I've been a bit busy, lately, between blogging on my Townhall blog, leaving comments all over the boards there, and working on a new novel in the Starfield Valley Tales. This one is called The Gordian Knot, for reasons that will become obvious when I finish it and you get a chance to read it. I'm up to Chapter Thirteen, probably about a 3rd of the way through the tale. Although I have a general framework for the plot, as is typical of most of my novels, this tale is character and problem driven.

 

One reason I'm not pushing very hard to sell my novels to the mass market is because I write them mainly for my pleasure and comfort, as a kind of thought experiment process exploring ways to solve problems I see in the world that are too large for any one person to deal with. As I said in a comment on Townhall yesterday, I believe it was Albert Einstein who said the solution to any problem can't be found on the same level as the causes of the problem. I'd love to get the actual quote, but I can't even remember where I read it originally and I'm too lazy to do a search on it.

 

As I see it, a lot of the world's problems are a result of the apparent loss of the frontier as a place where those discontented with the status quo can go to create their own ideas of what Heaven (or at least the Cities of Grace and Truth) looks like. Sure, there are the oceans, and the deserts, and so on--but at this point essentially all the land area is claimed by one nation or another, and the oceans are considered too hard to settle.

 

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky once said it wasn't wise to leave all our eggs in one basket. Al Globus, chair of our Space Settlement Advocacy Committee of the National Space Society also has a quote I like (don't know if it's original to him or not), "If the dinosaurs had had a space program, they'd still be here." And sorry, the order Aves doesn't count. Given that we recently saw a mountain-sized rock scalp us (well within lunar distance, possibly within geo-sync orbit if I remember right), don't you think cities in space (orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond) might be a good idea? And that presupposes we don't scalp ourselves first with a major nuclear exchange.

 

If nothing else, development of cities in space would give us essentially infinite room for expansion, to say nothing of access to limitless quantities of energy and other resources.

 

Perhaps the reason so little has been published in the mainstream media is because there's no sense of interest on the part of the general populace. But that's a case of circular reasoning. How can the general populace be interested if they don't have a clue about what's possible? I think another reason is that many in the media themselves are at best disinterested in, at worst hostile to, the whole idea of leaving Earth to build cities in space. And perhaps a third reason is that so far, we who are interested in building space cities haven't figured out how to educate the media, to say nothing of the general public. Our SSAC is working on that problem, and making a goodly amount of progress. Check out the links to NSS and to the L-5 News showing on My Space Places from time to time for more info.

 

I think, however, that we also need to follow the lead of the Mars Society in finding places here on earth where we can actually build some of designs proposed for off world settlements (mine included, of course) to test them for construction techniques, livability, and marketability. To do this, we have to reach out to the architects and civil engineers, many of whom are already interested in these areas of design and development, because they're the ones who can turn our concept drawings into construction drawings--and they have a lot better connections into the realm of money and marketing than most of us space advocates do.

 

To that end, as my primary project for the SSAC, I have proposed development of a design competition for cities that can be built on Earth or in space for adults, be they college students, laypeople (like me) or professionals with an interest in sustainable design. I've sent out emails to contacts at AIAA, AIA, and ASCE within the last day or so, and hope to have a progress report on this project soon.

 

In the meantime, Ad Astra per Levitas Nostra! (To the stars through our own High Spirits!)

 

I have FINALLY gotten all of my completed novels and story collections online, and I've now updated the link over on the List to the right (under My Space Places).

 

These are pdf files. They WILL take time to download as they range from about 1 MB to about 3 MB, depending on the length of the story. You may feel free to save them to disk for reading offline. You may also print ONE copy for yourself if you wish, the better to enjoy the artwork and/or the plan drawings in the Starfield Valley Tales. However, please respect my copyright notices and don't print multiple copies for sale. Why not just refer your friends here so they can download their own copies?

 

Of course, if you happen to know an agent who might be interested in representing me in efforts to sell publication rights to a major league publisher, or to a movie-making outfit...

 

Comments are always welcome (even negative ones if written in the manner of constructive criticism). You have no idea how glad I am that technology has finally caught up with me to the point where I can share my tales (and my artwork) with you.

 

Enjoy!

 

I have been reminded by Burt Bregman that I forgot to include The Mars Society on my list of Space Places. My apologies to Bob Zubrin and his merry band. The Mars Society does at least as much hard work as they do talk in places like Devon Island (north of the Arctic Circle in Canada) and Utah (the most Mars-like desert they can find) to prepare for the day when it becomes possible to begin the exploration, development, and settlement of Mars.

 

I've known Bob Zubrin for at least 15 years. Back then, the Front Range L5 Chapter of the National Space Society produced a public access TV show called "Spacerise." For one of those episodes, my husband got to interview Bob about the Mars Direct proposal. I have a tape of this show somewhere, but you would do better to contact the Front Range L5 (through the NSS website, under chapters) for information about possibly getting your own copy. After the taping session (I was one of the camera people), we adjourned to the nearby Dennys (on the other side of what is now Invesco Field, home of the Broncos, in Denver) for our usual party. Here I got to witness Bob's demonstration of how to bootstrap the exploration of Mars--using coffee creamers to represent the spacecraft. It was very instructive--and hilarious as one of the coffee creamers had a leak...

 

The only difference of opinion I have with Bob about Mars Direct is the Direct part. Yes, it could be done with government funding through NASA--if we had enough grassroots support to really push for it--and it would be a LOT cheaper than NASA's original (and perhaps current) plans. The problem is, we don't have enough grassroots support (the Mars movie to the contrary notwithstanding, even if it was based on Bob's plans).

 

My feeling at this point in time (always subject to change, of course) is that we need to strongly encourage the privatization of space development and the development of the tourist trade into the Earth-Moon system, as we are beginning to see with Virgin Galactic and Bigelow Aerospace. Once we've got enough reasonably wealthy people who've been to the edge of space, or into orbit, as tourists, we'll begin to see more private funding of space ventures, followed by a slow groundswell of grassroots support as people begin to realize space travel isn't just for government employees.

 

I believe that by 2020, Mars Direct will become a distinct possibility, as a largely privately funded venture. The overall plan will probably remain the same, although if we have any on-orbit facilities able to support construction using lunar materials, most of the vehicles can be built on-orbit and launched from there at a much lower cost per pound than is currently expected.

 

In the meantime, all the work being done by the Mars Society at Devon Island and in Utah will ensure that the people who go are well prepared to deal with the alien environment to be found on Mars--and beyond.

 

My focus, as always, is to help lay the ground work by providing my take on other people's ideas (as much in a positive light as possible), as well as my encouragement. I also feel that my purpose in life demands that I bring a woman's perspective to the question of what we will live in once the initial beachheads have been established in orbit, on the Moon, on Mars and beyond. Men may be comfortable roughing it indefinitely, but women expect something better. In the past, the women have allowed themselves to be dragged in the footsteps of the men and have suffered greatly for it (read the letters of some of the early women settlers in the Union Colony that became Greeley, Colorado if you don't believe me). I want to see us women go side by side with our men and keep reminding them of what we want those settlements off world to be like--beautiful and comfortable places to live and raise our children.

 

Think about it, fellows. Then take a look at my designs to get an idea of what I, at least, consider to be beautiful and comfortable. And read my Starfield Valley Tales (starting with "A Little Bit of Heaven") to see what living in such a place could be like if it were built here on Earth to serve as a test bed for similar settlements built out there.

 

And don't forget to look at the entire slide show about how we can settle the Solar System in 3 Easy Steps.

 

The NSS Space Settlement Advocacy Committee is making substantial progress on developing a section of the NSS website devoted to space settlements. I've updated the link to the L5 News and added a link to all the Don Dixon artwork done for the Stanford Torus Design, the Bernal Sphere Design, and the O'Neill Cylinder Design. Check the Space Places List to the right.

 

I'm also about to upload all my novels to a new free website (at least temporarily). Once I've done that, I'll correct the link for the Novel Sampler.

 

I'm also working on a new novel. I'll let you know when it's finished (probably at least a month or two). This one is in the Starfield Valley Tales.

 

I wish I were as good an artist as Don Dixon so I could do renderings of my designs. Oh well. Maybe someday. The problem with his renderings is now everyone thinks the different settlement types have to be built to look like the renderings. If we did that, they would be horribly expensive--far more so than they need to be--so they'd probably never be built. That's why I've developed my integrated design principles and applied them to my designs. Although I have yet to convince anyone to take me seriously, based on my years of experience in the building industry (or at least on the edge of it), I feel my designs are far more easily built, both here on Earth (as test beds) and out there (once we've worked the bugs out and developed shielding material). Not only that, but I expect my designs are a lot more livable, both here and out there, than any of the ideas I've seen so far, largely because I first asked myself what I (particularly as a woman) would want to live in.

 

But enough of that. When I can find the time, I'll see what I can do in the way of developing some renderings of my designs, particularly for Von Braun Station and Armstrong-Aldrin City.