Collaboration as an Effective Strategy and Tool

updated 02/14/2008

An organization that is much smaller than its goals and ambitions can magnify and accelerate its effectiveness by collaborating with other organizations on issues and goals that they share in common.

Collaborations with The Mars Society.

At the Mars Society Convention 2004, we learned of the opportunity to rent the Mars Desert research Station facility in Utah, and proposed to do just that. We finally got our first opportunity in the two week time slot or rotation, from February 26-March 11, 2006.

We also looked into expanding the Mars Homestead Project to include a lunar parallel, brainstorming what it would take to build a viable permanent settlement on the Moon.

We signaled our willingness to jointly issue position papers and press releases in areas where the goals of the two societies were congruous.

That we have unresolved differences in some policy areas and in priorities should not dissuade us from collaborating when and where it is in our best interest to do so.

Because it is in our interests that a human frontier develops on Mars as a two-way trading partner with settlements on the Moon, and because designing lunar outposts so that they would work on Mars as well would make for a more robust design, on September 13, 2007, we opposed the proposed Congressional ban on further spending on "humans to Mars programs."

Collaborations with the American Lunar Society.

We are now cosponsoring ALS' "Lunar Study and Observing Certificate Program." We are also sharing member access to each other's principal publications. Our members now have access to the PDF files of ALS' Selenology quarterly, and ALS members have access to the PDF files of archived issues of Moon Miners' Manifesto.

We look forward to collaborating with ALS in formulating a white paper on "Astronomy from the Moon." Our target is to have this ready to publish in advance of International Astronomy Year 2009.

Collaborations with the National Space Society.

We extended to our new affiliation partner, the National Space Society, the opportunity to share principal sponsorship of our recent moonbase simulation exercise at M.D.R.S. [Crew 45] in Utah.

We look forward to finding ways to share access to Ad Astra and Moon Miner's Manifesto, and to working with NSS on joint white papers and press releases.

Collaborations with MarsDrive

On February 10, 2008, we began a collaboration project with Mars Drive which involves a Google Group to encourage Moon, Mars, and Railroading enthusiasts to help brainstorm Railroading on the Moon and Mars.

We are always on the alert for additonal collaboration projects

In addition to the production of better projects and papers, collaboration brings with it the likelihood of better media coverage, increased name recognition, improved respectability, and, hopefully, membership growth.

Collaboration is both a strategy and a tool by which we can work more effectively towards the realization of a viable resource-using civilian settlement on the Moon.