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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."
A lying car - like when it says the tank is full even though it's empty? Already got one of those...
What makes you think that a national policy of running huge deficits and growing our national debt at an almost exponential rate will lead to insolvency for the U.S.? Surely the good times can never come crashing down, right? Right?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
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.
Yes, I said non-polluting, because the exhaust is non-radioactive hydrogen. (Read the article before denouncing, please.) For in-system work, we could use Orion or variants, or even the nuclear salt-water rocket. Those do have radioactive exhaust, but out in space that's not exactly a major problem. With that level of specific impulse along with high thrust, the costs of developing space resources are drastically reduced.
Colonies on other planets may or may not be a good idea (though with a big enough space economy a moonbase becomes attractive). But mining asteroids and putting dangerous industries in space is a very nice idea once we're not bogged down with just chemical propellants.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
... had been hit by a small asteroid instead of planes. We'd be halfway to Mars by now.
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."
Ok, fact of the week:
The atmosphere on titan is so thick, and the gravity so weak, that humans could fly about by flapping wings attached to their arms.
I want to go to titan NOW!
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
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."