Colonising Space/Open design making space truly accessible

Space is a difficult business. It is expensive, dangerous and everything has to be got exactly right. To overcome all these issues the only viable way forward is to make it completely Open and collaborative. The plans, designs and processes need to be totally transparent, and all with expertise, motivation and imagination must have the opportunity to contribute. People working towards space colonisation because they want to and for mutual benefit will be the force to actually make it happen.

Making the colonisation of Space a truly global collaborative process is an amazing opportunity to bring people and cultures together. Not a project of any one nation but a project of humanity with contributions from everywhere. The culture of openness is also the perfect way to start the spread of life away from Earth - it is the right attitude and the best way for people to get the most out of each other. It is not likely there is any other way it can be done on a significant scale. Doing it purely commercially is not the right basis for colonising Space and the lesser efficiency of that model over an open culture would likely only ever make it a small potatoes. It is due to the lack of commercial viability that no-one has left low-earth orbit since the Apollo program. But the Open culture does not need to revolve around current economics. Ultimately the possibility of Space colonisation is a matter of energy, material, information and intelligence — and all four are in massive abundance.

Efforts are already being made in this direciton, see the Anansi Spaceworks website for more information on using open source principles to help open up this final frontier.