• Doug Frye

During the summer of 1998, High Frontier's Space Solar Power Advocacy Group (SSPAG) conducted a grassroots campaign using two direct mail techniques to (1) explore various public attitudes toward Space Solar Power (SSP) and (2) determine to what extent a grassroots direct mail education campaign for SSP would be financially self-sustaining.

Among survey respondents, results indicate both a strong base of support for SSP in general and a strong relationship between support for an SSP program and a lack of faith in the future availability of fossil fuel resources from two different perspectives: anticipation of a crisis forcing energy prices sharply upward, and a perceived need to explore alternative forms of energy now, before we begin to run out of the ones we use currently.

While these positive conclusions were reached, a lower-than-expected response rate to the mailings, both in survey returns and donations received, indicate a grassroots campaign as performed in the present study is not financially self-sustainable. High Frontier's future contribution to SSP advocacy, rather, should involve programs with economically efficient outreach programs (background briefings to relevant policymakers, social science and policy-related studies on an as-funded basis, lesson plans for educators available at or near cost, creating a web page and other electronically-distributed materials, etc.)