ACCESS
Active Citizens Cultivating Exploring Settling Space

"We go to Settle Mars, Play on the Moon, and Exploit the Asteroids."


Well, we have a lot of explaining to do. Where to begin? I guess I'll just get to the crux of the matter.

ACCESS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to, well, all things space and based on broad collaboration. That is us in a nutshell, but a nutshell won't do. You need the nut too.

Our over-arching goal is to make us truly a space-faring race(*). I know, that is a high goal, but I did say "all things space", didn't I?

It all comes down to this. Right now, we, the human race, are stuck. We of course would like to become space-faring, but the cost to get to space is too high. It costs way too much to send anything up to orbit. A goal, long time running, of all spaceflight efforts has been to achieve what is in effect, the holy grail of spaceflight: Cheap Access to Space (CATS).

The problem is familiar. The reason that it costs too much to get to space is that it is not routine enough. Our means to get to space, rockets, do not enjoy the benefits of economies of scale. That makes the cost of a rocket very high. Cars were too expensive for common people until Ford came out with his assembly line and began mass producing cars. Only then did the price of cars drop enough to be affordable. There are many economies of scale besides the assembly line just from having high flight rates for your rockets (and we use the term 'mass produced' in a general sense here).

If rockets were to be produced for economies of scale and low operating costs, the price would fall dramatically. The only problem is that there is not enough demand for rockets for them to be mass produced. Few people are buying rockets, so few rockets are being made. The reason though that only "few" and not "many" are buying rockets is because "many" can not afford them.

It goes around in circles. To be cheap, rockets need to be mass produced. To be mass produced, there needs to be high demand for rockets. For there to be high demand, rockets need to be cheap. So you see the long-standing conundrum of spaceflight.

To become truly space-faring, we need to break out of that cycle and achieve CATS. That is the central economic strategy behind ACCESS. As a space program, we provide the demand to lower the cost of getting to space. A very high and lofty goal, we know, but it is achievable.

It is achievable through the broadest collaboration. "Active Citizens" That's us, that's you, that's a lot of other people working together. Enough Joes working together can pull off anything, even achieving such grandiose goals as becoming space-faring and receiving all the benefits that come with it. It's going to take every Joe Space we can get to pull it off, but all we ask of any Jo Space is to do their part as they see fit.

It is well documented how fractured the space community is. Many different space organizations and efforts are all focused on their own specific goal(s). Some are focused completely on the asteroids, others the Moon, and others Mars. We want to pull everyone together. We are going to set up one big tent, and everyone will work together under it to accomplish all our goals and become...here it comes again...space-faring in earnest.


(*)A space-faring species has large numbers of individuals living in multiple off-planet locations, with regular transportation between these locations.

* Please realize that we have just formed in the last several months - mid June 2005 was when we decided to go beyond just talking. * This site is under construction. This site will always be under construction, but we are working towards a date when we can say "we're ready for prime time".

The following are overview-related subjects; we're providing simple links for now:

ACCESS FAQs
Financing
A Worldwide Approach
NASA, Private Industry, & ACCESS
Our Abundance Mentality
Our First Space Steps


We're trying to provide several different overviews. This is a collaborative effort so we want to present it in as many voices as we can get.

Here's an outline of the big picture of space development

Here's a long sales pitch from spacester.

(This page edited on July 3 2005)
(This page edited on July 4 2005)
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(This page last edited on July 19 2005)