The Council's roots date to 1980 as a group which prepared many of the Reagan Administration Transition Team's space policy papers.
Their pioneering work had yielded fruits unimaginable in 1982 - Reagan himself had proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, suggesting that nuclear weapons be made "impotent and obsolete".
(Years later I heard straight from a senior Soviet advisor that the U.S. SDI had been the straw that broke the back of the military's hold on foreign policy.
)Participant David Mitchell added this history update on March 18, 2021: Dr. Pournelle held many meetings at “Chaos Manor”, his home in Studio City.
Meetings were held at Chaos Manor, the “Making Orbit 93” conference in Berkeley, and in Las Cruces, NM during DC-X test flight events.
Daniel Graham ruled out queries for mass drivers to move items to LEO, due to treaty violations.
(I favor solar powered mass drivers, he prefers plutonium reactors to prevent downtime during the 14 day lunar night.)
Always aware that for a profit-seeking company to be successful, NASA must take the long-term research and exploratory role, with affordable access to space moving incrementally to the private sector to unleash the growth potential.
Marvin Minsky, Danny Hillis, John McCarthy, David Mitchell Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Robert A. Heinlein, Gregory Benford, Dean Ing, Steven Barnes, Jim Baen, Larry Niven Stefan T. Possony, Bjo Trimble, Alexander C. Pournelle, James Miller Vaughn, Jr.