Mars Settlement Financing

[dan_casale]

ldyaidan:<br />Excellent rant. Please continue. <br /><br />1) Schools. I completely agree. The grades 9-12 can design hardware. Many schools have shop classes, drafting classes, and basic electronics. All the hard sciences can be put to work thinking about hardware. The literature classes can write stories, for younger children (pre-schoolers, grade schoolers), about why its great to travel in space to the moon and Mars. This will strart preping the next generation to be colonists.<br /><br />Design contests: All entries should be faxed to a central place where they can be reviewed. All entries should be acknowledged, and told how unique ideas in their design will be included in the final design.<br /><br />Fund raisers: 100% of school fund raisers should go back to that school. This is the best way to keep the program active in the schools. Maybe 50% should be directed to something for the students. Keychains, pens, hair clips, combs,... Something that can become a daily reminder that this is a fun program.<br /><br /><br />2) Corporate sponsorship.<br />See my previous post about "survivor - space edition". This is where the real hardware/design ideas are built and tested. The winners are first wave of settlers. Corporate sponsors get lots of product placement during construction and during the voyage. <br /><br /><br />3) Buy in of other space advocacy groups/agencies. <br />I think I have to disagree. As nice as this would be, we could spend all our time trying to get the buy-in of other space advocacy groups. Space groups will signon as soon as it appears their is hope for success. Their will be minor conflicts between the moon and Mars groups but I think this plan has room for both. Space agencies are likely to forever be our enemies, well, at least I don't think they will ever be our advocates.<br /><br /><br />4) Grassroots movements. <br />I completely agree. That is what the TV show is about, making everyone feel like "I could go on that show, des

 

[quasar2]

i`ve been thinkiing for about 4 yrs now of a declaration of intent for would-be permanent Outerspace residents. something like: <br /><br /> We, who are presently among the Earthbound, have through previous and present efforts of giants, perchance to embark upon far grander horizons than ever could or can be imagined. Dependence upon native soil will of necessity continue, as these horizons are hostile to our present form.<br /> In order for this, needs of this venture must come from dedicated sacrifices, which are scattered in comparitively fruitless pursuits. Valiant attempts have been made, yet dissipate in chaotic debates. Our Civilization being prone to chaos, shan`t always be prepared this way. <br />That`s as far as i`ve gotten. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[dragon04]

Create and sell video games or something of that nature. Diversify a little to mitigate reliance on the charity of 39 million people. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[ldyaidan]

LOL. I'll be happy to see what I can come up with. I've done a lot of fundraisers for my kids' schools, and other organizations that had very little money to spend on the event. <br /><br />Another place that we really need to include in our efforts is the Civil Air Patrol. This is a civilian branch of the airforce, that specializes in search and rescue, and helping with disater relief. Part of their educational program, however is aerospace. This program is available for kids from age 12 up, and is excellent. Kids who are already showing an interest in flight and space are ideal candidates. <br /><br /><br />We need to plaster our logo everywhere. Bumper stickers, posters, newspapers, billboards, whatever we can afford. The more people see it, the more it's going to sink in, and the more they will see it as something real that is going to happen. And, it needs to be something easily recognizable as for the PSA. It needs to be as commonplace as the golden arches or the rainbow colored rings for the Olympics. Most of these efforts, however, can pay for themselves, simply by charging for the product. The cost should pay for the item, with maybe a little extra to help cover things like billboards that won't be self-sustaining. ...<br /><br />Just a few more thoughts...<br /><br />Feel free to email me with any ideas that might help with my "mission" Ldyaidan@aol.com<br />

 

[ldyaidan]

Oh, and I think the video game is a great idea... Do we have any programmers that would know how to do this?<br /><br />Rae

 

[chris_in_space]

If there's something I really don't agree with but which comes up very often is that we should throw the government and the space agencies all over board, cause we of course can do it much better and need no help at all from outside. Reminds me of some anarchist speaches... ;-)<br /><br />Seriousley, it may be possible to set up this plan without the help neither of the governement nor of NASA. But it would be much much more costly as well in time as in money. They may be your sworn enemies (but not mines) but sometimes it can be of great advantage to use your "enemies" to help you in your own purposes. Governement help could be extremly useful and the only thing I see to refuse it or not even to try to get it is the "ideological" disagreement between some members over here and the government and NASA.

 

[dan_casale]

Chris_in_space:<br />Perhaps I have a "lead or follow, but get out of the way" attitude. I agree NASA can be a great resource for information, I quote them extensively. But, I am not willing to wait for any one group to do the job. I am hoping to encourage ALL groups to work on the task, because it is a very big task.<br /><br />The more groups that publically call for work to be done on orbital/moon/mars habitats the more mainstream the whole idea will become. Which in turn will build more support for the idea. and so on. If we don't show strong support for the idea no government will have an interest in letting it happen. So anarachist speeches aren't the right way, everyone must be encouraged to work on the problem. When we start working together, things will start to happen very fast.

 

[kdavis007]

Costa Rica would be a good choice. They are not part of the 1967 UN Space Treaty..

 

[spacester]

Wow, a lot to talk about, great posts while I was gone. Long post warning, but hey, it’s a large problem, so stick around.<br /><br />Wow, ldyadain, what a great post! Welcome to sdc! My goodness, that paragraph on Schools was breathtaking! That’s what I’m talking about! I have nothing to add while limiting myself to a few pages. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />Corporate Sponsorship. I’ll call it CS. Perhaps the #1 rated method proposed for space financing (in the course of the years of space enthusiasm’s copious verbiage). There’s one basic problem with it. Look at it from the corporation’s point of view: sponsorship money is a cost center. It’s a direct expenditure of funds that could otherwise go to a profit center. I just don’t see it as a source of the megabucks we need.<br /><br />To talk the right language to Corporations, you want to talk revenue, and what really perks them up is when you become a customer. Do that first, then see what they’ll do for you in terms of sponsorships. In my financing vision, CS is allocated for miscellaneous expenses. It’s not a cornerstone, but still it’s an important part of the structure. There will be a lot of miscellaneous expenses.<br /><br />Leverage the money you spend on hardware by becoming a customer of the companies that you want as CS partners. Credibility is paramount, so it would be wise to be able to pick and choose your sponsors. Make it so they’re banging on our door begging to name their products after our stuff. If we can pull <i>that</i> off, we’ll be sitting pretty. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />Remember when I said we’d have a three-legged stool for financing our Settlement? The 39 million Americans is only one leg of the stool. In terms of cashola, it’s the primary leg of the stool. But we still need two other sources of support, IMO. More on that later, I’m going to continue to respond directly to the excellent posts.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Buy-in of other space groups / agencie</font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[ldyaidan]

The school my kids go to recently had a fundraiser, that I thought might have potential, for the moon or for Mars. They wanted to build a patio area, with benches for the students. To accomplish this, they sold "bricks." The bricks were slightly over-sized, and could be engraved with up to 3 lines. These bricks were then used to build the patio. My idea for adapting this is to sell bricks made of either lunar or Martian regolith. (This would, of course, be AFTER we're there, and able to access said materials.) Anyway, when the bricks are bought, the customer would recieve a paperweight sized brick, identical to the larger brick, with a certificate of authenticity. The larger brick would remain on the moon/mars, and be used as part of the main spaceport or other public access area. This would do 2 things: A) Raise funds, and give something back to show off at home and B) encourage later tourism, as people travel to those locations to see their contribution alongside others. This is an idea, of course, for down the road, but it did work well for the school. We might even have different sized bricks, for different amounts of contributions. In return, the contributors will be literally, etched in stone, for future generations.<br /><br />As far as my first educational suggestion, I thought I'd start with the younger kids first, and work my way up. There are a lot of programs for older kids currently, but very few for grade school. What about a coloring book/activity book? We can even do several of these, they can be downloaded off the web. Have one that is "A is for Astronaut..." But that can be expanded into puzzles, games, activities, and even ideas for science fair projects. To get access to the downloads, either charge a minimal fee per download, or even per month, or it can be at no charge for paid members. Suggestions? I will create a new thread for this topic, but I wanted to make sure I was on the right track for what you were looking for firs

 

[quasar2]

there`s a fellow named Dennis Chamberlain, who would be great for this. he started a couple of things which aren`t really still in existence anymore, but can be revived. League of the New Worlds, & International Space Acadeny. he may still live on Merritt(sp) Island. Spacester what i was trying to thrown in was the idea that in this new "World", meaning OuterSpace; people will be scattered across several settlements. & that in order to survive, need conslidation & trade rather than exclusiveness. btw i did a bit of editing. although i`ve never read this & i`m not sure if anyone has ever actually penned it, but star trekkers have a "Fundamental Declaration of The Martian Colonies". & i`d imagine it to be something like that. sorry to throw in Trek, but it`s a great title nonetheless. of course this would be a different title than that. i`m trying to avoid specifics like: Mars, The Moon, USA, L1, Shuttle, ISS, money, etc., which bog it down. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[north_star_rising]

quasar2<br /><br />I looked up International Space Academy on google, and found this?<br /><br />http://www.international-space-academy.org<br /><br />Is this Dennis Chamberlain?<br /><br />

 

[grooble]

2 to 1 the guy above gets banned. lol... <br /><br />stop the ISA hatin!

 

[north_star_rising]

?? Hello and nice to meet you as well!<br /><br />Do you welcome everyone like that?

 

[grooble]

It's nothing personal, just my observations of the fate of the ISA members. I don't have a problem with your ISA, but i know others do, perhaps we can be friends. <br /><br />How do you like the mars settlement idea?

 

[north_star_rising]

The Mars settlement idea is good, and I have enjoyed the thread very much.<br /><br />I found the ISA web site and was interested in the efforts of this group. What do you mean by the fate of isa members, and others have a problem with isa?<br /><br />They seem to be doing something good and worthwhile, what is with the negative tone?<br /><br />I am a big supporter of Carl Sagan and Burt Rutan, and am interested in Rick Dobson as well.<br /><br />Yes, I hope we can be friends, but am a little disturbed as to why I received such a warm welcome??<br /><br />There is growing support here at Cornell University for this Rick Dobson person, and the isa group you make reference of. They were in the Cornell Daily News, our schools newspaper. An isa student group at the Space Sciences Building is now forming, and I recently went to one of those meetings.<br /><br />There is growing support here at Cornell for isa, and I wonder why you think they are bad or something?<br /><br />

 

[grooble]

I think they are trying to do something good. But several times they've come to this board, posting letters they wrote to president bush, threatening to sue members, and they always get banned and their threads deleted.<br /><br />No worries though.

 

[north_star_rising]

Whaaat!? :-(<br /><br />Where is this, as I would like to see it, so I can show the others here at Cornell.<br /><br />Also, grooble, i sent you a PM, but it did not seem to send for some reason?

 

[grooble]

Cannot show it because the threads were deleted. Just talk to Mental_Avenger, he knows more than me.<br /><br />They could always have been imposters though i guess. But yeah, there is hostility toward them, rational or irrational i don't really know. <br /><br />Anyway i don't want to talk about it anymore, i don't want to mess up the thread.<br /><br />But slightly related, i was wondering, spacester, why this is only an American endeavour, do you only want american support? and not Global?<br /><br />

 

[north_star_rising]

grooble, i am here in washington, dc right now working on capital hill as a PAC aid for an aerospace company.<br /><br />I support the Bush Moon, Mars, and Beyond Program and hope it gets the proper support and funding here in dc. Congress wants to cancel it already, and Chairman Wolf of the Congressional Science Committee is very anti-NASA right now. He wants to put all the money into home land security and FBI and take away the NASA funding to do this. The aerospace community is up in arms about this, and even Burt Rutan was here to speak before Congress on this issue.<br /><br />Any chance of Manned Mars Exploration is now very unsure, under present leadership in Congress?<br /><br />

 

[north_star_rising]

grooble, good question!<br /><br />Going to Mars is going to take international effort. It is too big of a task and too expensive to not do it in an international context. It also must be a joint effort between government, industry, and private interests if it is ever to work or succeed. At least beyond a flag plant and run mission, as the USA did when we went to the moon the first time.<br />

 

[spacester]

The reason I've avoided the international aspect is twofold. For one thing, this whole scheme is already enough out-of-the-box and un-simple already, and the international aspect would only make it more complicated to explain.<br /><br />Secondly, Americans being what we are, IMO we need to first make sure we get the rah rah American patriotism thing harnessed before we move on to the rest of the world. We've just gone thru an isolationist phase, maybe it will take a while to get away from that thinking. Since in the meantime we want to appeal to everyone, we need to be careful about over-emphasizing International Cooperation.<br /><br />Personally, IMO this thing is most definitely for all peoples of the world. The inclusiveness I've discussed certainly does not stop in North America.<br /><br />Yet I don't see anyone having a problem with an effort led by Americans, as long as we don't exclude anyone. China and North Korea are more than a little problematic, and there are other nations along those lines, but most of the rest of the world will be more than welcome and in fact a critical part of our success.<br /><br />I don't have a lot of details worked out on exactly how the international aspect is administered, more on that later. It may be that ISA is the perfect organization to coordinate the involvement of non-Americans in PSA. I dunno. They definitely did not get off to a good start here at sdc.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[quasar2]

not the same. htttp://www.islandone.org/League/ i talked to Mr. Champerlain on the phone once, 20 yrs ago. i was bold enough to call him @ work @ patrick AFB. i was on an automatic mailing list for the Academy. & i had never written personally. it was really kinda weird. the first thing he asked was: do you want to go to Mars? & the way he asked was quite serious. almost kinda like a psychiatrist, or detective would. & when i said no, he was relieved & said some weirdo was bugging him all the time. so i guess if anyone bugs you, create a trick question like that. pretty clever , actually. pretty much samething happened with joseph newman of the "energy machine" fame. except his wife informed me of this, & there was no trick question, they were just tired of the publicity or something. i`ve spoken to many individuals w/ similar ideas, similar responses. this is one of the reasons i don`t tell all my ideas @ once. one never knows they could be turned into a circus act. like the lightbulb itself, for instance. it`s only pretty much now different lightbulbs are coming out. edison`s design won out over tesla`s. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[north_star_rising]

spacester, how do you see funding being raised and used, for your Mars initiative?<br /><br />Funding is going to be the root of the tree, and from which every part of a Mars program will be actualized.<br /><br />I am sad to hear isa was not well received here? Many people are starting to get behind them and support them, and they seem to be growing! From what i know, these people are really working hard in a very tense and adverse environment, especially after 911.<br /><br />I have never seen anything other than positive coming from this group, and cannot believe they would do something like that, at least without some how being provoked or something?<br /><br />You are very right about the concerns of isolationist views in America!<br />

 

[quasar2]

sorry for the dead link folks. google the other organization i mentioned. League of the New Worlds. this brings you to the old website. i don`t know why there are two inetrnational space academy`s. maybe chamberlain`s copyright or patent ran out or maybe he didn`t bother to do either. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>