grwalter@watmath.waterloo.edu (Fred Walter) (07/22/89)
The article about forming a group (Space Quest) got me thinking. Why not form a non-profit organization whose goal is to get everyone of its members off the planet ? The work would be done by the members; all money raised would be put back into the organization to better the facilities/do R&D/etc. The administration of the group would serve to connect people together into working groups. They would gather information on the members (regarding what everyone can do/will do) and give the information to its members and ask the members for possible plans of action. The administration would then gather all the plans and try and condense them into one plan, which would be given back to the members. This would bounce back and forth until a plan was had that everyone could live with. I can describe this better by giving a possible scenario : You have engineers who are willing to design a rocket that would be able to put a payload into orbit. You have machinists who are willing to produce the parts (and who are willing to produce the equipment needed to produce the parts). You have salemen/marketers who are willing to try and find people/corporations/etc who have a satellite that they will pay to have put in orbit. Plus you have people who are willing to do all the other necessary things. The administration would design a plan based on plans submitted by the members (eg. engineer 1 designs this part; engineer 2 designs this part; etc.) and gives it back to the members. The members would give critique the plan (engineer 1 says that he doesn't have the time to do part A, but he can do part T; engineer 3 says he can do more then he's been given; engineer 7 has some fancy hardware/software that will make certain jobs easier and is willing to let other people use it; etc. etc). Eventually, a rocket would be build, a satellite launched, and non-member money would come in, which would be used to improve facilities, so that bigger/better rockets could be built. Etc. Etc. In return for giving time/money to the organization, one would get some number of shares. When the stage is reached that people are actually being sent into space, then the people with the most shares are the people who go first. Once the organization is in a position where money is coming in, it could, instead of shares, remunerate with money the people who give time (IE. said machinist/whatever could be able to live while working on projects and gaining shares). This is a pretty rough outline. Does anyone see any obvious flaws ? Does anyone have any suggestions ? Is anyone willing to help organize something like this ? fred grwalter@watmath.uwaterloo.ca (Canadian domain) grwalter@watmath.waterloo.edu (US Internet, including CSNET) grwalter@watmath.waterloo.cdn (CDNnet and some European nets) watmath!grwalter (UUCP) uunet!watmath!grwalter (another UUCP alternative) grwalter%watmath.waterloo.edu@csnet-relay.arpa (ARPA)
leech@Apple.COM (Jonathan Patrick Leech) (07/22/89)
In article <27897@watmath.waterloo.edu> grwalter@watmath.waterloo.edu (Fred Walter) writes: >Why not form a non-profit organization whose goal is to get everyone of its >members off the planet ? This used to be called the L-5 Society, before it was sucked into the near-term political morass... I'm fond of Keith Lofstrom's suggestion that we start an L-4 Society. The largest existing organization which comes close to what you mention is the Space Studies Institute. Become a member, give everything you can, and SSI may be able to develop the tools to get us off the planet (my standard offer of details about SSI by email request goes here). -- Jon Leech (leech@apple.com) Apple Integrated Systems __@/
pezely@udel.EDU (Dan Pezely) (07/22/89)
In article <27897@watmath.waterloo.edu> grwalter@watmath.waterloo.edu (Fred Walter) writes: >The work would be done by the members; all money raised would be put back >into the organization to better the facilities/do R&D/etc. I was hoping that people who could afford to spend their on something such as this, would do just that. >The administration of the group would serve to connect people together >into working groups. They would gather information on the members >(regarding what everyone can do/will do) and give the information to its >members and ask the members for possible plans of action. The >administration would then gather all the plans and try and condense them >into one plan, which would be given back to the members. This would bounce >back and forth until a plan was had that everyone could live with. The reason for the suggestion of the space contractors owning the adminestration corporation was so that the designers could use off-the-shelf components as cheaply as possible. Even if the contractors don't want to be part of the corporation, we should still be able to use off-the-shelf components. Supposedly, we could have built massive space stations ten years ago with existing technology and have space for a population of 30,000. That should be more true today. - Daniel
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (07/23/89)
In article <20220@louie.udel.EDU> pezely@udel.EDU (Daniel Pezely) writes: >The reason for the suggestion of the space contractors owning the >adminestration corporation was so that the designers could use >off-the-shelf components as cheaply as possible. One trouble is that the aerospace contractors, by and large, do not have off-the-shelf components. They custom-build everything. The word "cheap" simply is not in their vocabulary. -- 1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo. | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
pezely@udel.EDU (Dan Pezely) (07/23/89)
In article <1989Jul22.232038.24123@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >One trouble is that the aerospace contractors, by and large, do not have >off-the-shelf components. They custom-build everything. The word "cheap" >simply is not in their vocabulary. Even if the contractors don't have "off-the-shelf" components, those contractors will certainly produce and sell the parts with a lower price tag to a subsidiary than they would to NASA. After all, NASA will pay what the contractors think they can get away with. - Daniel
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (07/23/89)
In article <20263@louie.udel.EDU> pezely@udel.EDU (Daniel Pezely) writes: >...contractors will certainly produce and sell the parts with a lower >price tag to a subsidiary than they would to NASA. After all, NASA will >pay what the contractors think they can get away with. Very true. I'm told that if you take a standard piece of off-the-shelf equipment, and run it through NASA's cost models (which tell NASA how much it ought to cost), and compare the result to the catalog price, you begin to understand why NASA's projects are so costly. -- 1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo. | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
grwalter@watmath.waterloo.edu (Fred Walter) (07/24/89)
In article <20220@louie.udel.EDU> pezely@udel.EDU (Daniel Pezely) writes: >In article <27897@watmath.waterloo.edu> grwalter@watmath.waterloo.edu (Fred Walter) writes: >>The work would be done by the members; all money raised would be put back >>into the organization to better the facilities/do R&D/etc. >I was hoping that people who could afford to spend their ?time? on something >such as this, would do just that. Someway of connecting these people together has to exist... or come into existance. What sort of information does the existing space societies collect on its members ? Do these space societies have mailouts to their members that one could 'piggyback' on ? (By 'piggyback' I mean add a page or two to the mailout describing the idea and asking for any needed info). >we could have built massive space stations ten years ago with existing >technology and have space for a population of 30,000. That should be >more true today. Hmmmm. How much would such a station cost ? How much of that estimated cost would be for labour/brain power (designing/etc) and how much for materials ? If you had 30,000 people who were willing to try and build their own station, how much would it cost/how long would it take ? Are there any books/papers out there that look at these questions and try to answer them ? fred