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I have recently been talking to people on multiple boards like this one and have discovered that there seems to be no real ORGANIZED International Space Administration. That is why I decided to develop a website where people who share my views that we desperately need an ISA can join. They can share their thoughts on an Open Topic message board. There are Live Chats among members anytime and Scheduled Chats every Friday which are moderated by me and hopefully, eventually, will have a different guest speaker every week. There are open topic polls that members can initiate, as well as Member Directory, File Area, Picture Area and much more.
My hope is that if we can build up a large enough central database of like minded people we may be able to attract the resources, technology, expertise and abilities of those people/businesses/organizations/governments so that a ture International Space Administration can begin. I belief whole heartedly that if enough people join and help promote the ISA we can see realistic Space Exploration and Colonization with in our lifetime.
So if you are interested here is the link: International Space Agency
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I aplaud your vision, your efforts, and your commitment, but I disagree with your method. Internationalization is a sure kiss of death to any project. It lessens the benefit to each nation, and it opens up just that many more govermental orginizations that can throw a wrench in the effort. Also there is no finacial reason why any one country especialy the United States couldn't undertake such a challenge on it's own. We have done so before. In fact national pride would likley be one of the selling points to get it through congress in the first place, it would create jobs here, and technologies that would stay here.
Personally I think that a beter way to promote space exploration and colinization would be to reintroduce competion into the equation by allowing nations to claim bodies if they are the first to reach them, and dump the space treaty that demotes the comercial utilization and explotation of space resources.
There are the practical reasons why I disagree with your veiw for the need of an international space orginization, now here are the ideological ones. I am anti-globalization and anti-socialist, and let's face it the two basically walk hand in hand. Orginizations like the UN are obviously anti capitalist and anti American. They are also hypocrits, they host a convention on banning the private ownership of small arms but the secratary general of the UN has MP-5 9mm SMGs smuggled into the country to protect himself while he heads an orginization that's has the stated goal of keeping us from using such tools to defend ourselves. They favor a global 'carbon' tax to discourage large vehicles. We live in a free country and no orginization, especialy one that isn't part of this country should be telling us what we 'need'. That is called comunism, a country tried that, it was called the USSR, it didn't work too well. Capitalism and freedom are simply the best system because if you leave the people and the market un harssased then they will regulate themselves. Greed is not a bad thing, greed is a motivator. You don't like fossil fuels, fine, when they become scarce enought the markey will develop the technologies needed to get passed hydrocarbon fuels. The UN and other global orginizations try to interfere with persoanl freedom and the market. That is why they are the single greatest threat to the US, freedom, and capitalism in general. We should simply dump the space treaty, and hopfully cause a race to colinize and explore space the way that european empires set out to establish colonies and land claims in North America.
Just my opinion, way to go for doing something though.
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Zak you misinterpreted our goal...We are trying to PRIVATIZE Space Exploration and Colonization because we realize that governments will screw it up every chance they get. However, we have not ruled out Governement involvement. We hope to get governement financial support through Grants as well as technological support from various governments.
The ISA was founded 4 days ago and has since undergone a name change due to copyright issues. We are now known as the Grass Roots Space Administration. Furthermore we have grown from 5 members 4 days ago to over 115 members today. We expect to have over 1,000 members by the end of March and over 10,000 by the end of 2002.
We invite all New Mars members to come join us and help ensure that OUR DREAMS COME TRUE. You can access the GRSA website at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/grassroot … nistration
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We are trying to PRIVATIZE Space Exploration and Colonization because we realize that governments will screw it up every chance they get. However, we have not ruled out Governement involvement. We hope to get governement financial support through Grants as well as technological support from various governments.
Interesting.
You want to create a Private Organization for Space Exploration and Colonization becuase governments are unable to do so in an effecient manner.
You propose to fund this Private Organization with government subsidies and technology provided by the government.
At what point does this Private Organization actually do something? Is it merely a means for arm-chair astronauts to have thei voices heard? Is it a politcal tool to be used to lobby for "Space Exploration" or "Colonization" of space? Is it an actual manufacturer of a product, such as manned missions, or launching satellites; or perhaps it is focused on reviewing remotely sensed data for possible futue missions that fall within the specfied goal?
How will this "Grass Roots" enterprise be more effective than the established space science communities that currently exsist? What can it provide that NASA, ESA, ISA, or another hundred consortiums of governmental and non-governmental organizations currently provide? How will a grass-roots organization such as this compete with established groups for governmental funding?
Have you or the organization even contemplated a comprehensive "barrier-analysis"- what prevents you from reaching your desired goal? Are you aware of all the current, and past, intiatives relating to your desired goal? Have you considered how this organization will be able to succeed where others have failed?
Why should I, or anyone, choose to join this organization over supporting NASA or ANY exisiting governmental agency, or non-governmental agency that accepts government funds?
I fail to see your jump in logic- you suggest that a Private Organization that recieves Government Funds is inherently better at spending Government Funds. Unless you have a product, or can do something that no one else can, you are merely going to be a civil servant in sheep's clothing.
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There can be no such thing as a ?private organization that recieves government funds,? because you have to show where the funds are going. You have to lay out a very detailed description in your proposal to even be considered for a grant.
NASA is structured much like you want (it's a mainly civilian organization powered by grants and such), the only problem is that funds go absolutely no where (most of the funds are dropped into the ISS and Space Shuttle). Everything is currently too expensive. And no one wants to restructure how things are done, because then they risk losing their funding alltogether. Think about it, think about how many people would lose their jobs (temporarily, perhaps, but they would) if the Space Shuttle was redesigned (completely, not just a hackjob).
NASA is what GRSA wants to be. If only we could figure out how to exploit NASA without pissing everyone off. Drop the ISS and Space Shuttle and you have an extraordinarily efficient system. (But that means losing lots of contracts and jobs with all sorts of powerholders, and you can be sure they wouldn't allow that to happen easily.)
(BTW, I don't see GRSA being more efficient than NASA in the long run, since NASA has a mandated budget. GRSA is too reliant on donations and profit taking. And all out commercialization. It's totally unstable.)
My idea? Submit a grant proposal to NASA suggesting full restructuring, if you prove that you can do it without too many jobs being lost, and without stopping manned space progress for more than a few years, it may well go through. (I should probably say that NASA is extremely efficient when it comes to sending probes into space, and most of its budget goes to manned spaceflight.)
Instead of starting your own administration, why not try making the one we already have more efficient?
Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
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The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.
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there are a great many interested in such. it seems that existing organizations aren`t moving fast enough in certain areas. nor are they adressing important issues. these imho could only be brought about thru an international body. perhaps the UN outer space affairs could be expanded.
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