ISDC in June, 2026

[Joseph Meany]

Hi all, just a casual question - will anyone else be attending ISDC in VA next month? Would love to carve out some time for a coffee. 

Joe

[Keith Henson]

Hi Joseph

I should go, I was one of those who started L5 and am still alive. But
age gives me the excuse to stay home.

However, if you and/or others want to set up a Zoom call, I can regale
you with stories about the early days when the space colony meme was
fresh.

Best wishes,
Keith

On Sun, May 3, 2026 at 2:52 PM Joseph Meany <joseph...@irg.space> wrote:
>
> Hi all, just a casual question - will anyone else be attending ISDC in VA next month? Would love to carve out some time for a coffee.
> Joe
>

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[Tihamer Toth-Fejel]

I've heard the stories about the UFOs.. LOL!
Worth hearing again.
I remember the  subcommittee hearing where Gerry O'Neill testified on January 25, 1978. Either SSI or L-5 invited it's members to attend, and I was only three hours away at Lehigh University (by bus), and I had just gotten back from completing in Cuba, so I came. There is a photo in Patrick McCray's book "The Visioneers" that shows some guy at a microphone looking at O'Neill and Barbara Marx Hubbard, with Eric Drexler between them (and one row back).  There is also a devilishly handsome young man between Eric and Gerry (but in the third row).  Oh wait, that was me. :-)  Is there anyone else in the photo you can identify?

I also remember the party at Barbara Marx Hubbard's Gray House afterwards, where I had hors d'oeuvres for the first time in my life (I was a starving grad student/wrestling coach at time). I also met Eric Drexler (who I had heard of because of his work on Gerry's Mass Driver) and he told me about his ideas about nanotechnology. It was clear to me that he was off his rocker, so I smiled, backed away slowly, and started talking to this cute (but older than me). She started on about *real* parties, where people go out into a desert, find an abandoned old mind, drop in (full) tanks of liquid propane (with the valve left open), followed by cases of dynamite, and then a flare. (Apparently this was in the good old days when you could buy the good stuff at hardware stores). Was everyone at this party crazy? (She was Carolyn Henson, co-founder of the L-5 society, and married to Keith which explains everything).

For the next couple of years, I kept running into Eric at conferences, and once I shared the dead end that I had run into while writing my master's thesis on self-testing integrated circuits--my approach had been to design self-test modules for smaller and smaller sub-units, but how do you get transistors to test themselves?  Eric said, "You know, God has pretty good quality control on individual atoms."  

Tihamer Toth-Fejel
TihamerT...@gmail.com

410 544-7140 (h)

734 646-3418 (c)

Millersville, MD 21108

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[James Hanusa]

I’m planning to be there possibly coleading session on Spaceports with Robert Katz and possibly producing sidecar events with international and federal partners with StarDust Stduioz & World Innovation Network. 

Gratitude, 

James 

James Hanusa 

StarDust Studioz

Creative Intelligence Agency for the Space Age

415 235 9640 

StarDust Studioz, Linkedin Profile, Futurist Bio

Phoenix Global Space Week - April 26th - May 2nd - online & in-person

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[Victor Vahidi Motti]

Hi everyone,

Thank you very much for the reminder about this major event.

The International Space Development Conference (ISDC) admirably presents itself as a gathering for all who seek to advance humanity’s future among the stars, much of its discourse still tends to emphasize engineering, industry, colonization, and infrastructure over broader philosophical questions concerning mind, meaning, ethics, and humanity’s cosmic role and purpose.

In contrast, the vision expressed in “Anthrosporia” suggests that humanity’s role and purpose in space may ultimately involve more than technological expansion, commercial development, or physical settlement; it frames the exploration of the cosmos as part of a deeper evolutionary unfolding of consciousness itself.

If space development is to mature into a truly planetary and civilizational project, perhaps institutions like ISDC could benefit from expanding their vision beyond rockets, habitats, and economics toward a richer dialogue on consciousness, culture, and “Anthrosporia”—the possibility that humanity’s deepest contribution to the cosmos may not simply be spreading civilization, but seeding reflective awareness and participatory intelligence throughout the universe.

The statement ISDC is open to everyone who’s excited about humanity’s future in space could be reframed to emphasize that what ultimately matters is not merely humanity’s physical presence in space, but humanity’s lasting impact on the future of space itself. 

Rather than centering only on becoming a “spacefaring species,” the vision could expand toward the question of what values, forms of consciousness, ethics, culture, and intelligence humanity may contribute to the cosmos. From the perspective of “Anthrosporia,” the significance of space development lies not simply in where humans go, but in what humanity helps the universe become through its participation, creativity, and reflective awareness.  

Best regards,

Victor V. Motti

On Sun, May 3, 2026 at 5:52 PM Joseph Meany <joseph...@irg.space> wrote:

Hi all, just a casual question - will anyone else be attending ISDC in VA next month? Would love to carve out some time for a coffee. 

Joe

--

[Keith Henson]

Hi Tihamer

That's interesting re the date and Eric talking about nanotech. The first time he talked to me about nanotech was at MIT after the 1979 SMF conference, so your recollections put an earlier date on when he was thinking about nanotech.

The mineshaft and propane adventure happened long after we split up, but it was something that had been discussed for a long time. You don't drop the bottle down the shaft; that would cost you the deposit. The dynamite adventure is in the Great Mambo book.

Best wishes,

Keith

On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 5:39 PM Tihamer Toth-Fejel <tihamert...@gmail.com> wrote:

[John Lewis]

Hi Victor,

Thanks for this information about Anthrosporia vs ISDC. I once worked on the GPS launch and on-orbit team and taught satellite operations, but I think Anthrosporia is more in line with my work now. I agree entirely with the point that it is not just technology we are taking with us. I am the author of “Story Thinking: Transforming Organizations for the Fourth Industrial Revolution” and when it came out in 2019 most people did not think we needed to be preparing for the AI Age by examining our social models. My research shows external evidence that we are wired for stories and that most professional change models are aligned with story structures. But our models that govern education, policy making, and healthcare – all government models – to not align and therefore do not make sense or work, by design.

If interested in more about this, go here: https://explanationage.com/story-thinking

I am hoping to learn more about Anthrosporia and what others are doing around consciousness.

All the best,

 

 

Dr. John Lewis, Ed.D.

Coach | Speaker | Author of “Story Thinking”

Jo...@ExplanationAge.com

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[Victor Vahidi Motti]

Hi John,

  

In an alternative vision of Earth’s future relationship with space, humanity does not encounter alien worlds as empty stages for survival or conquest, but as wider living systems that shape the story itself. 

Much like the planet Vesta in Scavengers Reign, such worlds are not passive environments but active, sentient-like ecologies—wounded, adaptive, and self-organizing. 

In this framing, space is not a frontier of resources but a potential field of interconnected biological intelligences, where plants, animals, human beings, and non-human beings blur into unified systems of life. 

Earth’s cosmic expansion outward first steps are less about space colonization and more about learning to perceive, integrate, and coexist with planetary-scale consciousness, where our planet nature is not divided into parts but experienced as a single, evolving presence.

  

Best Regards,

Victor

Virus-free.www.avast.com

[John Lewis]

Victor, I could not have said it better myself. We agree 100%.

Thank You!

John

[Sylvain Rochon]

Brilliant and concise description of what our relationship with space and extraterrestrial environments should be, Victor.

We are entering an era of abundance, and this will indeed inflate when space travel becomes more affordable and convenient to exploit unlimited resources in our solar system (then later, beyond).  When we move from scarcity mentality, where conflicts abound, to a world of open, obvious abundance, with AI/robotics automating productivity, resource extraction and management, our vision of the cosmos must switch from ownership and extraction to one like what you describe: exploration, wonder, appreciation, synergy.

It is not unlike what we have experienced here on Earth over the last generation, where we realized that pilfering from our own natural resources and exploiting animals without concern backfired into deep impact into our own civilization... the realization that everything is connected and feeds back.  

Out there, in the cosmos, we will find the same concept, therefore we must look at it from a point of view of attemps at understanding and symbiosis (using the Earth ecosystem example as a historical backdrop of lessons learned, yet still today).

As for myself, I'm looking forward to the adventure.

Sylvain

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--

Prof Sylvain Rochon, The Paradise Engineer

[Victor Vahidi Motti]

Hi Sylvain and John, 

Appreciate your feedback!

Well, my image of the future, elaborated here:

https://altplanetaryfuturesinst.blogspot.com/2026/05/weltknoten-and-cosmic-evolution.html

Resembles a synthesis of Schopenhauer with evolutionary cosmology, systems theory, and ideas closer to people like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Vernadsky, or Carl Sagan.

  

Best Regards,

Victor