The Foundation

 Many of the problems currently limiting the human exploration of space such as resource utilization (water, oxygen, construction materials, and so on), food production and power generation potentially have solutions that would also benefit life on earth.  

The exploration of another planetary system by humanity could be classified economically as a ‘gigaproject’, that is a project that would likely consume the equivalent GDP of the entire present day world.   It is obvious that a project of this magnitude, a starship project, cannot be built by a civilization that cannot support it.  The Interstellar Foundation came into existence after It was realized that by pursuing the base technologies necessary to make the project feasible would also help in creating the interplanetary society needed to support such a project.

To say it a different way, to launch an interstellar spacecraft humanity must become an interstellar species.  This implies that many other societal problems have been overcome such a freedom from want, that is universal access to clean water and food, and full utilization of human resources.  A famous American politician once said something along the lines that the cure for cancer lies unrealized somewhere in the ghetto, lamenting the untapped potential of people in his constituency.  For a society to support a gigaproject, capable individuals cannot be sacrificed to societal ills such as racism or poverty. 

The interstellar Foundations Mission statement is as follows: 

• To curate the history of human interstellar aspirations
• To create in the present a human society able to field interstellar projects
• To cultivate a future in which mankind becomes an interstellar species