In summary, PERMANENT is for developing outer space on a very large scale, rapidly, by using materials already in space -- asteroids near Earth and/or lunar material -- instead of expensively blasting up from Earth all the materials used in space.After all, the Europeans who settled America didn't bring their bricks and cement from Europe...

Using factories based in space, and feedstocks from asteroids near Earth and/or the Moon, products would include:

• large structures for mounting and linking multiple satellites and giant antennas ("orbital antenna farms") for enhanced wireless communications on Earth which no present-day or currently planned satellite communications provider could compete with -- not even Teledesic and Iridium
• basic space station and habitat building blocks (why blast it all up from Earth?)
• industrial facilities for export of services and goods to Earth economies (see the "Products and services " section)
• solar power plants to beam clean electrical energy to consumers on Earth by safe radio beam
• fuel propellants (the gas stations in space) to support all kinds of next generation satellite in-space services, products and infrastructure … and including Teledesic-like constellations
• "domestic in-space" products such as large corporate space settlements

The purpose of the PERMANENT pages is to introduce potential investors, engineers, journalists and the general public all over the world to these concepts, and to invite participation by a diversity of additional human resources. By bringing a brief synopsis and also offering comprehensive materials at your fingertips via the WWW, you have an opportunity to consider involving your life with this progressive venture in our generation, at the ground level. It will take off real soon now. We want real good people lined up at the ground level, and need people in a variety of fields outside the traditional rocket scientist field. Space development will no longer be an elitist, narrowly specialized field mainly for American and Russian "rocket scientists", but will become a broad economic frontier needing skills from a wide range of disciplines - engineering, construction, financing, public relations, project management, agronomomy, etc.

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Two questions -- whose concepts are these, and who will be developing them?

The author of the PERMANENT pages, physicist Mark Prado, has worked for parts of the American space program fulltime for the Pentagon ("Star Wars"/SDI and other advanced planning in the US Department of Defense back in the 1980s) and as a consultant. More recently, Mark Prado has been consulting to multinational engineering and construction companies building industrial facilities and infrastructure in remote parts of the world (somewhat in common with building things in remote parts of outer space).

These are not my ideas. I'm just a spokesperson experienced in public relations, reporting the work and analyses of dozens of the most reputable engineers and scientists who don't have the breadth of my experience around the world economy or the public relations wherewithall.

The vast majority of the concepts presented in this book come from papers presented at technical conferences, discussions at professional conferences, and various proposals and reports that have floated around the space development community. There are also some other books listed in chapter 10 which cover some of these concepts in much less detail as regards the next steps out.

I'm no longer into performing detailed technical research myself -- others do enough of that already. My role is in marketing that research outside the esoteric "rocket scientist community", the main thing lacking in this field.

This is both a book and an internet website. The book is a snapshot printout of a subset of the internet website -- its more general text explaining the concepts. Every page in the book is on the website, but only part of the website is in the book. Everything underlined in the book denotes something you can click on with a mouse to get more information on, including very detailed technical information or a referral to another entity's website.

This website/book is a synopsis of work in this field by a number of the most highly experienced and reputable organizations and professional individuals, reflecting a tremendous amount of scientific and engineering analysis. A profitable, private sector (i.e., nongovernmental, non-NASA, and not 100% American) PERMANENT program could be started in the near term, be profitable along the way, and if managed well could lead our species in a historic step out of the Earth cradle and into the space frontier permanently by means of self-sufficient space colonies within 10 years. In addition, the first to do so will also have a tremendous competitive economic advantage in both patents and production capability. These pages show how.

This internet WWW site is starting to put this information up on the internet so that we can choose among the most humanistically responsible investors, managers and partners. Please forward this information as appropriate, to the kinds of leaders and do-ers who make history and who are willing to invest in a new kind of venture. There's a first time for everything in life.

PERMANENT gives links to all other reputable and relevant organizations in this field which have a WWW presence, as well as links to many key individuals in the field, and references to resources not on the WWW (organizations, individuals, technical papers and reports). PERMANENT is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan, co-operative site, not a competitor to other organizations. A purpose of PERMANENT is to serve as a comprehensive information clearinghouse, which includes many pointers to more specialized organizations. Regarding any for-profit company that truly embarks on a successful project in space, it can invite skilled and proven team players covered in these pages. There is a lot of talent referenced in these pages, and room for many companies to exist in this field, either as specialist companies doing business with each other or as competitors. This site can also be a culture dish for potential promoters to form a Board of Directors of practical professionals. PERMANENT is willing and self-empowered to serve as a catalyst and a conduit for good people to form such companies.

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The main purpose of this WWW page is to reach out further into the engineering, investor, and general business communities, as well as the general public, to find people with a variety of skills who are interested in being partners in developing, openly critiqueing and refining business plans and mission scenarios which are realistically likely to succeed, as well as performing public and investor relations. You don't need to have any prior experience in the space program, as we need people outside the traditional techie rocket scientist groups, e.g., mining, manufacturing, cost estimating, public relations, artwork, architecture, movie-making, script-writing, marketing, press relations, business library research, etc. Think about it awhile, and it may dawn on you how you can get involved in all this... and feel free to send us e-mail if you want us to help you think about a potential role, if you're truly committed. The space program is becoming more like a mainstream Earth economy rather than a forum for the NASA elite, government contractors, university researchers and private techie specialists.

In addition to being profitably self-supportive and sustainable, PERMANENT will be tremendously beneficial for economies around the world as well as offer long-term preservation of Earth's environment and a better life for our beloved children. All this can happen in most of our lifetimes, if we start now, and if we make it happen. Sitting back as mouse potatoes just looking for entertainment won't make it happen.

Most importantly, our species will become immortal, no matter what happens on Earth. This is important because we are developing the technology to destroy ourselves, e.g., biological warfare, or inadvertant modern biotechnology in the lab. Imagine if a virus like AIDS or Ebola mutated to spread as easily as the common cold and produce symptoms as quickly. Again, not just a naturally occurring virus, but a technically engineered one. At the very least, civilization as we know it could collapse in our generation, even if 5% of our total population survives. At worst, our species becomes extinct, in which case life from Earth may never evolve an intelligent or cooperative enough race to leave the planet before our sun dies. Thus, our generation may be the key to saving not only Earth's unique environment but humankind as well!! Who knows if there is intelligent, spacefaring life elsewhere in the universe which has survived the biotech phase of technological progress... (and they sure haven't made their existence plain anywhere here!) That's why it's important to get space colonization started as quickly as possible, one way or another, and not just put it aside or approach it bureaucratically as something to be done sometime in the future. With knowledge comes responsibility, as well as exciting challenges.

Notably, regarding my consulting to other organizations, both government (SDI, DARPA, State Dept.) and private (e.g., engineering consulting companies), which paid/pay the bills and my lifestyle, none of these result in any vested interests of PERMANENT. Notably, I foremost promote international security and security for life from Earth, and want to bring in the best team of people around today's internetworked world.

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At present, we do not give much coverage to certain important but fairly generic topics such as robotics, astronautics, mathematical modeling of large space structures, etc. There are a lot of public domain papers and big NASA contractor reports on these topics, which could be called "support" topics. Our focus is on certain "mission definition" topics which are outside of NASA's current implementations and which need work despite lack of much government funding. (We are leading, not following.) Topics covered on this website are such things as mining and processing asteroidal and lunar material into feedstocks for industry, the value and design of end products in space made from asteroidal and lunar materials, the economics of missions to specific asteroids, and other mission defining topics. The latter "mission definition" topics are the first priority. When that is defined, we can always plug in the "support" stuff such as robotics, astronautics, beam builders, etc. It is hoped that other websites will emerge which cover such "support" topics as robotics, astronautics, beam makers, etc. If anyone is willing to write up coverage of these or other such "support" topics for putting up on the PERMANENT website, that would be greatly appreciated and we can set up web links to your pages.

Finally, please point out any errors you see, and raise any issues as you see fit, no matter how basic or general. If you know of any relevant WWW links we've missed here, please tell us. If you have any materials of your own which you would like to put up here (with full credits displayed prominently!) -- either just plain text or your own webpages -- please submit them for consideration. If you have others' work (text or art), you must give contact info for them. Any kind of feedback is also appreciated.

This is a chance in life for you to get involved with those of this historic generation in getting us out of Earth's cradle and into the heavens.

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