The Space Economy Camp Archive
Space Economy Camp for Writers took place in Tempe, Arizona on November 9 – 11th, 2023. The camp was sponsored by ASU’s Interplanetary Initiative, was hosted by Joffa Applegate, Mary Robinette Kowal, Kim Mancharia and James Schalkwyk, and featured economics lectures by Alexander McDonald, Jason Barr, Alberto Cottica and Marco Janssen. Twenty four writers participated in the event, as well as numerous subject matter experts such as Columbia astronaut Cady Coleman and JPL Systems Engineer Tracy Drain. Though not a formal CSI project, the Space Campers are fellow travellers and we are delighted to host their camp artifacts here.
Participants were divided into four working groups (Asteroid Belt, Mars, Moon, and Low Earth Orbit) that met throughout the camp. Each group produced a presentation describing their society, rules, values and economic structures. These presentations were used to develop ‘zines’, produced by artist Donovan Beeson, which illustrate the four scenarios.
Volume 1: the Space Station
Volume 2: the Moon
Volume 3: Mars
Volume 4: the Asteroid Belt
The camp hosts also created two documents: a content summary capturing the gist of the economics lectures, and a lessons learned document about how to improve camp experiences going forward.