOne and, 7, 313–14, 341, 355, 356, 361–62 flight day one, 378, 379, 381, 383, 385 flight day two, 394, 398–99 update on, 407 Merchant Marine Academy, U.S., 25 Mercury 7, 117, 133n, 143, 200 Mesosphere, 118, 335n Metcalfe, Walter, 169 Methodfive, 238 Mickey, Kevin, 332–33 Microsoft, 255–56, 314 Milburn, Neil, 270–73, 367–70 Mitchell, Ed, 32 Mojave Aerospace Ventures, 255–58 Mojave Air and Space Port, 374, 390, 408 Mojave Airport, 114–15 Mojave Overpass Café, 56 Molnar, Dezso, 233, 234 Montrose gathering, 125–33, 301–2 Moon rocks, 35, 225 Moon-to-Earth link, 230, 230n Moore, Dave, 255–58, 307–12, 377 Morecambe Bay, 267–68, 269 Morrison, Philip, 31 Mother Teresa, 88–89 Mount Everest, 261 Mount Rainier, 78–85 Murphy, Diane, 234, 298, 375 Musk, Elon Diamandis and XPRIZE, 238–44 SpaceX, 318–19, 371, 392, 412 MVL (Man Vehicle Laboratory), 39–40, 47–49, 68, 69–74 Nanotechnology, 41, 121 Napoleon Bonaparte, 125 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

Beyond: Our Future in Space by Chris Impey

3D printing, Admiral Zheng, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, AltaVista, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Berlin Wall, Biosphere 2, Buckminster Fuller, built by the lowest bidder, butterfly effect, California gold rush, carbon-based life, Charles Lindbergh, Colonization of Mars, cosmic abundance, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, Dennis Tito, discovery of DNA, Doomsday Clock, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Eratosthenes, Great Leap Forward, Haight Ashbury, Hans Moravec, Hyperloop, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Late Heavy Bombardment, life extension, low earth orbit, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, Mars Rover, Mars Society, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Nick Bostrom, ocean acidification, Oculus Rift, operation paperclip, out of africa, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, phenotype, private spaceflight, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, radical life extension, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, risk tolerance, Rubik’s Cube, Scaled Composites, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Searching for Interstellar Communications, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, Skype, Snow Crash, space junk, SpaceShipOne, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, supervolcano, technological singularity, telepresence, telerobotics, the medium is the message, the scientific method, theory of mind, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, Virgin Galactic, VTOL, wikimedia commons, world market for maybe five computers, X Prize, Yogi Berra

He thinks we can lower the cost and complexity of a Mars mission by “living off the land,” or utilizing as many resources as possible from the air and soil. His ideas were strong enough to be adopted by NASA as their “design reference mission,” but he became frustrated at NASA’s glacial progress and anemic government support, so he founded the advocacy group Mars Society in 1998. He’s written a series of books that make the case for going to Mars.14 Asked about saving costs with a one-way journey, Zubrin has said: “Life is a one-way trip, and one way to spend it is by going to Mars and starting a new branch of human civilization there.”15 Mars is a challenging goal for human exploration.

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., 239 Los Angeles Times, 71 Losing My Virginity (Branson), 86, 87 Louis IX, king of France, 23 Louis XVI, king of France, 68 Lovelock, James, 286 Lowell, Percival, 163–64 Lucian of Samosata, 20 Lucretius, 18–19 Luna program, 50–51 Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, 156 Lunokhod rover, 143 Lynx rocket plane, 101 M5 fiber, 161 McAuliffe, Christa, 55, 74 Mack 3 Blackbird, 69 McKay, Chris, 173 McLellan, William, 283 magnetic implants, 207 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 190 magnetic sails, 186, 223 magnitude of time, 248–50, 249 Manhattan Project, 36, 221 Manifest Destiny, applied to space, 146–47, 199 Manned Habitat Unit, 169 many worlds concept, 17–20, 17, 49, 267 Mao Zedong, 141 Marconi, Guglielmo, 237 Mariner 2, 51 Mariner 4, 164 Marino, Lori, 190 Marriott hotels, 145 Mars, 28, 237, 270 challenges of travel to, 166–70 distance from Earth to, 50, 148, 166 Earth compared to, 171–72, 216 establishing a colony on, 166–71, 169, 192, 195, 200–201, 203, 214, 248 evidence of water on, 124–25, 163–66, 165, 173 fly-bys of, 51, 170 imaginative perceptions of, 163–65 latency on, 178 map of, 163 obstacles to exploration of, 66–67, 148 one-way journey to, 166, 170–71, 200 as potentially habitable, 124–25, 163, 165–66, 171, 172–74, 234, 278 privately funded missions to, 170–71 probes to, 40, 51, 52, 164–65, 176, 246 projected exploration of, 94–98, 101, 104, 115, 119, 157, 161, 163–74, 178, 181, 182 property rights on, 145, 198–99 sex and reproduction on, 200 simulated journey to, 169–70 soil of, 170 staging points for, 161 terraforming of, 172–74, 182, 216, 227 tests for life on, 52 Mars Direct, 169 Mars500 mission, 169 Mars One, 170–71, 198–201 Mars Society, 166 Mars 3 lander, 51 Masai people, 120 Massachusetts General Hospital, 250 Masson-Zwaan, Tanja, 199 mathematics, 19 as universal language, 236–37 Matrix, The, 260 matter, manipulation of, 258 matter-antimatter annihilation, 220, 220, 221–22 Mavroidis, Constantinos, 182 Max-Q (maximum aerodynamic stress), 46 Maxwell, James Clerk, 183 Mayor, Michel, 126–28, 133 medicine: challenges and innovation in, 92–93, 263 cyborgs in, 205 medicine (continued) as lacking in space, 200 in life extension, 259 nanotechnology in, 225, 259 robots in, 180, 181, 182, 205 mediocrity, principle of, 261 Mendez, Abel, 278 mental models, 13–17, 18–19 Mercury: orbit of, 126, 215 property rights on, 145 as uninhabitable, 124 mercury poisoning, 118 Mercury program, 41, 42, 71, 74, 272 meta-intelligence, 94 meteorites, 152, 160, 160, 164, 195 methane, 52–53, 125, 132, 278 as biomarker, 217–18 methanogens, 217 “Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, A” (Goddard), 30, 31 Methuselah, 131 mice, in scientific research, 48–49, 250–51 microbes, microbial life, 97–98, 173, 174, 217, 241, 246, 286 habitable environments for, 122–25, 165–66, 186 microcephaly, 203 microgravity, 115 microsatellites, 90 Microsoft, 84, 188 microwaves: beaming of, 223–24 signals, 187 Microwave Sciences, 223 Middle East, population dispersion into, 8, 118 migration: early human population dispersion through, 5–9, 9, 15, 19 motivation for, 9–12, 11 military: covert projects of, 69–72 Eisenhower’s caveat about, 79 in Internet development, 77, 78–79 nanotechnology in, 180–81, 225 in rocket development, 30, 32–39, 55–56, 71 in space programs, 73, 76, 79, 144, 153 Milky Way galaxy, 227, 240, 253, 263, 270 ancient Greek concept of, 18 Drake equation for detectable life in, 188, 233–35 Earth-like exoplanets in, 129–33, 233, 291 formation and age of, 235 size of, 242 Millis, Marc, 290 mind control, 245 mind uploading, 259 miniaturization, see nanotechnology minimum viable population, 201, 251 mining: of asteroids, 155–56, 182, 214 of Enceladus, 227 on Moon, 214 by robots, 178, 182 Minsky, Marvin, 177, 179 MirCorp, 75 mirrors, 173 Mir Space Station, 75, 115, 167–68 Miss Baker (monkey), 47–48, 48 Mission Control, 43, 100, 158, 269 MIT, 38, 77, 90, 141, 226, 257 mitochondrial DNA, 6, 9 Mittelwerk factory, 33, 35 Mojave Desert, 71, 82, 83 population adaptation to heat in, 118–19 molecules, in nanotechnology, 151 Mongols, 23, 24 monkeys, in space research, 47–48, 48 Montgolfier brothers, 68 Moon: age of, 50 ancient Greek concept of, 18 in asteroid capture, 156 distance from Earth to, 49–50, 150, 166, 267 first animals on, 49 first man on, 71, 158 latency on, 178 lunar base proposed for, 157–63, 158, 160, 195, 214, 248 manned landings on, 44–45, 49–50, 54, 56, 63, 71, 84, 99, 104, 108, 143, 157, 158, 176, 219, 270, 272 obstacles to exploration of, 66 orbit of, 25 probes to, 40, 51, 129, 140, 143 projected missions to, 92, 143, 157–63, 166, 214, 275 property rights on, 145–47, 198–99 proposed commercial flights to, 102 in science fiction, 20, 26 soil of, 159, 160, 162 as staging point for Mars, 161 staging points for, 148 telescopic views of, 31, 49–50 as uninhabitable, 124, 166 US commitment to reach, 41–45 Moon Treaty (1979), 146 Moon Treaty, UN (1984), 279 Moore, John, 203 Moravec, 259–60 Morgan, Barbara, 74 Morrison, Philip, 187, 239 Mosaic web browser, 79 Moses, 148 motion, Newton’s laws of, 25, 67–68 multistage rockets, 29 multiverse, 252–57, 255 Musk, Elon, 94–98, 97, 100–101, 112–13, 148, 205 mutation, 6–7 cosmic rays and, 204 7R, 10–12, 11, 15 mutually assured destruction, 42 Mylar, 184, 225 N1/L3 rocket, 44, 54 nanobots, 179–82, 181, 224–28 NanoSail-D, 184, 185 nanosponges, 180 nanotechnology, 151–52, 179–82, 208, 214, 245, 280, 283 projected future of, 257–59 see also nanobots National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 83, 90, 96, 97–98, 114, 116–17, 128, 144, 153, 156, 176, 178, 182, 184–85, 185, 195, 200, 205, 206, 216, 224, 226, 271, 275, 280, 290 and Air Force, 71 artistic depiction of space colonies by, 196, 196 budget of, 39, 42, 43, 49, 54, 64, 75, 99, 104, 140, 144, 158, 166, 188, 238, 270, 272, 284 cut back of, 45, 49, 54, 188 formation of, 38–39, 145, 269 private and commercial collaboration with, 99–102, 104 revival of, 103–5 space program of, 51, 55–56, 71–76, 92, 157–58, 285–86 stagnation of, 63–67, 141, 147, 166 National Geographic Society, 7, 265 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 187–88 National Science Foundation (NSF), 78–79 Native Americans, 118 naturalness, 256 natural selection, 6, 16, 123, 164, 251, 291 Nature, 187 Naval Research lab, 37 Navy, US: Bureau of Aeronautics, 30 in rocket development, 36–37 Nayr, Ernst, 238 Nazis, 48 Propaganda Ministry of, 32 von Braun and, 32–34, 141, 269 NBC, 75 Nedelin, Mitrofan, 43 “needle in a haystack” problem, 188–89, 242–43 “Nell” (rocket), 29 Neptune, 127, 131, 225 as uninhabitable, 125 Nergal, 163 Netscape, 80 New Mexico, 88, 88, 105 Newton, Isaac, 24–25, 25, 30, 67–68, 110, 262, 267 New York Times, 30, 94 Nicholas, Henry, 214 Niven, Larry, 198, 253 Nixon, Richard, 108, 167 Nobel Prize, 126, 180, 214 nomad planets, 128 Noonan, James, 266 nuclear fission, 220, 220, 221 nuclear fusion, 110, 161–62, 220, 221, 221, 222 nuclear reactors, 224 nuclear weapons, 36, 42, 78, 129, 146, 197–98, 222, 234–35, 244, 245, 246, 286 Nuremberg Chronicles, 17 Nyberg, Karen, 200 Obama, Barack, 104 Oberth, Hermann, 28, 31–32, 36, 268 oceans: acidification of, 195 sealed ecosystem proposed for, 197 Oculus Rift, 176 Ohio, astronauts from, 74 Okuda, Michael, 228 Olsen, Ken, 213 100 Year Starship project, 224 100 Year Starship Symposium, 229 101955 Bennu (asteroid), 156 O’Neill, Gerard, 196, 251–52 Opportunity rover, 165 optical SETI, 190, 243 Orbital Sciences Corporation, 100–101, 275 orbits: concept of, 25 geostationary, 149–50, 150 legislation on, 146 low Earth, 49, 54, 63, 70–71, 70, 74–75, 97, 100, 110, 113–14, 151, 155, 184 manned, 40–41, 141–42 staging points from, 148 orcas, 190 Orion spacecraft, 104 Orteig, Raymond, 90 Orteig Prize, 90–91 Orwell, George, 35 OSIRIS-REx, 156 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 145–47, 198–99 “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking” (Clarke), 201 oxygen, 156, 159, 161, 170, 172, 173–74, 182, 193–95, 214 Oymyakon, Siberia, population adaptation to cold in, 119–20 ozone, as biomarker, 217 Pacific Ocean, 9, 224 Pac-Man, 175 Page, Larry, 92 Paine, Thomas, 167 Pale Blue Dot (Sagan), 121 “Pale Blue Dot,” Earth as, 53, 118–22, 121, 130 Paperclip, Operation, 141 parabolic flight, 93 paradox, as term, 241 Paratrechina longicornis (crazy ant), 193 Parkinson’s disease, 202–3 particle physics, standard model of, 256 Pascal, Blaise, 120 Pauley, Phil, 196–97 PayPal, 95, 97 Pensées (Pascal), 120 People’s Daily, 162 People’s Liberation Army, 144 Pericles, 18 Pettit, Don, 100, 273 phenotype, 6 philanthropy, 95 PhoneSat, 185 photons, 183, 186 in teleportation, 229, 230, 231 photosynthesis, as biomarker, 217 pigs, 250 Pinker, Steven, 16 Pioneer probes, 50, 51–52 piracy, 24 Pitcairn Island, 202 planetary engineering, 172 Planetary Resources, 156 planetary science, 51–52, 176 Planetary Society, 184 planets: exploration of, 49–53 formation of, 156 plate techtonics, 132, 241 play, imagination in, 10, 14 pluralism, 17–20, 17, 49 plutonium, 66 poetry, space, 272–73 politics, space exploration and, 63–64, 104, 141, 214, 238 Polyakov, Valeri, 115, 167–68 population bottleneck, 201–2, 287 Poynter, Jane, 193 Princess of Mars, A (Burroughs), 164 Principia (Newton), 25 Project Orion, 221, 221 Project Ozma, 187–88, 237, 253 prokaryotes, 172 property rights, in space, 145–47, 198 Proton rockets, 65, 113 proton scoop, 222–23 Proxmire, William, 238 Puerto Rico, 239, 243 pulsar, 131 Pythagorean Theorem, 238 Qian Xuesen, 141 Qi Jiguang, 24 Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, 92 quantum entanglement, 230–32, 230 quantum genesis, 255 quantum mechanics, 258 quantum teleportation, 230–32, 230 quantum theory, 189 qubits, 230 Queloz, Didier, 126–28, 133 R-7 rocket, 37 R-16 rocket, 43 radiation, infrared, 109, 253–54, 254 radioactivity, as energy source, 124, 181 radio waves, 66, 187, 189, 242 ramjets, 222–23 RAND Corporation, 222 Rare Earth hypothesis, 241 RCS Energia, 106 RD-180 engine, 72 Reagan, Ronald, administration of, 167, 271 reality TV, 75, 171, 214, 282 “Realm of Fear,” 229 reasoning, human capacity for, 13–17, 18–19 red dwarfs, 131 Red Mars (Stanley), 174 Red Scare, 141 Redstone rocket, 36–37, 71 reindeer, 119–20 remote sensing, 175–91, 224 RepRap Project, 227 reproduction, sexual, 6, 172 Ride, Sally, 74 “Right Stuff,” as term, 71, 114 Right Stuff, The (Wolfe), 272 Ringworld series (Niven), 253 risk: as basic to human nature, 9, 262 genetic factor in, 10–12 of living on Mars, 167–70 in pushing human limits, 120 of space tourism, 102, 105–9, 155 of space travel, 42–43, 55–56, 56, 106–9, 152–53 Robinson, Kim Stanley, 174 robonaut project, 179 robots, robotics: as aids to humans, 249, 250 in asteroid redirection, 104 commercial, 178 ethical issues of, 179 nanotechnology in, 179–82, 181 remote control of, 177–78 remote sensing through, 176 self-assembly and self-replication by, 226–28, 258, 259 in spacecraft, 50, 100, 100 space exploration by, 53–57, 66, 98, 133, 161, 177–79, 179, 208, 224–28 see also cyborgs; nanobots Rocketdyne, 112 rocket equation, 27, 53, 72–73, 110–11, 111, 148, 220, 268 rocket fuel, 110–13, 148, 156, 159, 161 comparison of efficiency of, 219–24 Rocket Performance Calculator, 222 rockets: alternatives to, 148–53 “bible” of, 267 challenges in launching of, 43–44, 46–49, 106, 107, 111–12, 148 comparison of US and Soviet, 44 cost of, 112–13, 113 developing technology of, 21–39, 43, 101, 103, 112–13, 183, 262 fuel for, 110–13, 148, 156, 159, 161, 220–21 launched from planes, 84 liquid-fueled, 28–29, 29 physics and function of, 110–14 proposed energy technologies for, 220–24 reusable, 101, 103, 111, 112, 113 solar sails compared to, 183 as term, 23 visionaries in development of, 26–30, 94 in warfare, 22–24, 30, 32–34 see also specific rockets “Rockets to the Planets in Space, The” (Oberth), 28 Rogers Commission, 271 Rohrabacher, Dana, 284 Rome, ancient, 18, 67, 163 Rovekamp, Roger, 207 rovers, 66–67, 92, 125, 140, 143, 158, 165, 167 nanotechnology in, 181–82 remote sensing through, 176 Rozier, Jean-François de, 68 RP-1 kerosine, 110 RS-25 rocket, 112 Russia, 23, 26–27, 149, 178 space program of, 37, 65–66, 72, 75, 84, 91, 104, 106, 107–8, 113, 114, 140, 143, 168, 184, 195, 200, 271 space tourism by, 75, 102 tensions between US and, 72 see also Soviet Union Russian Revolution, 27, 47 Russian Space Agency, 102 Rutan, Burt, 72, 82–86, 85, 88, 88, 89, 91, 97–98, 105–6, 214 Rutan, Dick, 83–84 Rutan Aircraft Factory, 83 Saberhagen, Fred, 177, 259 Sagan, Carl, 53, 121–22, 121, 176–77, 184, 198, 234–35, 238, 240 Sahakian, Barbara, 98 Sahara Desert, 238 sails: solar, 183–86, 185 wind-driven, 67–68, 183, 262 Salyut space station, 54, 108 satellites: artificial Earth, 36–39, 37, 40, 65, 71, 106 commercial, 96, 105 communications, 101, 142, 153 in energy capture, 253 geostationary, 149 GPS, 144 launching of, 154, 154 miniature, 90, 184–85 Saturn: moon of, 125, 227 probes to, 52–53 as uninhabitable, 125 Saturn V rocket, 43, 44, 46, 54, 83, 104, 111, 113, 113, 166 Scaled Composites, 83, 89 science fiction, 192, 196, 222, 223, 239, 250, 253 aliens in, 186–87 in film, 28, 204 Mars in, 164, 174 roots of, 20 technologies of, 228–32, 259 see also specific authors and works scientific method, 213 Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), 187–90, 234, 239, 254 evolution and technology of, 237–39, 242–43, 242 lack of signals detected by, 236–37, 240–44 new paradigms for, 258 “Searching for Interstellar Communications” (Cocconi and Morrison), 187 sea travel: early human migration through, 8, 9 exploration by, 109, 262 propulsion in, 67–68 self-replication, 226–28, 258, 259 Senate, US, Armed Services Preparedness Committee of, 39 SETI Institute, 188 78–6 (pig), 250 sex: promiscuous, 12 in reproduction, 6, 172 in space, 200, 214 Shackleton Energy Company, 161 Shane, Scott, 98 Shatner, William, 88–89 Shelley, Mary, 206 Shenlong (“Divine Dragon”), 145 Shenzhou 10, 142–43 Shepard, Alan, 41, 84 Shostak, Seth, 243 Siberia, 65, 119–20, 238 population dispersion into, 8, 118, 218 Sidereal Messenger, The (Galileo), 270 Siemienowicz, Kazimierz, 267 Simonyi, Charles, 75 Sims, 175 simulation: infinite regression in, 261 living in, 257–62 simulation hypothesis, 261 Sinatra, Frank, 45 singularity, 207 in origin of cosmos, 255 and simulation, 257–62 technological, 258–59 Singularity University, 94, 259 Skylab space station, 54, 116 Skype video, 176 smart motes, 181, 225 smartphones, 92, 185 Smithsonian Institution, 30, 81 Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 85, 91, 271 Snow Crash (Stephenson), 103 Snowden, Edward, 178 social media, 195 Sojourner rover, 165 SolarCity, 96–97 solar flares, 167 solar power, 96, 181, 183–86 solar sails, solar sailing, 183–86, 185, 223, 225, 227 Solar System: discovery of first planet beyond, 126–27 edge of, 50, 53, 121 formation of, 156 habitability potential in, 122, 124–26 latency variations in, 178 probes into, 51–52, 66, 177, 185–86, 208, 270 projected travel within, 248–49, 263 property rights in, 145–47, 198 worlds beyond, 126–29, 156, 208, 215, 250, 263 solar wind, 162, 223 sound barrier, breaking of, 69, 71 South America, 11, 202, 218 Soviet Union, 30, 34, 37, 141 fall of, 47, 65, 75, 197, 271–72 rocket development in, 35–39 space program failures and losses of, 43, 47, 50–51, 54, 269 space program of, 37–39, 40–43, 141, 149, 237, 271 Soyuz spacecraft, 43, 55, 75, 84, 91, 102, 106, 113, 143 crash of, 107–8 space: civilians in, 55, 74 civilian vs. military control of, 37–39, 69–71, 79, 153 commercialization of, 55, 63, 73–76, 79–80, 88–89, 92, 97, 99–109, 100, 110, 147, 153–56, 154, 199, 214, 249, 275 debris in, 144, 152 first American in, 41 first man in, 40–41, 41 first women in, 40, 74 as infinite, 18, 19, 22 as inhospitable to human beings, 53–54, 114–17, 121 legislation on, 39, 78, 90, 144, 145–47, 198–200 living in, 192–208 “living off the land” in, 166, 200 peaceful exploration of, 39 potential for human habitabilty in, 123 prototype for sealed ecosystem in, 192–97 Space Act (1958), 39, 90 Space Adventures, 102, 275 space colonization: challenges of, 197–201 cyborgs in, 204–8 evolutionary diversion in, 201–4 legal issues in, 198–200 of Mars, 166–71, 169, 192, 195, 203 off-Earth human beings in, 215, 250–51 prototype experiments for, 192–97 space elevators, 27, 148–53, 150, 160–61, 185, 280 “Space Exploration via Telepresence,” 178 Spaceflight Society, 28 space hotels, 102–3 Space Launch System (SLS), 104 space mining, 155–56, 161–62 “Space Oddity,” 142 spaceplanes, 71–72, 85, 144 Spaceport America, 1–6, 105 Space Race, 35–39, 37, 40–43, 50, 55, 139 SpaceShipOne, 72, 85, 85, 88–89, 88, 91 SpaceShipTwo, 88, 101, 105 Space Shuttle, 45, 46, 49, 64, 72, 84, 85, 111–13, 112, 159, 167, 194, 219–20, 222, 275 disasters of, 55–56, 56, 74–75, 107, 111–13 final flight of, 271 limitations of, 55–56, 64–65 as reusable vehicle, 54–55 space sickness, 114 spacesuits, 89, 182, 195–96 space-time, 255, 255 manipulation of, 258 space tourism, 63, 73, 75–76, 79–80, 88–89, 91, 101–3, 154, 170, 214 celebrities in, 88, 101–2 revenue from, 154–55, 155 risks of, 102, 105–9, 155 rules for, 105 space travel: beyond Solar System, see interstellar travel bureaucracy of, 105–10, 271 cost of, 39, 42, 45, 49, 54, 55, 66, 75, 81–82, 91, 112–14, 113, 139–49, 153, 155–56, 158–59, 161, 166, 179, 183, 198, 214, 217, 222, 224–26, 252, 270, 275, 284 early attempts at, 21–22, 22 effect of rocket equation in, see rocket equation entrepreneurs of, 81–98 erroneous predictions about, 214 failures and disasters in, 21–22, 22, 38, 43, 47, 50–51, 54–56, 56, 63–64, 68, 72, 74–75, 101, 102, 107, 142, 184, 269, 271, 275 fatality rate of, 107–9 fictional vignettes of, 1–4, 59–62, 135–38, 209–12 Internet compared to, 76–80, 77, 80 life extension for, 250–51 lifetimes lived in, 251 living conditions in, 114–17 new business model for, 99–105 Newton’s theories as basis of, 25 obstacles to, 21, 63, 66–67, 105–109 space travel (continued) as part of simulation, 261–62 public engagement in, 45, 73, 85, 93, 162, 177, 217 remote sensing vs., 175–91 risks of, 43–44, 83, 89, 93, 105–9 speculation on future of, 76–80, 133, 213–32, 248–52 suborbital, 84 telescopic observation vs., 49–50 visionaries of, 26–39, 80, 94, 109 SpaceX, 96, 97, 100–103, 113–14, 275 SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, 96, 100, 100, 102, 170 special theory of relativity, 228, 231 specific impulse, 220 spectroscopy, 127, 165, 176 spectrum analyzer, 237 Speer, Albert, 34 Spielberg, Steven, 238 Spirit of St.

The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos by Christian Davenport

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Boeing 747, Burning Man, Charles Lindbergh, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, cuban missile crisis, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, Gene Kranz, high net worth, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Kwajalein Atoll, life extension, low earth orbit, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Society, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, multiplanetary species, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, obamacare, old-boy network, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, private spaceflight, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Scaled Composites, Silicon Valley, SpaceShipOne, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, tech billionaire, TED Talk, traumatic brain injury, Virgin Galactic, VTOL, X Prize, zero-sum game

“Well, I don’t think you’ll be coming back”: Elon Musk, “Stanford University Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders” lecture, October 8, 2003. “The online financial payment system”: Ibid. Given the size of the rock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaW4Ol3_M1o. “We were both interested”: Junod, “Elon Musk.” “Because, of course”: Elon Musk, “Mars Pioneer Award” acceptance speech, 15th Annual International Mars Society Convention, August 4, 2012. “I just did not want Apollo”: Pat Morrison Q & A with Elon Musk, “Space Case,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 2012. As a winged spaceplane: Elon Musk, Stanford lecture. Space was still the exclusive: For more on SpaceX’s early days, see Ashlee Vance, “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” Ecco, May 19, 2015.

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Dallos, “Pan Am Has 90,002 Reservations: Public Interest Grows in Flights to the Moon,” Los Angeles Times, February 19, 1985. Branson’s version of space: Paul Allen, Idea Man (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2011), 243. 7. THE RISK “The United States is a distillation”: Elon Musk, “Mars Pioneer Award” acceptance speech, 15th Annual International Mars Society Convention, 2012. As a guidebook pointed out: David Goodman, Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast (Boston: Appalachian Mountain Club Books, 2010). In modern society: Paul O’Neil, The Epic of Flight, Barnstormers & Speed Kings (New York: Time-Life Books, 1981). “If we die”: John Barbour, “Footprints on the Moon,” Associated Press, 1969.

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil Degrasse Tyson, Avis Lang

Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Arthur Eddington, asset allocation, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, carbon-based life, centralized clearinghouse, cosmic abundance, cosmic microwave background, dark matter, Gordon Gekko, high-speed rail, informal economy, invention of movable type, invention of the telescope, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Johannes Kepler, Karl Jansky, Kuiper Belt, Large Hadron Collider, Louis Blériot, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mars Society, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Pluto: dwarf planet, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI@home, space junk, space pen, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, the scientific method, trade route

Northrop Grumman: 120,000. General Dynamics: 90,000. NASA: 18,000. Not all of the people at those big companies are involved in space, of course, plus there are other companies with many fewer employees. How about membership organizations? The Planetary Society, the National Space Society, and the Mars Society combined: maybe 100,000 people. If you add them all up—I did this exercise—there are no more than half a million engaged in this industry in the United States. Half a million. That’s one-sixth of one percent of the nation’s population. Now, here’s the problem. We get viewed as though we’re some kind of special interest group, so let’s compare ourselves with other special interest groups.

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., 216–17 Laplace, Pierre-Simon de, 117–18 Large Hadron Collider, 80, 82 lasers, 167 Lauer, Matt, 210–11 Launching Science, 169–70 Leno, Jay, 144–45 Le Verrier, Urbain-Jean-Joseph, 248 L5 Society, 175 life: chemical components of, 35–36 diversity of, 34–35 extinction episodes of, 49 extraterrestrial, see extraterrestrial life on Mars, 48, 259 search for, 41, 325 light, 30, 90, 93, 258 speed of, 109, 164, 195 LightSail-1, 167 Lindbergh, Charles, 110 Lindsay, John, 67 Lockheed Martin, 236 Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, 23 long-period comets, 46–47 Lovell, Jim, 112 low Earth orbit (LEO), 113 Luna 9 rover, 70 Luna 13 rover, 70 Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, 149–50 Lunar Orbiter spacecraft, 149 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), 150 MacHale, Des, 234 Madonna, 203 Magellan, Ferdinand, 95, 96 Major Mysteries of Science (Garbedian), 110 Manhattan Project, 80 many-body problem, 117–18 Mars, 7, 8, 14, 40, 46, 55, 77, 115, 129, 168, 188, 195, 200, 209 cratering on, 52 Earth viewed from, 27 life on, 48, 259 methane on, 31, 78, 138 proposed mission to, 78–79, 81–83 rocks ejected from, 48–49 rovers on, 130–33, 134, 138, 163, 198 Soviet achievements and, 122 water on, 48, 134, 138, 201, 227 Mars Express Orbiter, 138 Mars Global Surveyor, 138 Marshall Space Flight Center, 67 Mars Society, 236 mass extinction, 51 McAuliffe, Christa, 243 McDonald’s, 238 McNair, Ron, 234 Mécanique Céleste (Laplace), 117 Mercury (god), 108 Mercury (planet), 52, 115, 118 orbit of, 248 Mercury program, 7, 114 MESSENGER probe, 139 meteorites, 48 Tunguska River impact of, 50 see also asteroids methane, 30 on Mars, 31, 78, 138 on Titan, 138–39 Mexico, 50 microscope, 85–86 Microsoft, 136 microwaves, 41, 90, 91–92, 129, 141 microwave telescope, 91–92 Milky Way galaxy, 34, 41, 93, 97–101, 143, 147, 259 Andromeda galaxy and, 118–19 orbit of stars in, 118 radio emissions from center of, 90 Shapley-Curtis debate on, 98–101 Mir space station, 6, 165, 319 Mitchell, Edgar, 3 Mongols, 205–6 Moon, xiii–xiv, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 46, 47, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 86, 89, 97, 111–12, 119, 132, 149, 186, 195, 196, 200, 220, 245 cratering on, 50, 57 Earth viewed from, 27 40th anniversary of landing on, 144 proposed return mission to, 55–56, 76–77, 83 rocks ejected from, 48 Soviet achievements and, 122 see also Apollo program, Apollo 11 motion, third law of, 153, 158 multiverse, 259 NanoSail-D, 167 NASA Flexibility Act of 2004, 330 National Academy of Public Administrations, 322 National Academy of Sciences, 11, 98, 325 National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, xv, 4, 58, 66, 125, 252, 265–91, 328 access to information in, 273–74 aerospace vehicle in, 282–84 amended text of, 265–91 appropriations in, 284–85, 286 awards in, 278–79 civilian-military liaison in, 271 congressional reporting in, 271 excess land in, 272 insurance in, 281–84 international cooperation in, 271, 291 inventions in, 276–78 jurisdiction in, 290 launch vehicle contracts in, 285–86 lawsuits in, 279–80 misuse of name in, 285 National Advisory Committee in, 272–73 prize authority in, 286 property leases in, 289 property rights in, 276–77 purpose and objectives of, 265–67 recovery authority in, 290 security in, 274–75 transfer of functions in, 273 upper atmosphere research in, 290–91 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2000, 326–27 National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), 59–60, 89, 114, 162, 166–68, 192, 199–200, 203, 219, 305, 306, 309 acquisition of space science data and, 314–15 additional activities of, 313–14 aero-space transportation technology integration plan of, 323–24 anchor tenancy contracts and, 308–9 Astronaut Pen of, 194 budget of, xiv, 10, 12, 15, 56, 75, 150, 169–70, 209–10, 212, 228, 237 carbon cycle research program of, 325–26 civil rights movement and, 66–67 creation of, 5–6, 66–67, 125, 267 decision making at, 146 deputy administrator of, 328 divisions of, 9 Earth science data sources and, 315–16 economic impact of, 237 expert input and, 146–47 Exploration Award of, 146–47 functions of, 265–72 future and, 252–53 Human Space Flight Innovative Technology program of, 324 international politics and, 5–7 Mars rovers and, 130–34 new Mars mission and, 77–78 new Moon mission and, 56, 77–78 number of employees of, 236 Obama on role of, 11–12 Obama’s vision of, 11–17 100th anniversary of flight initiative and, 326 payloads of, 313–14 political partisanship and, 4–5, 13–14 reorganization of, 329 scientific value of, 9–11 spending by, xv, 7–9, 25, 193–94, 331–32, 333–35 statutory provisions applicable to, 293–94 use of government facilities and, 309 vision statement of, 68 working capital fund of, 328 see also specific centers, programs, and vehicles National Air and Space Museum, 7–8, 23, 144 National Commission on Excellence in Education, 58 National Defense Education Act of 1958, 125 National Defense Scholarships, 125 National Geographic channel, 231 National Institute of Standards and Technology, 12, 306–7 National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, 306 National Institutes of Health, 209 National Museum of Natural History, 98 National Research Council, 169, 322 National Science Foundation, 11–12, 23, 125, 219, 305 National Security Council, 124 National Space Grant College and Fellowship Act of 1987, 295–303 administrative services, 301 appropriations, 303 competitive awards, 303 contracts, 298–99 fellowship program in, 300–301 functions of, 297–98 grants in, 298–99 identity of needs in, 299 personnel services in, 301 purpose of, 295–96 regional consortium in, 300 reports to Congress in, 302–3 review panel in, 301 National Space Institute, 175 National Space Society, 146, 175, 236 National Space Symposium, 222 National Technical Information Service, 304 “Nation at Risk, A,” 58 Natural History, xiii NBC, 144, 178 Neptune, 27, 36, 46, 115, 119, 157 discovery of, 248 Netherlands, 7 neutrinos, 94 Newcomb, Simon, 216 New Horizons spacecraft, 168 New Scientist, 123 Newton, Isaac, 65, 113–17, 119, 153, 158, 192, 247, 257 New York, N.Y., 96, 124, 224, 238 New York Times, 55, 96, 110, 124, 216–17 NEXT ion propulsion system, 170 Nigeria, 23 nitrogen, 101, 239, 240, 258 Nixon, Richard M., 4–5, 225 Nobel, Alfred Bernhard, 88 Nobel Prize, 88–89, 94, 206 North Atlantic Drift current, 93 North Carolina, 109, 216 Northrop Grumman, 236 Norway, 7 NOVA (TV series), 231 novae, 100 NRA, 236 nuclear power, 159, 168–69 numbers: Arabic, 205 increasing powers of, 237–38 Obama, Barack, 11, 14–16, 76, 186–87, 252 space policy and, 77 Obama administration, 75 Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, 311 Office of Human Spaceflight, 323–24 Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, 323 Office of Management and Budget, 318 Office of Research and Technology Applications, 303–4, 305 Ohio, 4–5, 184–85 O’Neill, Gerard K., 8, 175 Onizuka, Ellison, 243 Opportunity (Mars exploration rover), 130–32, 138 orbits, 113–20 of Earth, 115 elongated, 115–16 free fall and, 119 many-body problem and, 117–18 of Mercury, 248 of Pluto, 115 sling-shot effect and, 119–20 of stars, 118 suborbital trajectories and, 114 three-body problem and, 116–17 of Venus, 115 Orellana, Francisco de, 197 organic chemistry, 36, 48 Origin of Species (Darwin), 98 oxygen, 31, 35–36, 101, 158, 239, 240, 258 ozone, 51, 93 Pakistan, 49 Panama Canal, 87 panspermia, 48–49, 259 Parliament, British, 217 “Passport to the Universe” (Druyan and Soter), 256 Pegasus, 108 Penzias, Arno, 92 perturbation theory, 118 Peru, 196–97 Pfeiffer, Michelle, 203 photosynthesis, 31 Pigliucci, Massimo, 75–83 Pioneer anomaly, 244–45, 248–51 Pioneer program: Pioneer 0, 245 Pioneer 3, 245 Pioneer 4, 245 Pioneer 5, 245 Pioneer 9, 245 Pioneer 10, 118, 244–45, 247, 248–50 Pioneer 11, 168, 244–45, 247, 249 Pioneer 12, 245 Pioneer 13, 245 Pizarro, Gonzalo, 196–97 planetary motion, first law of, 115 Planetary Society, 166–67, 193, 236, 250 Pluto, 82, 112, 118, 128, 168, 195, 201 orbit of, 115 Pravda, 121 Prescott, William H., 196 Presidential Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, 59–60, 146 President’s Commission on Higher Education, 125 Prince (singer), 203 Principia (Newton), 113 Project Prometheus, 169–70 propulsion: alternate fuels for, 157–59 antimatter drive and, 170–71 chemical fuel for, 163 electricity and, 165 in-space, 170 ion-thruster engine and, 164–65, 170 nuclear power and, 159, 168–69 rocket equation and, 153–54, 157 and slowing down, 155–56 solar sails and, 159, 165–67, 170 third law of motion and, 153, 158 xenon gas and, 164–65 Proxima Centauri, 195–96 Ptolemy, Claudius, 34, 65 pulsars, 29 Qatar, 5 quasars, 91 R-7 rocket, 126 racism, 66–67 radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), 168–69 radio telescopes, 91 radio waves, 28–29, 30, 31, 39, 90–91 radium, 96 RAND Corporation, 218 Ranger 7 spacecraft, 70 Reagan, Ronald, 5, 6 relativity, general theory of, 94–95, 101, 248, 250 relativity, special theory of, 195–96 Republicans, 4–5, 15, 17, 224–25 Resnik, Judith, 243 robots, 129, 134 in space exploration, 57, 89–90, 128, 130–32, 187, 198, 199, 202 rocket equation, 153–54, 157 rockets: flybys and, 157 liquid-fueled, 192 phallic design of, 222–23 propulsion of, see propulsion Rodriguez, Alex, 114 Röntgen, Wilhelm, 94, 96, 135 Royal Society, 216 Russia, xiv, 6, 22, 162, 168 ISS and, 319 Star City training center of, 73, 74, 207 Sagan, Carl, 27, 28, 43, 193, 256 Salyut space module, 6 Sarge (comedian), 234 satellites, xiii, xiv, 60, 71, 94 communication, 129 first US, 124–25 Saturn, 31, 82, 112, 115, 119, 138, 157, 168, 210, 225, 245 radio emissions from, 90–91 Saturn V rocket, 15, 127, 154, 158, 172, 214, 219, 220, 229 as a wonder of the modern world, 232–33 Schmitt, Harrison, 69, 132 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 153 science, 206, 226 Arabs and, 205–6 discovery and, 98 emerging markets and, 209–10 literacy in, 57–59, 230–31, 235–36 multiple disciplines and, 209–10 Scientific American, 223 scientific method, 86 Scobee, Dick, 242 Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation, 146 Senate, US, 5, 146, 328 Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee of, 272 and appointments to Commission on Future of Aerospace Industry, 316 Appropriations Committee of, 321, 329 Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee of, 288, 321, 323, 324, 329 sense of wonder, 64–65 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 206 Sesame Street (TV show), 257 SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence), 41, 325 Shapley, Harlow, 98–101 Shatner, William, 180 Shaw, Brewster, 221 Shepard, Alan B., 114 short-period comets, 46 Siberia, 50 Sims, Calvin, 55–62 Sirius, 178 Skylab 1 (space station), 214 slingshot effect, 119–20 Smith, George O., 175 Smith, Michael, 242 Smithsonian Institution, 216 solar sails, 159, 165–67, 170 solar system, 34, 259 many-body problem and, 117–18 perturbation theory and, 118 solar wind, 176, 235, 245 solid rocket boosters, 155 Soter, Steven, 256 sound, speed of, 108–9 sound barrier, 109 South Africa, xiv South Pole, 76 Soviet Union, xiii, 8, 94, 133, 194, 215, 218 US rivalry with, 5–6, 59, 79, 87, 121–27, 133, 192, 219 see also Sputnik space, space exploration: colonization of, 57, 60, 102–3 cosmic microwave background in, 92, 94–95 cross-discipline endeavor in, 24–25, 230 culture and, 72–74, 147–48, 210–11 early attitudes toward, 217–18 economic motivation for, 200–201 factions against, 8–10 in Galef/Pigliucci interview of author, 75–83 inventions statute and, 311 justification for funding of, 78–81 militarization of, 60 numbers employed in, 236–37 politics and, 3–5 proposed programs and missions for, 201–2 robots and, 57, 89–90, 128, 130–32, 187, 198, 199, 202 significance of, 102 Soviet achievements in, 122–26 special interests and, 5, 236–37 stellar nurseries in, 93 technological innovation and, 12 US-Soviet rivalry and, 5–6, 59, 79, 87, 121–27, 133, 192, 219 war as driver of, 219–20 Space Cowboys (film), 162 Space Exploration Initiative, 8 Space Foundation, 221–22 Spaceguard Survey, The: Report of the NASA International Near-Earth Object Detection Workshop, 50 space junk, 176 space shuttle, 7, 12, 25, 109, 160–62, 165, 201, 202, 228, 281 contingency funding for, 321–22 fuel of, 158 launch costs of, 320–22 main parts of, 154–55 pricing policy for, 314 retirement of, 14–16, 143, 214 speed of, 222 use policy for, 312–13 weight of, 155 see also specific vehicles Space Station Freedom, 6, 8 Space Studies Board, 169 Space Technology Hall of Fame, 221, 230–31, 237 Space Telescope Science Institute, 10, 23, 135–36 Space Transportation System, 314 space travel, 191–98 coasting in, 247 in Colbert–author interview, 186–88 danger of, 198 financing of, 193–94 in Hollywood movies, 194–95 Moon missions and, 192–93 robots and, 198 special relativity and, 195–96 Space Travel Symposium, 111 Spain, 7, 87 spectroscopy, 30 Spirit (Mars exploration rover), 130–33, 138 Spitzer Space Telescope, 139 Sputnik, xiii, 5, 59, 79, 113–14, 133, 192, 218 50th anniversary of, 226 US response to, 122–24 Star City (training center), 73, 74, 207 Stars & Atoms (Eddington), 107 Star Trek (TV series), 3, 164, 170 45th anniversary of, 178–81 human behavior and, 180 technology of, 179 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (film), 37–38 Star Wars (film series), 131 State Department, US, 312 Stewart, Jon, 4 Stone, Sharon, 203 subatomic particles, 94 Sugar, Ron, 221 Sun, 27, 28, 29, 33, 46, 58, 72, 97, 112, 117, 118, 138, 195, 245 Copernican principle and, 34 energy emitted by, 93 fusion in, 101 neutrinos emitted by, 94 planets’ orbits and, 115 Superconducting Super Collider, 6–7, 80–81 Sweden, 7 Swift, Philip W., 223 Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer, 139 Switzerland, 7 Sykes, Wanda, 17 Systems of the World, The (Newton), 113 Taj Mahal, 88 Tamayo-Méndez, Arnaldo, 122 TASS, 123 Taylor, Charles E., 219 technology, 89, 200, 226 aero-space integration plan for, 323–24 in alien observation of Earth, 29–32 CRDAs policy on transfer of, 304–6 energy conservation and, 96 engineering, 95 Industrial Revolution and, 95 information, 95 leadership and, 23 multiple disciplines and, 135–37 nonsectarian philosophies and, 206 predicting future of, 215–16 progress in, 218–19 space exploration and, 135 of Star Trek, 179 US lag in, 21–22 telescopes, 71, 82, 85–86, 94, 141, 225 microwave, 91–92 radio, 91 ultraviolet, 93 Tereshkova, Valentina, 122 Texas, 6 Thompson, David, 221 three-body problem, 116–17 Three Gorges Dam, 22, 233 Three Mile Island meltdown, 168 Titan, 31 Huygens probe to, 138–39 methane on, 138–39 Today Show (TV show), 210–11 Tonight Show (TV show), 144–45 Toth, Viktor, 250 Townsend, W.

Moon Rush: The New Space Race by Leonard David

agricultural Revolution, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Colonization of Mars, cuban missile crisis, dark pattern, data acquisition, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, financial engineering, Google X / Alphabet X, gravity well, Jeff Bezos, Late Heavy Bombardment, life extension, low earth orbit, Mars Society, multiplanetary species, Neil Armstrong, out of africa, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, telepresence, telerobotics, Virgin Galactic

It may be that international and even commercial partners come through to provide some of what’s needed. Whether NASA pays contractors directly to build infrastructure or plunks down cash for services purchased through public-private partnerships—either way, the Gateway will still cost major bucks. Not everybody backs the proposed Gateway. Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, a public advocacy group, considers the Gateway a “boondoggle.” With a cost of several tens of billions of dollars, at the least, he says the pricey facility falls short in delivering a useful purpose. His verdict: We do not need a lunar-orbiting station to go to the Moon, or to Mars, or to near-Earth asteroids.

4th Rock From the Sun: The Story of Mars by Nicky Jenner

3D printing, Alfred Russel Wallace, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Astronomia nova, cuban missile crisis, Dennis Tito, Elon Musk, fake news, game design, Golden age of television, hive mind, invention of the telescope, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Late Heavy Bombardment, low earth orbit, Mars Society, Neil Armstrong, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, overview effect, placebo effect, Pluto: dwarf planet, retrograde motion, selection bias, silicon-based life, Skype, Stephen Hawking, technoutopianism, TED Talk, Virgin Galactic

For many, despite the fearsome Great Galactic Ghoul and the many challenges of getting there, despite the likelihood of losing vision and muscle mass and mental acuity and bone and even years off one’s lifespan, despite missing loved ones and pets and home comforts, despite never again being able to see Earth’s night sky, breathe fresh mountain air, sip a favourite beer on a hot summer’s day or swim in the sea, despite the arduousness and expense and loneliness and danger and unimaginably long timeline of it all, the answer is still absolutely, unequivocally, ‘yes’. ‘If I ask any American what happened in 1492, they’ll tell me, “Well Columbus sailed in 1492”, and that is correct, he did,’ said engineer Robert Zubrin, founder and president of the Mars Society and one of the most outspoken proponents of the manned exploration of Mars, in 2014. ‘But that’s not the only thing that happened in 1492. In 1492, England and France signed a peace treaty. In 1492, the Borgias took over the papacy. In 1492, Lorenzo de’ Medici, the richest man in the world, died.

The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron by Rebecca Winters Keegan

call centre, Colonization of Mars, company town, cuban missile crisis, Dennis Tito, drop ship, Mars Society, Neil Armstrong, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, the payments system

“You can see from the way the film resolves that I was a big fan of marriage, fatherhood, and true love,” Cameron says. “And I still am.” “Why the Hell Do You Wackos Want to Go to Mars?” In August 1999 at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Cameron addressed a group of about seven hundred would-be Martians. They were mostly members of the nonprofit Mars Society—scientists, engineers, students, and red-planet fans with earthbound day jobs like teaching and hotel management who advocate Mars’s exploration and settlement. “You people are all out of your minds, you know that?” Cameron taunted them. “You do understand that Mars is really, really far away, and it’s really, really cold?

Mars Crossing by Geoffrey A. Landis

affirmative action, experimental subject, Magellanic Cloud, Mars Rover, Mars Society, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics

She had gone to medical school because it seemed to be something difficult, something that promised hard problems for her to solve, and she felt most alive when she was meeting challenges. That changed in the spring of her first year of medical school. There was a talk on the campus sponsored by the Mars Society, and she had almost not gone at all. It was certainly far removed from studying medicine. In the end that was why she had gone, because she needed to take a break; she wanted to get away from the medical school and the arrogant pricks who were her fellow students, and the lecture was cheaper than a movie.

The Moon: A History for the Future by Oliver Morton

Anthropocene, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Charles Lindbergh, commoditize, Dava Sobel, Donald Trump, Easter island, Elon Musk, facts on the ground, gravity well, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, Late Heavy Bombardment, low earth orbit, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Society, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, multiplanetary species, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Norman Mailer, Pierre-Simon Laplace, planetary scale, Pluto: dwarf planet, plutocrats, private spaceflight, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, space junk, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, Stewart Brand, Strategic Defense Initiative, Ted Nordhaus, UNCLOS, Virgin Galactic, Whole Earth Catalog, X Prize

In the intermingled worlds of science fiction and scientific speculation it is accepted as easily the best target for the intentional, directed climate change known as terraforming. Its atmosphere could be thickened, its climate warmed; it could support surface water, even plants. The red planet could have its own red edge. This worldliness-in-waiting gives Mars a mystique. Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer who in 1998 founded the Mars Society, sees the settlement that the society advocates as a way—perhaps the only way—to regain a cultural vigour he thinks was lost with the closing of the American frontier at the end of the 19th century. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and, as I write, probably the world’s most talked-about entrepreneur, sees Mars as a hedge against existential all-eggs-in-the-same-basket disasters.

Realizing Tomorrow: The Path to Private Spaceflight by Chris Dubbs, Emeline Paat-dahlstrom, Charles D. Walker

Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, call centre, Charles Lindbergh, Dennis Tito, desegregation, Donald Trump, Doomsday Book, Elon Musk, high net worth, Iridium satellite, iterative process, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Kwajalein Atoll, low earth orbit, Mark Shuttleworth, Mars Society, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, multiplanetary species, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, private spaceflight, restrictive zoning, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Scaled Composites, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Silicon Valley, Skype, SpaceShipOne, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Strategic Defense Initiative, technoutopianism, Virgin Galactic, VTOL, X Prize, young professional

Pioneer Rocketplane When x PRIZE made its first big gala event announcement at St. Louis in 1996, a few competing teams had already unofficially registered. Present at the event were Pioneer Rocketplane representatives, eager for the challenge. Pioneer Rocketplane had been created by Robert (Bob) Zubrin, best known as the founder of the Mars Society and vocal supporter for Mars exploration; Mitch Burnside Clapp from the Air Force Research Lab; and Charles "Chuck" Lauer. Lauer was essentially the company's front man and Vice President of Marketing. Tall with longish silver hair and beard, he seemed a better fit at a Renaissance festival rather than hob knobbing with aerospace engineers at space conferences.

Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist by Michael Shermer

Alfred Russel Wallace, anthropic principle, anti-communist, anti-fragile, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Boycotts of Israel, Chelsea Manning, clean water, clockwork universe, cognitive dissonance, Colonization of Mars, Columbine, cosmological constant, cosmological principle, creative destruction, dark matter, deplatforming, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, fake news, Flynn Effect, germ theory of disease, Great Leap Forward, gun show loophole, Hans Rosling, heat death of the universe, hedonic treadmill, helicopter parent, Higgs boson, hindsight bias, illegal immigration, income inequality, intentional community, invisible hand, Johannes Kepler, Joseph Schumpeter, Kim Stanley Robinson, laissez-faire capitalism, Laplace demon, luminiferous ether, Mars Society, McMansion, means of production, mega-rich, Menlo Park, microaggression, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, moral panic, More Guns, Less Crime, Multics, Oklahoma City bombing, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, positional goods, power law, public intellectual, race to the bottom, Richard Feynman, Ronald Coase, Silicon Valley, Skype, social intelligence, Social Justice Warrior, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Timothy McVeigh, transaction costs, WikiLeaks, working poor, Yogi Berra

And notice what happened in France just two years after the US Constitution was ratified, “when anger boiled over to swamp any chance of rational discourse.” As Edmund Burke noted in his Reflections on the Revolution in France : “Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.” How can we avoid establishing feeble government on Mars? I put the question to Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer, President of the Mars Society, author of The Case for Mars and The Case for Space, and one of the most visionary scientists I have ever known. “I’m not going to specify a government for Mars,” Zubrin began. There will be groups of people that go to Mars and they’ll have different ideas on what the best government should be and what form of government will maximize human potential and opportunity.

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku

agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, Apollo 11, Asilomar, augmented reality, Bill Joy: nanobots, bioinformatics, blue-collar work, British Empire, Brownian motion, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, DARPA: Urban Challenge, data science, delayed gratification, digital divide, double helix, Douglas Hofstadter, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, Ford Model T, friendly AI, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hans Moravec, hydrogen economy, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, industrial robot, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of movable type, invention of the telescope, Isaac Newton, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Large Hadron Collider, life extension, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, Mars Rover, Mars Society, mass immigration, megacity, Mitch Kapor, Murray Gell-Mann, Neil Armstrong, new economy, Nick Bostrom, oil shale / tar sands, optical character recognition, pattern recognition, planetary scale, postindustrial economy, Ray Kurzweil, refrigerator car, Richard Feynman, Rodney Brooks, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Silicon Valley, Simon Singh, social intelligence, SpaceShipOne, speech recognition, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, synthetic biology, telepresence, The future is already here, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, trade route, Turing machine, uranium enrichment, Vernor Vinge, Virgin Galactic, Wall-E, Walter Mischel, Whole Earth Review, world market for maybe five computers, X Prize

Turner, former Director of Central Intelligence Chris Turney, University of Exeter, UK, author of Ice, Mud and Blood Neil deGrasse Tyson, director, Hayden Planetarium Sesh Velamoor, Foundation for the Future Robert Wallace, coauthor of Spycraft, former director of CIA’s Office of Technical Services Kevin Warwick, human cyborgs, University of Reading, UK Fred Watson, astronomer, author of Stargazer the late Mark Weiser, Xerox PARC Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us Daniel Werthimer, SETI at Home, University of California at Berkeley Mike Wessler, former scientist, MIT AI Lab Arthur Wiggins, author of The Joy of Physics Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, National Institutes of Health Carl Zimmer, science writer, author of Evolution Robert Zimmerman, author of Leaving Earth Robert Zubrin, founder, Mars Society Empires of the future will be empires of the mind. —WINSTON CHURCHILL When I was a child, two experiences helped to shape the person I am today and spawned two passions that have helped to define my entire life. First, when I was eight years old, I remember all the teachers buzzing with the latest news that a great scientist had just died.

When the Iron Lady Ruled Britain by Robert Chesshyre

Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, British Empire, corporate raider, deskilling, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, full employment, gentrification, housing crisis, manufacturing employment, Mars Society, mass immigration, means of production, Neil Kinnock, North Sea oil, oil rush, plutocrats, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, school choice, Silicon Valley, the market place, trickle-down economics, union organizing, wealth creators, young professional

There are admirable constitutional presidents like Richard von Weizsäcker of West Germany, but the odds against finding and electing such a person in a politically polarized society like Britain seem to be regrettably long. But the flummery that surrounds the royal family underpins the claustrophobic snobbery and divisions that mar society in Britain. Brian Walden, the television presenter, scarcely a radical these days, wrote: ‘Instead of all the magnificent contributions Britain has made to the world, holding centre stage, we are characterized by our snobbery, patronage, resentment, envy and social distinctions.’ Auberon Waugh, arguing in favour of the present arrangements, commented: ‘By her existence [the Queen] reassures us that we need not be guilty about such privilege as may attach to our separate conditions, since this is but a tiny reflection of the quasi-divine privilege which reposes in the monarchy.

The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity by Toby Ord

3D printing, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, availability heuristic, biodiversity loss, Columbian Exchange, computer vision, cosmological constant, CRISPR, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, deep learning, DeepMind, defense in depth, delayed gratification, Demis Hassabis, demographic transition, Doomsday Clock, Dr. Strangelove, Drosophila, effective altruism, Elon Musk, Ernest Rutherford, global pandemic, Goodhart's law, Hans Moravec, Herman Kahn, Higgs boson, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Large Hadron Collider, launch on warning, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Society, mass immigration, meta-analysis, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Nash equilibrium, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, OpenAI, p-value, Peter Singer: altruism, planetary scale, power law, public intellectual, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Recombinant DNA, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, seminal paper, social discount rate, Stanislav Petrov, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supervolcano, survivorship bias, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, the scientific method, Tragedy of the Commons, uranium enrichment, William MacAskill

“Viewpoint: When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts.” Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 62, 729–54. Greaves, H., and Ord, T. (2017). “Moral Uncertainty About Population Axiology.” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 12(2), 135–67. Griffin, M. (2008). “NASA’s Direction, Remarks at the Mars Society Convention,” August 3, 2006, in Leadership in Space: Selected Speeches of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, May 2005–October 2008 (pp. 133–8). National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Griffith, G. (November 1897). “The Great Crellin Comet.” Pearsons Weekly’s Christmas. Groenewold, H.

Ellul, Jacques-The Technological Society-Vintage Books (1964) by Unknown

Bretton Woods, conceptual framework, do-ocracy, double entry bookkeeping, flying shuttle, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, Mars Society, means of production, Norbert Wiener, price mechanism, profit motive, rising living standards, road to serfdom, spinning jenny, technological determinism, Thorstein Veblen, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto

. : h e V io l d e s jo u les par la propaganda. Paris: Callim ard; 1939. [Translatedas T h e Rape o f the Masses. London: C. RoutledgeASons; 1940] Toynbee, Arnold: Civilization 1948. on Trial. NewYork: Oxford University Press; vnesco : C ultura l Patterns and T ech n ical C h a n g e, garet Mead. 1953. a manual edited b y Mar­ Society; a Preliminary International Nature and E fficacy o f T ech n ical Education. 195a. unesco : Education in a T ech n ological Survey o f th e Valois, Georges: T ech n iq u e d e la revolution syndicate. Paris: Edition "Liberti”; 1935. Veblen, Thorstein: T h e Theory o f Business Enterprise. NewYork: Charles Scribner’sSons; 193a.