Population pressure degrades not only lifestyle but civilization itself yet the need for fresh ideas and fresh opportunities demands new people - and population pressures mindlessly resist the practical, resulting in population crash. The necessity of colonization is pressed by the lessons of the Black Death: high populations lead to vulnerability as well as many personal limitations. Colonization of the Americas was driven by the experience of new opportunities and recent memory of what it meant not to have them. The conclusion is we solve the problem or it solves itself at our expense: the directed conclusions are few. War, colonization, repressive government, plague, and pollution. Only one of these conclusions looks good.

Space represents a virtually unlimited potential and a nearly matching difficulty. One striking difficulty is cost. Costs of the early American colonization were borne variously by investors, countries, and individually. Return on this investment was not very successful, only a few investors benefited greatly. Although we recognize a collective benefit to the new world and modern civilization rising from the effort, the dispersion, and the expanded opportunities of colonization the history is full of personal drama, usually with every success preceded by multiple failures. Vision often drives human achievement in this costly way. The dangers of space make success in this model unlikely, there are too many opportunities for mistakes to be fatal. We must have a long range plan that connects to results in a way that makes us look more intelligent than ants heaping dead bodies across some barrier. In fact we have the potential to make such a plan and the tools to do so. Looking at colonization efforts of the past informs us of the difficulty both in foreseeing and profiting directly from the results. Instead we can look at general principals and try to infer results that will become goals of our expansion. My solution to cost is to share it as much as possible taking profit where appropriate contributing where appropriate and making every effort to avoid inequitable casualties.

One effect of civilization is complexity or richness of life. Many of the details of our civilization existed in previous civilizations but in order to manifest together as they now appear a larger context had to exist: more diverse resources, more people, more space and more ideas. When we fill the solar system the opportunity and variety will very likely create more concurrent expression and thus higher civilization. In the US we have a history of social oligarchy that hides us from one another in many situations: we have an idea of being American that contrasts wildly and incongruously with our neighbors, and we actively deny these differences or impute them to someone in some other neighborhood. The Internet and satellites help us ignore our neighbors with great precision, we can find an agreeable community, our favorite music, and self reinforcement. The down side to this Neverland is we also reinforce our weaknesses and character flaws. One of the foundations of the Christian ideal that underpins our civilization is that we correctly access our strengths and those of others and are able to rely on one another for corporate strength beyond our individual failings. Our institutions incorporate this ideal but our Christian denominations seem to fall short both in teaching and implementation. If we are going to move to a new level of civilization we are going to come to terms with human differences. Historical civilizations grossly and unfairly over simplified human differences by class, social caste, race, or other arbitrary distinctions, a collective self deception of the same character as our American 'Neverland'. Pretending people are not different is no more useful than pretended differences, we are cutting off strengths and weaknesses the same way we are reinforcing them: diversity is not in itself a virtue, instead there are virtues and they are not all in the same people or groups. Human history is full of social experiments and ours is not the only or most enduring idea. What kind of society can survive when expanded to interplanetary size is hard to imagine but I doubt it can support the kind of self delusion that most of our present systems embody. The first principle of our interplanetary effort is that it be able to survive monumental social change as few institutions have been able to.

As a professional planner I am impressed, perhaps even obsessed with the idea of projects. In a project all roles are temporary, all efforts defined, and resources are carefully assessed. It should be no surprise that I look on colonization as a project, or series of projects. Likewise it should not be surprising that I believe a joint effort will be a joint success - all that is needed is to break the effort down into achievable tasks and proceed. Leadership in a project is divided, the project manager selects (and de-selects) members and derives authority from that function. The safety manager or captain is responsible for life and safety and must take the lead in such issues and share the authority of individual assignments, other managers may have temporary authority for specific parts of the project but any person and any manager is subsidiary to the goals and safety of the project, and ethical considerations as well. Every task should be taken not only as part of the project goals but as a personal opportunity leading to responsibility and fulfillment. Since the work is nearly infinite the edge should never wear off - the managers should reassign people to keep them involved, and build every available skill. The organization, the roles, the objectives, the known risks, and basic commitments such as budget, facility, and resources are embodied in a charter which is issued by a sponsor who represents the investors and only becomes involved when re-budgeting and re-planning is initiated from within the project. One aspect of colonization is that it recapitulates our civilization, virtually every honest person can help with the aspect of human effort in which they engage as livelihood, avocation, or pastime. Sweat equity in the future, why can't we do it.

Money, as is well established, has its own interests. Any organization based on buy-in is going to have to have a participation requirement and some balance will have to be struck between participation and financial involvement. An illustration of this problem is copyright: the very intent of copyright is feedback and the protection of original interests. What exactly constitutes original interest is open to interpretation and in fact is viewed differently in different countries. Modern 'copyleft' schemes address some perceived wrongs but in the context of space the feedback implied in these practices is not going to exist. A 'copyforward' method is needed so that ownership, and investment does not exist in a closed circle. Another similar idea is employee-ownership where stock is held by active workers and is bought back from them at retirement - the interest and the company go on together. Perhaps a company can be started with one initial offering of stock and subsequently participants can use earned income to buy stock, thus securing their investment at future value. Many of the investors in the American colonies were just throwing their money away because they were expecting quick returns and the real value was many decades or even centuries in the future. The challenge is to make the investment and still hang on to the long term value of the enterprise. Long term or even idealized prospects have a history of public buy-in; even such long shots that any reasonable person would recognize a scam have had investors and persisted for years. Commitment to space colonization seems reasonable because the alternatives are dire. The prospects of early returns seem modest although a program like the one envisioned will have spin-offs that will bring in profit as indeed other space programs have proven. The project may be self-sustaining or may become so in time but at first it will have to be carried by people willing to forgo short term returns. The time of low returns may be extended beyond the first participants, what that will mean needs to be explored at the outset. Ownership, management, and participation have been sketched broadly because as a generalist I lack the ability to do more than speculate, someone with specific skills will need to step forward if this organization is to happen. In order to generate support a few limitations need to be established: I want to build self-contained space colonies. Many models exist in proposal or fictional form for toroid or cylindrical colonies. Clusters, spheres, modified asteroids have also been suggested but many fictional forms depend on fictional technology and even engineering studies based on real materials and existing technology represent extensions to the current practice that will require years or decades of development. Several projects of varying sincerity have been implemented including the Mars Society and the Ecosphere and I know the space program is slowly and painfully being privatized so that many aspects of space colonization can for the present be ignored. First I propose to concentrate on how to actually construct structures in space out of materials likely to be found in the asteroids or near-earth objects, second how to enclose such structures and create a living environment, and third, how to maintain structures, their enclosure, and living conditions.Last I want to develop a process for continued development leading to an extended production: one or two space colonies will not be enough. Defined this way the steps are: process raw materials, fabricate construction materials, build structures, develop mechanical systems, develop life support systems, develop self-sustaining ecology for space habitats, and develop industries based on each step of the process. Several ideas have come forth about fabricating materials in space. One promising idea is sintering, in which an amalgam is pressed into a ceramic like material. Without air the molecules of many materials will compress without the heat and pressure needed to produce such materials on earth. The process is then to break up material into a powder by some method and mold and press it into parts. It may be possible to electro-deposit metals so that all that is needed is a charged target and a laser to ionize the material. A number of experiments may need to be devised to find a working method. It may be that the space environment actually makes it easier to produce some things, microchips for example. In any case, starting small will help keep the cost down. All these methods depend more on lack of air than lack of gravity and so could be developed and modeled right here on earth. Some of the old speculation I have seen involved actually smelting with solar mirrors to produce I beam construction materials. I do not currently think large I beams are the answer but rather small tiles that are individually joined. It is the team goal to decide what kind of materials can be produced and in what form they need to be used. I am not particularly concerned with importing materials either from or to space rather I anticipate an economy in space which supports colonization and expansion of human endeavor. Transactions from or to space will remain very expensive and be profitable for special cases only: medicine, microchips, low-gravity and vacuum processes, and of course, research. Space, particularly near space, presents a good opportunity for future industry. By working remotely we can reduce both the risk and the cost of experiment. By developing this industry on a deferred profit basis we can establish equity where, right now, we can hardly go. By concentrating on the means of constructing space habitat we can facilitate colonization and thus address the most pressing issues we currently face. Many existing technologies need to be extended and the groundwork can be done right here on the ground. Lastly we can make a connection for the future and place ourselves where we can ultimately benefit.