SPACE AGE is organised by a Core Group of five people. There are no formal posts, except that of Webmaster. Membership of the Core Group is by mutual agreement with the existing members. No formal elections are necessary.
The Core Group for 2004 is as follows:
SPACE AGE was started in 1996 by members of the British Interplanetary Society. Our object is to present to a wider public the arguments why humanity needs to press ahead now with vigorous space exploration. We argue the need to develop ways of living in space and on other worlds, and ways of taking advantage of the plentiful extra-terrestrial resources which await us out there.
We are convinced that a focus on the space frontier will be essential if we are to get our mundane problems of war, poverty and moral dilemmas on Earth into perspective, so that they do not overwhelm us.
We believe that humankind has the potential to spread life from one world to many. The present-day sufferings of our tormented Earth will be revealed as nothing less than her birth-pangs as she labours to give birth, through us, to daughter-ecologies on other planets which do not yet know life.
Our much-criticised industrial society, with all its dangerous technologies, its capitalism and its nationalism, fulfils therefore a clear role in the multi-billion-year evolution of life. This insight should give us a robust confidence in the future. It should give us the inspiration to face earthly problems with optimism.
In a thousand years time, the petty concerns and squabbles of our present age will have been forgotten; their effects will have been swallowed up like fleeting ripples in the ocean of history. But our efforts to spread terrestrial life into space, if successful, will irrevocably change not just our planet, but the universe.
Worlds as yet unborn will remember us, their progenitors, with gratitude. This is the greatest creative act within our power. It is the only one which will truly outlast us.
Historical note: the first Council was formed at a meeting in Oxford, UK on 31 August 1996, with Dr Michael Martin-Smith (President), Stephen Ashworth (Webmaster), Mike Phillips (Secretary), and Daniel Christlein (European Liaison).
Last revised 20 May 2004 / 35th Apollo Anniversary Year