L5 Society at UT Austin

Gerard O'Neill's advocacy for settling the High Frontier inspired the formation of the L5 Society in 1975, and was soon reflected at UT Austin and McDonald Observatory in West Texas. As described in The Visioneers, The University of Texas in Austin, for instance, hosted an active chapter that met regularly. Harlan Smith, an astronomy professor with a passion for popularizing science, was a member and later served on L5’s board of directors. Another member, Deborah Byrd, soon started writing and producing StarDate, an Austin-based telephone message service that, in 1978, became a nationally syndicated radio segment on space and astronomy topics. ... It is difficult to construct an exact and detailed demographic picture of the L5 Society’s membership. But evidence shows that it was especially strong in California, Washington, Texas, and Arizona, states that were part of the postwar “Gunbelt,” where the nation’s defense contractors were concentrated. As one would expect, there were more extensive pockets of support near universities and centers of aerospace activity. [1]

Many from that era remember The High Frontier, the Whole Earth Catalog, StarDate, and Music from the Hearts of Space. Dave Ahl's Creative Computing can easily be added to that list. All very useful to keep in mind in the context of the HRC DEC-10 from 1975 to 1982.

Interesting list of L5 members on the upper-left, including UT and McDonald Observatory's Harlan Smith.

Classic image of the interior of an O'Neill Cylinder.

[1] McCray, W. Patrick. The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.

[2] O’Neill, Gerard K. The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1977.

[3] The L5 Society was directly inspired by Gerard O'Neill and founded in 1975 by the Hensons in Tucson. The Visioneers gives an interesting description, The Hensons were an energetic and opinionated (some detractors also used words like aggressive and abrasive) couple who shared a pronounced enthusiasm for science fiction writers like Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. Like many other young American couples their age, the Hensons, whether for philosophical or financial reasons, strove to be more self-sufficient. Their rambling house, located just off the university campus, had a large garden and was home to an array of chickens, goats, and rabbits. The Hensons’ house offered visitors unconventional entertainment options. A network of underground tunnels ran beneath it and, instead of a television, the Hensons built a Tesla coil that created entertaining displays of electrical sparks. Meanwhile, the open desert spaces around Tucson allowed them to indulge a fondness for recreational explosives by reenacting scenes from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings with homemade pyrotechnic devices. [1]

[4] Both the L5 Society, active from the mid-70s through the 1980s, and Music from the Hearts of Space, launching on KPFA in 1973 and nationally in 1983, emerged from the same countercultural and futurist West Coast milieu. The ethereal, expansive electronic and ambient soundscapes curated by host Stephen Hill provided an unofficial sonic backdrop for the burgeoning space migration, orbital settlement, and futurist philosophy championed by L5 activists. Listeners of late-night public radio in the 1970s and 1980s frequently overlapped with early space colonization advocates, blending atmospheric listening habits with high-tech optimism about Lagrange point habitats.

[5] For a fictional idea of life on the High Frontier, especially in O'Neill Cylinders, two intertwined scifi collections are highly recommended. Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix collection, and William Gibson's Sprawl collection, Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive in particular. There are intentional connections between the worlds in both collections, especially with regard to the construction and centuries-long evolution of O'Neill Cylinders, with the Schismatrix stories set in the far-future, long after the near-future Sprawl stories. Sterling is an Austinite, and Gibson a repeat guest. A good question is how much contact there was with the UT Austin L5 Society. It's even possible that Sterling was to some extent aware of Decwar, as he was an early personal computer and BBS user, as discussed in 1992's The Hacker Crackdown.