Back from NSS ISDC 2022, and it was amazing to see people in the flesh again.
The National Space Society (NSS) in many ways is like a family, with people who share a pasionate vision for a future where people of all types and stripes live and work in the expanses of space for the benefit of Earth and the future. In my terms, Trillions of Happy, Smiling, Babies. The NSS is not nearly just engineers and scientists, and indeed is mostly just normal populace, from retired teachers, to high schoolers, to artists, to farmers, and many others. The International Space Development Conference (ISDC) the last few times was virtual due to the 'VID but this time was in Arlington VA. I did two presentations, one in the space ambassador track, one in the space settlement track, and was on a panel too, all on farming in space.
All those presos are on my site here ( https://www.combat-fishing.com/animationspace/terraform.html).
Met many cool people, including a former head of NASA, other authors and artists too, and especially with other people from around the world who work on using plants, bioreactors, and maybe fungi and animals, to close the mass flow loop in space (i.e. take the human outputs, and turn them into human inputs).
Also saw many posters from the 'puppy engineers' from the International Space Settlement Competition (know some kids who like science? GET THEM TO ENTER!!!!) and a few from the International Space Settlement Design Competition (for slightly older kids, again GET THEM TO ENTER!!!) So much promise makes me feel joy and hope!
Will be advising a few other sci-fi authors on space farms, and am working up a project to run out of the SAM facility at U of Az, or similar, to get some space farm tech matured. Want to play at being a space farmer? Check out SIMOC (https://simoc.space/).
As a result of all that interaction, I now have my list of technical reviewers for my own Space Farm reference book (though for a general audience, not just geeks), hoping to have a publisher lined up very soon.
Ad Astra!
Bryce
