Links to Sites and Books
About the Need to Expand Earth's Civilization
Into Space
Compiled by Sylvia Engdahl
Listed below are some online resources focused on the benefits of human expansion into space, space-based solar power, the concept of orbital colonies, and/or the use of extraterrestrial materials from the moon and asteroids. It does not include material focused primarily on the implementation of these goals, on exploration, or on space science.
These links were last updated in February 2020 (with a few more recent additions). Although many of them are older articles, they are still current except for any cost estimates mentioned -- the need for us to become a space-faring civilization has not changed.
Many other relevant articles can be found online, especially at the sites of the National Space Society and The Space Review, a weekly online publication devoted to in-depth articles, commentary, and reviews archived back through 2003.
Significance of Space
Space and Subject Classification by Michael Huang. The Space Review, Aug. 9, 2004. A long-overdue explanation of why it's important to classify space as a region instead of putting everything about it under "science" or "technology."Settling Space is the Only Sustainable Reason for Humans to Be in Space by Dale Skran, The Space Review, Feb 1, 2016. Why space settlement offers the hope of long-term species survival that remaining on Earth does not.
The Urgent Need for a United States Space Force by Steven L. Kwast. Imprimis, January 2020. Although focused primarily on military needs, this article includes an important list of the benefits to Earth that use of resources from space can provide.
10 Reasons Why Space Exploration Matters to You by Patrick J. Kiger. How Stuff Works, undated. "Exploring space provides down-to-earth benefits in areas such as health, mining and security. And more inspirational benefits, too."
Jeff Bezos Says We Need to Colonise The Moon to Save Earth. Science Alert, June 8, 2019. "Humanity's very survival relies on colonizing space, starting with the moon."
Jeff Bezos in San Diego: To Save Planet, ‘Move All Heavy Industry into Space. Times of San Diego, Nov. 23, 2019. "I believe that one day, Earth will be zoned residential and light industry. We’ll move all heavy industry into space. That’s the only way, really, to save this planet.”
How Elon Musk’s Plan to Colonize Mars Helps Planet Earth. Observer, April 22, 2018. Musk "believes setting up a permanent outpost on a new world . . . safeguards the species and ensures it will survive any calamity that might devastate Earth."
Elon Musk: This is why we have to build civilizations in space CNBC, June 26, 2019. "We must preserve the light of consciousness by becoming a spacefaring civilization [and] extending life to other planets,”
Space Settlement: The Journey Inward by Steven Wolfe. A paper presented at the 2004 National Space Society conference, dealing with space and the evolutionary impulse. HisAd Astra article with the same title should be read by everyone who cares about getting humankind into space.
Mars Nation by Frank Stratford.The Space Review, Sep. 14, 2015. "On Mars we will learn to respect our tools, our material objects, and precious resources in a way nothing on Earth could ever teach us."
Our Future in the Cosmos--Space, a speech by Isaac Asimov (in the book The Impact of Science on Society, 1983, available as a NASA pdf).
Space is Our Home, Not a Program by Jeff Krukin. Space Daily, July 8, 2004. "Space is a place of abundant resources, and thus crucial to our survival and prosperity."
Why We Do--and Must--Go Into Space by Jeffrey Liss. NSS, undated. "History teaches that no society has ever gone wrong betting on the frontier."
The Top Three Reasons for Humans in Space by Michael Huang. The Space Review, April 11, 2005. "If we were throughout the solar system, at multiple locations, a disaster at one location would not end everything."
Why Space? by Rick Tumlinson, Huffington Post, Jan. 6, 2012. (Part II) "The real reason, the one necessary and sufficient reason we are called to the space frontier, is buried deep within us. It is a feeling, a knowing in our hearts when we look starward on a clear night."
Creating a Solar Civilization by Kim Peart (2012). The vital importance of becoming a space-faring species to escape terrestrial catastrophe.
The Reinvigoration of the West Through Outer Space Development, or, Tsiolkovsky's Imperative in the 21st Century by David Tamm. A 2006 master's thesis written at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
Freedom Above or Tyranny Below by Daniel Ust (2010). "Space is on the side of those who don’t want to be monitored or controlled."
Expansion of the Civilization in Space: A Moral Issue, by Adriano Autino (2013). "Not expanding civilization into space would be a real, specific suicide: a rapid decline and the end of humanity as a cultural species."
Toward an Ecological and Cosmonautical Philosophy by Joseph Kirby. Journal of Technology and Evolution, July 2013. Human duties toward life "consist not only in protecting the biosphere, but also in developing techno-biological living systems capable of reproducing in the ambient matter of the solar system."
Space-Based Solar Power
NSS Space Solar Power Links. An extensive up-to-date-list of links to sites with information about space-based solar power.America’s Moral Obligation to Develop Astroelectricity by Mike Snead, The Space Review, February 14, 2022. "It’s time to put fervent environmentalism aside and focus on making abundant green energy available to everyone everywhere a shared political priority."
A Game Changer in the Fight Against Climate Change by Peter Garretson, Newsweek, April 5, 2022. ""Many activists and advocates have called for an Apollo Project for energy. What they fail to realize is that one is already here. What Space Solar Power needs to mature is for regulators and bureaucrats to stay out of the way."
Catching the Sun: A National Strategy for Space Solar Power. Beyond Earth Institute, August 2021. "Space Solar Power can power the world, and power worlds beyond, while moving our civilization beyond the fossil fuel age."
China reveals plans to launch a fleet of mile-long solar panels into space to beam energy back to Earth by 2035 by Ryan Morridson, Daily Mail, August 28, 2021. "Reports suggest that once fully operational by 2050, the space-based solar array will send a similar amount of electricity into the grid as a nuclear power station."
How NASA could help stop climate change with solar satellites by Eugene Meyers. Washington Post, October 23, 2019. "China announced plans this year to build its own solar satellites, which could allow it to dominate today’s $4 trillion electricity market."
China plans a solar power play in space that NASA abandoned decades ago, CNBC, March 17, 2019. "Electricity generated in space and near the equator could be beamed almost anywhere across the globe, except for the poles."
Solar Power Stations in Space Could Supply the World with Limitless Energy. Forbes, March 12, 2019. "Space solar power would transform our future in space and could provide a new source of virtually limitless and sustainable energy to markets across the world."
First the moon, now China plans to launch space-based solar power satellite by Mark R. Whittington. The Hill, February 22, 2019. "Space solar power would supplant fossil fuels without hobbling modern, technological civilization at the same time,"
Shoot for the Sun: Why the U.S. Should Prioritize Space-Based Solar Power by Oryza Astar. International Policy Digest, July 19, 2019. "China, Russia, and Japan have already expressed interest in SBSP with national policies to back up their interest."
Better than Paris: Space Solar Power by Lt. Col. Peter Garretson/ The Space Review, June 19, 2017. A national program in space-based solar power (SBSP) could do more for solving climate change than the Paris Accord ever could.
The Next Great Space Race--Space-Based Power Station by Thomas Frey, May 2014. Japan's plan for developing a space-based solar power system.
How Japan Plans to Build an Orbital Solar Farm by Susumu Sasaki, IEEE Spectrum. April 24, 2014. JAXA’s technology road map calls for work to begin on a 100-kW SPS demonstration around 2020.
An Energy Fix Written in the Stars by Ben Bova, Washington Post, October 12, 2008. "The solar power satellite is the ultimate clean energy source. It doesn't burn an ounce of fuel."
World's Energy Future Belongs in Orbit by Gerard O'Neill (1992), "To make solar power satellites (SPS) practical and economical, we do not need any new science; we only need to apply what we are already doing in the more advanced industries."
Survival Insurance
The Lifeboat Foundation, which proposes Ark I, a self-sustaining space colony built to ensure humanity could survive disasters that make Earth uninhabitable.The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth, a chapter from the book by William E. Burrows. "Using space to protect civilization, providing an environment in which it is able to collectively thrive and grow to its limitless potential, will transform humankind from its traditional role as the hapless victim of fate to one better able to control its destiny."
The B612 Foundation, a non-governmental organization that works towards protecting Earth from asteroid impacts and informing and forwarding world-wide decision-making on planetary defense issues.
The Big Picture, an essay about preventing disaster by astronaut John Young. "NASA is not about the ‘Adventure of Human Space Exploration,’ we are in the deadly serious business of saving the species."
Eminent physicist Stephen Hawking's 2011 interview with a Canadian newspaper about why we must colonize space. Hawking has said many times since 2001 that space colonization is essential for survival and his statements have been widely reported.
Humans Will Colonize the Solar System by Michael Griffin. Washington Post, September 25, 2005. "While I cannot say that multiple-planet species will survive, I think I can prove to you from our own geologic record that single-planet species don't."
Sagan's Rationale for Human Space Flight by Michael Huang. The Space Review, Nov. 8, 2004. "Every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring—not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive."
NASA site about Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards. "Collisions with near-Earth objects have occurred in the past and we should remain alert to the possibility of future close Earth approaches."
Asteroid Impact Mission: Planetary Defense. Part of the European Space Agency's rationale for its proposed AIM mission to an asteroid.
Extraterrestrial Resources
The Space Studies Institute founded by Gerard O'Neill. The Institute’s mission is to open the energy and material resources of space for human settlement within our lifetime.Using extraterrestrial resources for science by Ian Crawford, Martin Elvis and James Carpenter. Astronomy & Geophysics, August 2016. Use of space resources "may permit the construction and operation of scientific facilities in space that would be unaffordable if all the required material and energy resources had to be lifted out of Earth's gravity."
The USGS Is Now Mapping Space To Mine Extraterrestrial Resources. Forbes, Sep. 4, 2018. "There is increasing interest commercially and governmentally to understand and begin space resource mining.'
Asteroid Mining: Key to the Space Economy by Mark Sonter. Space.com, Feb. 9, 2006. "For species protection and for the expansion of humanity into the solar system, we need to . . . learn how to mine and manage [near-Earth asteroids.]"
The Coming Age of Space Colonization by James Fallow, The Atlantic, March 2013. "There are lots of strategic materials and metals that we can get in space and that will be necessary for us if we want to create abundance and prosperity generations from now on Earth."
The PERMANENT website. PERMANENT is an acronym for Program to Employ Resources of the Moon and Asteroids Near Earth in the Near Term. Its site provides resources for those needing technical information.
Orbital Colonies
Space Settlement, a site created by Mike Combs with pictures of orbital space colonies and detailed information about them.Space Colonies, online version of a book edited by Stewart Brand that contains debate from the magazine CoEvolution Quarterly.
Free Space Settlement: Bring Space to Life and Life to Space, a collection of articles by Al Globus. "Space settlement may become as important as ocean-based life's colonization of land half a billion years ago, perhaps even more so."
NASA educational material about Space Settlements, including a long list of links.
The International High School Space Settlement Design Competition. SpaceSet competitions are set fifty years in the future, in a fictional futuristic society where humanity has expanded into the solar system.
Space Advocacy Organizations
The National Space Society (with which the former L-5 Society focused on O'Neill's ideas merged). The aim of NSS, an international membership organization, is to create a spacefaring civilization. Be sure to read its Statement of Philosophy.The Mars Society, a membership organization that promotes the exploration and settlement of Mars.
The Planetary Society, which has excellent material on all aspects of space exploration.
The Moon Society a community composed of individuals, organizations, and companies committed to the permanent settlement of the Moon and the use of lunar resources.
The Space Frontier Foundation, which advocates private rather than government funding for space activity.
The Space Settlement Institute, which promotes human colonization and settlement of outer space through leadership by private industry.
Space Renaissance International, an international space advocacy organization based in Italy,
The British Interplanetary Society, the world's oldest space advocacy organization, focused more on space flight than on the necessity of human expansion into space.
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, a national independent student-based organization.