The High Frontier

Many in the NewSpace community have been deeply influenced by Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill's book, The High Frontier. When we started The High Frontier book project this important book had been out of print for nearly a decade; a generation grew up without access to its vision. Since 1988 we have kept it continuously available and distributed copies to teachers, students and political leaders. Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision of a free and open space frontier that can help solve problems here on Earth is more relevant today than ever.

Here’s how Dr. O’Neill summed it up in our 1988 edition:

"We need, I believe, to lift our eyes..... to remind ourselves of the shared vision for which our work is done. Ultimately that vision will expand our physical, political and mental boundaries from the confines of a single planet to the much broader limits of a race freely expanding its habitat throughout our solar system, and from there to the stars. Even the beginning of realization of that vision will bring profound benefits to our planet and its life:

"The sure survival of all races of humanity, and of the plant and animal life forms we cherish as part of our Earthly heritage, in colonies dispersed throughout our solar system and beyond it.

"The preservation of the Earth and its fragile biosphere, as a place of great beauty, deserving our care and our nurturing, as it has nurtured us through our evolution.

"Opening a hopeful future for individual human beings, with increasing personal and political freedoms, a wider range of choices, and greater opportunities to develop individual potentials.

"Reducing the incidence of wars and the constant threat of wars, by opening a new frontier with virtually unlimited new lands and new wealth.

"These are the worthiest of goals, and many of us have tried in our own ways to work toward them. We may take courage in the fact that by opening the High Frontier we will transform all four of those goals into reality."

1. The book should be kept available

2. The book should be available online

3. In as many languages as possible