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Caelus publishes study on terminology of commercial space activities, completes Sino-US Space Commercialization Perspectives Workshop

Credits: Caelus Foundation

The Caelus Foundation, a nonprofit who’s mission is to advocate for broad participation in the space domain and to engage and empower people around the world to build a space-centric community through their decisions and actions, has just published a research paper providing an understanding of common terms important for achieving positive benefits from commercial space activities, and in establishing supportive and appropriate regulatory frameworks.

The authors summarize their findings with this conclusion: “This research has revealed that there are significant challenges with communicating the value of space enterprises, given the common terminology used today. This is largely due to the root word for the industry, ‘space,’ being a term that does not naturally convey any specific type of value. Terms such as ‘commercial space’ and ‘newspace’ attempt to compensate for this issue. Yet, as our interviews showed, the lack of clear and universal understanding of these words creates new challenges, while not fully addressing the obstacle of communicating the idea of space as a domain of economic and strategic value.”

On September 19th, Caelus participated in the Sino-US Space Commercialization Perspectives Workshop co-hosted by the Secure World Foundation and the Chinese Society of Astronautics. The purpose of the workshop was to create a dialogue “… to share and understand perspectives from both US and Chinese stakeholders on how space commercialization is happening in both countries, and what can be done to increase transparency between both commercial contexts.” A full debrief is being prepared in partnership with Secure World and will be made available to the public when completed in the near future.

Rob Ronci, Caelus Executive Director and co-author of the research paper appeared on The Space Show November 22 hosted by Dr. David Livingston on which I called in and discussed the above topics with him. You can listen to the show by downloading the recording on the The Space Show website.

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Redefining Life

As humans move off Earth and settle the solar system and beyond, we will eventually want to know if we are alone or if we will encounter alien life. Astrobiologists up until now have been basing their research on “life as we know it”. Now Stuart Bartlett and Michael L. Wong in a paper in the journal Life are proposing a new definition and vocabulary to describe a more general picture of what life is (or could be). This approach will more clearly define the questions steering the direction of research into the origins of life. The authors propose four processes of the living state: dissipation, autocatalysis, homeostasis, and learning. They suggest a new term for the combination of these four pillars: lyfe (pronounced “loif”). A Venn diagram of these processes would all intersect in the region of lyfe which would including the subset of life on Earth.

A Venn diagram of the four pillars of lyfe. Sublyfe (regions 1–8) is any system that performs some but not all of the pillars, while lyfe (region 9) is any system that performs all four. Credit: Stuart Bartlett and Michael L. Wong, Life, 16 April 2020
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How much is space infrastructure worth?

We take for granted many of the conveniences made possible by space technology. Agriculture, banking, navigation, environmental monitoring, weather, emergency services. The list goes on and on. The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy has just published a report called The Value of Space to quantify these benefits. Without realizing it, satellite services have become an integral part of our lives. This paper sheds a light on just how much Earth relies on space. This dependence will only increase as humanity settles the solar system.

Use of satellite services for agricultural applications. Credit: The Aerospace Corporation
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Let there be Lunar Flashlight

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing a CubeSat that will utilize near-infrared lasers and an onboard spectrometer to prospect for ice in the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s south pole. The suitcase size spacecraft will inform future Artemis missions on where to begin in-situ resource utilization of this valuable commodity for space settlement

This artist’s concept shows the Lunar Flashlight spacecraft, a six-unit CubeSat designed to search for ice on the Moon’s surface using special lasers. The spacecraft will use its near-infrared lasers to shine light into shaded polar regions on the Moon, while an onboard reflectometer will measure surface reflection and composition. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech