Space advocacy

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Space advocacy is a political position that favors the exploration, utilization, and colonization of outer space.

There are many different organizations dedicated to space advocacy. They are usually active in lobbying governments for increased funding in space-related activities. They also recruit members, fund projects, and provide information for their membership and interested visitors. They are sub-divided into three categories depending on their primary work: practice, advocacy, and theory.

Contents 1 Practice 2 Advocacy 3 Theory 4 History

[edit] Practice

These organizations are noted for developing theories and actually putting them into practice through projects, as well as space advocacy.

• The Mars Society, founded by Robert Zubrin, studies and advocates for the exploration and settlement of Mars, and has many international volunteer-run projects [1]
• The Space Studies Institute was founded by Gerard O'Neill to fund the study of space habitats, built several mass driver prototypes [2]
• The Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan and two of his colleagues, claims to be the largest space interest group, with about 100,000 members; emphasis on robotic exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life, recent solar sail construction and attempted launch [3]

[edit] Advocacy

Organizations that focus mainly on space advocacy, education, and lobbying activities.

• The National Space Society (formed from a merger of the National Space Institute, founded by Wernher von Braun, and the L5 Society, founded by Gerard O'Neill) is an organization with the vision of "people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth." [4]
• The Space Frontier Foundation promotes strong free market, capitalist views about space development. [5]
• The British Interplanetary Society, founded in 1933 and once led by Arthur C. Clarke, is the world's longest established space society. [6]
• Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is a student organization founded in 1980 at MIT and Princeton. [7]
• The Canadian Space Society was founded in 1983; in addition to carrying on its own space-advocacy activities, it acts as an umbrella organization for various other Canadian pro-space groups.[8]

[edit] Theory

Focus on advocating a theory for space exploration or colonization.

• The Alliance to Rescue Civilization plans to establish backups of human civilization on the Moon and other locations away from Earth. [9]
• The Artemis Project plans to set up a private lunar surface station. [10]
• The Living Universe Foundation has a detailed plan in which the entire galaxy is colonized. [11]
• Red Colony strives to collect and develop theories in Mars colonization and terraformation via contributions and debate from the general public. [12]

[edit] History

Historians agree that space flight and especially manned space flight was not inevitable, but rather that society was convinced of the need for it by a few revolutionaries. These “revolutionaries” were primarily all members of the American, British, and German rocket societies and together starting in the 1930s began to share their individual plans for our future in space with each other. The result was that the people involved agreed on and promoted the idea that the logical order of goals for space flight was: a rocket powered launch vehicle, a station in orbit, a series of rocket powered manned space vehicles, a moon landing, a moon base, and a manned expedition to Mars. This "space agenda" was promoted as a technological reality based on factual science although the proponents admitted the details provided would not necessarily be how it would look.

Examples of this "space agenda" were provided to the public via books, magazines, and television programs. Influential books included those containing illustrations by Chesley Bonestell (based on Wernher von Braun's designs) such as The Conquest of Space (1949). Influential magazine articles included the "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!" series of article in Colliers magazine between 1952 and 1954. Television shows included Walt Disney's Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957.