alternatehistory.com

"Several people have aspired to lead the modern American pro-space movement at one time or another, and there have been suggestions that the right individual could have brought it together. The names usually put forward are Wernher von Braun, whose background was controversial and who died before the pro-space phenomenon really blossomed; Gerard K. O'Neill, who many believe does not have the political skills required; and Carl Sagan, whose liberal political stance alienates him from many pro-space people and whose criticisms of the manned space program have not endeared him to groups such as the L-5 Society.

As for organizations, the National Space Institute and the L-5 Society each may have had the chance to become the nexus of a pro-space movement, but none succeeded so far. Pro-space citizens groups have not yet coordinated successfully with other parts of the space interest constituency, such as the Aerospace Industries Association. Today the pro-space community remains without a joint organization, a single dominant leader, or a universally agreed platform.

The National Space Institute was created in 1975 but soon Von Braun's declining health prevented him from devoting his full energies to the new organization; the next year he had to gave up the presidency. Von Braun's death in June 1977 was a serious blow for the institute, whose fund raising had never reached the critical mass necessary for exponential growth.

Meanwhile, astronomer Carl Sagan was approached to see if he would be willing to join the board. Sagan reportedly expressed interest but only on the conditions that more scientists be put on the board and that NSI take a broader view of space than the manned spaceflight program. This did not happened, and Sagan went away.

It was hardly a surprise Sagan didn't fit too well into von Braun vision.

According to Sagan himself there can be no doubt regarding von Braun's significance:

"Wernher von Braun played an absolutely essential role in the history of rocketry and the development of spaceflight — equally on the inspirational as on the technical sideHis Collier's articles and his popular books — especially the Conquest of the Moon and the Conquest of Mars — were influential in shaping my teenage view about the feasibility and nature of interplanetary flight. Much later, his 'Mars Project' and I'm sure affected my later view of Martian exploration."

There is little doubt that von Braun's example also encouraged the planetary scientist in his secondary career as a science popularizer and celebrity. However, as an academic scientist with little patience for the military-industrial complex that fostered von Braun's working life, Sagan also found the engineer's smooth compliance with the militarism and racist ideology of Nazi Germany deeply disturbing. The moral that Sagan draws from von Braun's apparent complaisance under the Nazi regime is that

"it is the responsibility of the scientist or engineer to hold back and even, if necessary, to refuse to participate in technological development no matter how 'sweet' — when the auspices or objectives are sufficiently sinister.

While Sagan spent a good portion of his public career working for the scientific exploration of space, he is no fan of von Braun's single-minded devotion to the dream. Despite von Braun's eminence, Sagan can not sanction his predecessor's willing[ness] to use any argument and accept any sponsorship as long as it could get us into space.

In the end Sagan, Von Braun and their respective followers were too different to work together.

At the end of the day Sagan felt much closer from the third major space advocate of the time - Gerad O'Neill.

The argument that cultural diversity would be a highly desirable result of space colonies persuaded many astrofuturists on the left. Sagan himself began revising a long-held skepticism about the human exploration of space because O'Neill's grand idea offered the possibility of utopian experiments on the space frontier. With an eye toward the relevance of space colonization to contemporary concerns, Sagan substituted the term space city for space colony, arguing,

"I think Space Colonies conveys an unpleasant sense of colonialism which is not, I think the spirit behind the idea."

With this gesture toward eschewing the imperialist traditions of astrofuturism, Sagan registers his belief that

"The idea of independent cities in space — each perhaps built on differing social, economic or political assumptions, or having different ethnic antecedents — is appealing, an opportunity for those deeply disenchanted with terrestrial civilizations to strike out on their own somewhere else. In its earlier history, America provided such an opportunity for the restless, ambitious and adventurous. Space cities could be a kind of America in the skies. They also would greatly enhance the survival potential of the human species."

Both Sagan and O'Neill embraced the space frontier as the arena in which the American experience as Utopian experiment could be replayed and vindicated.

It is thus no surprise that Sagan ultimately threw his weight behind the L-5 society rather than the National Space Institute. His move has had the unfortunate result of more isolation on the von Braun side of space advocacy. Many saw this as a missed opportunity to build a single, general pro-space organization. They were right and wrong at the same time. Sagan fame was welcomed at the L-5 society; it helped the movement to survive the collapse of the early dream that happened after 1977. With the help of former JPL director Bruce Murray and planetary scientist Lou Friedman Sagan lost no time changing the orientation of the L-5 society to more down-to-ground objectives. Surviving L-5 advocates balanced the trio views and ensured the society remained in good terms with the human spaceflight community, including the NSI. Sagan tolerated this only because the long term goal of human colonization of space was a valuable, noble concept. After some years the declining National Space Institute merged with the L-5 society and thus was born the Space Settlement Society (also known as 3S)

After the Space Colonies hype faded, the nascent 3S threw its suport behind NASA space station Liberty. They funded a lot of experiments that were flew aboard Agenas or to the space station. A good example is the mini-centrifuge were mammals were tested against different gravity levels.

Then the 3S leadership made a major discovery: that in-space settlement is nowhere present within the NASA charter. They realized that the reason for that absence is that, well, the US governement has no urgent need to send its citizens living on the Moon or Mars or anywhere else. Meanwhile article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty made clear that governments should issues licence to private companies wanting to sell space infinite resources. Sagan, O'Neil, Vishniac and Robin Zubert struggled to define the role of the Space Settlement Society. The society new mission would be first, to smooth the relation between NASA and private companies by working on article VI of the OST. The 3S second mission would be to take the helm from NASA once exploration would be replaced by colonisation and resource exploitation – somewhere in an unimaginable future. The 3S members also started a long term reflexion about the future of space stations. Clearly there was a gap between NASA Earth orbit space stations and O'Neil L5 colonies. At some point the 3S leadership was split between Moon-first and Mars-first partisans. It was Wolf Vishniac that noted that, if emplaced at the right position, a space station could be useful to Moon, Mars, but also asteroid missions. There was a healthy debate about the next space station emplacement – shall it be LEO or further, either in cislunar space or at the edge of Earth sphere of influence ?