New Stuff Happens

(Note: the following is one of various posts that were copied here from the Moonwards.com forum for the sake of preserving the early days of the project. It was originally posted there on Dec 8th, 2015.)

I have really revamped the main page of Moonwards over the last week. Yesterday was a big chunk of new material. However, i've been letting the forum slide for a while. I don't want to post just for the sake of it, and i have had little time what with being in a rush to get new stuff up. By the time i'm done with that, i'm sort of low on inspiration.

And yet, wonder of wonders, i come here to the forum in the morning and often see that 3 or 4 people are online. Then i feel a little guilty. So i was thinking just now, 'they know to check if there have been changes to the main page, don't they?'. And i realized... maybe not. :P

Yeah, there have been a whole bunch of changes. There is a whole new page, which i will be working feverishly on today. It's the Planning section, in which i'm finally divvying up the project into sections and chunks that can be handed out and managed. It states design principles, priorities, specifies exactly what pieces are planned for the initial VMC, what jobs need doing, and gives a sense of a way forward. Well, maybe not so great on the last point... there are so many possibilities i find it hard not to be nebulous. But there is certainly lots to do right now, and some clear next steps, though they are clearer on the what than the how.

This evening there is a teleconference of the chapter leaders of the National Space Society. Moonwards has been designated 20 minutes in the agenda, to talk about how we are doing and what our plans are. But really, right now, except for occasional advice and encouragement, and a few people i can turn to for specific questions, it is just me. There have been a few noises lately that i need to stop worrying about setting stuff up so nice and pretty and get on the job of bringing people in and giving them something interesting to do. So i decided to treat today's meeting as a deadline. Today i get to announce - alright, i'm really actively looking for people, and i need them, so come on in and tell your friends.

There is still so much work to do on models and explanations and research and improving the site. But from now on i'm going to spend a chunk of my time each week just getting people in here, and figuring out what will get them to stay.

Please go look at the Planning page. It will be updated frequently now, and will shortly be connected to a Trello account and maybe some other tools. If you see anything you'd be interested in working on, email me at kim@moonwards.com or post something here. If you think something is missing from the project that you'd like to add, that's good to, talk to me.