On Thursday, 23 May 1991, at the opening session of the fourth annual gathering of chapters, during my introductory remarks as chairman of that body, I tore my NSS membership renewal card into tiny little pieces to indicate my unwillingness to participate further in the National S.S. Many people have asked me, "Why?" and since I have participated in a great number of NSS activities since its formation in 1987, serving in local, regional, and national capacities, I feel that a decent respect for the opinions of space activists requires that I declare the reasons impelling me to the separation.

The National Space Society is no longer -- if it ever was -- an effective means for creating an acceptable form of civilization beyond the Earth. This opinion of mine has formed after participating in the "Society" since its creation and after being a member of its antecedent organization, the L5 Society since 1977.

I once believed that it was possible to reform NSS, to help shape it into a worthwhile, just, reasonably democratic, and open forum for discussion of the real issues relating to space and an effective instrument for change on the national, international, and local levels. Acting on that belief, I lent my support to the creation of the Chapters' Assembly, leading its discussions at the annual conferences; worked closely with the coordinators of the "Telephone Tree," helping to reorganize its branches within Texas; helped revitalize the Colonist newsletter, bringing it out of dormancy and trying to let it provide communications among the chapters in the Southwest region of NSS; and ran for the NSS Board of Directors to work with other reform-minded individuals at the second-highest level in the organization. To gain entrée to the highest level, I ran a serious, carefully-planned campaign to be elected to the Executive Committee of NSS, and failed. I actively participated in meetings of the Board and of the Executive Committee during my Board tenure, determined to do what I could to effect change.

I was drafted to serve as chairman of the first gathering of chapters in Denver, and re-elected by acclamation to serve at the first Chapters' Assembly session in Chicago and again to serve a two-year term beginning in Anaheim and ending in San Antonio. In chairing these meetings and sharing in the organizational effort, my purpose was to create a mechanism within NSS to provide a voice for chapter activists. It was not then my intention to organize the chapters to separate them from NSS, nor to work against the common interests of the chapters and NSS. As long as I could fight within the system, I did so. When it came time to withdraw, I did so with composure, avoiding any conflict in order to give the Assembly its best chance to retain as much strength as possible.

Having spent years trying, I no longer believe it is possible or worth the effort to reform NSS from within. Working with the system has resulted in limited, minor, and cosmetic reforms. At the same time, the following events have taken place, representing part of a dangerous series of precedents which have not been successfully overturned or repaired:

1. In early May 1988, Sandy Adamson, blocked the activation of the telephone tree in support of the Commercially Developed Space Facility when four Senators were actively opposing it. My repeated efforts to request a phone tree activation were unsuccessful -- Sandy was adamant and was backed in her decision by then-chair of the Legislative Committee Scott Pace. Sandy's action was opposed by Jim Muncy and Gary Oleson, the other members of the subcommittee of the Legislative Committee that had been given authority to activate the phone tree, with whom she never consulted. In spite of my independent efforts to contact local NSS chapters in the relevant states, and due, in part, to the failure of the phone tree to be activated, our nation lost the opportunity to build a low-cost, precursor supplement to Space Station Freedom. Sandy's usurpation of power goes unpunished to this day; rather, she has been promoted to the position of Executive Vice President.

2. In September 1988, Mark Hopkins appeared at the World Science Fiction Convention to take part in the organizational meeting of the Chapters' Assembly. During this meeting, he gloated about having effected the removal of Elisa Sisti Wynn (now Griffin) as Chapters' Coordinator. Elisa was quite possibly the single most effective chapters' coordinator NSS or L5 has ever had, providing an important communications function and doing much to smooth minor turbulence between NSS and the chapters. She certainly didn't deserve to have Mark gloat about her ouster in her presence. At that meeting, I asked Mark if he had considered who would be Elisa's successor. He was satisfied to have removed her and admitted that no successor had been identified. Hopkins's shocking disregard for the needs of chapters when a personal political matter is at stake has never been properly recognized; he continues to work mischief through his traditional mechanisms of divide and conquer, merge and purge, and continues to hold high office in NSS and its sister organizations.

   

3. In late 1989, Bennett Rutledge of the DCL5 chapter of NSS organized a fundraiser to raise money for his chapter and the Lunar Prospector effort. In a hitherto unprecedented action, his chapter was denied permission to use the local NSS members list to invite local NSS members to the DCL5 meeting at which the fundraiser was to take place. My attempts and those of other Board members to overturn this executive decision were unsuccessful. Although a clear majority of those Board members bothering to vote supported a mail ballot calling for the provision of local NSS member lists for local fundraisers, the ballot failed to garner sufficient votes to pass. The issue was subsequently tabled on a motion of acting-chairman Charlie Walker at the NSS Board meeting in Anaheim (over the objections of myself and Gary Oleson). Many unfounded statements and outright lies have been circulated about the nature and methods of this particular fundraising system utilized by DCL5, the Houston Space Society, the L5 Society, and others. One of the most outrageous lies promoted by the NSS leadership was that the fundraisers were somehow related to "est," the (Werner) Erhard seminar training of the 1970s. Rather, the fundraisers had been organized and developed by two members of the NSS Board, Jim Muncy and Gary Oleson, along with NSS member David Torrealba. These three gentlemen had used their techniques with considerable positive results to raise tens of thousands of dollars first for the L5 Society and then for various chapters. It is vital to note that no alternative mechanism for chapter fundraising has had results on the same order of magnitude. It is also noteworthy that the issue of using NSS local mailing lists for local events, including fundraisers of any type continues to be a discretionary matter for the Executive Director because of the refusal of the NSS Board to take any action to set a specific policy of any kind in this area. Such failure to make policy is indicative of the ineffectiveness that plagues NSS; the situation will fester until it arises again in some other regard. Perhaps most frightening was the comment made by NSS President Charlie Walker during a phone conversation he and I had prior to the Anaheim conference in which he stated that chapters had a number of fundraising mechanisms available to them, including having a booth in a shopping mall or "standing on a streetcorner with a cup." Although I am told he now denies having made such a callous, thoughtless, and cruel remark, it is interesting that he did not respond with similar denial to the first published report of his statement.

4. During the Anaheim conference, the NSS Legislative Committee allegedly caucused on the issue of NSS policy regarding Chinese pricing practices for their Long March launch vehicle. The Committee evidently decided that the Chinese pricing amounted to dumping and determined to petition the US Trade Ambassador for relief on behalf of the US domestic launch industry. Actions were taken, including the expenditure of $5,000 of NSS money (authorized by NSS President Charlie Walker, who happened to be employed at the time by one of the three largest launch vehicle manufacturers in the United States creating an unnecessary appearance of impropriety of which I am certain he is innocent but which he could certainly have avoided) to draft a petition in the format specified by the 1974 Trade Act, as well as the expenditure of additional funds to issue a press release announcing that NSS was essentially taking on the People's Republic of China. These actions were taken without consulting with the full Board of Directors, either at their meeting in Anaheim or subsequently by telephone or mail. It was over a month after the press release had been issued that the Board was finally notified of this action. As a member of that Board and then-Director of Marketing of a US launch services firm (and formerly a 3-year veteran of the first US commercial launch services firm and therefore well-known to have an interest in and knowledge of such matters), I felt and still feel that I and other members of the Board should have been consulted or at least warned of these actions prior to their implementation. At the time, I was personally and professionally embarrassed that these actions had been taken without my knowledge. Members of my profession questioned me about the realism of NSS's proposed trade sanctions, their propriety in light of the limited evidence for Chinese violations of their trade agreement, their appropriateness given other political and economic issues relating to trade with China, and the functionality of my position on the NSS Board given that I was first informed by a member of the space newsmedia rather than by representatives of NSS. Worse, I feel that NSS took an unnecessarily extreme position and an incorrect one on a complicated issue without allowing for dissenting opinions to be considered or even recorded. As a result of this arrogant discourtesy, I resolved to resign my position on the NSS Board of Directors effective 31 December 1990. The process by which these actions were taken and the persons responsible have not been reformed or remonstrated. There is every reason to believe that such actions will occur again.

5. In Spring 1991, four years after the merger agreement forming NSS which mandated such action, NSS finally got around to filing for group exemption for its chapters to relieve an unnecessary tax burden and correct a grievous oversight. The late filing will not necessarily be granted nor necessarily protect chapters which were unprotected during the interregnum -- I still encourage chapters which are interested in effectiveness to incorporate and file for their own non-profit status for their own protection. (A happy note: non-profits can incorporate in Texas for a mere $25.) The delay is evidence of a reckless disregard for the needs of chapters and a fundamental ineffectiveness at NSS headquarters. Also this Spring, the turnover of employees working for the Executive Directrix has exceeded unity -- which is to say that the old guard is entirely gone and many of the new staff have also left.

6. In early 1991, NSS President Charlie Walker threatened the organizers of the San Antonio ISDC with the prospect of NSS withdrawal from the conference if Gary Oleson were not removed from his position as chairman of the fundraising session at the conference. Similar pressure was brought to bear to remove me as activist track chair at the conference (which was an academic exercise since I had already turned over the reins to Bill Bogen due to the press of other business). I have been told that an issue was also made of Jim Muncy chairing the recruiting session. It is particularly troublesome that Gary, a sitting member of the NSS Board, was successfully removed from his position in the conference by the strong-arm tactics of the NSS president. It is interesting to consider whether the full Board was ever asked to endorse, ratify, or even consider this action. Any "Society" which cannot accept diversity of opinion, whose leadership seeks to stifle open discussion even by those elected to represent the opinions of its members, and which carries out its throttling of free speech by actions which amount to blatant extortion, is a poor excuse for a society, indeed.

It is a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object which makes evident a design to reduce our Society to the despotic rule of a select clique. That clique has successfully controlled the process and results of virtually all the elections within NSS, both for the Board of Directors and within the board for the key committee positions on the Executive, Nominations, and Legislation Committees. About all that can be said in favor of the effectiveness of NSS is that this group is highly effective at maintaining control -- for what purpose and with what positive results is less clear. The overwhelming power of this self-appointed "elite" renders foolish any further attempts at reform and makes a sham of the trappings of democracy in which they shroud their unseemly activities.

NSS would do well to give up the appearance of a democratically elected Board and simplify the current process of a self-perpetuating Board, thus forgoing the expense of an annual mock election. It is not only the tyranny, but also the hypocrisy of their pretense that they are elected by fair means, that is irritating beyond the pale. Far better to have a somewhat effective organization openly ruled by a tyrannous oligarchy than to have the duplicity and wasted effort of an ongoing travesty of democracy.

When NSS acts to support the necessary actions of creating a spacefaring civilization, founded on the principles of liberty, I will cooperate with their efforts. When NSS acts against the interests of space settlement, as they have so frequently in recent years, I will oppose their efforts with every fiber of my being.

Someday, perhaps, those responsible for the fundamental corruption of NSS will pass on to other activities or even to their just reward. Until that time, I will have no part of it. Rather, I will work elsewhere for the proper goals of space settlement and continue to observe and applaud the positive efforts of NSS (such as their admirable publication Ad Astra) and point out the grave dangers of their negative efforts.

I encourage everyone still in NSS to be vigilant towards their leadership and regard with great care the meaning and consequences of every action taken by those leaders. I encourage everyone outside of NSS to regard with suspicion the overtures of NSS's leadership toward you or your group, and beware of entanglements with a nest of vipers. Together, regardless of our affiliation, we may yet have the time and resources to settle space.

What is necessary? We must organize a voice for our vision, not of NASA space stations and boondoggles, but of people settling the space frontier. We must articulate that vision so that it is accepted as part of the American culture. We must design projects that spread that vision into the local communities in which we live. We must support programs whose purpose is the human settlement of space in large numbers, not the human visitation of space by a few select government employees. We must be selective about the programs we support because of the limited resources of national budgets. Wherever possible, we must support efforts to generate commercial space endeavors in greater, more competitive quantity, thus gaining access to the vaster resources of industry and the shaping tools of market forces.

To the extent that NSS does these things, it does them poorly. It continues to fail to articulate a vision other than with a now-hackneyed slogan. It has done little to spread that vision into local communities, and has often thwarted local chapters in their efforts. It generally supports only the programs of the incumbent power structure, failing to recognize the damage done when such programs absorb funding desperately needed for creating diverse settlement-promoting projects. Perhaps most of all, the leadership of the National Space Society wastes the time of its people in endless bickering, pointless power struggles, and trivial activities of every type.

Given their intense focus of attention on the matter of who controls a minor space activist organization with all of 25,000 members, the leadership of NSS is unlikely to notice the major opportunities they are missing, the projects they should support, the paradigm shifts needed in their thinking. NSS is a waste of time, money, and human resources. Being free of it is like being freed from a death sentence.

Houston Space Society

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