Martha Adams, age 81, retired from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 1996. She lived quietly for a few years and then met a group of people starting a large effort to place a settlement on Mars. They moved away but Martha remained near MIT (and its large library). She devotes much of her "retirement" time to developing materials for her Web site, Adra.
Adra reflects Martha's belief today's work on space must be to build Settlements out there now -- and that in this uncertain world and universe, that's urgent, Priority One work. Because, the human future here on Terra may be cut-off at some point: ways this could happen are well known to many of us here. For which reason, further space "exploration" is best put-off til it can be taken up again from Settlements Out There, not from the bottom of Terra's thick atmosphere and deep gravity well.
(What might Einstein have accomplished if he had lived out in the Belt with infinity outside his door, rather than down on Terra where that infinity is an abstraction most Terrans don't know of?)
Martha is a member of the Moon Society, the National Space Society and the Planetary Society; and a Life Member of the Mars Society.
Email: try ascii only to mhada snail verizon point net.
Favorite quotes:
Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing til it gets there. (Josh Billings)
Some successes are simply not survivable. Retirement is one of those. (mha)
Note from Martha Adams: Cyberspace search finds many Martha Adamses, thru American history up to apparently current. (How many? I'm surprised.) To test if one or another of those that you find there, is myself, compare it against my Adra content here. -- mha.