About 15 or 16 years ago I got turned on to a club with a vision of the future.  A future that involved private enterprise in space.  A future that would not depend on the bureaucratic mismanagement of resources and political whims of government to advance the exploration of space.  This club was The Orbit Club.

The Orbit Club was started by John House, the owner of a graphic arts company in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and himself a space enthusiast.  His mission was to raise awareness of private space ventures and to promote another of his creations: OUSPADEV - the OUterSPAceDEVelopment Company.

When you joined, you got a kit of assorted items and a rank pin.  As you participated in events and contributed to the club and increased in rank.  Along with more rank came, of course, more responsibilities.  For the avid space advocate, this had a certain appeal.  There was a sense that you were actually doing something instead of sitting idly by waiting for NASA or some other government space agency to take the next step.

I was inspired by The Orbit Club and the goals of OUSPADEV. I joined and held meetings in my small but humble apartment with other like-minded folks.   I even attended the first annual Orbit Club conference in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  The future looked promising.  Then something happened.

For reasons I've never learned, the Orbit Club fell apart, OUSPADEV disappeared and I lost contact with John House.  I read some things on the Internet about the sale of OUSPADEV stocks, but since I'm not any kind of financial or legal expert it went pretty much over my head.  What ever it was, it obviously wasn't good.

Recently, I found a package in storage of some old copies of Outward Magazine, the official magazine of the Orbit Club along with some NASA press documents sent to me ages ago.  I was elected the "historian" of the club during the first conference and so these things came into my possession.

In the near future, I'll be adding scans of these magazines as well as photos from the first conference to the site.  Stay tuned.

So...this site is dedicated to The Orbit Club, OUSPADEV and all those folks who looked to the future and hoped for so much more...

 

 

Have thoughts?  Comments?  Care to share memories?  Email me!   ouspadev@yahoo.com