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DARPA announces Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design (NOM4D) program

Artist’s concept of projects which could benefit from DARPA’s (NOM4D) plan for robust manufacturing in space. Credits: DARPA

Pronounced “NOMAD” the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plan aims to develop technologies for adaptive, off-earth manufacturing to fabricate large structures in space and on the Moon.

Bill Carter, program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office explains in an announcement of the program, “We will explore the unique advantages afforded by on-orbit manufacturing using advanced materials ferried from Earth. As an example, once we eliminate the need to survive launch, large structures such as antennas and solar panels can be substantially more weight efficient, and potentially much more precise. We will also explore the unique features of in-situ resources obtained from the moon’s surface as they apply to future defense missions. Manufacturing off-earth maximizes mass efficiency and at the same time could serve to enhance stability, agility, and adaptability for a variety of space systems.”

The program will be split into three 18 month phases driven by metrics associated with progressively challenging exemplars such as respectively, a 1-megawatt solar array, a 100m diameter RF reflector, and finally IR reflective structures suitable for use in a segmented long-wave infrared telescope.

Lessons learned from the program could be applied to on-orbit manufacturing operations by commercial space companies as launch costs come down and access to cislunar space becomes more routine for both government and commercial entities.

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ArmorHab mission architecture for Mars Colonization

ArmorHab transport habitat configured for artificial gravity. Credits: Dark Sea Industries LLC / University of New Mexico / The Mars Society

The innovative ArmorHab mission architecture was presented at the Mars Society Conference in 2016. This novel approach should be considered as part of a strategy for settlement of the Red Planet. The concept integrates several engineering solutions for habitat design to address radiation protection, life support, and transportation while leveraging in situ resource utilization to enhance crew health, safety and reduce costs.

The basic building block of the architecture is a cylindrical Mylar shell wrapped in superconductive tape providing radiation protection through emulation of a magnetosphere. This structure is encased in a protective aerogel for strength and insulation including layers of water ice to further protect the crew from micrometeorites and algae bioreactors for scrubbing carbon dioxide for life support.

ArmorHab wall structure with superconducting tape for radiation protection and algae bioreactors for life support. Credits: Dark Sea Industries LLC / University of New Mexico / The Mars Society

Leveraging Buzz Aldrin’s Mars Cycler invention, the plan starts by building out infrastructure in cislunar space including automated factories on the Moon, then expanding out to Mars with space stations, cycling habitats and connecting “trucks” to provide transport to and from the surface of each destination.

Illustration of cycler model showing six TransportHabs, three space stations and a Mars Truck. Credits: Dark Sea Industries LLC / University of New Mexico / The Mars Society
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Redwire manufactures the first 3D printed ceramic in space

Image of Ceramics Manufacturing Module (CMM), a commercial manufacturing facility that produces ceramic parts in microgravity for terrestrial use. Credits: Redwire/Made in Space

Made in Space, a recent acquisition of Redwire, has just for the first time successfully manufactured a ceramic part in their Ceramics Manufacturing Module on the ISS using additive manufacturing. The demonstration could stimulate demand in low Earth orbit from terrestrial markets which will be a key driver for space industrialization. Redwire claims that the parts, which included a turbine blisk (bladed disk) and other test pieces, demonstrate that the CMM can produce ceramic parts that exceed the quality of turbine components made on Earth.

According to Redwire’s press release: “CMM aims to demonstrate that ceramic manufacturing in microgravity could enable temperature-resistant, reinforced ceramic parts with better performance, including higher strength and lower residual stress. For high-performance applications such as turbines, nuclear plants, or internal combustion engines, even small strength improvements can yield years-to-decades of superior service life.”

Image of CCM 3D printed part fabricated in LEO. Credits: Redwire
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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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Nanoracks enters AgTech ecosystem through partnership with Abu Dhabi

Artist’s rendering of greenhouses inside a StarLab Outpost. Credits: Nanoracks / Mack Crawford

Nanoracks, a Houston based space logistics company along with Pure Harvest Smart Farms and FreshToHome, have been selected by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office to collaborate on cutting-edge projects to boost the UAE’s agriculture technology (AgTech) infrastructure “across land, sea and space”. Nanoracks is initiating a commercial AgTech space research program in its Abu Dhabi based StarLab Space Farming Center. Starlab will be a commercial space research facility focused on advancing technology for food produced in space and in extreme climates on Earth. The space-based technology will have duel-use applications to not only advance desert agriculture addressing urgent food security challenges, but also be focused on long-term human space exploration and eventual settlement.

Nanoracks plans to leverage it’s “Outposts“, space stations created from salvaged upper stages of spent launch vehicles, to house the company’s greenhouses in low Earth orbit. Next year the company plans to launch a groundbreaking first in-space demonstration mission that will test robotic cutting of a second stage representative tank material. To successfully repurpose upper stages Nanoracks will need to be able to cut metal without producing any orbital debris.

Update 1 September 2021: Nanoracks announces the launch of a new Space AgTech company, StarLab Oasis.

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Eta Space snags $27 million Tipping Point award to study space based cryogenic propellant depot technologies

Artist rendering of LOXSAT 1, a demonstrator satellite for a cryogenic oxygen fluid management system. Credits: Eta Space

A small Florida Space Coast start up founded by NASA employees called Eta Space was just awarded a 2020 NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate “Tipping Point” contract to develop the first low Earth orbit cryogenic propellant depot. Management of cryogenic fuels is a key technology for storing propellent in space, which will be a component of a transportation infrastructure supported by in situ resource utilization such as ice mining on the moon for processing into rocket fuel. A key focus of the work by Eta Space will be standardization of equipment interfaces allowing multiple customers to tap into storage capability on orbit.

Eta Space’s LOXSAT 1 mission concept will test a range of cryogenic fuel management processes in space over 9 months specific to liquid oxygen management. LOX is a common oxidizer used across multiple propellant systems by several launch providers and is the heaviest cryogenic fluid needed by most customers.

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An interdisciplinary approach to shaping our space future

Artist’s rendering of settlements on the Moon. Credits: Taylor Herring/Samsung via Futurism.com

A melding of multiple disciplines is required for creating a positive human space future that will enable space settlement. In addition to aerospace engineering, architecture and the traditional physical sciences we associate with space exploration, the fields of sociology, philosophy, art, space law and may others will be needed. A method for integrating these fields and coordinating them across the private sector, universities and government has been developed in The Interplanetary Initiative, a pan-university venture created at Arizona State University. The innovative research model is described in a paper in the September 2020 issue of New Space. The program turns students into team leaders and collaborators, equipping them with the skills and knowledge to solve problems anticipated to be encountered as humans expand out into the solar system.

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What will it take to become a spacefaring civilization?

Artist’s concept of an O’Neill space colony. Credit: Rachel Silverman / Blue Origin

J. N. Nielsen has a theory…or four. Picking up where he left off in his previous Bound in the Shallows post on Centauri Dreams about the origins of a spacefaring civilization, Nielsen explores the possibility that the nuclear rocket or fusion power may be the indispensable transformative technology that will enable breakout of a spacefaring future. But even if we develop the capability of nuclear propulsion, it may not be sufficient. We need a “mythology” to enable humanity’s next central project. As Nielson defines it, a mythology “… is a kind of recapitulation in which the contributions of ages past—whether biological, psychological, social, or cultural—are each given their due, and these antecedents serve as a springboard to something authentically novel, something unprecedented that facilitates human beings to transcend their past and to accomplish something unprecedented.”

As happens every time, whenever I dig into Nielson’s rich writings I loose myself in a beautiful philosophical landscape of culture. Give yourself some time to ponder and absorb these insightful hypotheses on what is needed to settle the solar system and beyond…and visit his Grand Strategy: View from Oregon site for more politics, economics, warfare, religion, and philosophy with a focus on civilization which often leads to consideration of the future and space exploration.

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Rapid bootstrapping for faster ignition of off-Earth industry development

Artist’s concept of an O’Neill space colony. Credits: Blue Origin

In a thread on Twitter Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, updates his bootstrapping vision from a few years back in which he and colleagues at NASA published a paper on how robotics, 3D printing and in situ resource utilization could be leveraged to accelerate a solar system civilization. In a series of 9 Tweets, Metzger makes the case for his “Rapid Bootstrapping Scenario” as the preferred course out of three possible alternatives to get us there faster.

Many space enthusiasts, including Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos, advocate for what Metzger calls a solar system “Civilization Fully Revolutionized”. This is a future where most industrial manufacturing is done sustainably in space and Earth is preserved as a beautiful natural environment.

If we continue on the current path, down what Metzger calls “The Slow Growth Scenario”, space agencies like NASA will continue paving the technological highway for private entities to slowly develop their profitable enterprises. But because space exploration and development is difficult, a different approach is needed to prime the pump. Metzger suggests the preferred course of action is intentional pre-economic bootstrapping in which “…visionary individuals with means, citizen-led movements, or governments that see the long-term benefit of getting beyond our planetary limit…create a coalition of likeminded citizen movements and enlightened governments committed to a good future so we reach the ‘ignition’ point first by being fast”.

Source: Philip Metzger/UCF. @DrPhiltill. www.philipmetzger.com