That's what I've been today. Logging on here has been like walking through 8-foot deep tapioca in a wet suit and fins.

I only have a half an hour break at work to check in, and I blew 15 minutes of it trying to open a page. Any page. Here, at home, it still took a while, but I had the luxury of being able to wait. As Robert has explained, on Geek Speek, we are experiencing technical difficulties. (You may understand it, but as for myself, it was all Geek to me. ;) )

Please don't despair of a reply. You may not get one, which is a reply too, but due to the tech problems, I wonder if anyone has been able to see your posts. I haven't, until now, and it's 11:20 PM, Eastern time.

Also, I have questions. It's pretty obvious to me that you have wishes and dreams for this place. Are they anything concrete, or are they rather inchoate hopes that the Zone will become a focal point for space activism? If the former, would you please explain what you have referred to a couple of times as your agenda? If the latter, what do you think the people here can do, specifically?

Keith is a journalist, and he's reporting. Robert is a software designer, and he's designing (and letting us help with his current range of experiments). Tom is also a designer of a different sort, and he's designing too. We have some talented writers of fiction here, who are writing and publishing, a way to maintain the idea of space travel in the popular imagination. We have engineers here who are working in their respective fields, and telecommunications people who are also astroheads because they spend so much of their time bouncing things off of satellites. Practitioners of pure science who spend time here are doing research and publishing. And we have people like Mark, who are approaching space travel with decidedly organizational and (dare I say it?) political tactics.

Do you want to organize this? First we will all have to agree on an objective more specific than "we need to get off this rock" (a given). The phrase "like herding cats" comes to mind. And then we will have to decide on a leader of some kind, each making some kind of time commitment to the group effort.

I believe everyone here is doing his or her best to promote the cause of space, and if the effect is not immediate, there nevertheless is an effect. As with erosion, the effect over time can prove to be dramatic, even though each grain of silt is not remembered itself. Just as an example: Part of the effect that Zoners had on me was to inspire me to develop a miniature core collection project on space science (both in its pure and applied form) aimed at children and the adults who care for them. I presented that project to a room full of other librarians. They saw the examples I provided -- several of which were very fun -- and we had a lively little discussion on the review sources available for science resources. They walked away knowing that space exploration was not a dead topic, which people are apt to think a topic is when it's not in the public eye every week. They also learned that review journals considered excellent for topics in the humanities and social sciences are frequently inadequate to evaluate materials on science and applied science. They took that back to work with them, and I hope some of them put space on the front of their lists. I'll never know, but I can hope that several teenagers decide to change their career paths because some librarian stuck an atlas of Mars on their piles of books, or read them stories about the Moon on July 20 when they were younger.

I'm not worried about being forgotten, Jacob. Most of us are, even those who hold high office. (Ever heard of Millard Fillmore?) But the work... the work is the important thing.

Regards--
Mary Anne