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forward the foundation
by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - November 13, 2001

In the early 1950s, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote the Foundation trilogy, a landmark portrayal of a futuristic pan-Galactic Empire. Inspired by Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88), Asimov's stories featured his alter ego, the scientist Hari Seldon, a Platonic 'Philosopher-King' who battled a corrupt and unsympathetic bureaucracy to collate socio-political and cultural data in an attempt to save civilization from a new Dark Ages.
Seldon's Quest had mythical resonances for author Marshall Savage. Since writing The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps in 1992, Savage, a graduate of the University of Southern California, has been at the forefront of a growing movement attempting to overcome the conceptual gridlock crippling the United States space program since the Apollo moon landings ended.
For Savage, the writer turned space advocate, the Dark Ages facing humanity is a world afflicted by 'limits to growth' problems like exponential population increases, world food shortages and the need for non-polluting energy sources.