The Farthest Shore – Chapter Four The Future of Space
From The Space Library
Chapter Four The Future of Space
Peter Diamandis, Bob Richards and Joseph Pelton
“Earth has an astronomical future as a habitable planet for probably some 6 billion years, enough time, indeed for a new race of thinking creatures to evolve once again from blue-green algae if all advanced terrestrial life forms become extinct. But the achievements that a continuously evolving intelligent species might make in 6 billion years are unimaginable. A species might need only 50 million years to colonize the whole Galaxy….” --Eric Burgess, Science Editor, Christian Science Monitor
4.1 What We Can Learn from History
The most common approach that people take in projecting the future is to assume that the past is the prologue. The book Megamistakes suggests that extrapolations that address complex social situations, changing cultural practices, or situations where dramatic new innovations are introduced may prove to be well off base in predicting the future. You would never use extrapolations to predict the next day on the stock market, the demand for a new consumer product, or the success of a new theatrical production. You would certainly be unwise to use trend analysis to project the future of totally new space systems or of exploratory probes to previously unknown regions. Scientist, author and futurist Sir Arthur C. Clarke (ISU Chancellor for 17 years) often pointed out how easy it is to overestimate the future in the short term and underestimate the future in the long term. One of Sir Arthur’s “Three Laws” states that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The long-term effects of technological wildcards can be so unpredictable and so profound that even the most vivid imaginations will fail to anticipate the stunning realities of the future.
To discuss the future of space requires imagination and an understanding of the entrepreneurial spirit of the inventive mind. No major industry in the history of the modern technological world has experienced steady, consistent and long-term growth. Spurts of growth are followed by periods of retreat and retrenchment, and then new opportunities emerge. As human society expands and evolves across the planet with unprecedented speed, social, political and technological variables have become more dominant and unpredictable. The only constant over the last century has been change.
Some of the most successful and well-capitalized companies in the world, such as Intel, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Orange Telecommunications, did not exist just a few decades ago. Some of the most successful corporations of the not too distant past such as Bethlehem Steel, Texaco, K-Mart, Bear Stearns, Enron and Lehman Brothers Bank that no longer exist, or exist only as subsidiaries of others. What is true of the broader commercial world is true for the space world as well. SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Bigelow Aerospace and Vulcan Inc. have only been on the scene for a few years, but they are changing our future in space. Meanwhile companies like Google and Facebook are becoming part of the “NewSpace” industry. Part of the story about the future of space is not only the “what” but also the “who” and the “why” associated with these accomplishments. Clearly “NewSpace” enterprise will be a key part of the future alongside governmental and defense programs.
From the time of Sputnik in October 1957 through the Apollo 11 landing of astronauts on the Moon in 1969 there was enormous progress in space programs. This was a time that saw not only the development of rockets that could carry astronauts safely to the Moon, but also successful missions to other planets, the development of sophisticated communications satellite technology such as the Applications Technology Satellite 6 (ATS-6), and a host of space firsts. However, following the cold-war inspired space race of the 1960s, the last 40 years has seen a slowing of progress by the various space agencies and the shift of many functions to commercial organizations.
In the last decade, with grounding of the Space Shuttle and birth of “NewSpace” enterprise we seem to be seeing a new birth of entrepreneurs that are intent in finding new ways to get into space that is lower in cost, more reliable, and driven by commercial ventures rather than by conventional space agencies.
4.2. Space Entrepreneur
There has recently been a great surge in initiatives within the commercial spaceflight industries. Suddenly there are plans to fly early participants into space by organizations such as Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Jeff Gleason’s XCOR, Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. There are over twenty different ventures that are seeking to enter the space tourism business and at least four ventures that have been formed to engage in space mining—something that just a few years ago seemed to be just sci-fi fantasy. Three of these firms, in fact, have a relationship or tie to the International Space University. James Keravala, an ISU graduate, is the Chief Operating Officer of Shackleton Energy Company while ISU founders Peter Diamandis and Robert Richards head Planetary Resources Inc. and Moon Express respectively.
Robert Bigelow, the billionaire owner of Budget Suites, has successfully launched inflatable Genesis I (see Figure 4.1) and Genesis II space habitats into space, with plans to offer space tourists the opportunity for a stay in outer space aboard a private space station.
The sudden arrival of commercial players into the space arena is often called the “Personal Spaceflight Revolution”, or “NewSpace”. Many of these new ventures sprang from the Ansari X PRIZE. This pioneering space prize challenge offered US$10 million for the first privately funded team to build and operate a suborbital spaceship capable of carrying three passengers that could fly into space twice within a two-week period. SpaceShipOne, designed by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan and funded by Microsoft Founder Paul Allen, successfully achieved this remarkable feat in 2004, just before the deadline. This unique vehicle now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., along with the Spirit of St. Louis in which Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly, solo and non-stop, across the Atlantic Ocean in May 1927. Building on the success of the Ansari X PRIZE, the X PRIZE Foundation has partnered with Google to offer the US$30M Google Lunar X PRIZE for the first private team to land and operate a robotic spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. The prize is being pursued by a growing number of teams from around the world, including the ISU-bred company Odyssey Moon Limited. New commercial space ventures abound. These range from a number of new launcher systems spawned by the NASA funded Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program to a burgeoning number of spaceports in the United States and around the world. New space ventures are fueling a new awareness of the potential of space and new innovative thought about what the future might hold.
The future of space, like many other enterprises, depends on innovation, entrepreneurship, capital, public support and opportunity. It is no accident that innovation and growth comes in spurts. The small percentage of inventive and adventurous minds that have led humanity forward in the age of “NewSpace” opportunity should be more available today than ever before. Ninety percent of all humans that have ever lived will be alive in some part of the 21st century. This will be true if some self-inflicted or external catastrophe doesn’t destroy us and if current U.N. projections of a human population of between 10 and 12 billion people by the end of the century prove to be accurate. Technology continues to deliver information and education to more and more people. Global economic development and the U.N. Sustainability Goals will also lead to more, and better, schools and universities than ever before. There are enough innovative minds to fuel new progress in space development, but is there a sufficient political will? Are there enough economic incentives and entrepreneurs with a sense of adventure to pursue new opportunities in space? Motivation is essential to success in space.
Archytus of ancient Greece discovered the concept of reaction jet energy in the Fourth Century B.C. He used steam to create jet propulsion and he devised a clever wooden pigeon that flew around on a string. It was a brilliant invention, but the idea was converted into a toy and a mere conversation piece. In the seventeenth century Sir Isaac Newton provided the world with the basic concepts associated with the Laws of Motion to show, with careful illustrations, how a projectile fired from a high mountain at a sufficiently high speed could launch into Earth orbit. Creative minds such as that of Edward Everett Hale in his book The Brick Moon (1869) suggested the plausibility of launching satellites into polar orbit to provide navigation, Earth observation and communications. Thus, over the years, inventive minds conceived of ways to use rocket propulsion, to understand the laws of gravity, and to put outer space to practical use. Despite these admirable intellectual achievements, it was not until there was a political will to go into outer space, plus the capital and entrepreneurial skills to make it happen, that space travel ultimately occurred.
At the outset of the Space Age, the drive to launch things off our planet’s surface was linked to military objectives and closely tied to missile launch capability. Also, because it was understood that the research and engineering to design and build rockets would be quite expensive, these efforts were essentially left to governments--either civilian space or defense agencies. The major accomplishments in space, as represented by the U.S.S.R.’s Sputnik launches and the United States Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs in the early days, were all publicly financed. More recently the space programs of China, India, Canada, Europe, Japan, and a growing number of other countries, as well as the US$140 billion International Space Station (ISS), were all derived from public treasuries. These space ventures were implemented through public space agencies and aerospace contractors working under their supervision. These activities are what might be called “big” space programs that have been accomplished by governments and giant aerospace industries. These organizations were, and still are, staffed by thousands of scientists and engineers. Seldom do these big public space programs cost under a billion dollars; often they cost much, much more.
Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, winds of change are blowing. The old models of who carries out space programs, or who is entitled to go into space, and even commercial business models surrounding space activities, are all changing. These changes hinge on several key questions: Why do we want, or need, to go into outer space? Are space programs best carried out by public space agencies, public defense organizations, private industry, or a creative combination of these entities? If commercial space activities are to stand alone, what are the markets that will drive the needed investment? What is the best way forward in order to ensure that the greatest benefits are derived from space? Do we actually need new space systems and capabilities to save the planet and the human race against catastrophic climate change? How does one achieve the maximum return on investments in space? And are new ways of doing things in space possible, viable and desirable? Almost everyone has his or her own answers to these questions. Indeed, there is good reason to support the proposition that new answers are needed to these questions in the light of the modest progress made in space programs since the Moon landing accomplished by the Apollo Program a half century ago.
The commercialization of space is now expanding into many sectors, including satellite communications, remote sensing, space navigation, and “geomatics”. These “established” commercial space markets are now successful and innovative billion dollar businesses. Questions related to the militarization of space have also reached a critical threshold with the use of satellites for military communications, observation, detection and even targeting of weapons. The question that hangs in the air is: what next?
Perhaps the most powerful proposition concerning the future of space is the role to be played by the new entrepreneurial companies that are frequently bankrolled by unconventional space billionaires such as Paul Allen, Jeff Bezos, Robert Bigelow, Sir Richard Branson, and Elon Musk. And this is just for starters. There are many others that have propelled “NewSpace” initiatives forward. They include such innovators as Eric Anderson, who pioneered space tourism when he created Space Adventures, or John Carmack who developed computer games “Doom” and “Quake” and then formed his own new space company, James Benson, who launched Benson Aerospace and pioneered hybrid rocket motors, and indeed all the companies that are backing the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. These and many others are making headway with innovative new space capabilities. These are people who are impatient to see things happen and happen quickly. When they think of something that they wish to see happen, they apply their own capital and business sensibility to speed things along.
It is for a variety of reasons that we seem to be on the verge of producing capable and cost-effective new space vehicles and totally new commercial space industries that launch paying customers into the high frontier of space. These entities are focused on launching space tourists for short trips into space, creating viable space habitats, providing on-orbit refueling and servicing, deploying and operating commercial space stations, conceiving of and deploying solar power stations, developing new and environmentally friendly hypersonic jets, creating new stratospheric platforms in the so-called “Protozone”, and even engaging in space mining and space-based processing and manufacturing of products. The opportunities just keep expanding as we find more opportunities and technologies that allow us to create totally new space industries. In no other industrial area is there the possibility to create such new multi-billion dollar industries. Such new enterprises in space are as exotic as mining asteroids for rare mineral resources or using solar power satellites to beam clean sources of energy to the inhabitants of our planet, or as “down to earth” as creating high altitude platform systems or developing new and cost-effective stratospheric air transport. Space entrepreneurs are setting their sights on the vast resources of space waiting to be exploited.
4.3 Why do we Want, or Need, to go into Outer Space?
“We have an incredible challenge facing us right now because we are reaching potentially catastrophic times. In the coming decades, technological change and the pressures on our civilization will reach the breaking point if we don’t embrace prudent decisions here on Earth – of conservation and rational resource utilization, together with the expansion of our civilization and economic sphere into space. If we can’t do that responsibly as a species, we’ll be doomed. Creating an off-Earth economy and multi-planet civilization will help secure the long-term prospects of humanity.” -Dr. Robert Richards, Founder, International Space University, and CEO, Odyssey Moon Ltd.
The answers to this question are almost limitless. Responses include:
- Because it is our destiny. *Because space systems now provide key applications vital to business, government and the Earth’s ecology. (These include satellites for communications, remote sensing and meteorological services, navigation and precise timing, emergency services and climate monitoring.) *Because space systems may be critical to saving the Earth from catastrophic collision with potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects (NEOs) or because we may need to accomplish remarkable new feats such as the creation of space shields at Lagrange Point One to protect us from violent solar storms that will become much more dangerous as the Earth’s magnetosphere shifts and disrupts the Van Allen Belts. Who knows? Perhaps we may even need to build a space-based heat-pipe or irradiator that transfers the heat trapped by “greenhouse” gases in the atmosphere out into the cosmos. *Because space telescopes and sensing systems are critical to understanding the nature of the Universe, the Big Bang, and the possibility of other intelligent life in the cosmos. *Because space tourism could allow a large number of people to witness outer space and to see the fragility of our planet alone in outer space. Such a new type of human experience on a vast new scale may be critical to significant reforms to save the Earth’s ecosystem, and to combat global warming and ozone depletion. (Non-polluting spaceplanes could also provide a practical solution for global long-distance travel.)
- Because, as observed by astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, it is critical for people to explore space and establish colonies beyond Earth to allow the ultimate preservation of the human race as a multi-planet species.
- Because space is the high frontier that holds a good deal of humanity’s future opportunity and the potential for clean energy, new materials, new pharmaceuticals, climate change mitigation, and yet-to-be-discovered wonders that could completely reshape the world.
This is not an exhaustive list and new space accomplishments, systems and technologies, in areas such as space mining, space-based power systems, space-based processing and manufacturing, etc., may open up entirely new reasons to be in space and pursue new space-based goals and objectives.
However, space is not guaranteed to be free from conflict and aggression. There are militarists who want to put weapons in space and turn it into a battlefield. These armed force planners, from various part of the world, in the worst traditions of strategic defense concepts such as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), Star Wars (the defunct U.S. strategic defense initiative (SDI) of the 1980s), and MRVs (Multiple Re-entry Vehicles) could seek to deploy high-powered laser-directed energy beams and nuclear weapons in space. Space-based military systems, if not controlled and tempered, could serve to extend human warfare into the cosmos. There is also a more moderate concept of “dual-use” space technology, combining space systems for civilian and military uses, such as communications and surveillance satellites that can monitor ice flows and deforestation as well as the movement of military assets and troops. Only time will tell which of these lofty — and not so lofty — goals for space exploration, space applications, space commercialization, space science and space defense will be realized.
4.4 Are Space Programs Best Carried out by Public Space Agen-cies?
“The best way to create the future is to create it yourself.” – Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the XPrize Foundation.
Significant progress has been made in space over the past 50 years. Communications satellites are over a US$130 billion a year industry and all space applications worldwide total about $250 billion per annum.
The Hubble telescope has revealed the history of the Cosmos almost back to the Big Bang, and the new James Webb telescope will see the universe as never before. Space probes have explored the Sun and virtually the entire solar system, while astronauts have been to the Moon and dream of soon traveling to Mars. From all our space experience, we have learned not only how to explore and apply space, but we have gotten smarter about how to do so. Space agencies generally take on the longer-term projects that require the most research effort and the most far-reaching technologies. Private enterprise evolves commercial applications, develops markets and finds technology spin-offs from space developments in both military and civilian space agency programs. Even in military space programs there is a greater reliance on commercial systems and the so-called “dual use” of commercially designed and deployed systems.
Over the last twenty years the cooperative relationships between large aerospace corporations, smaller and more agile commercial consulting firms, civilian space agencies and military space programs have been sorted out to share research effectively and implement new responsibilities and duties. This is particularly true in the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia and Europe, but even the nations more recently involved in space have shown increasing maturity. In fact, some three dozen countries now have their own space agencies. The space programs of India and China, in particular, have made truly remarkable strides in the past decade. All of the developments have allowed the division of tasks and goals between government and commercial entities to become clearer and more effective in recent years.
The 21st century, with its increasing social and economic pressures exemplified by a global recession in 2009, has placed constraints on new space spending. It has also coincided with the rise of new entrepreneurial space companies with their new capabilities to innovate in space. This has, in part, been stimulated by the advent of space challenge prizes such as the US$10 million Ansari X PRIZE, and the US$30 million Google X PRIZE described earlier, plus the US$50 million Robert Bigelow funded America’s Challenge to develop commercial transport to low Earth orbit to support Bigelow space habitats. Even NASA has caught the spirit of this new entrepreneurial initiative, and has started some very innovative programs. This has included various Prizes or Challenges to develop Moon landers, the new materials and solar-powered climber robots needed to build a space elevator, and other technological advances.
Perhaps the most ambitious of these new commercial initiatives is NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) to develop reliable commercial access services to low Earth orbit to replace the Space Shuttle that was grounded in 2011. This unconventional NASA COTS program first served to support the R&D needed to create new commercial launchers to shuttle cargo to the International Space Station. This led to SpaceX’s program to develop the Falcon 9 launcher and Dragon Capsule and Orbital ATK’s development of the Antares launcher and Cygnus capsule. This has now led to the program to develop systems to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS. Currently, SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada are competing to prove that their launch system is the most reliable and cost effective system to provide access to the ISS. This ability to develop commercial launch systems to carry astronauts to space has not stopped there. Elon Musk has said in the Spring of 2016 that he plans to send his Falcon heavy launcher and “Red Dragon” capsule to Mars.
Despite this progress and the advances in space technology and exploration seen since the start of the X PRIZE Foundation, we still have a very long way to go. As has been said more than once: “The meek shall inherit the Earth. The rest of us will go to Mars.”
4.5 How can the Greatest Benefits be Derived from Space?
“What will the future bring? Perhaps 500 years from now satellites will be relaying three-dimensional holographic images to space colonies. Mining robots on the Moon or astronauts “plugged into the brain” of a controller on Earth could be producing new wealth and resources a quarter of a million of miles away. Perhaps we even will see satellites and other products built and deployed in space or see “sun shields” in space to cope with climate change and solar storms. It is hard to say how far we might go into space using new tools such as telepathy, teleportation, or artificially intelligent Von Neumann machines that can not only reproduce themselves but improve their design on their own. The only ultimate barrier to our progress in space is the limits of our imagination and the political will to do the intelligent and moral thing.” - Prof. Joseph N. Pelton, Former Dean and Chairman of the Board of the International Space University, and Founder of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.
There are many intelligent and informed people who say: “Why do we need a space program? There are so many urgent needs right here on planet Earth that it does not make sense to waste money on outer space.” There is a probably apocryphal story about a United States Congressman, at a hearing for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who said: “Why do we need to spend billions of dollars on new weather satellites when I can turn on the weather channel and see everything I need to know about the weather all over the world.” The disconnect between what space programs make possible and the key services they provide is, of course, in part due to the fact that satellites and space probes are well out of sight, and their roles in society have become invisible.
Over 20,000 television channels are provided worldwide by communications satellites, along with broadband Internet connections to many countries of the world. Our knowledge about the critical functions of the ozone layer and the Van Allen belts in protecting humans from extinction has come from space programs. Knowledge about the climatic conditions on Venus and Mars may help to save us from the worst ravages of global warming or from the next ice age. Today space programs divide their investments between broad categories of space exploration, space transportation systems, space applications, new technology developments, new products and services, “spin-offs”, educational development and research, and space sciences.
In most countries, including Canada, Europe, Russia, China, Brazil and India, a great deal of space agency money is spent on developing space applications, vital space education and space sciences to protect the Earth and to study space weather. The United States spends far more of its resources on space exploration and the development of “manned vehicles” than all of the other space agencies, although programs in India and China are showing remarkable advances in these areas.
Critics of the United States space policy have proposed reforms that would:
(i) seek a better balance, with more emphasis on space applications and science related to human needs here on Earth;
(ii) give a special focus to environmental concerns, such as monitoring global warming, developing cleaner and greener jet engines and rockets (i.e. hydrogen fueled vehicles), etc.,
(iii) develop capabilities to detect and ward off “killer asteroids” and protect us from violent solar storms. In the decades ahead, cosmic hazards and planetary defense may become a prime goal of space agencies. (The logic would be that it will be hard to have a funded space program if there are no people left on Earth.)
(iv) let smaller entrepreneurial companies and universities develop more aspects of future space programs, rather than maintaining huge NASA Centers and supporting multi-billion contracts with giant aerospace corporations.
These critics foresee a good deal of future innovation in space coming from those new entrepreneurial entities such as SpaceX. These initiatives are already coming from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Vulcan Inc., and Blue Origin. The key is not just having billions of dollars to invest but innovative and “outside the box thinking” that allows totally new ways to solve space-related problems and new types of space design. The teams competing for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, for instance, have come up with much more innovative and diverse ideas than would ever have emerged from a conventional space agency.
Clearly, when looking to the future, what is needed is both better balance and better diversity. Robert Zubrin, the noted Mars exploration advocate and critic of NASA, has suggested a program that would send rockets to Mars, generate methane fuel that could power a return trip, reduce the size of the rocket and the cost of sending an astronaut to Mars, and allow a safe trip back to Earth. Zubrin has also said that using the Shuttle to send astronauts into low Earth orbit was as sensible and cost efficient as using an aircraft carrier to pull water skiers. Many critics of current government space programs say that the future of space should be based on institutional and budgetary reform. This means a better balance between the duties and responsibilities of public space and military agencies, universities and research institutes, and entrepreneurial companies. It also means new ways to foster space solutions. This means not only more money used for prizes and challenges to develop new space capabilities, but also companies like Google, Space X, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin saying: “I don’t want to create systems and programs that are ten percent better but at ten times better”.
In short, we might benefit from a shift in how public and private monies are spent on and divided among space exploration, space sciences, space applications and even space education. NASA, at the age of 50, is thought by some to have become too bureaucratic, too stiff in the joints, and rusty in its old age. Its efforts to develop a viable spaceplane over a period of two decades, produced over half a dozen different programs that were started and stopped without success. The Space Shuttle alone costs US$3 billion a year to operate only six missions a year. A great deal of the cost was to maintain a standing army of some 18,000 workers that needed to be kept employed by congressional decree. NASA, at the start of the Space Shuttle program, indicated that it would operate the Shuttle on a launch a week basis and reduce the cost of access to low Earth orbit by at least an order of magnitude. Instead, costs for manned access to orbit have skyrocketed. The ISS space station, as a consequence, ballooned in cost to some $140 billion. Meanwhile Bigelow Aerospace is designing its inflat-able “private space station” that is much larger in volume at a small fraction of the cost.
The Aldridge Commission, which was formed after the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, reported its findings with some harsh criticisms of NASA. This Commission’s findings indicated that NASA was trying to do too many things and not doing any of them particularly well. They suggested that NASA should focus on long term space research and truly advanced technology and convert NASA Centers to Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). These centers would compete for projects, letting smaller and more entrepreneurial companies play a greater role, while using international cooperation to better advantage. A similar approach could, of course, be applied to other space agencies as well. All too often the budgets of space agencies are spent on the salaries of aerospace corporations and agency employees without the results of these large investments becoming apparent. Most advocates of the “New Space” paradigm feel that government space programs should return to their roots. They should not be “jobs programs”; rather they should be dedicated to true innovation and meaningful new adventures on the edge of human knowledge and capability.
Such an approach could deliver “more bang for the buck”, rapid innovation, and allow a more rapid spin-off of new technology to other fields of endeavor. A further reform would be to restore high level and strategic oversight of space programs with clear defined goals against specifically crafted objectives. In the case of the United States, this could mean restoring a National Space Council within the Office of the Vice President. In the case of Europe, Canada, Japan, China, India - as well as the United States - actions along this line could not only mean providing strategic oversight at the highest levels but also suggest the wisdom of creating an International Space Council. Its aim would be to coordinate meaningful new global space initiatives, particularly focusing on international cooperation in space exploration, while helping humanity cope with climate change, heat dissipation from the Earth’s atmosphere, global protection of the Earth from orbital space debris, catastrophic events triggered by violent solar storms, potentially hazardous comets or asteroids, and developing “green rocket and jet propulsion” to reduce atmospheric pollution.
4.6. The Maximum Return on Investments in Space
It is easy in most businesses, including high tech ventures, to assess if you are making money and if there are net profits. Space programs, especially those with long lead times and R&D programs that may take a decade or more to pay off, do not have the same easy metrics available to measure success. NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin became famous— some say infamous—for his “better, cheaper, faster” mantra that he used to guide the United States space agency for longer than any other American space administrator. The results of this initiative were mixed, in that some programs were developed, competed, awarded, constructed and launched faster and at lower costs, but other programs failed, perhaps in part by being rushed and not well managed. The initially unsuccessful billion-dollar Hubble Space Telescope project was first considered a failure. But the retrofitting of the optical resolution system on this remarkable space instrument—as described in chapter 3 by astronaut Jeff Hoffman—turned this project into one of the most successful and celebrated space achievements in the history of space science. One of the Explorer satellites of the 1980s ended up with major schedule delays and budget overruns, but this mission confirmed the residual microwave radio noise left over from the Big Bang. It verified the basic theories about the creation of the Universe almost 14 billion years ago. These two examples, and others that could be supplied, suggest that conventional ways of assessing business or even more conventional governmental programs may not apply to the exotic world of space programs. Nevertheless, there are systematic management processes that can be applied to space programs to enhance the worth and effectiveness of these activities.
For those that say that space programs are an unnecessary luxury, Arthur C. Clarke quite starkly reminded us of how important a space program can be when he said: “The dinosaurs did not survive because of a lack of a successful space program.” The combined wisdom of archeologists and geologists has indeed uncovered evidence that a huge asteroid impact led to the demise of the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. The dinosaurs had ruled the world up to that point for hundreds of millions of years, but they had no way to know that the huge asteroid was coming and even less of a possibility to develop a program that could have diverted its path and saved them from extinction. Of course, humans are currently unprepared for such an eventuality as well, and it is convenient to say we will worry about such “unlikely events” tomorrow. Today we know that there are perhaps a million near earth asteroids that can be considered as “city killers”. These are some 30 meters in diameter and could destroy the entire metropolitan area of a Beijing, London, Paris or Rio de Janeiro. Indeed, the estimate of near earth objects that are 6 meters in size are estimated to be 200 million in number.
But the biggest threats to Earth right now may be a depleted ozone layer that can result in massive mutations in all animal and plant life, including humans, and rampant global warming that peer-reviewed scientific evidence shows has already elevated the Earth’s mean temperature; or it could lead to coronal mass ejections that could destroy our electric power grids and vital satellite infrastructure. It should be noted that, as far as animal life is concerned, a global temperature rise of only a few degrees is already threatening our ecosystems and several species. With increasing global warming, the human species will ultimately be threatened as well. It is only space-based systems like remote sensing devices, radar systems, multi-spectral sensors, meteorological imaging and ozone detectors that allow us to monitor the health of the planet. Space systems have shown us that our rain forests have been greatly depleted, thus lessening the amount of oxygen pumped into the atmosphere. Space systems allow us to monitor the pollution of the oceans, the decreased vegetation, and the melting of glaciers and the ice cap.
The latest message from Mother Nature that she is about to have a heat stroke is the fact that the so-called Northwest Passage is now open and ships are steaming from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the North, rather than having to pay passage through the Panama Canal. This is an unmistakable sign that global warming is real and the coming consequences could be serious indeed. But space systems not only alert us to dangers and tell us the speed with which global warming is occurring; atmospheric models based on observations of other planets and the Sun’s interactions tell us of longer-term consequences. Finally, if it becomes necessary to create some sort of cosmic heat irradiator or solar screening system at Lagrange Point (L-1) for humans to survive, we will know once and for all that space activity is not a luxury but essential to continued life on Earth.
Once and for all we will have learned as we travel through space on a six sextillion ton spacecraft that space systems are key to humanity staying alive for the longer term and that Space systems in less than a century will have truly become our saviors. Space systems today also allow us to monitor hurricanes and evacuate people from their destructive paths. Weather satellites and Earth Observation satellites have now saved countless lives by assisting with prediction and emergency recovery from a host of natural, and even man-made, disasters. They have aided with search and rescue for downed pilots, lost boats and ships at sea, and hikers and explorers in the remotest parts of the world, atop treacherous mountains or in the most arid of deserts. Space navigation and timing systems allow us to synchronize the Internet, allow aircraft to take off and land, allow banks to time stamp their transactions, and navigate our ships, trucks and cars. International cooperation in space is much more important than ever before. International space cooperation that is directed at preserving life on Earth is a particularly good idea, a much better idea, for instance, than putting lethal weapons in outer space.
So how can better balanced, more targeted, more productive and more internationally coordinated space programs be accomplished? To put it another way, how can we eliminate waste and cancel unproductive space programs? The simple answer is that there is no simple answer in the absence of fundamental governmental policy reforms towards space agency priorities. However, we can look to the future and suggest some important changes in process, institutional organization, and international cooperation. We can employ different types of incentives on the one hand or penalties on the other. These types of reforms might include the following:
- Imposing increased fines against practices that create space debris, developing more specific and precise due diligence review processes against the creation of space debris, and having better systems for de-orbiting a satellite once its useful life is over.
- Creating financial or tax incentives for commercial organizations to develop important new space capabilities, such as solar power satellites, or a lunar based solar energy plant to produce and relay “green” energy to Earth, or to design and/or deploy a space elevator (see Figure 4.2) to lift cargo to the Geo orbit—at very low cost and with zero pollution.
- Approving a new International Space Council backed project to remove orbital debris from low Earth orbit, or to construct a space heat pipe to cool the biosphere or a greenhouse gas “exhaust” to refresh the Earth’s atmosphere.
- Creating a global commercial consortium to undertake key new space initiatives, such as to repair the ozone layer that protects Earth from stellar and cosmic radiation, create solar space shields against violent solar storms and to moderate the effects of climate change.
- Agreeing on a new international treaty such as the “Space Preservation Treaty” to de-militarize space.
More specific examples of possible longer-term new space programs presented along with the associated economic, social, cultural, business and survival values are presented in Table 4.1. A much more active process of interactive discussion and participation by the public, legislators, businesses, academic researchers, journalists, entrepreneurial enterprises and inventors along with governmental space officials could certainly produce a more coherent and international vision of the future in space, and help to prioritize the goals for the next two to three decades.
The twelve examples in Table 4.1 show how we could progress in space over the next thirty years to new heights—both figuratively and liter-ally—but these are only illustrations of the potential we now hold in our hands. Many of the ideas are certainly not new. Astrophysicist Gerard O’Neill, astronaut Rusty Schweickart, space visionary Arthur C. Clarke, author Michael Benson, space entrepreneurs Brad Edwards, Robert Richards, and Peter Diamandis among others have suggested these or similar ideas previously.
The rather incredible thing is that, if we were to take the money currently being spent around the world on military and civilian space programs, all these seemingly grandiose things and more are quite possible with billions of dollars to spare. If we were to apply only half of current space budgets around the world to the above twelve objectives we could do them all with money to spare. There are many satellites and launchers that are currently being designed and built to support commercial space programs. These could, and would, continue since there are already established markets that support these businesses with revenues of nearly a quarter trillion of dollars per annum and growing. Since these commercial applications in communications, broadcasting, remote sensing, and navigation are largely supported by business demands and established revenue streams, they currently need little or no government support beyond long-term research.
The new space tourism business, and even space habitats for “participants”, in-orbit experimentation plus the Bigelow America’s Challenge, and the X PRIZE initiatives continue within the bounds of normal commercial activities and market based Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). We believe that entrepreneurial talent and prizes will represent a major motive force forward in space, securing our future world with increasing space-based commerce and the use of off-Earth resources. There are areas where governments and consortia of governments must also step up to provide new leadership and vision, particularly in seeding commercial customer relationships that lower the short-term barriers for entry into long term space markets that can change the standard of living for everyone on Earth.
At this point one thing is absolutely clear: inspired and focused progress in space has stalled due to a lack of leadership, a lack of vision, and a failure of nerve and initiative. These human limitations have prevented us from realizing our true potential as a space faring species of explorers and innovators.
Footnotes
- ^ Selected Readings and References:
“The Day the Sun Brought Darkness”, http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/sun_darkness.html#.VAUMNPldUk0 Bradford Edwards and Eric Westling, The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space System , (2002) BC Edwards, Houston, Texas. David Eicher “Why the Asteroid Threat Should be Taken Seriously” Astronomy. 2015, http://www.astronomy.com/bonus/asteroidday Gerard O’Neill, The High Frontier : Human Colonies in Space, (2000) 3rd Edition, Apogee Books, Burlington, Canada Joseph N. Pelton, Global Talk , (1984) Sijthoff and Noordhoff, Aaphen en den Rhyn, Netherland Stephen Schnaars Megamistakes : Forecasting and the Myth of Rapid Technological Change, Board book, 1989.
