SELBE Research Institute
National Space Society (NSS) Space Settlement Nexus Sitemap
The National Space Society is the preeminent citizen’s voice on space exploration, development, and settlement. The NSS Vision is “People living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.” NSS proposes:
A Better Future
There are many reasons to move into space: growth, wealth, energy, survival, spiritual development, knowledge, diversity, to solve serious Earthly problems, to fulfill a sense of destiny and responsibility, and even to have fun. All of these boil down to a simple fact: A future with space settlement is vastly better than one without it.
This flows from another simple fact: There are far, far more resources in space than on Earth.
For example:
The largest asteroid, Ceres, has enough material to build orbital space settlements with a total living area well over a hundred times the land area of the Earth.
One smallish asteroid, 3554 Amun, has about $20 trillion worth of metals [Lewis, John S. (1996). Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets, page 112]. There are tens of thousands of asteroids.
The energy available for space settlements exceeds 2 billion times the total energy currently used by humanity.
There are potentially profit-making industries: space tourism, space solar power, space materials, and others that can pave the path to the first self-sustaining space settlements.
Furthermore, we more-or-less know how to exploit these resources without hurting anyone, oppressing anyone, or harming any living organism for the simple reason that there aren’t any living things there — it’s just rock and radiation, both of which are usable (and valuable) resources. We can bring life into space at great advantage to those who dare try, as well as to humanity as a whole.
The NSS Space Settlement Nexus Sitemap is at:
https://nss.org/space-settlement-nexus-sitemap/
A related NASA Space Settlement Sitemap is at:
https://nss.org/settlement/nasa/index.html
Information on the 45th NSS International Space Development Conference (ISDC) that will focus on “Actively Designing Life Beyond Earth at Home on the Moon.” to be held May 27-30, 2027 in Los Angeles:
SELBE RI Comments
The NSS is the preeminent space settlement organization and SELBE RI is aligned in many ways with them. The most significant difference is the SELBE RI focus on sustainably establishing ecosystems of small animals, plants, and microbes prior to the establishment of large human communities in space. Doing so mitigates many risks and facilitates the eventual establishment to space settlement in which humans, animals, and plants co-exist.
NSS Space Settlement Nexus Sitemap
