T HE BAY AREA, it turns out, is crawling with spaceniks -- not thefans who collect Star Trek memorabilia -- but non-scientistsimpassioned by the prospects for manned space flights and thecolonization of space.Added to these are entrepreneurs who risk theirsavings by investing in technologies to bring us to space moreeconomically and efficiently than NASA is accomplishing.
Together you have the backdrop to the National Space Society's (www.nss.org annual conference in San Jose this year.
The agenda of the International Space Development Conferencerunning Friday through Monday will focus on entrepreneurism in spaceand attempt to attract venture capitalists to fund startup companieseager to build cheap ways of flying high.
Technology writer Sam Coniglio voiced the frustration of manyspace activists to whom NASA is a dirty word.
"The space program has gone
nowhere," he said. "There's frustration that NASA sends people2,000 miles up, and that's it. There's no settling of space, norunning of businesses up there.
"We have to start lobbying Congress to promote businesses," hesaid.
To do so also means educating investors. According to Coniglio,venture capitalists in Silicon Valley "have no clue what the spaceindustry is."
"They are thinking the only profit-making ventures aresatellites," he said. "Our point of view is that there is much morepotential."
The tragic loss of the space shuttle Columbia hasn't dampened thedrive of the activists and entrepreneurs. But it remains to be seenwhether investors are still willing to pony up.
Besides space activists' beef with the government, there isinternal dissension among the activists as well. There are scores ofspecial interest groups, and individualists are the norm.
Civil engineer Kevin Greene wants to retire in zero gravity toassuage his arthritis. More seriously, he believes this country'sdefense "depends on space-based assets."
To Brook E. Mantia, a legal assistant and president of the GoldenGate chapter of the National Space Society ( www.nss.org, an interestin space exploration and settlement supports her world view that lifeon Earth is fast becoming intolerable because of overpopulation andpollution. "My feeling right now is, 'Get me off this planet!'"
She sees the splintering of interests among space activists asunproductive.
"Basically, we all have the same goal. But one group really wantsto go to the moon. One to Mars. We start arguing about that insteadof talking to each other," she lamented.
Pat Montoure, a computer design drafter for Loral Space &Communications, a satellite communications company in Palo Alto, isthe conference chair for this year's meeting. She despairs sometimesthat this diversity of goals keeps their voice from being heard inWashington, D.C.
"If only we could get ourselves organized like the (National RifleAssociation) or the Sierra Club. When something happens they don'tlike, they put out the word ... and their members stand up," Montouresaid.
But for space activists, she said, "everybody has his own idea ofwhat needs to be done and when."
She's hoping that in an economy where investment dollars are tightand technologists are out of work, this year's ISDC agenda and itsvenue in Silicon Valley may bridge that gap.
Making presentations will be the leaders of companies that promotespace tourism ( www.spaceadventures.com and a couple aiming tocommercialize space, Space Island Group (spaceislandgroup.com) andXCor Aerospace ( www.xcor.com
Mike Wallis' day job is running his Internet networking service inSunnyvale. He shepherds the Experimental Rocket Propulsion Societyformed in 1993 by amateurs to develop liquid fuel rocket engines andthe high-density rocket propellants necessary for reusablespacecraft. All rockets, even the Shuttle, are either expendable orrebuildable. That means expensive.
"A reusable one needs only to be refueled," he said. "We think ourtechnology in the long run will make it affordable for anyone whowants to go into space. If you could fly into orbit for a day for$50,000, wouldn't you want to?"
The nonprofit ERPS is funded through memberships ($25 a year) anddonations, and depends on the spare time labor of 20 people in theBay Area. But Wallis and his group don't seem focussed on making afortune.
Maybe space activists are distinguished by two different mindsets:the idealistic vision to nurture humanity's future and the short-term goal to make money by whizzing payloads around the planet.
The organizer of the conference's space enterprise symposium, BobHillhouse, is an accountant for Merrill Lynch in Brea. He espousesthe second view.
Of space entrepreneurs he says: "I want to see these guys besuccessful, land a probe on the moon, bring back rocks and sell them.It's free enterprise pushing the frontiers, like original settlers inthe old days of the West."
You can just see the idealists rolling their eyes.
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