Joe Firmage
Joe Firmage is an industry veteran and a visionary who studies the impact of science and technology on life. He brings rare insight and experience to building successful enterprises. Prior to the organization of Project Voyager, Joe was Chairman of Intend Change, a first-of-its-kind venture construction firm that organized and launched a small number of important companies built for the new economy. Intend Change organized $250 million dollars into 5 ventures including market leaders Electron Economy and Invesmart.
Joe was co-founder and CEO of USWeb/CKS, a leading strategic Internet and marketing communications firm. Joe was recognized by Ernst and Young as Silicon Valley's Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 1998 for his efforts at USWeb/CKS. Prior to co-founding USWeb/CKS, he was with Novell as Vice President of strategic planning for Novell's Systems Group, the company's core $1 billion business unit. Prior to joining Novell, he was founder and CEO of Serius Corporation, a developer of object-based programming tools for PC developers. Serius was founded in 1989 and was acquired by Novell in 1993.
OneCosmos, under the leadership of Joe Firmage and Ann Druyan, is forming a new type of visionary alliance of partners in finance, science, learning, media, and entertainment to create an "integrated experience network." Our canvas is an Internet portal, a studio, and a press. With them, we aspire to demonstrate convergence of remarkable and responsible learning and entertainment.
Our success will be measured in three ways: commercially in return to our employees and shareholders, ideologically in our commitment to the intellectual and spiritual nourishment of humanity, and in the remarkable things the founders will do with their personal equity.
In the process of forming this particular enterprise, we considered for many months what kind of structure it should have. Should Motion Sciences be a commercial, venture-capital backed company? We tested this idea briefly, but more important in our considerations, however, is the principle of what this mission is all about, and it isn't about an IPO. Our mission is about the possibility of sharing technologies one day that can reverse environmental decline, end starvation and poverty, and make wars over water a horror of the past. Our mission is about scientific knowledge that shouldn't be owned by a commercial corporation.
Our mission is about the possibility that we will be able to explore the Milky Way galaxy in an interstellar spacecraft within your lifetime. Our mission is about helping to enable a renewal of human civilization, and Nature as a whole.
Motion Sciences Organization is therefore truly a public enterprise Ð and if we're successful, the proceeds yielded from technologies sponsored by Motion Sciences will be given back to humanity through select philanthropies. As a not-for-profit 501(c)3, our success in these missions will be dependent upon the support of visionary sponsors and citizens of Earth. People like you. We have a goal for the 2001 calendar year: engaging the support of 100,000 citizens of Earth, becoming members of the Motion Sciences Community.
Are we certain that the discoveries we are seeking are possible? No. Will there be disappointments and unexpected turns along the way? Yes. But based upon what our genuinely world-class team has learned after years of study, we believe these discoveries are likely to be made. With that in mind, imagine the costs of failing to tryÉ In behalf of a rare and talented constellation of highly credentialed and rigorous scientists, engineers, and the teams assisting them, I invite you to join with the people and institutional partners of Motion Sciences in an historic attempt at a vital mission. I cannot imagine a better way for the physics of the 21st century to be pioneered than for citizens from all nations to make it so. Ad astra, Joseph P. Firmage - Chairman - Aug 8, 2001 * * * * * Our Mission The people and partners of Motion Sciences are dedicated to: * the advancement of humanity's scientific and ethical appreciation of the physics of Nature, * the discovery of new technologies enabling clean and abundant energy generation, combustion-free transportation, and sustainable material infrastructure, * the wise use of resulting knowledge and tools for the egalitarian well-being of all life, and to the guidance of all such missions by an Oath for Peaceful Use of Science. Organization Motion Sciences Organization is a new kind of science enterprise: an advanced physics research and development organization supporting an international network of scientists and institutions, pioneering together breakthrough technologies for 21st century life. Motion Sciences Organization is evolving scientific understanding and responsible technical application of advanced electrodynamics, quantum theory, and materials sciences. The Organization connects, informs, sponsors, and assists in the prioritization of collaborative research among Associates of the Motion Sciences Research and Development Network, enabling theoretical and experimental studies to advance beyond the limits imposed by severely fragmented explorations of mainstream physics.
The theoretical group within Motion Sciences has operated for two years as the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics (CIPA), and is led by Dr. Bernard Haisch, formerly of Lockheed-Martin, whose work in this field is an outgrowth of NASA Research Contract NASW-5050, "Inertia and Gravitation in the Zero-Point Field Model" (1996-2000) awarded to the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center. This contract in turn resulted from a seminal paper published in 1994 in the journal Physical Review A entitled: "Inertia as a zero-point field Lorentz force" by B. Haisch, A. Rueda and H. E. Puthoff. Based on work carried out at California State University at Long Beach, the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Lab, and the Max Planck Institute fŸr extraterrestrische Physik in Germany, a significantly new insight into the nature of mass was proposed in that paper. Thereafter, work under the NASA contract published in subsequent papers confirmed and indeed strengthened the proposed connection between inertial mass and the quantum vacuum. In recent years, the explorations of the relation between mass and the quantum vacuum have been extended with possibly significant insights into the nature of gravitation. Possible implications of this and of a rapidly widening body work in the domain of quantum vacuum physics are that: It may be possible to generate propulsive forces without the ejection of material propellant or reaction masses.
It may be possible to extract energy from the quantum vacuum. Both inertial mass and gravitational mass may be electromagnetic phenomena, which would open the door to the possibility of manipulating inertia and/or gravitation.
The theoretical concepts underlying these possibilities are based on an extensive array of peer-reviewed publications in mainstream physics journals.
Dr. Haisch's team is presently conducting studies in the areas of quantum theory, electrodynamics, general relativity and other theories of gravitation and inertia, superstring and M-theory and plasma physics, as well as certain areas of astrophysics and laser physics. Through funded contracts, TEST-CIPA additionally retains expertise in photonics, quantum computation and numerical simulation. As a way to broaden open scientific collaboration and to tap into high-level expertise at other institutions, external research grants have been made to faculty and researchers at half a dozen other university departments in the U. S. and abroad.
The experimental group within TEST has operated for two years as the International Space Sciences Organization, and is led by Creon Levit, a 19-year veteran of NASA Ames, where he specialized in fluid hydrodynamics, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, computational visualizations thereof, and founded NASA's molecular nanotechnology laboratory. Employing considerable caution, collaborative discernment and careful pruning, Levit's team and the Associates have gained extremely valuable experience in domains rapidly emerging to the forefront of modern physics. The results of this approach appear promising: a few paths of exploration have indeed resulted in experiments now underway, early data from which indicate that further research is justified. Meanwhile, TEST's experimental group continues the process of examining the field of ideas, through active collaboration with Associates in the Motion Sciences R&D Network.