My files on GEnie Space&Science library

James E. D. Cline

General info:

In 1988 I was given an opportunity to become a member of the GEnie Space and Science library, and the associated Spaceport correspondence area, as a member of the National Space Society (formerly the L-5 Society folks) and with the help of one of my employer's managers, Lee Fleishman of VSE, I was able to sign up even though my own computer did not yet have the ability to connect to a computer network. This was before the internet became available to the public, and there were several computer networks, such as this one, the General electric Information Network, a public network that went by the name of GEnie. 

As always I lived quite impoverished, and my main computer at the time was an Adam Coleco, one of the early efforts to create affordable personal computers in the 1980's. This computer consisted of a combo power supply plus printer, a processing unit with a digital cassette recorder for data storage, and a keyboard; it used one's television set as its output display.  I had purchased it when it was already obsolete. After I signed up for access to the GEnie network, I eventually found an ad from which I bought another such used computer but which came with a 300 baud modem and a 5-1/4" floppy disk drive as non-volatile storage, much better than the digital precision cassette tapes which were hard to find and quite expensive by then, and tool a long time to spool through to some desired saved file. The floppy disk was a great improvement and surely was a karmic reward fro my prior work in advancing the state of the art of floppy disk technology, before the industry collapsed in the US. The key item here was the modem, which enabled me to connect via the telephone to the GEnie network with its Space and Science library as part of its so-called Spaceport section. 

My first upload, done mostly to see if I could do it, was assigned the file number of 475, and was the transcript of my testimony before the National Commission on Space. It worked. And then I began to more creatively make files for the library, eager to present my concepts for a centrifugal space station easily built in LEO, and my concepts of kinetic energy supported transportation structures; even my older ground commute ideas to some extent.

In 1996 I bought my first macintosh computer, again a freshly obsolete model called the Performa 630 and signed up for an earthlink.net account which came with free website pages; I then focused on my creative communication of my technological concepts there. I also maintained contact with the GEnie network, which got sold to a individual, operated for awhile and then vanished, not converted to internet access, much to my sorrow and surprise. 

I had my own copies of most of my GEnie Spaceport Space and Science Library files and much of the correspondence regarding them, scattered in my old files. From them, as surviving down through the years, here is an list of local copies for view here.

Wide-view space concepts in general

Space station construction concepts

Anchored tether space elevators

Kinetically-supported space transportation structure systems