Space Studies Institute is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1977 by the late Princeton University Professor Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill. The stated mission is to "open the energy and material resources of space for human benefit within our lifetime". In 2009 SSI moved its operations from its long-term base in Princeton, New Jersey, to Mojave, California. SSI is involved in several initiatives, including a solar sail project that it is developing with Carnegie Mellon University and an effort to find asteroids that could be mined for valuable materials. The use of extraterrestrial resources in space settlement has received increasing attention in recent years. SSI's research priorities:
Produce evidence that establishes that manufacturing and extraction industries on the Moon or on asteroids is cost-effective
Develop closed environment life support systems for space.
The Institute has sponsored research studies on several transport systems for the development of space. Their first program was in the development of prototype mass driver systems. They are also studying the use of an Orbital Transfer Vehicle as a component of space manufacturing. Other areas of research include a search for Earth-Sun Trojan asteroids, a design study of a Lunar Polar Probe to search for water and useful volatiles at the poles of the Moon, and studies of reuse of the Space Shuttle external tank. Dr O'Neill performed a pioneering study of a large space habitat named Island Three that could house 10,000,000 people.
Conferences
SSI began hosting a bi-annual Space Manufacturing Conference in 1977, although the conference had actually begun in 1974 at NASA Ames Research Center. This is a list of conferences hosted or co-hosted by SSI.
Space Manufacturing Facilities 1974-75
Space Manufacturing Facilities II 1977
Space Manufacturing III 1979
Space Manufacturing 4 1981
Space Manufacturing 1983 — Advances in the Astronautical Sciences - AAS 1983
Space Manufacturing 5 — Engineering with Lunar and Asteroidal Materials 1985
Space Manufacturing 6 — Non-terrestrial Resources, Biosciences, and Space Engineering 1987
Space Manufacturing 7 — Space Resources to Improve Life on Earth 1989
Space Manufacturing 8 — Energy and Materials from Space 1991
Space Manufacturing 9 — The High Frontier, Accession, Development and Utilization 1993
Space Manufacturing 10 — Pathways to the High Frontier 1995
Space Manufacturing 11 — The Challenge of Space: Past and Future 1997
Space Manufacturing 12 — Challenges and Opportunities in Space 1999
