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Updating the Integrated Space Plan

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-vote-for-warp-drive dept.

garyebickford writes 'Space Finance Group (in which I'm a partner) has launched a Kickstarter to fund updating the "famous Integrated Space Plan", created by Ron Jones at Rockwell International in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and can be found on walls in the industry even today. The new Plan will be a poster, but also will provide the initial core data for a new website. The permanent link will be thespaceplan.com. As additional resources become available the website will be able to contain much more information, with (eventually) advanced data management (possibly including sources like Linked Data) and visualization tools to become a resource for education, research, entertainment, and business analytics. The group also hopes to support curated crowdsourcing of some data, and is talking to Space Development companies about providing data about themselves. They hope to be able to construct new timelines and show the relations between events and entities — companies, agencies, people, etc.'

9 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. So, the famous plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Never heard of it. Next time you pitch your project, perhaps explain what it is.

  2. Nope by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2

    There are much more useful things to donate money to. If these folks believe this this is something people would buy and pin up on the wall ay home or their office, they can invest their own money and sell 'em to the ThinkGeek folks...

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re: Nope by garyebickford · · Score: 2, Informative

      Back in the day there were several thousand printed and distributed, and that was just within the industry. Rockwell International used it as a pr tool, and a copy once hung behind the desk of the NASA administrator. We've been told by some in the space development community that seeing the original is what got them into it. BBC did a documentary on it in 2007. So it continues to be a big deal in the community.

      The original was not just "blue sky" fantasies but a compilation of what the engineers of the time considered a reasonable stepwise progression from what they were building - the Shuttle, and the rest of the space technology that has been flying for a while - to what analysis showed would probably be necessary, and possible. If there had been a Congressional hearing on how to go forth, this Plan would have been one of the source materials. Of course the later time frames were increasingly speculative, of necessity. But it was not just a dreamer's fantasy.

      But our goal is even less fantastic. A poster is just a snapshot in time and is limited in how much information can be included. But a website does not have those limitations. It will start slowly, but over time we intend the website to be a useful analytics tool where you can see how things are connected as well as information about the companies and agencies. For instance, who owns SeaLaunch? What is their financial status? Their launch schedule? Their success rate? We want to be the resource for all of that.

      If the Kickstarter only just barely succeeds the website project will go slowly. (We are encouraging folks who want to help with any of this, from data collection & curation to building the back end, to pledge at the $1 level at least, to get on our contact list.) but if it's wildly successful we'll be able to build the team to make it rock.

      --
      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
  3. Send money to support our TV commercial! by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is somebody asking for money for a TV commercial for an "integrated space plan"?

    We're almost done with space. Seen the moon; it's boring. Seen Mars, it's boring. Seen Phobos and Deimos; they're just rocks. No off-earth life; might find bacteria someday. Venus and inward are too hot; outward of Mars is too cold. Satellites work fine, both at GEO and LEO. Sending people to LEO is expensive fun; might catch on if gets cheaper.

    Mission accomplished!

    1. Re:Send money to support our TV commercial! by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 2

      We're almost done with space.

      We've barely begun. Just as an example, the amount of solar energy that passes closer than the Moon equals all the world's fossil fuel reserves every minute. How many Beowulf clusters could you run with that?

  4. Poster already widely available by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A poster of the new integrated space plan is already widely available. It's a blank piece of paper - there is no plan.

    1. Re:Poster already widely available by garyebickford · · Score: 2

      "There be dragons out there" - and beyond them, the New World.

      Rumor has it that Planetary Resources has already found a good target asteroid for their mining plans. If they are successful, the price of platinum may drop from $1500/oz or thereabouts to $10/oz, turning it from a curiosity used in expensive jewelry and (in extremely small quantities) as a surface in catalytics converters into an industrial metal with huge numbers of valuable uses.

      Space Solar Power (which I'm somewhat skeptical of, mostly for reasons having to do with the politics of Earth) has the potential to replace every thermal power plant - nuclear, coal, oil - within 100 years, and providing enough power to allow all cars to be electric, thereby removing most of the present day sources of air pollution.

      An economist a few years ago analyzed the potential effects of space development, and concluded that it had the potential to improve the standard of living of everyone on Earth by a factor of 10 within 100 years.

      With that level of activity, even with the great number of robotic systems in use, the number of humans in space will gradually increase, and the cost of bringing them back to Earth will become more than the cost of keeping them up there in good health. And space habitation will become permanent.

      --
      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
  5. NSS roadmap by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, the National Space Society already has a space roadmap:
    http://www.nss.org/settlement/...

    I will also unapologetically list my twenty-some-year old Footsteps to Mars, presented at Case for Mars V, Boulder CO, 26-29 May 1993.
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com/...
    http://www.wired.com/2014/03/f...

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  6. Sorry, but this is silly by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's about as sensible as Columbus producing an 'Integrated America Plan' for how America would develop, or someone in the 50s producing an 'Integrated Computing Plan' for how computers would develop until 2050.

    All we need is cheap access to space, and plain old unplanned, couldn't-give-a-crap-what-you-think humans will do the rest.