My recommendation for the central theme of Space Renaissance activities is low-cost passenger space travel or "space tourism". My reasons for this are explained at some length in the paper that Adriano and I wrote for the IAA Symposium last May, which can be read here:
www.spacefuture.com/archive/what_the_growth_of_a_space_tourism_industry_could_contribute_to_employment_economic_growth_environmental_protection_education_culture_and_world_peace.shtml

To put it briefly, the KEY issue is to reduce the cost of travel to space - because if the cost of space travel is low enough we can do almost anything in space (such as orbital hotels, space-based solar energy supply, asteroid exploration, and cities on the Moon), but if it stays as high as it is today we can do almost nothing in space.

Now, unfortunately, space agencies have not done this. They have made no effort at all to reduce the cost of getting to space, for 50 years. SpaceShipOne showed how easily the process can be started: the whole project cost less than Nasa, Esa and Jaxa (NEJ) spend EVERY MORNING BEFORE LUNCH (and again every afternoon! ) And it could have been done 50 years ago.

As it happens, NEJ are required by law to ". . seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space". (This is from Nasa's enabling legislation, 1985 version - Esa and Jaxa have similar language.) Clearly they are not doing this, and they have no plans to. However, I don't think that the Space Renaissance movement is likely to change NEJ's behaviour of the past 1/2 century.

So I believe that the best way to reduce the cost of access to space is by developing space travel / tourism as an extension of civil aviation - because there is a potentially huge market. How cheap could it become? As I understand, $5,000 for a sub-orbital flight and $20,000 for an orbital flight once turnover reaches about 1 million passengers/year. (I rely on Dr Ivan Bekey, Bristol Spaceplanes, the Japanese Rocket Society and others for the engineering analysis on which these figures are based.) And at these prices, demand would surely be several times this number. So I have no doubt that, if governments granted 10% of NEJ's annual budget to develop vehicles for low-cost space travel, sub-orbital travel could be BOOMING within a decade, and orbital travel within 2 decades.

A criticism made of space tourism is to say that most people have no idea that space tourism is anything more than a pastime for a few rich people.

Exactly so - and I believe this should be the challenge for Space Renaissance: to explain the enormous world-wide benefits of developing low-cost space flight to the general public. Because, once enough people understand, it will be easy to realise it - either privately or with public funding - because the amount of funding needed initially is so little, and because the benefits of catching up the 60 years of delay in starting sub-orbital space travel (and then orbital travel) are so huge. The many important ways in which low-cost passenger space travel would be beneficial are explained in some detail in the paper linked above (and in more detail in papers to which it links, etc).

Other proposals have been made to focus on asteroid deflection, or asteroid/Moon mining, or solar power satellites, or etc. From my perspective, these would all follow naturally from achieving the above, but none is sufficiently urgent or advanced to act as a driver for early development of low-cost passenger vehicles. By contrast, sub-orbital travel can be started at trivial cost (e.g. compared to NEJ's budget which taxpayers already pay) - and within 10 years huge numbers of school-children could be being thrilled to be able to fly to space themselves. From my experience this is an electrifying idea for young people, which also shows how humanity can have a fantastically bright future - utterly different from the absurd, LUDICROUS idea of a future dominated by "Resource Wars" which today's political leaders are seriously trying to sell us ! ! !

I am of course very happy to debate this proposal - but I'd ask people who want to debate it to at least read this first:
www.spacefuture.com/archive/what_the_growth_of_a_space_tourism_industry_could_contribute_to_employment_economic_growth_environmental_protection_education_culture_and_world_peace.shtml

On the matter of a Space Renaissance Forum, it would be ideal to hold it in a way that draws attention to its contrast to the nonsense/disinformation that is likely to come out of the "London summit" on April 2. However, I don't think that trying to hold SRF in London on April 1 would be a good idea (though it might sound ideal). As Adriano has explained, there's a LOT of work to be done to hold an SRF with a clear and persuasive message. Of course, if someone has a team of Sherpas who want to organise at least a small event on April 1, maybe we should try? But otherwise I think we should plan a Space Renaissance event at our own pace - as well as think "laterally" of ways to publicise it.

Anyway, wishing you all the best, and looking forward to a great 2009 - as well as public progress towards the Space Renaissance that we need,

Patrick Collins