0191 -9067/81 /040393-10$02.00/0 Copyright ® 1981 SUNSAT Energy Council MEETING REPORT ON THE PRINCETON CONFERENCE ON SPACE MANUFACTURING JOHN W. FREEMAN Space Solar Power Research Program Rice University, P.O. Box 1892 Houston, Texas 77001, USA FREDERICK H. OSBORN, JR. SUNSAT Energy Council P.O. Box 201 Cold Spring, New York 10516, USA The Fifth Princeton Conference on Space Manufacturing was held May 18-21, 1981, at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. A1AA and the Space Studies Institute sponsored the Conference and Omni magazine and the National Space Institute served as Associate sponsors and provided special financial assistance. The conference serves as a forum for research activity on the technical as well as social science aspects of space development. This year's conference saw a return to single sessions and a continued strong emphasis on the legal and social science aspects of space industrialization and colonization. The morning session of the first day concentrated heavily on the attitudes of the developing nations toward space and the Moon treaty. One was left with the distinct impression that the legal aspects of space development are of critical concern. An impressive array of speakers such as Eilene Galloway, Edward R. Finch, Jr., Amanda L. Moore, and Stephen Gorove testified to the fact that space is considered a valuable piece of real estate and a lot of thought is going into how it should be handled legally. One conclusion is that there is no legal reason to hold up space exploration or utilization at the present time. Any necessary legal arrangements can be handled by executive agreements. The space manufacturing papers began with a series of papers on automated and self-replicating machines and machines which repair themselves. These papers were by Robert A. Freitas, Jr., Rodger A. Cliff, and William B. Zachary. Considerable discussion centered on whether or not such systems using nonterrestrial materials can achieve closure, i.e., become independent of terrestrial supplies. The consensus of the speakers was that closure is possible in a relatively short time. Technical topics, in particular the mass driver, occupied the morning of the second day. In a progress report on mass driver II, William R. Snow, Joel A. Kubby, and R. Scott Dunbar reported that the peak velocity attained is now about 24 m/sec. This velocity is attained in 49 firings (capacitor discharges) with an acceleration of about 500g. Peter Mongeau, K. McKinney, H. Kolm, F. Williams, P. Greneau, and O. Fitch,
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