DevelopSpace:About

DevelopSpace is an organization dedicated to enabling the human exploration and development of space through open colloboration and sharing of ideas, designs, models, and other information. Our current primary activities have evolved from the MinMars and are focused towards the development of Mars Surface systems. See our Projects page for a complete listing. All interested individuals are invited to participate and contribute.

DevelopSpace.net is hosted by Develop Space Initiative, Inc., a non-profit, 501(c)3 tax-exempt corporation. Donations are tax deductible in the United States. See IRS website for EIN: 83-0480844 confirming our Public Charity status.

To support us, you can donate to DevelopSpace online via PayPal; you can also designate DevelopSpace while you shop via the AmazonSmile program and Amazon will donate 0.5% of eligible purchases. For information on additional ways to donate to DevelopSpace, or for questions or comments not covered elsewhere on this website, please contact info@developspace.net

Officers and Directors

The Officers and Directors of DevelopSpace Initiative, Inc. are selected on an annual basis by the Board of Directors. The current members are as follows:

• Jeremy Conrad, Director
• Paul Wooster, Director, President, and Treasurer
• Richard Zucker, Director and Clerk

Observations leading to the DevelopSpace concept

The following observations were made prior to and during the formulation of the DevelopSpace concept; taken together, these observations provide motivation for the creation of DevelopSpace.

1. There exist a number of technical, financial, and political barriers to human expansion into space.
2. New and more fully developed technologies, systems, and tools will be of assistance in breaking down the technical barriers to the growing human exploration and settlement of space.
3. Human expansion into space captivates a large number of people around the world, although many of them are not at present actively involved in making it happen.
4. Many people around the world have skills relevant to advancing the human exploration and development of space, including a great many who are not currently involved in doing so.
5. Significant activity is already underway around the world in government, academia, industry, and the non-profit sector towards advancing the human exploration and development of space, although frequently much work is duplicated or lacks adequate focus to make a true contribution.
6. Information technologies are advancing rapidly and can enable space development-related collaboration and the sharing of models, tools, methods, results, designs, and other knowledge. Doing so will enable an individual or group to build upon earlier work more directly and will provide greater focus as to what work is worth engaging in.
7. Having an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution towards space exploration and development provides an inspiration and incentive for individuals to learn the math, science, and engineering skills involved in so doing.
8. Having a chance to be actively involved in space exploration and settlement activities makes one a greater supporter of such endeavors.
9. Having a common, open source resource-base on which to draw will allow government, industry, and academia to focus on the truly innovative aspects of their endeavors, rather than having to recreate existing capabilities.

A more in-depth description of the motivation for DevelopSpace can be found in the paper "Opening Space for Humanity - Applying Open Source Concepts to Human Space Activities". Notes from some early DevelopSpace meetings can be found here.

DevelopSpace Mailing Lists

DevelopSpace maintains a mailman server to facilitate communication within projects and across DevelopSpace as a whole. Two lists of general interest are the ds-news low-volume announcement list and the ds-discuss higher volume discussion list. You can subscribe to ds-news by emailing ds-news-subscribe@lists.developspace.net and to ds-discuss by emailing ds-discuss-subscribe@lists.developspace.net

An index of all public DevelopSpace mailing lists, including project lists hosted by DevelopSpace, can be found here.

If your project would like one or more mailing lists created for it, please notify info@developspace.net.

Mailing Address

Written correspondence and donations made out to DevelopSpace Initiative, Inc. may be mailed to us at:

Attn: Paul Wooster
Develop Space Initiative, Inc.
25937 Richville Dr.
Torrance, CA 90505