Ramblings on my Love of Space...

From: Erik Bethke (bethke@aludra.usc.edu) Newsgroups: talk.politics.space, sci.space, rec.arts.sf.science Date: October 31, 1993 - 10:19 PM PST

Okay, Okay I will admit it right off the top - I Love Space!

Antarctica is cool - How about a Biosphere III there or on the coastal seabed? Has anyone suggested this? I wouldn't mind taking a turn at this. But the seabed never has the opportunity to simply walk around in short pants and a tank top aimlessly!(Mars does - or how about the rest of the UNIVERSE!)

It the Limits thing: I don't want any limits on me! Nor do I think that it would be befitting for us to sit around and make a great social USA or world- "The year is 2500 and we have finally closed the loop on all politically - uncorrectness! Whew! NOW we can explore space guys, We just hadda know how to take care of things at home before we go muss up space Ya'Know! BUNK! I don't care to be politically correct!

Like that guy DJ320@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU said:

"Ad Astra per Guile !!!!"

Dammit! That is how we should do it! JUST DO IT! (Hire the NIKE advertising company!) F*CK lets just go! Lets believe we can do it! Lets get off our armchairs (I just pulled up my 10 year old rust armachair :^) !) and go to space!

This is our destiny! It is where else are we gonna go? Do you want to create a bio-engineered,genetically stable,politically stable, population stable world, fed by Vegie burgers from Archer-Daniells Co? Or would ya like to have a BBQ on the foothills of Olympus Mons> SF - Yes Hell Yes! Why shuffle around down here?

Yeah, why not leave the Earth as a nature preserve (that could be our PC motive for those that need more legitimate motives.) But Lets just go!

We why not have all the people of the internet get together (ha!) and find a launch site and some payloads, and why don't we start puttin' stuff up there? We don't know how? Why Not? Lets figure out how we could make the Internet Space Trading Co. (Make it sound commercial for those that need the idea of money to get them to do something.)

Why does space cost soo much? Because of people! If people want to do something then Dammitt lets do it!

Personally, I just started graduate school here, and I am studying planetary atmospheres. Why? Cause I wanna Terraform somethin! I am putting all my energy into it! But I am also trying to figure out why are the basic costs of doing space business soo expensive? It must be because of BIG GOV'T. I can see the overhead - OVERHEAD! What does this mean? It means a bunch of cream taken off the top to what end?! Ugg! It is despairing!

Common Everyone! Lets go! (I am begging you!) get passionate! Lets get political - lets get heard - LOUD! We can do anything we want! We just need some leadership! Just go in some direction - choose a launch system or two, but lets just get going! Recession? Money is an artificial contrivance that is not a Physical Law - Hell with it!

Yeah, It is a religious fever that has taken me over! What can I do now? I dunno - I read as much as possible, do some calculations and I have brought my friends together in support of space.

I AM GONNA GO! (someday :-) )

Lets just start throwing everything onto the table - everyone pitch in their expertise for free! Lets see what we know - Maybe we can just take off!

Ultimately a successful lunar/LEO/mars/asteroid colony that begins to be prosperous will eventually compete with the Earth Gov'ts Like Japan to the USA! So there is not really a great incentive to conceive a new competitor. But there is great incentive for the future populace of said competitor!

But hell I don't care about a profit, I just want to breath real cold Martian air after some Terraforming or I want my boots to crunch on Europa's water ice! I am romantic about space and I think I have a lot people like me on my side! So lets all put our minds together and do it!

Pheww! Most Passionately, Erik.

What I would like to see

A master bibliography for all space-related topics both Technical and Non, both non-fiction and fiction:

• LEO/Lunar/Martian resources/environments
• International Space Law
• Existing Space Efforts
• Proposed/Future plans
• A whos who directory
• Propulsion
• Medicine
• Nutrition
• Soil
• Light
• Batteries
• Philosophies
• Launch Vehicles
• SF Novels
• Nasa Papers
• APJ, JGR, Nature, Gov't Press, Sci Am, Omni, Class Lecture Notes, misc calculations!

Everything! Get the whole body of knowledge into a single on-line bibliography and hints on where to get the actual text with e-text encouraged!

This is the sort of thing that the Internet really excels at and we could do it just with our own time and effort!

So, Whaddya think?