Space is a dream full if ideas and hopes we want to share. Issyroo Farms grew as an idea from a story written by me (Jaye Sudar) for NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. While writing a paper for a national symposium, I discovered that ISRU, In Situ Resource Utilization has not looked in depth in a variety of fields, one of which was agriculture. This became the backbone of my story. While writing and war gaming the story, one afternoon, the words tumbled out onto the table.

“Why don’t we do this for real?”

The longer we thought about it, the harder it came to turn away from the idea. We realized it didn’t matter how far we got. The important thing was to try. Questions have bubbled to the surface and will be discussed in the blog as time goes by. We hope you’ll comment and help in the discussion. Our goals are to find out as much as possible about creating an environment that people can live in  in space.

Now for a bit about who we are. I’m Jaye Sudar. I grew up watching the Apollo missions, building models and reading anything I could about the Space Program. My dad cranked bolts on the Saturn V rockets, so watching the launches was like a family event. I love the idea of being a pioneer in space. I grew up reading Heinlein, Bradbury, Asimov and dozens of other Sci-Fi authors. Amongst my dreams I count the desire to write. I’ve dabbled for ages and with the advent of the computer, I have worked at refining my writings. Issyroo, my NaNoWriMo novel will be featured on this website in the future. I also bring to the mix a love of crafts, gardening, participating in the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) and a curious mind.

Then there is my partner, Aaron Harper. As a boy, he travelled cross country to watch Apollo 17 launch with his father. He grew up with a love of space and the desire to be a part of the adventure. He has a degree in Electric Engineering and is working on one in Space Studies. He was in the Air Force for twelve years and has worked on numerous space related projects since 1988. More information about that can be found at Ahead Research. When he isn’t working on computers, ham radios (KD0CXH), or enjoying the outdoors, he’s working on ideas for Open Source Designs in software or hardware.

We are also involved with a group called Mach30. This organization supports Open Source Space Flight. A partner to Mach 30 is Open Design Engine. (ODE). Aaron has over thirty projects up on the site, all of them relate to Spaceflight in some aspect.