McKnight_2003
Copyright © 2003 by John Carter McKnight. Published to the Marspapers archive with permission.
THE SPACEFARING WEB
MARS: THEMES AND VISIONS
John Carter McKnight
The Spacefaring Web is the space movement's longest-running opinion column, currently in its third year of biweekly publication. While each article stands alone, it is also a node in an expanding network of thought on the cultural role of space. "The Spacefaring Web" is title, subject and thesis, making the case for a decentralized, open approach to expanding into the cosmos, in sharp contrast to the single-point government programs of the past.
The column has had several purposes: to advocate and describe an approach to the enterprise of space settlement growing from network relationships among autonomous nodes, in contrast to the hierarchical command efforts of government space programs and the consumer-entertainment models sometimes advocated as an alternative. It has sought to bring cultural issues into the science-driven discussion of our future in space, from political theory to marketing. First and foremost, it was intended as a goad to encourage other space advocates to write, publish, and publicly argue for their own views, raising the public visibility of space settlement all around.
Just as it has in our night skies, Mars has waxed and waned in The Spacefaring Web during its first two years. The column started under the title "MarsNow," as a rather bookish essay sent twice weekly to a small list of personal contacts. It quickly broadened in scope and distribution, to focus on an array of social-science issues related to the opening of the space frontier, and to viral growth in its reach, abetted by publication in the space news outlet, SpaceDaily.com.
A few themes of The Spacefaring Web recur through these Mars essays, illuminated from different angles in the light of contemporary events, from missions to movies to serendipitous bookstore purchases. As the overarching context of all the columns taken in sequence is missing from this compilation, this introductory essay will fill in some of the gaps from the omission of discussions of O'Neill colonies, startup rocket companies, private military contractors, space tourism and SETI, all of which teased out the binding threads of The Spacefaring Web.