Space Volunteers - Space Exploration by the People, for the People

On February first 2010, US President Barack Obama announced the new US space policy as part of his FY2011 budget request. Like the mailman bringing bad news, it spells the end of the Bush-era Constellation program, cancellation of the Ares family of launch vehicles conceived under former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, and the acknowledgement that a government funded return to the Moon is fiscally out of reach for a nation drowning under an ever growing tidal wave of toxic debt. Instead, the president's new space policy focuses on more modest goals: the encouragement of commercial space transportation to replace the outrageously expensive Space Shuttle, and the continued support of the existing investment in the International Space Station.

While the plan also mentions exploration of near Earth objects as a learning-experience for future interplanetary missions, you'd have to be bubbling with optimism like sugar-laced champagne to see this as anything more than a carrot to encourage the space-obsessed to fall in line. The "Flexible Path" is squarely aimed at reducing government spending while maintaining as many jobs as possible - not at the Moon, Mars, your local asteroid, or any other celestial body of note.

What then, is a space cadet to do? The discussion boards are buzzing with reactions ranging across depression ("the days of Apollo will never come back"), patriotic outrage ("the Moon is going to be red, and Indo-China will rule us all"), vindication ("finally we're going straight to Mars, forget the Moon"), and hyper-optimism ("this will open space to everybody, I'm getting a piggybank for my ticket right now"). I would like to offer one more alternative: regardless of where you stand on the issue, or what particular flavor of space exploration is your favorite - how about rolling up your sleeves and working towards making it a reality?

In today's difficult economic climate, many organizations are coming to realize that people (not money) are the most valuable resource. Visions of a space fairing human civilization evoke passionate responses in most (both supportive and opposed), and there are many endeavors successfully leveraging this passion - rather than financial compensation - to motivate people to volunteer their working hours. The current areas of "space volunteering" can be grouped into 5 broad categories: (1) Science Education, (2) Space Visions, (3) Project Collaboration, (4) Grassroots Support, and (5) NewSpace.

Small non-profit agencies like the Aerospace Educational Development Program are providing valuable services in generating space topic materials for educators around the world. On the other end of the scale, the Space Foundation supports teachers and PreK-20 students using a standards-based curriculum that integrates science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) into all content areas. If you feel the future lies in educating the next generation, this is your place to volunteer your efforts.

Space visionaries are also rallying support for their respective interpretations of a future in Space. The Millennial Project 2 is a volunteer supported project to update and revise the content of the plan described by Marshal T. Savage in his book "The Millennial Project"; a comprehensive plan for space development. The Zeitgeist Movement / Venus Project is led by Jacque Fresco and proposes the complete redesign of human culture based on advanced technology, with a focus on beneficial technology to eliminate scarcity.

For those who want to develop their own vision of what Space should be like in the future, online collaborative environments offer the tools to accomplish this. OpenAerospace.Org is a comprehensive Web 2.0 environment; similar to open-source software development, it enables the design of an entire space architecture based on volunteers contributing their work. Grassroots support of ongoing space activities or the discussion of alternatives can be found within the US in the National Space Society and at an international level at the Space Renaissance Initiative.

Even if you are fed up with the planning & talking and really just want up to get down to building something, there are plenty of efforts to volunteer your time to. NewSpace companies like Armadillo Aerospace in the US or the DaVinci Project in Canada are heavily supported by volunteers, and almost any location on the planet has an Amateur Rocketry club for would-be space architects to sharpen their skills.

The bottom line is: if you are passionate about space, there are things you can do to help realize its promise. No matter what your views are, there are efforts underway that need your support, and that will provide you the means to not only talk about Space, but also advance us towards getting there. History is not a spectator sport, nor is Space a universal priority; don't wait for your government to create your future for you. It's time to stop whining about the failures of "Big Government Space" and instead learn from those very failures and then pitch in to do it right ourselves.