Space Settlement

The space settlement ideas of Dr. Gerard O’Neill are at the core of the NSS’ vision for making humanity a space faring species. This vision did not focus on surface settlements, for example, on the Moon or Mars, but rather featured settlements in free space with settlers living inside huge rotating satellites orbiting around Earth at first and other planets and asteroids later. These settlements rotate to deliver 1g of pseudo-gravity to inhabitants so their children will grow up with strong bones and muscles.

But O’Neill’s works, such as “The High Frontier,” were published nearly 50 years ago. How have these been updated, and what will these new plans look like? How can we learn to live and work in a rotating environment? How does the discovery of a low-radiation region near the equator (ELEO) roughly 500 km from Earth change early settlement? Can we reliably grow Space Farms to feed settlers, provide oxygen, clean air and water? Can we recycle nearly everything? Is the surface gravity of the Moon and Mars (1/6g and 1/3g) acceptable for children and adults? These and many other areas of pressing concern are at the core of the Space Settlement track—and the NSS remains the most prominent archive and clearing house for cutting-edge developments and archival of existing work.

Co-Chair:

Al Globus

Board of Directors

National Space Society

Co-Chair:

Al Globus

Board of Directors

National Space Society

Al Globus worked at NASA Ames on space settlement, asteroid mining, Hubble, space stations, X37, Earth observation, TDRSS, cubesats, lunar teleoperation, spaceflight effects on bone, molecular nanotechnology, and space solar power publishing dozens of papers on these and other topics. He founded and has run the annual Space Settlement Contest for 7-12 grade students for over 25 years. Most recently, he found a way to build O’Neill-style space settlements with two or more orders of magnitude less mass and place them close to Earth, making launch from Earth practical.

Co-Chair:

Anita Gale

Chief Executive Officer

 National Space Society

Anita Gale co-founded events in the 1980s that became the International Space Settlement Design Competition. Her research for the Competition led to writing and presenting papers on triggering events for space settlement, space infrastructure, and economic justifications for space settlements. Her 40-year career with The Boeing Company included payload and cargo integration for reusable launch vehicles, proposals for future space vehicles, roadmapping space infrastructure development, and multiple R&D projects to improve space vehicle operations. Anita is an elected NSS Board Member, and currently serves on the NSS Executive Committee as Chief Executive Officer.

Co-Chair:

Phil Swan

Co-Chair:

Phil Swan

Phil Swan has a track record of developing successful innovations while working on advanced multi-disciplinary projects including Starlink, Hololens, and Xbox. He has been granted 38 US patents, including, most recently, a patent for the Tethered Ring. He is the recipient of three corporate recognition awards.