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Why space matters

Credits: Space Matters

A new YouTube channel has just been launched called Space Matters. Hosted by Rhonda Stevenson, President/CEO of the Tau Zero Foundation, the show is a weekly digest covering a wide array of current space activities, challenges and accomplishments which aims to show how our success in space will improve life on Earth. This could become an influential forum for discussion among industry leaders on how to steer humanities course toward becoming a spacefaring civilization. The first episode, a panel discussion with pillars of the space industry, aired on March 20th and featured Jeff Greason of Tau Zero and Electric Sky, Justin Kugler of Redwire Space, Grant Anderson of Paragon Space Development Corporation, Andy Aldrin of the ISU Center for Space Entrepreneurship, at FIT and Rod Pyle, editor of Ad Astra and author of Space 2.0. The group had a lively discussion on each of their contributions to space development as well as current trends in the New Space economy. Subscribe to get an update every week on why Space Matters.

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The Space Show fund raising drive

Credits: The Space Show

The Space Show – the nation’s first talk radio show focusing on increasing space commerce, advancing space science and economic development, facilitating our move to a space-faring economy which will benefit everyone on Earth – needs your help. The Space Show is hosted by Dr. David Livingston, who completed his doctoral dissertation in 2001 on the commercialization and expansion of space development. Take a moment to visit The Space Show website and read Dr. Livingston’s end of year message. Please give generously to ensure this valuable resource continues to promote, encourage, and support future global economic opportunities, scientific discoveries, and medical advances for all humankind through peaceful and cooperative ventures in outer space.

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Book Review: Space is Open for Business by Robert Jacobson

Credits: Robert C. Jacobson

Space is Open for Business by Robert Jacobson is a must-read for all potential “astropreneurs” (entrepreneurs involved the NewSpace economy), space advocates, investors or anyone who wants to keep current on space commerce and its impact on the future of humanity. This book is a refreshingly positive view of our future in space, a welcome alternative outlook in stark contrast to many dystopian and negative predictions of where we’re headed in today’s media.

Jacobson covers all aspects of the nascent space economy which has already begun to grow in leaps and bounds, and is headed for explosive growth in the near future. No stone is left unturned by his deep research of all aspects of space commerce, with scores of interviews of executives from both established and small startup space companies.

I especially liked the Sci-Fi and Society chapter in which Jacobson talks about science fiction “illuminating the possibility of the space frontier”. Much of what is now happening in space was predicted in science fiction in the last century. Many CEOs and executives of NewSpace companies were inspired to pursue careers in science or engineering through science fiction books, televisions shows and movies.

Eventually, humanity will evolve to migrate off Earth and establish space settlements throughout the solar system and eventually among the stars. Development of the technologies and commercial activities for space settlement have the potential to create vast wealth, bring billions of people out of poverty and preserve Earth’s natural environment. Jacobson has provided a hopeful glimpse of how the space businesses supporting this effort will manifest this destiny.

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A map of the future of space enterprise

The Pathfinders’ Guide to the Space Enterprise. Credits: The Aerospace Corporation.

The Aerospace Corporation has created a visually stunning chart called “Pathfinders’ Guide to the Space Enterprise” in which they provide a glimpse into the nascent space economy based on hundreds of ideas from over 70 world-class space experts condensed into seven core themes about how the future could unfold. The analysis, which is both deep and thought provoking, identified two critical uncertainties shaping the the future of space development:

1. The degree in which space will be “commercialized.”
How much will space exploration and exploitation be designed to seed the commercial ecosystem?

2. The evolution and potential transformation of global power states.
What space-based leverage points could change the terrestrial power balance?

Their hope is to “…inspire your internal adventurer to think about how space can and will play a role in the future and how we get there.”

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Mass value: metric for space settlement

Image credit: Richard Bizley, bizelyart.com / National Space Society

In a paper published in New Space last March, Peter Hague describes a figure of merit he developed to drive policy decisions to help accelerate space exploration and space settlement. The aim of the paper was to generate a single metric for every potential space mission on a common scale for comparison purposes. This ‘mass value’ is the amount of mass that would need to be placed in low Earth orbit (LEO) to perform the same mission using a baseline method. That method would use only storable propellants and Hohmann transfer orbits – no gravity assists, aerocapture, high energy propellants or ISRU.

This approach puts a price on all the add-ons which expand the mission beyond the baseline. One can then use a single normalized scale to calculate how much mass to LEO you would save by making propellant on Mars for example, or by taking advantage of a certain launch window to get a gravity assist.

A hands-off government entity could subsidize space expenditures at a flat rate per kg of mass value, confident they are promoting space development without having legislators involved in engineering decisions.

Aggregating all the missions by a nation, company, or other entity could be used to calculate an analogue of GDP for a space civilization. While this does not measure everything we care about – scientific merit, human occupation, etc – neither does GDP. It does capture the overall capability to move around the solar system; and as such, is as useful for charting our journey to becoming a Type II civilization on the Kardashev Scale as it is for analyzing individual missions.

Thanks to Peter Hague for the material in this post. We’ve heard a rumor that there may be a book forthcoming on the subject. Looking forward to it!

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The current state of the U.S. space industrial base

Credits: USSF-DIU-AFRL

The U.S. Space Force, Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Innovation Unit just completed a workshop on the state of the U.S. space industry. The virtual event, hosted by New Space New Mexico, brought together more than 120 representatives across the federal government, industry, and academia to access the current health of the America’s space industry and to provide recommendations for strengthening that industrial base. The resulting report called “State of the Space Industrial Base 2020” has just been released this month.

The workshop focused on 6 key areas thought to be the locus of future space industry activities:

  • Space policy and finance tools
  • Space information services
  • Space transportation and logistics to, in and from cislunar space and beyond.
  • Human presence in space for exploration, space tourism, space manufacturing and resource extraction
  • Power for space systems to enable the full range of emerging space applications
  • Space manufacturing and resource extraction

Recommendations included:

  1. Industry should aggressively pursue partnerships with the US government to develop and operate joint commercial, civil and defense space capabilities. These partnerships should jointly fund developing capabilities that benefit from but are not heavily reliant on US government investment and revenue for their commercial viability.
  2. Entrepreneurs with innovative and potentially dual-use technologies must improve the protection of their intellectual property from unintended foreign assimilation, including protecting their networks from cyber exfiltration attempts, and avoiding exit strategies that transfer intellectual property to foreign control hostile to US interests.
  3. Businesses should engage across the US educational system to guide and develop the future STEM workforce to fuel the future space economy, to include funding for undergraduate scholarships/loans for STEM students, internships and providing space professionals to support instruction in space subjects.
  4. Industry should improve ties and partnerships with domestic and allied parts, subcomponent and subsystem manufacturers to strengthen trust and resilience in space supply chains.
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Going up? Space elevators getting ready for prime time

Artist’s impression of a space elevator. Credits: Steve Bowers / orionsarm.com

The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) has just published a position paper on the technology readiness of this alternative to launch vehicles subject to the constraints of the rocket equation. Recent advances in material science of single crystal graphene and other alternatives show potential for fabrication of tethers long enough and with the required strength to enable space elevators by the late 2030s. The authors present a case that the demand for launching enough mass to support ESA’s Moon Village, space based solar power and Elon Musk’s vision for Mars colonies far exceeds projected conventional rocket capabilities. Space elevators could fill this need while being better for the environment.

Diagram of a space elevator system. Credits: ISEC
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Artemis 8 – Dragon to the Moon

Artist depiction of SpaceX Crew Dragon in Lunar Orbit. Credits: Bruce Irving/Flickr

Robert Zubrin advocates for a quick decision by NASA and the National Space Council on a mission using SpaceX hardware to put a Dragon capsule in orbit around the Moon before the end of the year. In a letter to Jim Bridenstine and Scott Pace, he suggests lofting a crew to low Earth orbit in a Crew Dragon using a Falcon 9 launch vehicle. This would be followed up by launching a Falcon Heavy for rendezvous in LEO with its upper stage containing surplus propellant. The Falcon Heavy upper stage could then propel the Dragon to the Moon in an “Apollo 8” type mission ending with a splashdown of Dragon in the ocean.

Only slight modifications would need to be made to the Dragon to carry enough oxygen for a 6 day journey. The capsule is already designed for Earth capture from a Mars trajectory so return from the Moon should not be a problem. Zubrin’s proposal was sent in a memo to the NASA Administrator and the Executive Secretary of the National Space council on June 30, and reprinted in the Space Review July 6. Such a demonstration could inspire the nation and initiate validation of essential cislunar infrastructure toward settlement of the Moon.

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The approaching emergence of the suborbital space tourism market

SpaceShipTwo Unity Released From VMS Eve for Second Glide Flight in New Mexico. Image © Virgin Galactic 2020

In a paper in New Space, Ken Davidian summarizes his research on the human suborbital spaceflight market and how the data fit within the innovation process ‘‘fireworks’’ model toward eventual industry emergence. He finds that the suborbital tourism market is past the initial emergence stages close to actual commercial operation, which will commence when any company flies a customer in exchange for a purchased fare. To date, Virgin Galactic is the closest to this key milestone. Space tourism may be a key economic driver that will enable eventual space settlement.

Number of reported flight reservations on the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo vehicle. Credits: Ken Davidian / New Space (2020)
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Happy Anniversary Falcon 9!

Eric Berger chronicles the ten year history of SpaceX’s flagship launch vehicle. The versatile, reusable workhorse has been the proving ground for the technology that will make Elon Musk’s vision of low cost interplanetary space travel a reality in the near future.

Falcon 9 historic launch of NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard Crew Dragon. Image courtesy of SpaceX