I will confess to all of you that since I was a teenager, I have been fascinated with the prospect of sending humans on a spacecraft at the speed of light to colonize a new world orbiting a faraway star. In eighth grade, I took a drafting course. I started to draw plans for a manned starship that would take 100 colonists to a new world far away. The spacecraft would be powered by a photon engine. I kept refining the plans. They became more intricate. I called the spacecraft “Project Dream.” Let us fast forward 60 years to now. I still believe that in the next 100 years, humans will achieve a propulsion system capable of propelling a spacecraft at the speed of light. Suspended animation will become a reality. We will be able to send colonists to an exoplanet far away.
A famous scientist and well-known science fiction writer disagrees with me. His name is Kim Stanley Robinson. He has written many incredible science fiction books talking about the human colonization of Mars, etc. When the subject of interstellar travel comes up, he gets quite pessimistic. He does not believe that it will ever happen. He wrote a book on the subject titled “Aurora.” It is a sad and dreary book. The spacecraft that he envisages can only attain 10% of the speed of light. All sorts of things go wrong on the way to another star system. The spacecraft is forced to turn back.
Two days ago, I made the discovery of a television science-fiction story that debunks Dr. Robinson’s pessimism. The show is titled “The Ark.” In the US it can be found on the Peacock Channel. It should be available on cable television systems in other countries. For those curious here is a link:
This is a television series and not a big-budget movie. Despite the monetary constraints, the producers have created a brilliant program with superb special effects, excellent cinematography, great writing, and unknown actors who turn in brilliant performances.
In the storyline, an advanced starship is en route at the speed of light to another star system to deliver over 150 colonists to an exoplanet. All human passengers are soundly sleeping in suspended animation. The ship is struck either by a very large meteor or a small asteroid. There is serious damage. All the senior management and older professionals are killed as their sleeping pods are hit by falling metal. When the survivors awaken what is left are people between the age of 19 and 33 years of age. A 33-year-old woman becomes the ship’s commander.
There are all sorts of problems including a failing life support system, no food, and no water. Despite all the challenges the surviving settlers refuse to give up. They solve all the problems including getting the life support system back online, growing their own food, and tapping a comet to get a lot of water to fill the water tanks.
This is great entertainment for those who love science fiction. It is verification that one day the human race will leave our solar system and go to other star systems.
It’s been long known that there is water on the Moon, but scientists have long wondered how it is stored on the lunar surface.
Now, a new study on recently collected lunar samples shows that water is hidden within small glass beads spread out across the surface of Earth’s satellite, Newsweek reported.
To arrive at this conclusion, researchers analyzed samples collected by China’s Chang’e 5 mission, which returned from the Moon in December 2020. They discovered that the tiny water-carrying beads are not originally from the Moon: The beads were formed because of meteorite impacts which caused silicate minerals to melt and form glass-like material.
The oxygen from Moon rocks within the beads then reacted with hydrogen ions in the solar wind to form H2O, which is then absorbed by the beads.
The team noted that these stones have been formed for millions of years, and they estimate there could be as much as 330 billion tons of water hidden inside these glass beads across the entire surface of the Moon.
Scientists had previously observed surface water on the Moon coming and going in diurnal cycles, being lost to space. The new findings confirm the theory of a hydrated layer that replenishes lost water in the lunar soil.
The authors suggested that this water can be easily extracted and serve as a resource for future human missions to the Moon.
They also speculated that these kinds of glass beads could be present in other airless planets where the solar wind can react with the rocks thrown up during meteor collisions.
An increase in satellites and debris in orbit could add more than $20 million to the cost of one survey at the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile. (credit: Todd Mason, Mason Productions Inc. / LSST Corporation)How satellites and space junk may make dark night skies brighterby Jessica Heim Monday, April 10, 2023 Since time immemorial, humans around the world have gazed up in wonder at the night sky. The starry night sky has not only inspired countless works of music, art, and poetry, but has also played an important role in timekeeping, navigation, and agricultural practices in many traditions.Increasing numbers of satellites and space debris reflect ever more sunlight towards the night side of Earth. This will almost certainly change the appearance of the night sky and make it harder for astronomers to do research.For many cultures, the night sky, with its stars, planets, and the Milky Way, is considered just as important a part of the natural environment as the forests, lakes, and mountains below. Countless people around the world gaze at the night sky: not only amateur and professional astronomers, but also casual observers who enjoy looking up at the stars to contemplate our place in the cosmos.However, the night sky is changing. Not only is ground-based light pollution increasing rapidly, but growing numbers of satellites and space debris in orbit around Earth are also impacting the night sky.Earlier research showed that satellites and space debris may increase the overall brightness of the night sky. In a new paper in Nature Astronomy, my colleagues and I applied this knowledge to predicting the performance of a major astronomical sky survey. We found this phenomenon may make the survey 7.5% less efficient and US$21.8 million more expensive.A brighter skyAs a cultural astronomer, I am interested in the role of the night sky in cultural traditions around the world. In particular, I am interested in how light pollution and increasing satellite numbers affect different communities.The number of satellites in orbit is growing rapidly. Since 2019, the number of functional satellites in orbit has more than doubled to around 7,600. The increase is mostly due to SpaceX and other companies launching large groups of satellites to provide high-speed internet communications around the world.By the end of this decade, we estimate, there may be 100,000 satellites in orbit around the Earth. Collisions that generate space debris are more likely as space fills with new satellites. Other sources of debris include the intentional destruction of satellites in space warfare tests.Increasing numbers of satellites and space debris reflect ever more sunlight towards the night side of Earth. This will almost certainly change the appearance of the night sky and make it harder for astronomers to do research.One way satellites impact astronomy is by appearing as moving points of light, which show up as streaks across astronomers’ images. Another is by increasing diffuse night sky brightness. This means all the satellites that are too dim or small to be seen individually, as well as all the small bits of space debris, still reflect sunlight, and their collective effect is to make the night sky appear less dark.Hard times for astronomersIn our research, we present the first published calculations of the aggregate effects of satellites and space debris in low Earth orbit on major ground-based astronomy research facilities.Over the ten-year lifetime of the survey, we estimate this would add some US$21.8 million to the total project cost.We looked at the effect on the planned large-scale survey of the night sky to be carried out at the Vera Rubin Observatory starting in 2024. We found that, by 2030, reflected light from objects in low Earth orbit will likely increase the diffuse background brightness for this survey by at least 7.5% compared to an unpolluted sky.This would diminish the efficiency of this survey by 7.5% as well. Over the ten-year lifetime of the survey, we estimate this would add some US$21.8 million to the total project cost.Brighter night skies mean longer exposures through telescopes are needed to see distant objects in the cosmos. This will mean that for projects with a fixed amount of observing time, less science will be accomplished, and there will be increased competition for telescope access.In addition, brighter night skies will also reduce the detection limits of sky surveys, and dimmer objects may not be detected, resulting in missed research opportunities.Some astrophysical events are rare and if researchers are unable to view them when they occur, there might not be an opportunity to easily see a given event again during a survey’s operational period. One example of faint objects is near Earth objects: comets and asteroids in orbits close to Earth. Brighter night skies make it more likely such potentially hazardous objects may remain undetected.A dramatic and unprecedented transformationIncreases in diffuse night sky brightness will also change how we see the night sky with the unaided eye. As the human eye cannot resolve individual small objects as well as a telescope can, an increase in satellites and space debris will create an even greater increase in the apparent brightness of the night sky. (When using a telescope or binoculars, one would be able to make out more of the dimmer satellites individually.)The projected increase in night sky brightness will make it increasingly difficult to see fainter stars and the Milky Way, both of which are important in various cultural traditions. Unlike “ground-based” light pollution (which tends to be the worst near large cities and heavily populated areas), the changes to the sky will be visible from essentially everywhere on Earth’s surface.Our models give us a conservative lower limit for a likely increase in night sky brightness. If numbers of satellites and space debris continue to grow at the expected rate, the impacts will be even more pronounced.As we note in our paper, “we are witnessing a dramatic, fundamental, and perhaps semi-permanent transformation of the night sky without historical precedent and with limited oversight”. Such a transformation will have profound consequences for professional astronomy as well as for anyone who wishes to view an unpolluted night sky.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.Jessica Heim is currently undertaking PhD studies on light pollution, megaconstellations, and ethics at the University of Southern Queensland.Note: we are using a new commenting system, which may require you to create a new account.
A session at last month’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was devoted to the ethics of space. One person on the hour-long panel examined the ethics of exploration, while a second focused on planetary defense issues, such as the ethics of using a weapon of mass destruction—a nuclear weapon, whose use in space is prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty—to deflect an incoming asteroid.
The book explores a wide range of issues associated with space settlement. Who gets to go? Who gets to decide who gets to go?
A third panelist looked at space exploration and commercialization from the perspective of indigenous peoples. “We have to ask very serious questions about why we want to go. And, for the most part, the reason we want to go is extract, to take,” said Hilding Neilson of the Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador. “What are we giving to space? What are we giving to the Moon?” He didn’t elaborate on what could be given to the Moon in exchange for its ice and mineral resources before the panel discussion moved on.
That panel came to mind while reading the book Off-Earth, which examines ethical issues with space settlement. It is something of a companion to Reclaiming Space (see “Review: Reclaiming Space”, The Space Review, April 3, 2023); Erika Nesvold, the author of Off-Earth, was one of the editors of the other book. While Reclaiming Space sought to bring in new perspectives on various space issues, many of which involve ethical issues, Off-Earth is Nesvold’s own exploration of the questions raised by the prospect of humans living and working beyond Earth.
The book explores a wide range of issues associated with space settlement. Who gets to go? Who gets to decide who gets to go? What kinds of property rights can, and should, exist in space? Who gets to run a space settlement? Should children be born and raised in such hazardous environments? Those and other questions are asked and explored—but not definitively answered—in the book, often relying on insights from experts outside the space industry.
Not only are there no definitive answers, but sometimes the advice in the book is contradictory. In one chapter on deciding who gets to go, Nesvold concludes that “the ability to pay should not be considered during selection at all” since it goes against the ideal of equal access to space and selecting the best people to go. But another chapter is devoted to labor issues, including people being exploited for forced labor to pay debts associated with going to a space settlement (“I find the idea of space labor absolutely terrifying, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read your email,” one labor rights activist told the author.) Of course, if people were wealthy enough to be able to pay for their own transit, forced labor would be far less of an issue.
Those contradictions speak to a broader issue: the relative immaturity of space settlement overall. Despite decades of discussions, we are only incrementally closer to that vision of permanent human settlements on the Moon, Mars, or free space. Why will people go there, and what will they do? That will drive many of the issues discussed in the book, which may be different for a mining camp than a scientific outpost. While Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have talked up their long-term visions of people living beyond Earth, there’s been few concrete details; Musk has said in the past he is focused more on enabling Martian settlements with transportation systems than on the nitty-gritty details of what those settlements would be like.
Those contradictions speak to a broader issue: the relative immaturity of space settlement overall. Despite decades of discussions, we are only incrementally closer to that vision of permanent human settlements on the Moon, Mars, or free space.
Nesvold said the impetus for the book came when the CEO of an unidentified space mining company brushed off any planetary protection issues about mining lunar ice in a 2016 talk at NASA’s Ames Research Center: “We’ll worry about that later.” (The company is now defunct, she says.) Few in the industry, she said, seemed concerned about such ethical issues, although she notes that since then she has heard from people in both industry and in government “who are eager to buck this trend and further incorporate justice and ethics into their work,” but aren’t sure how. (Emphasis in original.) But, by and large, we don’t hear from those people in the book, or explanations those in the industry who have, at least for the time being, set aside the ethical questions raised by space settlement.
It raises a concern shared with Reclaiming Space of missed opportunities to communicate between those traditionally involved in the space industry and those seeking to bring new voices and new insights: how do they exchange ideas and share ideas, or even have a common vocabulary?
That included the space ethics panel at the AAAS conference: what would it mean to give back to the Moon in exchange for taking resources from it? “I’m not sure,” Neilson admitted after the panel. Maybe, he proposed, it could involve leaving Earth rocks behind or “cultivating soil” there.
Could learning about the Moon and our place in the solar system constitute giving back? “I don’t think so,” he said. “Because the Moon knows itself.” Does that mean the Moon is sentient? “Sentience is kind of an anthropocentric form of terminology. We define sentience relative to ourselves. For many people, the Moon has its own kind of being.”
The conversation ended, with the ethical issues of lunar exploration and resource extraction, and by extension space settlement, no clearer than before the panel.
Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.
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Two Falcon 9 rockets on neighboring pads in Florida for launches last year. The growing pace of launches and limitations of current spaceport infrastructure is becoming a bottleneck. (credit: SpaceX)
The spaceport bottleneck
by Tom Marotta Monday, April 10, 2023
Why does the United States have so many unused spaceports?
Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia is regularly congested with traffic. The source of the problem is a short section of the highway that abruptly narrows from five lanes to three. Fast-moving highway traffic slows to a crawl resulting in snarled commutes, missed deliveries, and ruined vacations.
America has more spaceports than any other country in the world — and more are planned — but most spaceports sit empty and unused.
This, of course, is the dreaded traffic bottleneck. Drivers across the world are familiar with this phenomenon: a highway is built, vehicle traffic grows, and eventually the infrastructure reaches its capacity.
The American rocket-launching industry is experiencing something of its own bottleneck. There are more satellites and rockets being built today than ever before. But only a handful of US spaceports see the lion’s share of rocket launch activity. As a result, these sites are increasingly congested.
This is not, however, due to insufficient infrastructure. Indeed, America has more spaceports than any other country in the world—and more are planned—but most spaceports sit empty and unused. Why do rocket launching companies choose to “wait in traffic” for their turn to launch from one of the crowded sites when it seems they could use an “alternate route” and launch from a spaceport with available capacity? And why does it matter?
Demand for orbital launches is sky high
The answer as to why most rocket launches occur from only four congested US spaceports has to do with orbital mechanics and government regulation. Not all rocket launches are the same: some go to suborbital space while some go to orbital space. Most launch activity today involves sending satellites to orbit. This is because there is a strong demand for data from space. We are living in a golden age of satellite development. The US Federal Communications Commission, the regulator that doles out the radiofrequency spectrum that satellites use to transmit information back to Earth, received requests for 38,000 new satellites in 2021. If even half of these satellites are actually launched that would more than triple the number of active satellites in orbit today. Many of these satellites will be launched by SpaceX for their Starlink constellation. But many will not: an additional 1,700 small satellites are expected to be launched every year for the remainder of the decade.
The only known way to get a satellite into orbit is to use a rocket. There is a large and growing backlog of demand to get all these satellites to orbit and, as a result, there is a healthy demand for launch pads capable of sending a rocket to orbit.
A map of US licensed launch sites. Many inland spaceports have not hosted a launch and cannot support orbital launches. (credit: FAA)
Launching to orbit from inland spaceports is not permitted
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates non-governmental (i.e. commercial) rocket launches. The FAA’s job is to make sure the public is protected from the risk of rocket launches. After all, rockets are basically just giant tubes of explosives that are purposefully lit on fire and shot through the air. They are getting more reliable all the time, but mishaps are still quite frequent. The chance of any given rocket exploding and spreading thousands of pieces of fiery shrapnel falling to Earth is unnervingly high.
This is why all commercial rocket launches to date have launched from spaceports on the coast: if a rocket explodes over the ocean, it’s a lot less likely to hurt a person or damage personal property. Or, to put it another way, the reason a commercial rocket has never been approved to launch to orbit from an inland spaceport is that all rockets (to date) have been unable to meet the safety criteria required by the FAA. And the system is working: FAA has a perfect safety record when it comes to space travel. No member of the public has ever been hurt or killed from a commercial rocket launch. The FAA is very proud of this record and continues to do everything possible to maintain it. That is why the FAA is unlikely to relax its safety criteria.
As congestion grows at existing sites and regulatory constraints impede inland launch, operating spaceports at sea becomes a more attractive option.
So, will we ever see a rocket reliable enough to launch from an inland spaceport? Perhaps. Air travel was notoriously dangerous in the early years of flight but, with increasing experience, eventually became the safest mode of travel. The SpaceX Falcon 9 is the most prolific US launch vehicle in operation today, having launched over 100 times since its last mishap in 2016. However, while 100 launches is impressive, it is not nearly the level of activity necessary to demonstrate the reliability necessary to permit inland launches. For that we’d probably need to see several thousand successful launches which, at current levels of launch activity (61 launches in 2022, a record level), could take decades.
This is why SpaceX, and every other orbital rocket company, launches from one of four coastal spaceports in the United States: getting approval to launch to orbit from available inland spaceports is essentially impossible due to the excessive risk it poses to public safety.
Why does solving the spaceport bottleneck matter?
Our modern economy is heavily dependent on data services from space:
World-spanning financial networks use precision timing services provided by the satellite-based Global Positioning System to synchronize financial transactions: literally trillions of dollars of global trade depend on reliable satellite communications.
Increasing numbers of people access the Internet using bandwidth provided by satellites. This is especially important in areas of the developing world lacking terrestrial communications networks.
The US Department of Defense purchases massive amounts of commercially-sourced satellite imagery to augment government-run surveillance capabilities. Many of the satellite photos of the Ukraine conflict that we see in the public media are provided by commercial firms selling the data to DoD.
Commercial synthetic aperture radar, signals intelligence, weather forecasting, and numerous other data services are all improving knowledge of our environment and our economy, generating incredible wealth and scientific knowledge. We would not know about climate change without satellite networks.
Maintaining the satellite constellations that deliver this data from space requires smoothly operating spaceports capable of conducting regular launches to orbit.
Furthermore, data is fungible. There is very little preventing our adversaries from supplanting the Western firms that currently dominate the satellite data market with their own state-supported firms. They will do this in part by maximizing their own access to space by operating better spaceports. We are in a new space race and having a variety of paths to orbit is essential to remaining in the lead.
So, what’s the solution?
There are three viable paths to solve the spaceport bottleneck: build new spaceports on land in the US, launch from non-US spaceports overseas, or build spaceports on floating platforms at sea. Building new orbital spaceports in the US has proven difficult: all recent proposals have been delayed or permanently blocked by local community opposition. Operating rocket systems overseas requires obtaining export control approvals from the State Department, a process that can take years. It’s also very expensive to maintain supply chains to far-flung rocket sites outside of the US (or even inside the US.)
That leaves launching from the sea. Boeing successfully operated a sea-based launch site in collaboration with Russia for 15 years at the beginning of this century. That partnership became untenable when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and the system was subsequently abandoned. SpaceX is investigating offshore launch platforms for their new rocket system and South Korea tested an offshore rocket launch system in 2022. China currently operates two offshore spaceport infrastructure systems that are regularly used to send satellites to orbit.
As congestion grows at existing sites and regulatory constraints impede inland launch, operating spaceports at sea becomes a more attractive option to meet the demand for orbital launch, and solving the spaceport bottleneck.
Tom Marotta is the Founder and CEO of The Spaceport Company. Prior to founding The Spaceport Company he was the Principal Launch Licensing Manager at Astra Space where he obtained the first FAA Part 450 launch license and helped establish Astra’s second spaceport, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in eight months, faster than it’s ever been done before. From 2016 to 2021 he worked at the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation managing the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee and writing portions of the Part 450 licensing regulation. From 2010 to 2016 he was a US Foreign Service Officer having served overseas in West Africa, Europe, and Iraq. He was an original co-founder of the Beyond Earth Institute, a think tank focused on laying the policy framework for an enduring human presence in outer space, and co-authored ”The High Frontier: An Easier Way”.
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I want to talk to you about the colonization of Mars. One of our readers, Jordan Wright (aka “The Angry Astronaut.”) just came up with the most original “think outside the box” ideas on the subject that I have seen in years. Jordan, well done!!!!
Elena and I have had numerous discussions over the years about the possibility of flying to Mars and living there for the rest of our lives. Elena consistently rejects it. She could not imagine having to live six months in a spacecraft (“a tin can”) while in transit to Mars. It was unthinkable for her to live in a place with no vegetation, no trees, no animals. She would not want to wear a spacesuit every time she went outside.
Some years ago, I was at a Mars Society Convention. One of the speakers asked all in the audience who were ready to go to Mars and spend the rest of their lives to stand up. I stood up. To me living on Mars would be an incredible adventure with so many new things to discover including life on the planet. Unfortunately, I am too old for this ever to be a reality.
I was once in a meeting with NASA scientist Chris McKay. He compared Mars to Antarctica. He said that it would never be more than a remote outpost with scientific research stations like McMurdo.
An intrepid man from Holland started an organization called Mars One. His goal was to establish a viable colony on Mars. He got the attention of Lockheed Martin and SpaceX. He got some 200 highly-qualified and educated men and women to sign up to start their lives over again on Mars. I have been in meetings with the founder and a number of people who had signed up for the trip. Sadly, not enough money was raised to get this project off the ground.
As a matter of interest, Elon Musk has the goal to retire on Mars.
Jordan Wright debunked a lot of past theories about colonizing Mars. He pointed out that these settlements would not be “a back water” for a few research scientists and eccentrics. Rather it would be a dynamic and commercially viable venture. He pointed out several asteroids super rich with all sorts of minerals and rare metals. Mining these asteroids would be administered from the Mars colonies. Major human exploration missions to the moons of Saturn, Jupiter and the outer planets would be launched from Mars. One could imagine interstellar missions with humans going to other stars beginning at Mars. Mars is a natural launching pad that is superior to earth in many respects. Here is a fascinating podcast that I urge all of you to watch:(183) Starship launches 4/10!!! Plus, why SpaceX Mars Colonists will be the richest humans alive! – YouTube
New missions are needed not just for science but also to maintain relay capabilities as spacecraft like Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001, near the end of their missions. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Robotic Mars exploration after sample return
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 3, 2023
For the Mars science community, all eyes are on Mars Sample Return (MSR), the campaign of missions by NASA and ESA to collect Martian rock samples to be returned to Earth in the early 2030s. At last month’s Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference (LPSC) outside Houston, scientists celebrated the recent completion of a sample cache by the Perseverance rover as the rover headed up the delta in Jezero Crater to collect more samples.
But one question for that community is what comes after MSR. With the exception of ESCAPADE, a smallsat mission now scheduled for launch to Mars in late 2024 on one of the first Blue Origin New Glenn vehicles to study the planet’s interaction with the solar wind, NASA has nothing else in the works for Mars.
“We wanted to look two decades into the future as far as what are the things that we can do to create equally dramatic and profound science” as MSR, Ianson said.
There was, for a time, an orbiter mission in development called the International Mars Ice Mapper, or I-MIM. But in last year, NASA elected not to fund development of it, after rounding up partnerships from Canada, Italy, and Japan to provide elements of the orbiter. The agency said last year that cost growth on Mars Sample return kept the agency from funding its share of I-MIM, but encouraged the other partners to proceed on their own (see “The future of Mars science missions”, The Space Review, May 9, 2022).
Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science vision, said at an LPSC town hall that NASA met with its international partners on I-MIM late last year, leaving the door open for the agency getting back into the mission. Those discussions, she said, “have honed and refined the mission concept into something that looks like something we might have an easier time participating in.” But she added, “we’re not making financial commitments right now.”
Eric Ianson, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters, said at the town hall that if NASA were to contribute, funding wouldn’t be needed until around 2026. In the meantime, he said NASA was collaborating with the partners “on the potential for what a partnership would like.”
The concern about a lack of missions extends beyond science. Several Mars orbiters are tasked with serving as communications relays in addition to their science missions, notably Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and MAVEN. But the youngest of them, MAVEN, has been at Mars for nearly a decade; Mars Odyssey has been there more than two decades.
Last week, NASA offered its first glimpse of what the future of robotic Mars exploration after Mars Sample Return will look like. Speaking at a meeting of a committee of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board, Ianson rolled out a draft strategy for robotic missions extending into the 2040s, by which time NASA foresees astronauts landing on the Red Planet.
“We wanted to look two decades into the future as far as what are the things that we can do to create equally dramatic and profound science” as MSR, he said.
The “Exploring Mars Together” strategy does not outline a specific set of missions, but rather the types of science those missions would do and how they would be structured. Notably, after the multibillion-dollar Mars Sample Return effort, the strategy looks on what can be done on the cheap.
“What we’re proposing to do here is to do it at lower cost and a higher cadence of missions,” he said, avoiding the “peaks and valleys” of past Mars exploration efforts. “We want to try and maintain missions on a regular cadence.”
One line of the strategy is that regular cadence of missions starting as soon as 2030, the first window after the scheduled launch of MSR’s Sample Retrieval Lander. Ianson suggested a line of missions flying in every launch window, with NASA spending on the order of $300 million at each opportunity.
That could be, he said, a single $300 million mission, three $100 missions, or something in between. “It provides a good opportunity for the proposing community to get really creative,” he said.
“We think there’s going to be an opportunity in advance of humans getting to Mars where we can do things that will help inform human exploration,” Ianson said.
The idea of such low-cost had been endorsed by previous studies, one by the Mars Architecture Strategy Working Group (MASWG) and another by a committee organized by Caltech’s Keck Institute for Space Studies. Both concluded that low-cost Mars missions could be carried out and perform useful science (see “A FAB approach to Mars exploration”, The Space Review, March 7, 2022.)
That included missions with costs between $100 million and $300 million. “We think missions in this range have the potential to do outstanding science,” Bruce Jakosky, who chaired the MASWG study, said at a workshop a year ago about low-cost Mars missions.
Ianson said that the steady cadence of low-cost missions would be augmented by occasional larger missions. He described them as similar to the New Frontiers line of medium-class planetary science missions, with costs of at least $1 billion.
The first might be a version of Mars Life Explorer, a mission recommended in last year’s planetary science decadal survey. It was designed as a lander to examine subsurface ice deposits, using a drill that would collect samples from up to two meters below the surface, studying them for biosignatures. The decadal projected Mars Life Explorer launching in the latter half of the 2030s; Ianson’s charts included an “aspirational” timeline that featured a “Search for Life” mission launching around 2035.
A third line of missions in the strategy are payloads that would fly as “missions of opportunity,” he said. That would involve instruments going on international missions as well as potentially commercial missions.
And what would those missions do? Ianson described three broad themes for the science the three classes of Mars missions would perform. One would be to continue the search for past or even present life on Mars. That could include looking for biosignatures as well as “patterns of habitability” on the planet.
The second would be to support NASA’s plans for human Mars missions, with the first notionally planned around 2040, a date NASA administrator Bill Nelson reaffirmed in an appearance at Axios’s “What’s Next” event the same day Ianson spoke at the National Academies.
“I’m saying 2040,” Nelson said when asked about comments earlier in the event by former astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who predicted humans on Mars in 20 years.
“We think there’s going to be an opportunity in advance of humans getting to Mars where we can do things that will help inform human exploration,” Ianson said. That would include characterizing ice deposits that could be resources for future human missions as well as studying health and safety hazards.
A third theme, called “Discover Dynamic Mars,” would cover other science topics. He said that might involve studies of the planet’s geology and climate to see how the planet evolved from its initial warm, wet conditions to its current states, and to support work in comparative planetology.
A chart from the presentation that shows a notional timeline and budget for the new Mars exploration strategy (larger version)
The strategy is more than about science, though. Ianson said another element of the plan is to refresh that aging infrastructure, such as communications as well as the high-resolution imaging that Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provides. That infrastructure could also include monitoring Martian weather. The aspirational timeline he presented featured a mission to serve as a communications relay and with a high-resolution camera launching in the early 2030s.
Both the low-cost science missions and the infrastructure missions would provide opportunities for commercial partnerships. Ianson said the science missions might leverage lessons learned from such efforts as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, where NASA buys payload space on commercial lunar landers that also carry payloads for other government and commercial customers.
A notional budget chart showed spending holding steady through the 2030s at about half of current spending on Mars exploration.
“That’s one of the things that we’re going to explore: how do we find these win-win solutions where we can get science but it’s also benefiting the things that they’re looking to do,” he said of such partnerships. “There is no shortage of companies that have interest. The real question is, do they have the capability to be able to do that job?”
What’s also unclear is the budget for this. Ianson noted in the presentation there is no budget yet for this draft strategy. A line in the fiscal year 2024 budget proposal for “Mars Future Missions,” which grows from $50 million in 2024 to a projected $177.4 million in 2028, is intended to fund work on a sample receiving facility for samples returned by the MSR missions as well as NASA’s contributions to the ESA’s ExoMars rover mission, Rosalind Franklin, after ESA cut off cooperation with Russia on that mission last year.
He did not provide any estimates for budgets but did display a notional “sand chart” budget of overall spending on past and projected Mars programs by stacking one mission on top of the next. That chart showed spending holding steady through the 2030s at about half of current spending. NASA’s fiscal year 2024 budget proposal requested about $1.2 billion for Mars exploration, $950 million of that for MSR.
The draft strategy is just that: a draft that NASA is soliciting feedback on over the coming months. That includes discussions about it at next week’s meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, an advisory committee for Mars exploration.
“Following the launch of MSR, we want to implement a sustainable portfolio” of missions, he concluded. “The content and the schedule are variables to be managed against a sustained budget level.” Now, there are at least outlines of what kind of missions can be developed, if there is a budget to manage them.
Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.
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SLS and Orion had to survive a variety of political changes to make it to the launch of Artemis 1 last November. (credit: NASA/Isaac Watson)
Sustainability lessons from Artemis: How SLS and Orion succeeded
by Frank Slazer Monday, April 3, 2023
In the wake of NASA’s November 2022 Artemis 1 mission success, it’s worth examining how its two major elements, the Orion and Space Launch System programs, have endured despite two changes in the White House, several changes in party control of the House and Senate, and efforts by the Obama Administration to cancel them. If any NASA program is a study in sustainability, it’s Artemis, and in our politically divided time, its lessons of stability are needed now more than ever.
If any NASA program is a study in sustainability, it’s Artemis, and in our politically divided time, its lessons of stability are needed now more than ever.
A key reason for the success of Artemis in navigating this changing environment was its origins in the Space Shuttle program. For 30 years, the shuttle had been America’s “space truck,” transporting hundreds of people into space, deploying groundbreaking spacecraft like the Hubble Space Telescope, and transporting and assembling much of the International Space Station (ISS). For a variety of reasons, including reducing new development and preserving the nation’s skilled shuttle labor force and industrial base, many elements of the shuttle program were combined to create the nation’s next super-heavy space launch vehicle, the SLS.
During the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs, a nationwide space industrial base was created, centered on locations where major program work was done: Huntsville, New Orleans, Southern California, Houston, Florida’s Space Coast, southern Mississippi, and Brigham City, Utah, among other locations. In these areas, significant work was done on the shuttle program, supported by an even more diverse subcontractor base. These communities became the heart of the shuttle program and developed a great deal of pride in their role in space. Their local economies benefitted and the senators and representatives from these areas became the core of the program’s support in Washington.
While some have criticized the Space Shuttle and SLS programs as wasteful “jobs programs,” in fact, the shuttle was a terrific stimulant for regional economic development, encouraging young people in these areas to pursue STEM education, creating more high-tech jobs in these communities, and increasing opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses, including veteran-owned firms.
After the loss of the Columbia orbiter in 2003, President George W. Bush established a commission to examine whether human spaceflight and exploration was worth the cost and the risk. The conclusion was that it was, but that human space activity was best justified for exploration. The Bush Administration endorsed this recommendation, and, after an extensive architecture process, the Constellation program was created with a plan to return to the Moon and go on to Mars with a super heavy launch vehicle based on shuttle elements—Ares V—a new Orion deep space crew exploration vehicle, and a new lunar lander, Altair.
Originally, Constellation was planned to be funded by adding a small amount of additional funds to NASA’s budget, but mostly by quickly returning shuttle to flight, and finishing ISS assembly in 2010 before ending the program in 2015, thus freeing up billions of NASA’s top line for exploration investments.
In the end, NASA was never provided much in new money for Constellation, the shuttle took longer to return to flight and cost more than expected and – once the ISS was finished in 2011 – neither Congress, the new Obama Administration, nor the international partners were eager to terminate tens of billions of dollars in ISS investments quickly. Not surprisingly, Constellation fell behind schedule and costs began to rise.
Moving forward, what are the lessons learned that can help ensure Artemis and subsequent Moon-to-Mars roadmap programs will endure? In the end, it comes down to contracting in a way that makes connections in local communities.
Two other developments also impacted Constellation: the Great Recession of 2008 and a new president. Obama had never made space programs a priority during his campaign and his Administration sought to invest in “shovel-ready” projects to stimulate the economy, rather than ones that would take a decade or longer. Instead, they established a review panel headed by former Martin Marietta CEO Norm Augustine, which concluded that barring significant new investment, the Constellation program would take so long that it would not inspire the American people and its price tag would likely grow even more. The Obama Administration, unwilling to invest more due to other priorities, chose to cancel Constellation.
As always, presidents propose, and Congress disposes. Congressional concerns over cancellation included the local job impacts in the space communities that had supported the Space Shuttle at a time when national unemployment rate was in double digits. While the Obama Administration tried to offset the impact by reinvesting funds to turn Kennedy Space Center into a multi-user spaceport and beginning the Commercial Crew program, Congressional space exploration advocates—including then-Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson—feared cancellation would indefinitely delay America’s return to deep space exploration. In the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, the Ares V super heavy lift vehicle was reborn as the Space Launch System and the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle was also continued, with corresponding support for both ground infrastructure and propulsion programs.
Subsequent years under Obama saw additional efforts to cancel or underfund the exploration programs of record, but Congressional support, anchored by the heritage shuttle communities, remained bipartisan and consistent. It is this support, tied to local communities and businesses that supported the shuttle program, that has enabled these programs to make steady progress, even without funding at a level that would bring them online faster and more cost effectively. In fact, were it not for these diverse communities of support, it’s possible that these programs would have died long ago—as would our chances of reaching the Moon in this decade.
Moving forward, what are the lessons learned that can help ensure Artemis and subsequent Moon-to-Mars roadmap programs will endure? In the end, it comes down to contracting in a way that makes connections in local communities. It does not require a return to heritage cost-plus contracting for all new elements, although high-risk technology investments with no near-term commercial markets may still need this contract type. Nor does NASA need to own all assets. And for pure commercial service buys, such as logistics launch services support for the lunar Gateway that use the same launch capabilities as other customers, price and performance alone should be the criterion.
However, where NASA’s exploration needs are the predominant customer for an exploration capability, NASA should seek to achieve more than just getting the lowest cost capability. While counterintuitive, spending a bit more to require contractors to make awards like the 10% set aside to small and historically disadvantaged or veteran-owned businesses with detailed jobs documentation, and to spend small amounts on public outreach, engagement, and education, will do a lot to provide enduring benefits to stakeholders around the nation. Additionally, this will make these programs more politically sustainable over the long run. This is what was done on the Space Shuttle and the ISS, and it helped make those programs politically sustainable for decades. To assure Artemis endures, this should explicitly be done for future exploration procurements.
If Congress does pass an authorization, it should include provisions requiring NASA to take a more direct role in its service procurements and ensure that the benefits of our nation’s Artemis investments reach the industrial base, students, and associated communities around the nation.
It should be expected, especially when dealing with newer space entrants, that some of these contractors may push back on such requirements, dismissing them as unnecessary or infringing on the efficiencies needed for commercial success. But the reality is that unlike in the market for space launch services, NASA’s Artemis program and its international partners will be the dominant demand driver for exploration services for the foreseeable future. This reality will only be exacerbated by recent macroeconomic trends leading to a pullback in high-risk capital investment impacting aspiring new commercial entrants. A commercial firm with a firm contract to provide NASA exploration support will be far more likely to attract investment and talent. NASA needs to recognize that it is in the driver’s seat for its exploration commercial services, and it should use this market power to improve the impact of these investments.
Of course, in addition to NASA, Congress has an opportunity to weigh in. While not assured, there are indications that the House and Senate authorization committees with jurisdiction over NASA may try to produce a more detailed NASA authorization bill than was included in the CHIPS Plus Science Act last year, hopefully one that will include many of the exploration elements in the recent NASA budget request. If Congress does pass an authorization, it should include provisions requiring NASA to take a more direct role in its service procurements and ensure that the benefits of our nation’s Artemis investments reach the industrial base, students, and associated communities around the nation. In doing so, Congress will both ensure that the Artemis exploration program broadly benefits our society while also ensuring that our nation’s space industrial base is strengthened.
Frank Slazer is the former president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration who previously was vice president for strategy and business development at Aerojet Rocketdyne, and vice president of space at the Aerospace Industries Association.
An increase in satellites and debris in orbit could add more than $20 million to the cost of one survey at the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile. (credit: Todd Mason, Mason Productions Inc. / LSST Corporation)How satellites and space junk may make dark night skies brighterby Jessica Heim
Two Falcon 9 rockets on neighboring pads in Florida for launches last year. The growing pace of launches and limitations of current spaceport infrastructure is becoming a bottleneck. (credit: SpaceX)
A map of US licensed launch sites. Many inland spaceports have not hosted a launch and cannot support orbital launches. (credit: FAA)
New missions are needed not just for science but also to maintain relay capabilities as spacecraft like Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001, near the end of their missions. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
A chart from the presentation that shows a notional timeline and budget for the new Mars exploration strategy (
SLS and Orion had to survive a variety of political changes to make it to the launch of Artemis 1 last November. (credit: NASA/Isaac Watson)
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