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Introducing Moonbeams, our new free access Science Fiction Publication
by kokhmmm 
Link: http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/fiction/index.html
Above: Cover of Introductory Issue
The Historic Role of Science Fiction
Science-Fiction has played a strong role in fostering an interest in Space Exploration, Settlement, and Travel. As far back as the earliest days of NASA and the Apollo program, many NASA personnel and future astronauts have admitted that their individual early interest in space was awakened, and/or nourished by exciting and positive visions of what could be the greater world of our future. Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein are just two of the many classic authors frequently cited.
Of course, not all science-fiction tales paint positive pictures. There has always been some who painted dark, forbidding scenarios. There have always been those with a "say it ain't so" attitude towards the restrictions of Physics. There have always been those more engrossed in fantasy and magic rather than reality. It is only natural that the story reflects the personality of the writer.
When the Artemis Society and the Artemis Project™ were launched at the World Science Fiction Convention in Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1994, part of the game plan was to launch a new science-fact science-fiction magazine, Artemis, that would contain positive and realistic stories about our future in space, as a way of attracting new members to the Artemis Society. Eight quarterly issues were published before the plug was pulled. Successful entries to the crowded world of new stand paper publications are difficult. If you don't quickly attract enough sales, the Newstands don't keep putting you on their racks.
Warned of such obstacles, a plan by the future President of the Moon Society, Peter Kokh, to introduce a rag to be named "PSSST!" for "Plausible Solar System Settlement Tales" at a new science-fiction convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, "First Contact" that same fall, September 1994, were shelved.
Through the years, a number of short science-fiction pieces have been submitted to Moon Miners' Manifesto, and MMM has published a few. Every year in the April issue, MMM has published a page (sometimes less) of World Space News stories. And ever year, we've hooked some readers who failed to notice the tag line at the end of the page, printed upside down, "Happy April Fools' Day!," i.e. "You've been had." Every year we catch somebody!
Our secret? Simple, "tell them what they want to hear!"
Now it is time to revisit the idea. This time we are looking at electronic publication, in pdf file version only. Hardcopy publication could come later.
In the past, as MMM has been a hardcopy publication, any fiction pieces have been published by the MMM publisher, The Lunar Reclamation Society, the Milwaukee/SE Wisconsin chapter of the National Space Society.
The Moon Society has now begun publishing fiction!
The Editor of the premier edition mockup was Peter Kokh, but a new editor, Charles (Chuck) Lesher, a Moon Society Phoenix member from Chandler, Arizona, and author of the feature piece in the first issue of Moonbeams, has volunteered to take it over. The premier edition released above bears his look. It is only appropriate that Chuck put his own stamp on it, redoing the cover, changing the fonts, etc.
Producing the mockup has proved an effective way to get this effort started and adopted.
Charles has been writing science fiction for several years. The editor's email address is moonbeams@moonsociety.org
Moonbeams issues are freely accessible, without the need to use a Moon Society username and password. The function of Moonbeams is both to expand the vision of our own members, and to draw interested visitors into the Society. Anyone downloading an issue of Moonbeams, may freely circulate it to others. Indeed, we encourage you to do so!
Publication Frequency
As we kick off this publication, we make no promise of how often it will be published. We would like to put it out on a quarterly schedule. A more conservative answer is whenever we have enough good material to make a good publication, and have the time to edit it. We'll see what happens!
Submissions
Chuck has included a call for submissions, society members encouraged to try their hand in short pieces (250 words) in the form of a "letter home" from a future settler/pioneer.
Readers are welcome to submit short stories, limit 5,000 words.
As Moonbeams produces no revenue stream, authors will not be compensated, and retain full rights for republication elsewhere. In the future, as readership increases, we may revisit this policy.
Email Submissions [moonbeams@moonsociety.org] should be in electronic form: MS Word, Text files, or pdf format. Handwritten, typed, and printed submissions that need to be keyed in will not be considered.
Writers may submit via CD or DVD to the following address:
Writers Cramp Publishing
1982 N. Iowa Street
Chandler, Arizona 85225
Innitial Guidelines as to what is acceptable:
* We do want submissions to stick to accepted physics: no faster than light warp drives, no worm holes, no time travel, no transporters a la Star Trek, no phase change walking through walls - you get the idea.
* No magic, no fantasy - we want science future fiction!
* No social or political or religious diatribes - if you have axes to grind, do it somewhere else!
* Just give us a good story that illustrates the positive possibilities of the near future.
* Of course, stories that alert us to possible dangers and pitfalls will be considered. There will be catastrophes and setbacks in the future, after all!
* The suggested subtitle "Plausible Solar System Settlement Tales" which has been dropped, indicated that stories anywhere in the Solar System (new boundaries well beyond Neptune!) are in our range. Thus the near future on the Moon is not the only setting to be considered
* Short fact pieces on science and technology issues will be considered
* You do not have to be a Moon Society member to submit.
Help Wanted!
* Fiction Writers, of course!
* Artists and Illustrators
* Cartoonists
* Assistant Editors, for example of the Science & Technology Department
* If you have something other than fiction writing talent that you think we might be interested in, do let us know.
Enjoy!
11/10/08 12:07:34 pm, 
Society Gears up for More Action with Project Teams
by kokhmmm
Link: http://www.moonsociety.org/projects/projectteams/index.html
From Society President Peter Kokh
August 16, 2008
At the August 6th Management Council meeting in the moon-leaders room of the ASI-MOO online chat-room environment, in discussing recent major member-ship growth, the effect of aggressively pursued carefully thought out projects took center stage.
In the past two years, two projects in particular absorbed the lion’s share of Society leaders’ attention:
? The production of the “Moon Colony Videos” suggested by director James Gholston and led by former Hollywood videographer and screen writer Chip Proser
? The production of a working demo model of the current favored design of a solar power satellite, suggested by Major Peter Garretson, USAF, with teram leaders vice-president Charles Radley and Chairman of the Board, R. Scotty Gammenthaler
Both these projects have been highly successful, and are continuing! Chip, with assistance at recent ISDCs from James Gholston and David Dunlop, continue to produce more excellent videos. Our Solar Power Beaming Demo team, now under Peter Kokh, is following through with production of two additional units requested by Space Adventures and the National Space Society.
Online “Kits” that will help other groups produce their own units comes next and will be based not on the original but on the improved "next generation" design for the two additional units.
But this is not all that’s going on in your Society!
We have also committed to aggressive pursuit of the goal of advancing the viability of production of real solar power satellites from Lunar Materials. This team is led by Dr. Peter Schroeter and Peter Kokh. This project goes to the heart of our long term strategy to advance the day when there will be civilian settlements on the Moon producing things that will help people on Earth better handle our environmental and energy problems and challenges.
The same duo is behind an effort to commence a relevant conversation between the space and environment communities on a more comprehensive plan to save and heal our home planet’s environment. Dr. Peter Schroeter had called our attention to an opportunity to get funds from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, for innovative conferences on addressing environ-mental problems. In collaboration with the National Space Society, we put forth a proposal for a “Mother Earth-Father Sky” conference, later renamed the Planet Earth & Space Conference/ Our proposal did not make the first cut, but is stil alive, and worth pursuing with or without EPA support. The editorial and essay in this issue address the need.
Other active Team Projects include Lunar Surface Logistics. It makes no sense to put up scattered moon bases without equal thought given to transportation and commerce between them, absolutely necessary for our vision of the Moon’s role in Earth’s future. This area includes our Google Group: Railroading on Moon & Mars, but also the mapping of logical transportation corridors, road making, road vehicles and support, cableway systems and more. This effort is not yet at the stage we need it to be, identifying specific doable projects.
Finally, Director David Dunlop is in the early stages of resurrecting a Lunar Reclamation Society effort from the early 1990s focused on Experimental Lunar Agriculture, and has identified a number of new doable projects. We will not be able to live long term on the Moon without autonomous agriculture and biosphere life support. Our efforts will address the agricultural aspect.
Different from the “ASI Discussion Teams”
Society old timers who came aboard in the mid-late 1990s in the Artemis Society years will remember the lengthy list of Artemis Society Teams. Is this Moon Society effort just a revival of older ASI-? The answer is a resounding “No!”
While the intention was for the many ASI Teams to come up with concrete projects that would further the cause, in reality, these teams for the most part never got beyond the “discussions” stage. Each Team has/had a discussion list, predictably with a high noise to signal ratio, and again for the most part, never identifying concrete projects within the team’s area of attention.
Moon Society “Project Teams”
Our recent measured successes have been the result of identifying specific projects with defined goals and achievement levels. Each new team has a Team Leader who aggressively moves the effort on towards the defined goal. Looking at the successes of the past two years, your President would like to add one more key person to each team, the project manager, whose role will be to identify action items and recruit volunteers to address each of them, in order to aggressively move each identified project forward. It would be misleading to say that we are there yet. Are these two roles in conflict? They need not be.
The Team Leader is in charge of keeping us focused on the vision and mission of each team, and identifying new projects within the Team's focus area.
The various Project Managers, one for each identified concrete project of each team, is in charge of moving forward a specific project within the team’s area of focus,
Project Focus Moves to Front Center Stage
We have redone the Registration Page, and our Welcome Packet & Vistors’ pages to give the opportunity to join Project Teams front center priority visibility.
Presenting our (current list of) Project Teams
# Promotional Video Team
Chip Proser - chipro@aol.com
James Gholston - webmaster@dimesnsionality.com
# Public Relations Team
James Rogers - jarogers2001@aim.com
# Solar Power Beaming Demonstration Team
Peter Kokh - kokhmmm@aol.com
R. Scotty Gammenthaler - scottygamm@dfwair.net
# Lunar Materials for SPS Construction Team
Peter J. Schubert - deepsky137@comcast.net
Peter Kokh - kokhmmm@aol.com
# Space and Environment Conversation Team
Peter J. Schubert - deepsky137@comcast.net
Peter Kokh - kokhmmm@aol.com
# Experimental Lunar Agriculture Team
David Dunlop - dunlop712@yahoo.com
# Lunar Surface Logistics Team
(including Lunar Railroads)
David Dunlop - dunlop712@yahoo.com
Peter Kokh - kokhmmm@aol.com
# Lunar Analog Research Team
Peter Kokh - kokhmmm@aol.com
Dave Dunlop - dunlop712@yahoo.com
Paul Graham - pggraham@gmail.com
#Growing our Society
Obviously, to advance the work of all these teams, we need more members, the more the better, new members ready to roll up their sleeves, more total dues money to fund our growing list of concrete projects. We are gaining a reputation among space groups as “the little engine that could!” We need your help!
Comments? kokhmmm@aol.com
Sept 17, 2008 Society's 1st Annual Membership Meeting
by kokhmmm
By Peter Kokh, President
As a new feature in the Moon Society’s recent bylaws revision of February 6th, as reported in MMM #212, February 2008, Moon Society Journal Section (p.9), this year, on the third Wednesday evening of the month after Society elections are finalized, we will launch our first Annual Membership Meeting.
Save Wednesday evening, September 17th!
The meeting will be online, in the ASI-MOO special chat room environment, 9-11 pm ET, 8-10 pm CT, 7-9 pm MT, 6-8 pm PT. We realize that this window will not be convenient for many members. But neither would any other window. But why this window? This is the time and day slot in which the Society’s Leadership Council, Management Council, and Board of Directors meets.
Practice now!
If your schedule makes attendance at this event possible, and you have never been on the ASI-MOO, you will save yourself a lot of frustration that evening, if you first practice loging on. It is quite simple.
1 Go to our homepage www.moonsociety.org
2 Scroll down the left hand menu column until you come to the ASI-MOO image link. Click on this link
3 Ignore the preliminary information on this page (for advanced users) and scroll down the page until you see the dual links: Java MOO client: Framed Popup
4 Click on either (I like Popup but that’s a personal preference)
5 Wait for the window to fully open. Some browsers are faster than others. Below the preliminary introductory text, you will see a line, below which you can type.
6 Type these three words: connect (your) username password all in lower case, each word separated by a space with no quotation marks. Hit carriage return
7 You will find yourself in the “Commons” Now you want to go to the “Auditorium” where the Members Meeting will be held. The instructions in the Commons say that the Auditiorium is “NorthWest” so type NorthWest without quotes and with capitals as indicated, then hit carriage Return, and you should be in.
Most likely problem you will have is not knowing your username and password. If this turns out to be the case, just contact me at kokhmmm@aol.com and tell me what your problem is. If you prefer an answer by phone, give me your phone # and best times to call in your email. We’ll get you in, but do not wait until the last minute as I will be busy with other things!
Format and Topics of the Meeting
In preparation for the meeting, we will post an Annual Report in the Members Area of our web site:
http://www.moonsociety.org/members/reports/annual_report2008.pdf
[This address will not be valid until a week before the meeting]
Publicizing this Meeting
Meanwhile, the notice for this meeting, including this “how to attend” information, will be printed in MMM (this is it) and posted on the Artemis-List as well as sent by email to all current members with current email addresses in our database. If you have changed your email address, do call that to our attention! You many change it yourself at www.moonsociety.org/mymoon/ though you will need your username and password to access that page. Otherwise simply email your current email address to kokhmmm@aol.com
Meeting Structure
The meeting will be chaired by Chairman of the Board, R. Scotty Gammenthaler.
After a review of the contents of the Annual Report, the floor will be open to questions from members. Members who plan to ask questions are invited to submit them in advance to kokhmmm@aol.com as this will help in bundling together related questions and responses. However, this is not necessary and spontaneous questions are welcome.
Questions can be about problems with member-ship processing, Society response to problems, current projects and new project ideas, the overall direction of the society and suggestions in this regard, membership benefits, how to grow the society in numbers, name recognition, and project output, etc.
The Annual Report
The annual report as prepared by the president, will cover recent bylaws changes, elections results, our Vision, Mission, and Strategy, existing and proposed new projects, our primary and auxiliary websites, Moon Miners’ Manifesto, our affiliations and collaborations, the treasurers report, awards of recognition for significant service to the Society, and our plans to make the Society ever more effective, and more.
To the Curious
If you are reading this and are not a current member, by all means so join or rejoin. We will be most happy to benefit from your ideas and energies and initiatives.
A Learning Experience
We have never held an annual Membership Meeting before and so this will necessarily be one of those “leaning experiences.” But even before the curtain falls on this first one, if you have ideas for features that should be included, don’t wait to share them with us. We want this first meeting to be as comprehensive as possible.
Other Preparations: a Questionnaire
We have been working on a Questionnaire, asking current and former members how they first heard of the Moon Society. We hope that the results of this survey will help us better direct our efforts to grow the Society. We hope to get this out soon.
Quarterly Town Meetings?
This is another but related idea that we have been considering – holding an online Town Meeting quarterly (three a year plus the Annual Meeting) and probably rotating the day of the week on which it is held. The idea would be to elicit continuous feedback and to provide more opportunities to participate.
Thanks, Peter Kokh
Solar Power Beaming Demonstration Unit Makes Debut
by kokhmmm
06-14-2008. Our Solar Power Beaming Demonstration was finished in time to make its debut at the International Space Development Conference in Washington DC on Saturday, May 31st.
Photos from the conference:
Assembled Unit - Paul Blase, who put the unit together, stands at the side
Society Leaders in front of the unit, left to right: Director of Project Development and Board Candidate David Dunlop , Board Candidate Fred Hills, President Peter Kokh, Treasurer Dana Carson
Society President Peter Kokh congratulates USAF Lt. Col Peter Garretson on his original design that was the inspiration for our unit
The idea was to create a working demonstration of how Solar power Satellites would work, with the aim of boosting public support for this initiative. Solar Power Satellites have been receiving renewed interest since the release of the National Space Security Office report [http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/space_solar_alliance.html] on October 10, 2007. We could not have tackled this project without the expertise of two persons: Vice-president Charles F. Radley, and Board Chairman R. Scotty Gammenthaler. The Board has given them full support including needed funds, to carry this project through to completion.
The enthused response from ISDC attendees was very gratifying, and earned us several new memberships.
We are now working to find ways to help other organizations replicate our working model based on our parts list, list of parts sources, blueprints, and procedures for building and testing the working parts - the transmitter and rectifier - and the procedures for getting these approved by the FCC so that they can be operated in public.
Leadership Council member James Rogers has produced a trifold brochure on the project
http://www.moonsociety.org/projects/spb-demo/spb-brochure.pdf
Reauthorizing the Vision for Space Exploration
by kokhmmm
Link: http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/reauthorizing_VSE.html
On May 7, 2008, George Whitesides, Executive Director of our affiliate organization, The National Space Society, read a prepared comprehensive and in depth presentation on the future goals of the American Space Program before Congress.
His audience was a US Senate Subcommittee - the Subcommittee on Space, Aeronautics, and Related Sciences Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which was having a special hearing on the subject.
As we all know, or should know, none of the three remaining candidates for the Presidency of the United States shares our vision in more than part. The VSE, originally dubbed "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" is a vision in jeopardy.
It is a problem because neither of the candidates, or their science advisor teams, has made space a top level priority, though all three proclaim strong support for the Space Program.
The problem is twofold.
On the one hand, partially because of the current war, partly because of the state of the economy which is not as strong and vigorous as it was four years ago, Congress and the Administration are facing a dire need to cut expenditures.
On the other hand, this constant squabble over diminishing slices of a diminishing pie, pits those who should be allies in opposing positions. In our case, that means robotic planetary exploration and manned space programs.
The hard facts are that different programs which should be funded separately are mischievously put into competition by the committees and subcommittees under which they are funded.
Not only has it long been a mischievous tactic to pit NASA against HUD etc.,, it is mischievous to pit robotic exploration against manned space programs.
Is there a way out? We think so, but it would be a hard sell.
Divide NASA programs into two parts, robotic space exploration and manned space programs, under two different agencies, not one. Currently, even if Congress supports funding for both programs, the NASA Administrator has the power to pick and choose, for example, cutting planned robotic exploration so that the Moon program can continue, or vice versa.
One thing many space advocates have been pushing for more than two decades is to make NASA a customer for space transportation services, not a provider. If we did that, the Constellation-Orion-Ares programs would be canceled, to the great advantage of commercial COTS type programs to create incentives for the Commercial Launch Services Industry to provide superior vehicles at lower launch costs. Competition alone can reduce outrageous space transportation costs.
Then, even as NASA put out a call for proposals for providing crew and cargo transportation to the International Space Station for the period between the mothballing of the remaining Space Shuttle fleet and the debut of service to the space station by commercial providers, the Agency could put out a call for moon base design, construction, and build out services to be provided commercially, and then, looking at the proposals, pick the best two for initial funding.
No matter how highly we regard NASA on the basis of past achievements, the very way NASA works escalates costs and makes all space programs much more expensive than they would have to be. One of those cost factors is satisfying Congress and the population at large on safety. Both Congress and the American people at large are becoming increasingly risk averse in a way that betrays the pioneering frontier spirit of our ancestors. This development is not something of which to be proud. Commercial contractors can be more realistic. There has hardly been a major skyscraper or major bridge built without fatalities.
We cannot continue to keep the space program hostage to the feint of heart. The timid who believe it is a God-given right of every person to die of old age must not be allowed to constrain the hopes and aspirations of our nation. Most of our leaders know that, of course, and that gives us hope that Space will not fall victim to those who would cease all this progress stuff, a problem addressed in the classic 1936 science fiction film, "The Shape of Things to Come."
In the long haul, the only way we can assure our vision for Space, is to free it from the veto power of those for whom it is not a top level priority, that is, American taxpayers, NASA, for all its tremendous accomplishments, remains a socialized space program.
Our number one legislative initiatives should be to continue in the fine tradition established by space enthusiasts in recent times to dissolve unnecessary roadblocks for commercial space enterprises. We have made progress, we need to make more.
An incentive program on the order of a national X-prize program, might be established to give extra incentives to the commercial sector.
And we should start creating incentives for power production companies (fossil fuel, and electrical power both) to develop space-based solutions and sources.
National support for Space Tourism initiatives would also help.
Now that would be the American Way!
Do read George Whitesdies comprehensive presentation! The Moon Society lauds and supports this statement, and we have posted it, a 78k pdf file, on our website at:
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/papers/GW-ReauthorizingVSE.pdf
We must all realize that just as NASA invests in redundancy to avoid systems failures, it is in our best interests to invest in redundancy at a higher level, so that if NASA fails, whether on its own or for lack of support in Congress and in the Administration, that our future in space will not fail with it.
Putting all ones eggs in one basket has never been a good idea. Too many of us, I fear, have put all our vision eggs in the basket of NASA. We owe it to ourselves to invest in alternative options. We cannot and must not let the veto power of the public to decide the fate of our goals and aspirations. This is not an anti-NASA statement, it is an anti-one-basket-only statement.
Peter Kokh, President, The Moon Society.