Thursday, April 12, 2012

Space Studies Institute, Gary Hudson, President

Gary talked about becoming the President of Space Studies Institute (SSI).  Gary decided they needed a bold project.  Their goal is to make permanent human settlement of space.  He reviewed some of their previous projects which lead to the lunar rover and an ongoing space manufacturing conference.
The path forward is focused on technical discussion and enable human settlement.  They are trying focusing on what others are not doing.  These projects may be managed by SSI or by others.  The Great Enterprise Initiative is a road map, but doesn’t purport to be complete.  They have five areas: Transportation, Resources, Environment, Society and Economy.  They think Environment is not being studied enough so they will focus on human biology and other biology.
Gary is announcing the first two projects: G-Lab and E-Lab.  After all the work we have done in space we don’t know if a female human can give birth to a child in space and can the baby grow up in space.  The G-Lab is going to try to answer this question.  E-Lab is a more general focus of looking into environment issues. 
Gary says we have a little data on what happens at zero gravity and lots of data for one gravity, but little in between.  The project goal: The question is to answer is “How many gravity does the human body need to live space?”  SSI plans to build a lab near the International Space Station.  He reviewed some of the possible benefits. 


SSI put the full announcement of the Great Enterprise on their web site.


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