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The Next Fifty Years In Space
MarkWhittington writes "2007 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Space Age, agreed by most to have begun with the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik, on October 4th, 1957. While some are taking stock of the last fifty years of space exploration, noting what has been accomplished and, more importantly, what has not been accomplished, others are wondering what the next fifty years might bring."
Until space has a serious market among non-government-backed customers, it will be subject to the political whims of the "how can we spend money on space when we have problems on Earth?" constituency. As much as I love and support space exploration for the purposes of scientific and engineering R&D, feeding at the public trough is a the greatest single point of failure for the development of space. It does not matter whether it is tourism, materials synthesis in zero-G, mineral extraction n the moon/asteroids, or power generation. Creating an environment in which consumers and corporation gladly pay for the fruits of space travel will be the key to creating a truly stable, non-bureaucratic flow of funds and a thriving industry that depends more on proving economic value than on lobbying politicians.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
We have technologies that serve the same purpose as personal jetpacks and flying cars, generally safer and more economical. Personal jetpacks and flying cars are really exotic luxury items, so I don't think those are a good comparison.
Fusion energy might be a better example. It is something that would be of real value and something we have thrown a lot of money at. Other energy sources may become cheap and easy enough though where fusion is not as attractive.
I think the time scale required is beyond 50 years for space colonies, and it is hard to guess that far in the future. Could someone 50 years ago guess about computers today? Star Trek was guessing about computers a couple of hundred years in the future, but our current computers are already pretty close to their mark.
realize that the resources required for such an effort FAR exceed any possible benefit.
At the moment. Some breakthroughs in technology could change this- such as a way to get off the planet at a significantly reduced cost. It really just takes a couple of shifts before the whole thing opens up to other opportunities. Really it's just one Big Idea that will lead to a chain reaction of the others.
In 1957, who could have predicted the next fifty years in space? Sputnik had not yet been launched - the Space Race hadn't even begun.
On the other hand, who 40 years ago could have predicted where we are now? In 1967, the Space Race was a dead heat, the Mercury and Gemini programs in the U.S. were blazing successes, and the challenges of Apollo putting a man on the Moon (though formidable) seemed within our grasp. People were already talking of space stations, Moon colonization, and Mars exploration, certainly all within a generation. Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick were starting their collaboration for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
My point is: predictions are cheap, and over a span of fifty years mean little. Things develop far too quickly for a 50-year prediction to carry much weight. Predicting the future of space means also predicting the future of technology - what will be possible in fifty years. It also means predicting the future of the geopolitical and economic landscapes. All of these different factors influence one another - predicting the future of one will mean predicting at least a portion of the others.
>At some point, people will get beyond the PR, dreams, and hype and realize that the resources
>required for such an effort FAR exceed any possible benefit.
At some point, someone with a dream will harness the resources necessary to profit from the benefits that you cannot yet foresee.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I think the only way space exploration will receive substantial funding is if energy can be provided from it more cost effectively than can be produced on earth. Part of this being successful is to develop a very heavy lifting capability.
This means that we must go away from a petroleum based economy to some form of fusion based economy - when I say "fusion", I mean either energy from the sun (in the form of O'Neill PowerSats) or from Moon based Helium-3.
In either case a large infrastructure would have to be created which would mean some kind of heavy lift capability (I remember a quote from one of the ISS project managers saying that it's hell trying to build a space station at 35,000 lb (the maximum payload capability of the shuttle) at a time). The heavy lift capability would have to be measured in millions of pounds (much more than the 200,000 lbs of the Saturn V).
In terms of how I see actually happening, I would expect a hybrid of the PowerSat solution and Helium-3 fueled power plants in that the Helium-3 would be sent to the PowerSats and the energy produced beamed down to the Earth. Somehow I don't see how it could ever be cost efficient if we are sending Mass back down (thinking of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress") and I would expect people to be unwilling to allow nuclear fuel to be dropped down through the atmosphere.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
This sounds a bit like the fanciful predictions made in the 50's about the moon colonies, flying cars and rocketpacks we'd have by 1990.
To begin, I doubt there are enough people at the top of earth's wealth pyramid to support the thriving tourist industry proposed to exist in 50 years. I think the costs of space travel will continue to remain, pardon the pun, astronomical, for quite a while. (I know, space elevators et al., but I think the spectre of guaranteeing Health and Safety will handicap this industry).
Furthermore, if there's one very important lesson to be learned in the last 20 years, is that rapid advances in space technology requires a very particular combination of scientific accumen and willingness to tolerate risk. The Apollo project had it, but noone has replicated the right mix since. We see the same stunted progress in other industries that are on the high end of the risk spectrum (airline travel, nuclear power).
This is much unlike advancement in the computer industry, to cite one example, which can race ahead at breakneck speed, because there isn't much of a human cost to screwing up.
Thus, I believe that it's a mistake to assume we will necessarily recreate that climate of rapid progress. I can easily imagine another 50 years of sending robotic probes that crash land half of the time (but work marvelously otherwise).
Screw safety and success, humanity has never gotten anywhere by waiting until it was safe and success was guaranteed. We are where we are now because people have put their balls to the wall and done things that were said to be impossible.
Based on what I read and what I know of the challenges involved, here's my guess as to a rough timeline for the next 50 years in space:
2010: Space shuttle retired
2014: New Orion vehicle mission to space station
2020: Moon landing by NASA
2027: Moon landing by China
2030: Privately owned shuttle equivalent
2031: Start construction of moon base
2035: Start construction of privately owned space station
2037: Manned Mars mission
2040: Permanent moon presence
2045: Construction of high earth orbit station
2050: "Space tug" type utility vehicle in use - first reusable vehicle permanently in space
2055: Permanent Mars presence proposed and reachable
2057: Testing of new drive types (ion perhaps) well underway
Looking beyond 2057 is futile. Perhaps even looking as far as 2057 is futile. I forget who it was that said this but perhaps it is apt: "The future is not only different from what we imagine, but different from what we CAN imagine."
ppl are now taking vacations to space. You need to read some history. When the wright brothers invented the aeroplane, many swore that it would not matter that it would lead to nothing. Within 25 years, was the start of mail and cargo flying (like launching satellites) as well as exploratory flights for testing purposes. It was all spotty, and many companies went bankrupt. A few survived and went on to build big businesses. Boeing was creating aircrafts that were used in the 30's for an airlines (later to be called United). Within 50 years, came be the true beginning of passenger flying, which was followed by the golden ages of flight. We are now at 50 years of space, and looking at companies building rockets for PRIVATE flights. Not just for sale to a gov. Colonies on the moon will be funded by folks like Paul Allen, Elon Musk, and other far thinkers. It will not be those that are earth bound and think small or just about their niche (such as those that say space will never happen or say that it must be robotics or we need to focus on earth first).
I have no doubt that we will have a base on the moon within 15 years (barring war or a depression; though it may still happen). I suspect that we will be on mars within 25 years. This will come down to not just nationalistic pride, but access to future resources; LAND. China and American govs. will be shooting for the moon for a different reason, but in the end, all countries want to get to the moon quickly. The reason is that a very small amount of real estate offers "inexpensive" development, and that is the poles.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
From TFA: "Thrown into that mix is the private sector, a factor that was never imagined in 1957." It certainly was imagined. Heinlein _The Man Who Sold the Moon_ in 1951, etc. The exploration of space has always been advocated by visionaries, and beset by nay-sayers.
You're describing the colonization of space in terms of return on investment. What you've said has been said by many others, for decades. History certainly doesn't justify this, as national prestige was what drove the original space race. The huge economic returns brought through miniaturization, materials, weather forecasting, etc., were largely serendipitous. Yet they've paid for every dime ever spent on space, many times over.
Nor do I think that a prediction based on ROI will be any more accurate in future than it's been in the past.
Available technologies (which could radically alter the I in ROI) do not remain fixed. What about the 'R'? I doubt that the desire for national prestige will disappear. It's also quite possible that we, as a species, might gain the ultimate R--survival. A couple of scenarios for that might include having a self-sustaining colony away from earth when some bio-weapon is used, whether by a nation, or a non-state actor. Or having enough experience doing industrial-scale things in space to deflect an asteroid or comet if necessary.
There are other arguments, but these will do to go on with.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
But strangely, I don't feel neutral.
I'm really disgusted with the paucity of American ambition. I'm struck by the audio tape from Sen. Wide Stance's police interview as he tries to explain how his trolling for gay sex in a men's room was something other than exactly how it looked. The cop was disgusted. "This is why we're going down the tubes." A better metaphor, however unwanted, could not have been asked for. To continue the sexual metaphor, the Republicans are the tops, nobody fucks this country harder or longer than they do. And the Democrats, they're the bottoms. They'll take it up the pooper like troupers and meekly wait for their slice of corruption pie. In government as well as private enterprise, the future is never looked at past the next quarter and the top priority of those in power is the lining of pockets with as much cash as possible with the minimum level of exposure. It's all about power for power's sake.
We the people are allowing ourselves to be distracted from the consequences of empire by bread and circuses. We're complicit in this debacle. Every one of us swayed by corporate arguments about not needing socialist health care, believing the government when they tell us terrorists are our biggest threat, believing all of these professional liars when they swear that what they're lying about is true... We have become truly worthy of contempt. We're better than what we've allowed ourselves to become. I'd like to think that it's not too late to pull our fat out of the fire.
People like a good challenge to rise to. Traditionally it takes a war for us to unite as a nation, invest our blood and treasure in the grand crusade of going overseas and killing brown people. But a space race could be just the kind of bloodless competition to appeal to the better side of our ambition. We've been the kings of low-earth orbit for decades. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we continued to laugh at the Russian space program, seeing it as a comical shadow of our own. But now the Russians are getting serious, the Chinese and Indians are hungry for a slice of the high orbital pie. Human organization is never better than when the men in power say "Shit, we need to get something done and get it done right," when they identify the right people to run the job, give them the blank check and then stay the hell out of the way. Small, motivated teams, little political interference, just a goal to achieve and the means to achieve it.
I'd like to think that we'll go further in the next fifty years than we have in the past fifty. My fear is that we'll just be dicking around in LEO, scratching our balls with nothing to show for it. If we of the US of A can't get our collective asses together, then maybe those other countries might make a go of it. If so, more power to them.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Much of your computer was manufactured in ... China, Philippines, Malaysia? If you don't live in the Pacific Rim, that's likely on the opposite side of the planet. At first glance, it doesn't make any sense to put your manufacturing facilities so far from the customer ... right?
Eaten any avocados recently? They probably came from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, or Mexico. If you were living in the mid-1800s, those items would never survive the transportation time. Today, it's a no-brainer.
If you change the transportation dynamic, the entire market will shift. Things that are un-possible today will be commonplace tomorrow. And I hate to use the P-word (because it's been so over-used to be cliche,) but using today's social paradigms to establish expectations for tomorrow's environment is totally inappropriate. The GP can't see "any possible benefit" because he's using today's cost model against a future environment. If I was transporting vegetables and fruit for a living, and using only horse-drawn carriages and sailing ships for transport, the costs of importing perishable items from far distances would be excessive. So there's no possible value in doing so, right?
To quote my father - "It's not impossible. You just haven't figured it out yet."