Unit One: Cover Letter and Executive Summary
To the Leadership of the Advanced Space Life Research Institute,
My name is Frank W. Summers III. I submit this introductory proposal, cover letter, and executive summary in the hope that some portion of the ideas collected here may be of interest to your organization and to the wider effort to understand the future of human life beyond Earth. My background is eclectic rather than narrowly technical. I have spent decades studying history, migration, culture, education, media, religion, family structures, and the ways human beings create continuity under difficult or changing conditions. Alongside that work has been a longstanding fascination with space exploration and the future expansion of human civilization into new habitats.
I will on occasion throughout this text connect to my own experience with space. The most significant part was running an international unincorporated group called the Crater Cap Colony Concept Group a few decades ago. But perhaps the most poignant connection was watching the death of astronaut and teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe nee Corrigan and her companions on the Challenger space shuttle in 1986. I was the interim campus minister at Louisiana State University’s two year campus in Eunice, Louisiana. I was watching with a few engineering students at the Catholic center on our television. McAuliffe was a Catholic who had taught catechism, but she was loose on Catholic doctrine even as she understood it. She was proud that she taught her kids that God was not “up there”. To be clear I do believe that God is up there, in here and all around. I am a practicing if critical and nuanced Catholic and I take the scientific community and method to task on occasion these pages and in other places. I believe that space settlement is human destiny. But I do not believe in a destiny we cannot screw up. This proposal is part of my effort as a citizen and human benign to help us not screw it up.
I should emphasize from the outset that this document is intentionally rough in character. It is a large “back of the envelope” proposal rather than a polished institutional white paper. I do not presently possess the editorial resources, scientific staff, graphic support, or funding structure that would allow me to refine these ideas to the degree I would ultimately prefer. There are repetitions, unfinished sections, speculative areas, and subjects which deserve more rigorous sourcing than I can presently provide. Nevertheless, I believe there is value in presenting ambitious preliminary frameworks before they are fully mature, especially in fields where human survival and expansion may depend on early conceptual work. The history of exploration repeatedly demonstrates that rough conceptual maps often precede the creation of formal institutions.
My interest in these questions does not emerge merely from enthusiasm for rockets, astronomy, or science fiction. Rather, I approach space settlement through the long historical study of human continuity. I have spent much of my intellectual life examining peoples under stress: migrations, frontier societies, colonization, ethnic persistence, family adaptation, labor systems, religion, education, and the survival of identity across generations. My historical work concerning Acadian and Cajun communities, documentary media, and regional culture helped shape my conviction that habitat and continuity are inseparable subjects.
A space colony is not merely an engineering project. It is the attempted transplantation of civilization itself. Human beings do not survive as isolated technicians suspended in metal cylinders. They survive through kinship, courtship, reproduction, ritual, education, memory, affection, sacrifice, law, economic exchange, storytelling, and intergenerational obligation. The technologies that allow a habitat to function are only one part of the equation. The human systems that allow a population to persist for centuries are equally important and in many ways less understood.
For this reason, I believe organizations such as the ASRI are positioned to undertake profoundly important interdisciplinary work. Research, scientific experimentation, training, investment, and education must all converge if humanity is to seriously prepare for long-term life beyond Earth. We require physiological studies concerning radiation, gravity, fertility, embryology, pregnancy, childhood development, aging, and mental health. We require sociological and anthropological work concerning marriage, loneliness, governance, labor distribution, migration incentives, and conflict resolution. We require economic and investment models capable of sustaining decades-long development cycles. We require educational systems designed for isolated habitats where children may never see Earth directly. We require ethical frameworks capable of addressing reproductive technologies, genetic preservation, assisted reproduction, and the obligations owed to vulnerable populations in closed environments.
In my own work and reflections, I have repeatedly returned to the question of whether humanity is psychologically and socially prepared for expansion into space. The answer may presently be “not yet,” but preparation itself is a process. One cannot wait for perfection before beginning inquiry. Indeed, many of the great maritime expansions of history occurred before complete knowledge existed. Human beings crossed oceans, deserts, mountain ranges, and polar regions carrying partial maps and incomplete sciences. What mattered was the willingness to begin constructing systems of continuity.
My own background reflects this interdisciplinary tendency. I have worked in education, journalism, historical research, curriculum development, media, missions, fundraising, sales, and cultural studies. I have studied questions ranging from theology and anthropology to film history and pedagogy. I have written on regional identity, documentary traditions, and historical continuity. I have also maintained a persistent interest in how technological change transforms human relationships and institutions. None of this makes me a specialist in aerospace engineering or advanced biology. However, it does make me someone deeply interested in the total ecology of human civilization and the conditions under which societies endure.
The attached and associated materials should therefore be understood not as final conclusions but as exploratory frameworks. Some of the systems, processes and devices outlined here are patent pending under my name. These processes and many of the citations and all of the bibliography are in a fairly messy and fuzzy state for that sort of thing. I don’t have alot of money and success to bring to the table, not really upwardly mobile either. Some sections discuss reproductive continuity and assisted reproductive technologies. Others examine migration incentives, settlement culture, tourism, education, labor systems, or social adaptation in extraterrestrial settings. Some ideas may ultimately prove impractical. Others may contain seeds worth developing under more rigorous scientific supervision. I submit them not with arrogance but with curiosity and hope.
There is also much not included here. Over many years I have accumulated additional notes, conceptual outlines, bibliographies, sketches of educational and research programs, speculative habitat concepts, and reflections on human adaptation under frontier conditions. Some of those materials remain fragmentary or disorganized. Others require substantial revision before they could responsibly be circulated. But this proposal represents part of a broader effort to examine what may truly be involved in preserving and extending human life into space.
I therefore respectfully submit this introductory work to the Advanced Space Life Research Institute in the hope that portions of it may prove stimulating, useful, or worthy of further conversation. Even where the ideas are incomplete, I hope they demonstrate seriousness about the magnitude of the challenge before us. Human expansion into space will not simply require better machines. It will require a deeper understanding of human beings themselves.
Respectfully,
Frank W. Summers III
Unit Two: Addressing Sex, Sexuality And Reproduction in the Space Revolution
Why my Voice? Why this proposal?
There is a film titled Orphans of Apollo. The film stars Rick Tumlinson whose recent book Why Space: The Purpose of People is discussed later in this paper and whose role in fighting for a private space economy is perhaps even more important than I am able to give him credit for here. But I choose to bring up the film not because I have anything to do with the effort to privatize the failing Russian Mir space station. I choose to reference it early on because I am one of those who remembered how intensely I felt about Apollo as a child. I remember as a fan reading science fiction throughout my life seeing all of it through the lens of a young American watching his fellow citizens walk on the Moon and believing that the future in Space was bright and promising.
It did not turn out to be the narrative of my dreams. But this paper is about creating the space future that I always hoped for when I watched the Apollo missions. Whether or not my views deserve the time it takes to read the paper is something I want to address here.
But it’s not an easy case to make that the experts and industrialists involved with exploration and development in space should pay heed to me. I am not a billionaire, an astronaut, an engineer or even a licensed pilot. I have been around for a while but have not developed any thing like a pyramid of support or an indisputable expertise. I would not be writing this paper if I did not think it had some value. I cannot really share all the sources of my insight. But I at least can outline my own connection to space.
In second grade in Manhattan one of my original creations that was a well received school art assignment was named Fire in Space. I remember the Apollo models in most of my early classrooms and I believed it when they told me in some kid’s media that my generation would have lots of people living and working in space.
Space is Happening Now or Maybe Never
I have chosen to submit this paper to your institute because I think the general project you outline is URGENT, IMPORTANT, NECESSARY and PRECARIOUS. In other words even harder to accept: Read this paper and lots of other good stuff, do your job extremely well or humanity is condemned to a dire and horrifying future. How is that for an intro?
Given that I think your project is important, I have opinions about it. I hope this paper will contribute some value. I think that there is an efficiency in things, If we do as is advised in the recently feted book A City on Mars and wait to go big on space colonization we will very likely fail to get to space colonization and are in fact likely to pay a very heavy price for not seizing the chance we have now. Nonetheless, the Weinersmiths are right that we have a vast amount of work to do to become a viable spacefaring and multiplanetary civilization. It is to contribute to that effort that I am submitting this paper to the Advanced Spacelife Research Institute. It is a long paper to receive unsolicited. But I hope that you will patiently read through it and see how all the parts fit together. I assure you now that they do fit together and every aspect of this study has a role to play in addressing human sex, sexuality and reproduction in the space revolution and beyond.
In order to have a real impact on the future of Human permanent settlement in space we will need many things. But one thing we shall need that is not so easy to achieve is a group of people in each area of groundbreaking work who have both good ideas and the confidence to set forth plans, foundations and practices that those who will be very busy surviving in space can use. Plans that will work. That is arguably harder to do in the area of sex and reproduction than in the area of rocketry.
The truth is that we are stuck with the world we live in and very few of us feel that we can individually do very much that will determine the broad parameters and general shape of the world we live in and the trajectory of the society in which we reside and participate. I am arrogant and optimistic enough to devote some time, energy and money to the project of shaping a society in which others may reside after I have passed on. However, while I am not a recluse or extreme counter culturalist I just accept that my preferences are not very important.
So that means that, yes:
1. I support local arts and culture,
2. I vote, pay taxes, sing in a church choir,
3. am married (not for the first time),
4. have been (and officially still am) a keyholder for a local museum,
5. have filled out the Nielsen reports more than once
6. and have contributed to varied causes for a long time.
BUT I DON’T EXPECT THE CULTURE TO BE VERY MUCH AS I WOULD WISH IT TO BE.
What’s true of culture in the narrow sense is true of politics too:
1.I have known, met with and corresponded with many officials of varied kinds around the world.
2. I have had real relationships with officials in my own region.
3. While not a politician myself, in civic terms I serve as Commissioner in Charge for an Electoral District in my home state of Louisiana in the United States
4. I have been involved in some campaigns in a small way, gotten some voters registered
5. provided rides for a few voters to get to the polls over a period of many years.
6. and had some in government say nice things about my ideas.
BUT I DON’T EXPECT TO GREATLY IMPACT THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN WHICH I LIVE.
Part of what it means to build a foundation now, while we can, is to recognize that there are people (including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Jared Isaacman and Xi Jinping) who are both used to having things go their way and are committed to opening up space in one way or another. We need to try to understand this opportunity in all its complexity.
Exodus
Elon Musk argues that we must put a million people on Mars if we are to ensure that humanity has a future
by Ross Andersen + BIO
6,800 words12 commentsSave
‘Fuck Earth!’ Elon Musk said to me, laughing. ‘Who cares about Earth?’ We were sitting in his cubicle, in the front corner of a large open-plan office at SpaceX headquarters in Los Angeles. It was a sunny afternoon, a Thursday, one of three designated weekdays Musk spends at SpaceX. Musk was laughing because he was joking: he cares a great deal about Earth. When he is not here at SpaceX, he is running an electric car company. But this is his manner. On television Musk can seem solemn, but in person he tells jokes. He giggles. He says things that surprise you.
When I arrived, Musk was at his computer, powering through a stream of single-line email replies. I took a seat and glanced around at his workspace. There was a black leather couch and a large desk, empty but for a few wine bottles and awards. The windows looked out to a sunbaked parking lot. The vibe was ordinary, utilitarian, even boring. After a few minutes passed, I began to worry that Musk had forgotten about me, but then suddenly, and somewhat theatrically, he wheeled around, scooted his chair over, and extended his hand. ‘I’m Elon,’ he said.
It was a nice gesture, but in the year 2014 Elon Musk doesn’t need much of an introduction. Not since Steve Jobs has an American technologist captured the cultural imagination like Musk. There are tumblrs and subreddits devoted to him. He is the inspiration for Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man. His life story has already become a legend. There is the alienated childhood in South Africa, the video game he invented at 12, his migration to the US in the mid-1990s. Then the quick rise, beginning when Musk sold his software company Zip2 for $300 million at the age of 28, and continuing three years later, when he dealt PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion. And finally, the double down, when Musk decided idle hedonism wasn’t for him, and instead sank his fortune into a pair of unusually ambitious startups. With Tesla he would replace the world’s cars with electric vehicles, and with SpaceX he would colonise Mars. Automobile manufacturing and aerospace are mature industries, dominated by corporate behemoths with plush lobbying budgets and factories in all the right congressional districts. No matter. Musk would transform both, simultaneously, and he would do it within the space of a single generation. (note the whole article is worth comprehending and is short) (https://aeon.co/essays/elon-musk-puts-his-case-for-a-multi-planet-civilisation)
