If the $15/$25 poster reward seems too high, you might be interested in this: we can send you the same poster for just $8 if we fold it for shipping. After the first few are printed, additional copies of the Concept Art Poster don’t cost much to print, and so the main expense is the cost of shipping a mailing tube. This is especially true for international addresses. However, if I just fold the 11″ x 17″ sheet in half to 8.5″ x 11″ , it will ship in a standard-size document envelope, and this is really inexpensive for both USA and International addresses.
Continuing with themes in the stories for Lunatics… Here’s number twelve: Theme #12 Irrational Reasons versus Rational Excuses for Space Pioneering I know a number of space advocates who claim they want to develop space in order to get “filthy rich”. This is (or was, at least) a very popular claim, especially among openly Libertarian or Republican space enthusiasts as part of a “business-oriented” agenda. There’s just one problem: I don’t care what business plan you come up with, I guarantee you there is an easier way to make that money here on Earth than to do it by developing space.
Another color portrait for the Concept Art Poster — this is Joshua Farmer / Josh. “Joshua Farmer (Ph.D.) received his Doctorate in Space Agriculture for his work on rapid-growth high yield crops. He was recruited to work at the Lunar Installation and Biological Research Interprise (LIBRE) to prepare crops for the colonization effort. He remained on as one of the colonization candidates and was chosen for the first team.” Original pencil drawing by Daniel Fu. Digital ink & color by Terry Hancock.
Twenty people have contributed to our project, and as we are approaching the end of this campaign, I want to take a moment to say ” Thank you! ” to you all for pitching in! I was pretty nervous about putting this Kickstart up — although I’ve had some success with projects and art, money has never been a real comfort area for me. And when we started working on Lunatics, we were pretty much working in a complete vacuum. It’s very hard to have any idea if anyone cares what you’re doing. We knew we really enjoyed what we were coming up with, but we didn’t know if it would be clear to other people.
Drawing of “Anya Titova Farmer” / “Anya” by Daniel Fu (from the concept art sheet), digitally inked and colored by Terry Hancock. “Anya Titova Farmer (M.B.A.) is business manager of the ISF lunar colony. She comes from a long line of Russian entrepreneurs, astronauts, and rocket engineers. Her father Anatoly Titov and her Uncle Konstantin Titov manage the Titov Space Industries, founded by her grandfather Igor Titov. She received a degree in international business from the Russian Academy of Economics (RAE) and a Master in Business Administration from the University of Arizona. She is also founder and part owner of Sputniki Zvezda Serebryaniy (Silver Star Satellites).”
Continuing with themes in the stories for Lunatics… Here’s number nine: Theme #9 Libertarian Visions of Space versus the Statist Reality of the Space Program Most of the serious space fans I know are in one form or another “libertarians”. They may not be actual members of the Libertarian Party, but they certainly do put a high value on individuality and personal freedom. This is not surprising — after all, they want to go live on another planet. It makes some sense that this might arise from some chafing against Earthly authority.
Continuing with themes in the stories for Lunatics… Here’s number eight: Theme #8 Family Life versus Command Hierarchies Here’s the corporate-minded, government-agency vision for starting a space colony: use your rigorous training and selection program to find eight “perfect humans”, four male, four female. Then convince them to mate and produce offspring. Maybe this would work for hamsters. But for humans, it’s going to be the other way around. ISF crews are recruited as teams and thus based on family ties more than some committee’s ideal team selection parameters. Naturally, there will be some friction between this and the military or civilian agency teams on the Moon.
Earlier I posted a tiny picture of Hiromi as part of the preview of the Concept Art poster, but here’s the completed “Hiromi Aoki Lerner” drawing. Of course, like the others, this is drawn by Daniel Fu and digitally inked and painted by Terry Hancock. “Hiromi Aoki Lerner, wife of Dr. Robert Lerner, is the field doctor and nutritionist for the International Space Foundation’s Lunar Colony. Mrs Lerner holds a Masters in Health Science from the University of Toronto’s Mississauga Academy and a Masters in Space Nutrition from the University of Texas Online Branch. Only daughter of David Aoki, founder of Aoki Aerospace, Hiromi has been interested in space travel from her youth. She has a daughter, Georgiana Lerner age seven.”
