 The original L5 Society logo, currently located at the L5 News archive on the World Wide Web The L5 Society was founded in 1975 by Carolyn and Keith Henson to promote the space colony ideas of Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill. Image File history File links L5logo. ...
Image File history File links L5logo. ...
Keith Henson in Clearwater, Florida Howard Keith Henson is an American Electrical Engineer and writer on life extension, cryonics, memetics and Evolutionary psychology. ...
Gerard Kitchen ONeill (1927 - 1992) was a U.S. physicist and space pioneer. ...
The name comes from the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points proposed as locations for the huge rotating space habitats that Dr. O'Neill envisioned. L4 and L5 are points of stable gravitational equilibrium located on the Moon's orbit at equal distances from both the Earth and the Moon. An object placed in orbit around L5 (or L4) will remain there indefinitely without having to expend fuel to keep its position, whereas an object placed at L1, L2 or L3 (all points of unstable equilibrium) may have to expend fuel if it drifts off the point. The Lagrangian points (IPA: ; also Lagrange point, L-point, or libration point), are the five positions in space where a small object can be stationary with respect to two larger objects (such as a satellite with respect to the Earth and Moon). ...
A space habitat, also called space colony and orbital colony, is a space station which is intended as a permanent settlement rather than as a simple waystation or other specialized facility. ...
Dr. O'Neill's first published paper on the subject, "The Colonization of Space," appeared in the journal Physics Today in September 1974. A number of people who later became leaders of the L5 Society got their first exposure to the idea from this article. Among these were a couple from Tucson, Arizona, Carolyn and Keith Henson. The Hensons corresponded with O'Neill and were invited to present a paper on "Closed Ecosystems of High Agricultural Yield" at the 1975 Princeton Conference on Space Manufacturing Facilities, which was organized by O'Neill. Physics Today, the flagship publication of The American Institute of Physics, has been published regularly since 1948. ...
Keith Henson in Clearwater, Florida Howard Keith Henson is an American Electrical Engineer and writer on life extension, cryonics, memetics and Evolutionary psychology. ...
At this conference, Dr. O'Neill merged the Solar Power Satellite (SPS) ideas of Dr. Peter Glaser with his space habitat concepts. A solar power satellite, or SPS, is a proposed satellite built in high Earth orbit that uses microwave power transmission to beam solar power to a very large antenna on Earth where it can be used in place of conventional power sources. ...
Dr. Peter Glaser, creator of the Solar Power Satellite concept Photo courtesy National Space Society Dr. Peter Glaser, Vice President, Advanced Technology (retired), was associated with Arthur D. Little, Inc. ...
A space habitat, also called space colony and orbital colony, is a space station which is intended as a permanent settlement rather than as a simple waystation or other specialized facility. ...
The Hensons incorporated the L5 Society in August of 1975, and sent its first 4-page newsletter in September to a sign up list from the conference and Dr. O'Neill's mailing list. The first newsletter included a letter of support from Morris Udall (then a contender for US president) and said "our clearly stated long range goal will be to disband the Society in a mass meeting at L5." Morris King Udall (June 15, 1922 - December 12, 1998), better known as Mo, was an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Arizona from 1961 to 1991. ...
The peak of L5's influence was the defeat of the Moon Treaty in the US Senate in 1980. Leigh Ratiner, a Washington lawyer/lobbyist, was instrumental in this effort. (Leigh was later forced out of his lawfirm due to his successful representation of Inslaw.) The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, better known as the Moon Treaty or Moon Agreement, was finalized in 1979 and entered into force for the ratifying parties in 1984. ...
Inslaw is a now-defunct software company which enhanced a public domain software package developed by the United States government, called PROMIS, and attempted to resell it to the government. ...
Though economic analysis indicated the SPS/space colony concept had merit, it foundered on short political and economic horizons and the fact that the transport cost to space was about 10,000 times too high for individuals to fund as the Mormon and Plymouth Rock colonies had been. (See the chapter "Pilgrims, Saints and Spacemen" in Freeman Dyson's Disturbing the Universe for an analysis.) Freeman Dyson at Harvard University in 2004 Freeman John Dyson (born December 15, 1923) is an English-born American physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum mechanics, nuclear weapons design and policy, and for his futurism viewpoints and science fiction concepts. ...
In 1986 the Society, which had grown to about 10,000 members, merged with the 25,000 member National Space Institute, founded by famed German rocket engineer and Project Apollo program manager Dr.Wernher von Braun of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to form the present-day National Space Society. The National Space Institute was a space advocacy group established by Wernher von Braun in 1974. ...
Apollo Program insignia Project Apollo was a series of human spaceflight missions undertaken by the United States of America using the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn launch vehicle, conducted during the years 1961–1972. ...
In May 1964, Wernher von Braun stands at his Marshall Space Flight Center desk in Huntsville, Alabama with models of rockets developed and in progress. ...
NASA Logo Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-09-01, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...
Aerial view of the test area at Marshall Space Flight Center The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is a lead NASA center for propulsion, Space Shuttle propulsion, external fuel tank, crew training and payloads, International Space Station (ISS) design and construction, for computers, networks, and information management. ...
National Space Society logo The National Space Society (NSS) is an international nonprofit 501(c)(3), educational, and scientific organization specializing in space advocacy. ...
While the L5 Society failed to achieve the goal of human settlements in space, it served as a Schelling point for many of the people who later became known in scientific fields of nanotechnology, extropianism, cryonics, transhumanism, artificial intelligence and Tether propulsion such as Dr. Eric Drexler, Dr. Robert Forward, Dr. Hans Moravec and many others. An interesting account is provided by author Ed Regis in "Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition" (1990 - ISBN 0201092581). Bovlb 07:42:14, 2005-08-31 (UTC) Categories: Possible copyright violations ...
A mite next to a gear set produced using MEMS, the precursor to nanotechnology. ...
Extropianism, also reffered to as extropy, is a transhumanist philosophy characterized by a set of principles regarding extropy, defined by Dr. Max More in The Principles of Extropy. ...
This bigfoot Dewar flask is custom-designed to contain four wholebody patients and six neuropatients immersed in liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees Celsius. ...
Transhumanism is an emergent school of speculative philosophy analysing or favouring the use of science and technology, especially neurotechnology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, to overcome human limitations and improve the human condition. ...
Artificial intelligence (also known as machine intelligence and often abbreviated as AI) is intelligence exhibited by any manufactured (i. ...
Artists conception of satellite with a tether Tether propulsion uses long, strong strings (known as tethers) to change the orbits of spacecraft. ...
K. Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is best known for popularizing the potential of molecular nanotechnology. ...
Robert Lull Forward commonly known as Robert L. Forward (August 15, 1932 - September 21, 2002) was a United States physicist and science fiction writer. ...
Hans Moravec is a permanent resident research professor at the Robotics Institute (Carnegie Mellon) of Carnegie Mellon University known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology. ...
L5 News was the newsletter of the L5 Society reporting on space habitat development and related space issues. The L5 News was published from September 1975 until April 1987, when the merger with the National Space Institute was completed and the newly formed National Space Society began publication of its own magazine, Ad Astra. A space habitat, also called space colony and orbital colony, is a space station which is intended as a permanent settlement rather than as a simple waystation or other specialized facility. ...
Ad Astra Volume 14, Number 4 July/August 2002 ON THE COVER: In this composite image, the space shuttle Discovery lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida while another launcher heads for space. ...
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