Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
— John F. Kennedy, 1962

On 12 September 1962, John Kennedy spoke at Rice University stadium and announced the goal of sending an astronaut to the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. At the time, only a very few efforts to put people in Earth orbit had taken place. Four Soviet cosmonauts and four American astronauts had flown in space. Therefore, to say that going to the Moon was an ambitious goal is understatement.

Now, fifty-six years later, the Houston Space Society, a non-profit formed in 1988 and granted 501c3 status in 1990, is organising a series of interactive television programmes to be recorded, distributed, and made available permanently using video-on-the-blockchain through Freedom Interactive Television Networks Association. You have an opportunity to participate.

Our First Episode

The plan for Houston Space Society is to create an entire interactive television network about space, with shows filling out the entire week. These shows would be on topics like rocketry, radio communications and telemetry, avionics and astrionics, orbital mechanics, space history, living in space, and many other topics, To kick things off we're planning a space history show with the first episode covering the period from 1969 to 1989 and including all the space missions of those twenty years along with the entrepreneurial space efforts of private companies. The working title for this episode is "The History of Space Part 5."

The show will be 120 minutes (2 hours) total length with the typical distribution of advertising spots for sponsors, public service announcements, and station identification. There are opportunities for script writers, camera operators, interviewers, graphics animation artists, and others to work on this first show. Our total budget for the show is $50,000 and we seek to raise all of those funds through donations. We'll be creating a campaign at IndieGoGo in the next few days to get started. We will also offer 30-second ad spots for $420 per spot for a total of 70 spots for the first airing. That is, there will be 35 minutes of ad spots and 85 minutes of show content.

Your Involvement

As an interactive television show, the goal is to encourage participation by the viewers rather than just passive watching. Things you'll get to discuss on our interactive channel prior to start of filming include: What should the show be called? What missions should be covered in detail? Who should be interviewed for the episode? Which space start-ups should be mentioned? Our goal is to provide many ways for the audience to interact before, during, and after the production of each episode of every show.

The Perks

Instant Delivery perk, $9 - the participant gets to join our interactive forum to name a figure from the history of space who is now living that we would interview if possible. Members of the forum get to participate in other discussions about the name of the episode, the list of missions to cover in detail as well as to mention in passing, and many other topics. We will accumulate these interactions and the most frequently named persons will be high on our list of early interviews. Donors at this level get to join an online forum and receive monthly email updates.

Book perk, $59 — Being Libertarian by Jim Davidson, signed by the author, shipped within the USA. Additional shipping cost for international delivery. Donors also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails.

Book perk, $79 — Being Sovereign by Jim Davidson, signed by the author, shipped within the USA. Additional shipping cost for international delivery. Donors also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails.

Photo perk, $99 — An 8x10 glossy photo from the collection of AC Pillsbury along with a brief essay explaining his history in the development of film and video, shipped within the USA. Additional shipping cost for international delivery. Donors also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails.

Memoir perk, $149 — A thirty page memoir "Conversations with Jimmy" by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster on her conversations with actor James Dean, shipped within the USA. Additional shipping cost for international delivery. Donors also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails.

Memoir perk, $199 — A booklet with photographs on the conversations that sent America into space, by Brock d'Avignon about his aunt and the people she helped to convince to start "the space programme" shipped within the USA. Additional shipping cost for international delivery. Donors also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails.

Assistant Producer credit, $999. A donor to either project at this level will receive assistant producer credit on one space history network production of their choice. Donors also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails.

Associate Producer credit, $25,000. A donor to either project will be listed as associate producer for all space history network productions. Donors also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails. Donors at this level also get to name a person for interview, join the online forum, receive monthly emails.

Just the Start

Space History Network is the first of a set of anticipated networks being developed by Houston Space Society for educational and scientific purposes. Our goal is to create a series of shows, including the history of space shows. The goal for the network is to raise $140,000 in donations. In addition to a series of episodes on the history of space, the network would tell the history of different ventures (MirCorp, Space Commerce Corp, Space Services, Space Travel Services, Hudson McKinney Experimental, XCOR, many others).

Briefly, we see the "History of Space " having a "part one" covering 1870 when Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was 13 through 1919. A second episode, part two, would cover 1920 to 1939. Episode three would cover 1940 to 1959. Episode four would run 1960 to 1968. So part six would be 1990 to 2009, and part seven would bring us up to the present. Beyond the history of space there are many other scientific and technological ideas to cover in other shows.

Obviously, these overview episodes are only one approach to covering the material. There were many discussions of "a brick moon" and "ships and sails capable of navigating the celestial atmosphere" by people like Galileo and Kepler going back 400 years, and discussions of travel to the Moon by philosophers for thousands of years before. There are individual stories that are worthy of thorough coverage, biographies of prominent space industry participants, and other ways of discussing the history. And, yes, there are good answers to the many "it was all a hoax" stories, and we'll have episodes detailing these answers.

We hope you like the idea of developing this series of shows, and will join us at HoustonSpaceSociety.net to keep up with our work. Thanks!

 

Jim Davidson co-founded Houston Space Society, Inc., in 1988 and served as its president on several occasions. He is currently chief financial officer for freedomtvnetworks.com and DialogueKey.com as well as DeepGreenFutures.com and is an entrepreneur, actor, author, and story-teller living in Dayton, Ohio.