Are you disappointed with space travel and exploration (to say nothing of tourism and colonization) so far? Me too! This page is for the enthusiast who is sick, Sick, SICK! of the Government's continued campaign to keep us Down Here. These links are not to NASA, JPL or any other Government site - they're not worthy. Instead, you'll see websites of people who are working on making free access to space a reality for everyone ... and, maybe, a link or two to a few cranks who tickle my fancy.

After all, what do we have fancies for, if not to be tickled?

This was the title of a series of 5 short stories that ran in Future Magazine in 1978 and 1979. They were set aboard an O'Neill Island One-type space colony. If you can find those old issues in a comic or sci-fi shop somewhere, buy them - they're worth the read.

My Ideas On Civilization In Space are very different from what is generally - in fact, unconsciously - agreed upon by most. This is because I have a different definition of "civilization" than most government bureaucrats and aerospace professionals - and it doesn't include government or generating large amounts of self-congratulatory paperwork.

And for comic relief, there is always Fags In Space.

I have an idea for a mobile lunar factory.

Other people have ideas too - some of them laughably bizarre. These people need to learn that the source of "rights" is not sentience, but sapience. And anyway, what if Venus is inhabited?

Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute is working on several Lunar Rover Projects, one of which is a teleoperated model being developed for LunaCorp. Now there's an idea that might actually make money.

I also have my own ideas on Lunar teleoperations. I'll admit I heard it first from Jerry Pournelle, but I've added a few improvements of my own. The oroginal article was in Pournelle's Destinies bookazine - anyone know the exact issue?

The Artemis Society, sponsors of the Lunar Underground Webring, is another group that want to make Lunar colonization pay by tourism, although their idea is to actually take people physically to the Moon. It seems the LunaCorp way would be cheaper; maybe one could lead to the other?

Artemis also publishes The Moon Miner's Manifesto, a newsletter for all you aspirant Moon miners out there. If you follow that link you will notice that, although they claim several issues are on-line, there is no way to get to them! It would seem that the home page of a publication should lead to a table of contents, don't you think? The issues are on-line, and there is such a table, but you'd never find it by thinking logically. I found it though; it is here.

On the other hand, the website for The Lunar Society is tremendously stupid and literally not worth visiting. Why? Because all it does is direct you to the Artemis Project! In other words, it seems that there is no Lunar Society except on that one page. DUH! What a waste of precious megabytes. Boys and girls, can you say, "pointless?"

Lunar Traders have a lot of neat stuff for sale. Notice that they've found a way to make the Moon pay without leaving Earth. Way to go, Lunar Traders!

Wanna buy a space station? Energia Ltd. might sell you one.

Do you like forums? Here's the Back 2 The Moon Archive.

Ben Bova's Welcome To Moonbase used to be one of my favorite books. Now it's one I love to hate. Why? Simply because of the assumptions he makes, not only about the way life will be on the Moon, but about the way it should be.

Speculative fiction is a powerful tool for promoting ideas, though, and as such Welcome To Moonbase was very successful. Taking my cue from Bova I have witten my own alternative, this time with anarchist instead of statist values. Now you, Dear Surfer, are invited to visit the "capital" city of the People's Democratic Republic Of Luna: Welcome To Lunapolis.

The Mars Society had their Founding Conference in Boulder on August 13-17, 1998. GIT researcher Amanda Gilbert spoke to over 100 people on Friday, August 14 at 3 PM on the subject of Mass-Based Propulsion Systems. Amanda has also put her experiences and impressions at the Conference on the web.

Dr. Robert Zubrin, one of the founders of the Mars Society and a diligent crusader for Mars, believes future Martians will use a Zodiac calendar to tell time on our new planet. Personally, I favor Martian Standard Time.

Personally, don't want Mars to be the private playground of NASA bureaucrats. That's why I desgned the ----- .

Martyn J. Fogg is one of the better-known caracters in terraforming circles, and why not? He literally wrote the book on the subject. His Terraforming Information Pages are exactly that, and a good place to start on the subject.

The Venus Project is one man's (??) idea on how to terraform Venus in one trip, with existing technology. It's not very deep yet, but the site is still under construction. Give it a look.

If you want to give Venus a look, try The Venus Hypermap.