<div>Hello!</div><div><br></div><div>I've been at the Hilton Orlando (Flordia) for the last 2 days for the 100 Year Starship Study Symposium (<a href="http://100yss.org" target="_blank">http://100yss.org</a>) going at a variety of talks related to getting humanity to a point where we can build a starship. There was a variety of concurrent tracks: exotic sciences, habitats and environmental sciences, destinations, propulsion, etc. This was a great way to get introduced to the challenges of building a starship in the next 100 years.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I've personally focused on talks that seemed to relate to the immediate future and related to making. This meant going to a talk about "Long-term Computing", "Utilizing Video Games", "Creating Materials for the Starship and a variety of organization related talks". As hackerspaces, we have a bias towards action so I was looking for an actionable plan with a focus on how to structure the organization to do this. </div>
<div><br></div><div>The second day (Saturday), this meant spending a lots of time with the "Education, Social, Economic and Legal considerations panel". </div><div><br></div><div>I've tried my best to summarize the various talks I've seen on Google+:</div>
<div><br></div><a href="https://plus.google.com/s/%23100yss%23?hl=en" target="_blank">https://plus.google.com/s/%23100yss%23?hl=en</a><div><br></div><div>...although to be clear I did not write much from the presentations and panel "Education, Social, Economic and Legal considerations panel" as the information there was much more fuzzy and difficult to nail down content-wise.</div>
<div><div><br></div><div>Today will be the last for the symposium. We (me and Huei Ming Tan from the National University of Singapore) are both on an "Organizations" panel. We will be given an opportunity to highlight what our big idea is in 5 minutes and then discuss with our co-panelists. My job is made easier by the fact that both the DARPA organizers have a bias towards making and that the keynote speech was given by Ariel Waldman (of <a href="http://spacehack.org" target="_blank">spacehack.org</a>) who's already familiar with hackerspaces.<br clear="all">
<div><br></div><div>My intent is to talk and champion the following (draft, I'll keep working on it so if you have suggestions within the next few hours I'm open):</div><div><br></div>Hackerspaces are <b>community-operated physical places</b> all around the world, where people can meet and have fun making things together. Each Hackerspace is an autonomous entity, but they all share the same philosophy of having fun building things. An Hackerspace is an environment where people can learn and tinker with technology, work in teams, participate in international competitions or do ambitious projects from flying machines to biology hacking. </div>
<div><br></div><div>XinCheJian, an Hackerspace I co-founded in Shanghai (China), is one of the many hundreds Hackerspaces all around the world that have been created in the last few years. As an example of this global collaboration, back in April, XinCheJian joined hackerspaces from San Francisco, New York, Australia, Maui to give a response to DARPA Request For Information as part of the 100YSS.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Hackerspaces are part of a large family of organizations called FabLab, TechShops, Makerspaces, etc that exist all around the world. Some are privately incorporated, some are non-profits, some are part of universities and schools, some are funded by individuals, some are sponsored by corporations or governments, some are coops. As local communities, they are adaptive to their environment and the make up of their local societies. They all share a philosophy of making things so they are equipped to do a wide variety of inter-disciplinary projects in mechanical, electrical, software engineering disciplines, arts and/or design with a focus on teaching each other how to make things. <b>Anyone can be part of an Hackerspace, from young kids to retirees, engineers to hobbyists, students to professionals.</b></div>
<div><br></div><div><b>Hackerspaces typically use OpenSource and OpenHardware technologies and generally have a consensus-based, democratic or even anarchism approach with a focus on action</b>. Some of them, such as Noisebridge in San Francisco SpaceBridge program and Melbourne Connected Community Lunar Numbat program, already have undertaken a variety of projects related to space. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Our proposal is to inspire some of these already existing communities to join and participate to a well-defined, realistic, global 100 years space program roadmap that can be broken down into small buildable projects with a focus on dual-use technologies on Earth and in space to work towards our long-term goal of reaching the stars.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Hackerspaces are best suited to attract the kind of people fascinated by space and the promises of space. <b>Hackerspaces philosophy is one of openness, sharing, collaboration and communities which is essential for humanity to building the knowledge and knowhow to reach the stars</b>. Hackerspaces, because they are born from their local communities, have organizations well-adapted to their social environments and through their members, connected to the organizations surrounding them. They are also by their existence <b>already self-sustainable communities</b>. </div>
<div><br></div><div>For the purpose of the space program, instead of centrally organizing, we believe in <b>inspiring and evangelizing through a common dream and repository of common technologies</b>. The 100 Year Starship Study could funnel the small amount of money it has remaining into funding a variety of realistic short-term projects that fit into the larger plan with the hope that these projects can be further funded through crowd-funding and productization. This will give the opportunity to space fans, amateurs and hobbyists to move beyond part-time endeavors while equipping further Hackerspaces with the tools they need to build space technologies.</div>
<div><br></div><div><div>In the short-term, walking back from the long-term proposals discussed at this symposium and while we wait for basic breakthrough in physics to make the trip to the stars practical, <b>I personally believe</b> that we can focus the next few years on self-sustainable ventures around near space. This means a focus on making robots that can prospect and mine near-earth objects, use the material generated to build space factories and power stations that together can build more things. This is to both escape the gravity well tax and find a profitable way to exploit space by bringing back valuable resources to Earth. This is a necessary first step to any sustainable long-term development. </div>
<div></div></div><div><br></div><div>Hackerspaces can extend their existing community to work in partnership with individuals, other non-profits, universities, private companies, state-owned enterprises, governmental organizations and governments to connect efforts to a global one. By using this open platform for the 100 Years Starship, we can increase the number of stakeholders dramatically and ensure that the next four human generations are intimately involved with the global starship space program through <b>making</b>.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Thank you!</div><div>-- <br>伍思力 | Ricky Ng-Adam | <a href="http://xinchejian.com" target="_blank">http://xinchejian.com</a> | <a href="tel:%28%2B86%29%20186-2126-2521" value="+8618621262521" target="_blank">(+86) 186-2126-2521</a><br>
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