Image: Illustration by John Mattos
In Brief
- The shuttle is out. When NASA retires the space shuttle in the middle of next year, the U.S. will no longer be able to launch astronauts or supplies to the International Space Station.
- Private companies are in. The Obama administration has canceled Constellation, the planned successor to the shuttle, and instead plans to rely on private companies to ferry astronauts.
- Hopes are high. In theory, early government support of daring entrepreneurs could jump-start a vibrant economy centered on space travel, with competition pushing prices ever lower.
- Risks are, too. Yet no one knows if start-up companies will be able to deliver safe, affordable, reliable spacecraft. If they fail, human exploration of space could be set back by decades.
Two years ago deceased Star Trek actor James “Scotty” Doohan was granted one last adventure, courtesy of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. SpaceX, a privately funded company based in Hawthorne, Calif., had been formed in 2002 with the mission of going where no start-up had gone before: Earth orbit. In August 2008 SpaceX loaded Doohan’s cremated remains onto the third test flight of its Falcon 1, a liquid oxygen- and kerosene-fueled rocket bound for orbit. Yet about two minutes into the flight Doohan’s final voyage ended prematurely when the rocket’s first stage crashed into the second stage during separation. It was SpaceX’s third failure in three attempts.
Well, what did you expect? sneered old NASA hands, aerospace executives and the many others who hew to the conventional wisdom that safely ushering payloads and especially people hundreds of kilometers above Earth is a job for no less than armies of engineers, technicians and managers backed by billions in funding and decades-long development cycles. Space, after all, is hard. A small, private operation might be able to send a little stunt ship wobbling up tens of kilometers, as entrepreneur-engineer Burt Rutan did in 2004 to win the X-Prize. But that was a parlor trick compared with the kinds of operations NASA has been running over the years with the space shuttle and International Space Station. When you’re going orbital, 100 kilometers is merely the length of the driveway, at the end of which you’d better be accelerating hard toward the seven kilometers a second needed to keep a payload falling around Earth 300 kilometers up.
This article was originally published with the title Jump-Starting the Orbital Economy.
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13 Comments
Add CommentI agree we should take the politics out of the US Space Program. The current NASA Deputy Administrator has a BS in politics. Wouldn't it be better to have someone with a full engineering background. Elon Musk has stated during this past year that he does not want to raise cash for his divorce settlement, because that would reduce his control of Space X. He can raise the money from business friends and associates and, of course, NASA. The current "commercial" manned space launchers can only deliver 40% of the payload to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) as the canceled Ares-1. This means that the US could end up paying more for less. Why not offer an opposing article in Scientific American?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the "Science Agenda, Defying Politics", concerning space ventures: I'm pretty much expecting global economic collapse within the next five to fifty years, though probably too late to save us from severe global warming, with no clear end in sight. Therefore I favor considering one-way trips to the moon, Mars and asteroids, even with the small hope of starting independent colonies. As species go, humans seem to be pretty adaptable (for better and worse). How much and how long would it take to get sustainable PV, hydroponic, mining etc. systems going in a relatively artificial environment? We find many ways to waste our resources here on Earth. Applying a little of that to space, giving greater hope for avoiding extinction, wouldn't be the worst we could do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ideal crew for such missions would be mostly young women, accompanied by a sperm bank. (Can we do an egg bank also?) Let's, at least a few of us, exchange our "Be fruitful and multiply" values, which are destroying our planet and social systems, for "Make love, but not too many babies, and doublely reduce the causes of war."
Those in the engineering world that voiced opposition to the Obama/Garver plan include not only Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the moon, but also, James Lovell (Apollo 11), Burt Rutan, developer of Space Ship One, and Homer Hickham, retired NASA engineer and inspiration for the movie October Skies. Plus, there are many, many, more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith their country led by engineers as opposed to the West where nearly all our leaders are attorneys, China has a much better idea for a heavy lift booster
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Chinese could care less about greenies, so a modification of Freeman Dyson's Orion scheme is in the works to give them all the lift capacity for which anybody could ever envision a need.
Build a 2 mile long pipeline and sink it in the ocean two miles deep. Put a small nuke at the bottom in a put a thick steel plate underneath an automated payload capsule. Light the nuke and let er rip. When the projectile exits slam the door shut and redirect the radioactive steam into the water. Radiation leaks - a lot less than the daily radioactive output of one of their coal plants.
3000 tons at $10 a lb straight to the moon.
Great for compressibles like ice, steel,frozen food,fuel tanks, rocket fuel, circuit boards, nuclear fuel, copper wire and a thousand other commodities needed in space.
Humans and flower petals will have to be launched another way.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/12/sea-based-launch-option-for-nuclear.html
With the cargo capacity available, a simple very efficient space based transport could use the nuclear engines from stolen NASA Nerva designs since we aren't allowed to use them.
@sethdayal, everything about the idea except the nuclear bit is interesting. The fact that it isn't as polluting as the worst polluter we have isn't comforting. Describing someone who has a problem with detonating nukes at the bottom of the ocean a "greenie" is like describing someone who objects to limited nuclear war as a peacenik. Instead of a nuke, they could create a rail gun. That gets rid of the sudden acceleration. And it doesn't have to put it all the way into orbit, just high enough to reduce a substantial amount of the weight (cost) before the boosters kick in to take it the rest of the way. Also the pressures at the bottom of the ocean are pretty incredible. You don't want to do anything too violent or the whole thing will collapse like a beer can under the tread of a tank.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDyson's original Orion called for the detonation of nuclear bombs behind a huge pusher plate. Huge payloads could be delivered to interplanetary space, if the lift-off took place from the earth's surface. Today, this concept would violate nuclear test ban treaties, would violate EPA regulations, introduce radioactive fallout into the environment, etc. A less severe concept would detonate nuclear bombs in outer space, but that concept is very unpopular and would not survive any political test.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCongratulations to Space-X on the their successful test today of the Dragon capsule. This effort definitely deserves continued funding, since it is the U.S. quickest route to sending cargo to the International Space Station.
At $1.6 billion for demonstration of cargo delivery to the space station the Falcon-9 program is probably not an order of magnitude cheaper than other private/public companies. Getting away from detailed NASA oversight can probably reduce cost. This may be especially true for U.S. manned space flight contracts. The older private/public companies have been laboring under the old contracts with their contract-end-item (CEI) specifications. If the rules are going to change for manned space flight criteria, then let the rules be the same everyone. Let's have a level playing field.
Robotic versus manned space exploration
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Freedman wrote an interesting article but it’s based on an outdated romantic assumption: that ordinary humans have a desire or even a need to live in outer space. Space is a more hostile environment to life than any place you can find on Earth.
Why do so few people live in the Sahara? There is plenty of Air, abundant Sunshine, a lot of Sand but very little Water.
Why does no human being live on the ocean bottom? There is plenty of water, plenty of oxygen which can be split from water molecules, but alas little or no sunshine, almost no plants and only sporadic macroscopic animals to view for undersea tourists, and a crushing hydraulic pressure.
Why do most people live in cities instead of the lovely green countryside or the few remaining jungles and wildernesses? Because they value the comforts of reliable clean water supplies, electricity, sewage systems, Internet, Scientific Americans in the mailbox, supermarkets around the corner, etc. very much higher than the romantic idea of living in “nature”.
During the Apollo era astronauts were essential to make instant decisions on flying a spacecraft, manipulating buttons on instruments and saving a spacecraft from disaster like in Apollo 13. Not any longer.
Computer hardware (data and script storage , processor speed, optical and other sensors) has increased and improved many orders of magnitude. Software keeps growing and improving at a tremendous rate fed by millions of software engineers and even automatically. Materials and mechanisms evolve almost just as fast. On these technologies autonomous decision making and independent action by robotic spacecraft relies.
The results of the NASA’s Mars roving robots outperform convincingly whatever human astronauts have ever done on our Moon or what they could ever do on Mars. Unmanned spacecraft from NASA, ESA, Russia, Japan have expanded our understanding of the solar system and beyond exponentially. What have the Apollo, MIR, ISS astronauts and cosmonauts contributed to science or technology except proving that it is very dangerous difficult and costly to stay alive in outer space?
(continued)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt’s time to get serious about space exploration and get rid of our ‘60ies romantic dreams.
Robotic technology (it needs very little science) has enormously expanded since the Apollo project and the MIR spacestation. Unmanned remotely operated airplanes fly and “fight” over warzones without endangering a precious pilot’s life. Trains in airports and DisneyWorlds move without driver. Bob Ballard discovers the Titanic wreck with remotely operated submarines. Nobody suggests anymore to send aquanauts several miles down the ocean to explore the floor. Too risky, too costly, less performant than a ROV.
Why should Space retain its glamourous but very expensive Final Frontier status?
Make no mistake : “commercial” firms still need customers. There are not that many billionnaires who can cough up millions of dollars or euros to buy a seat on a spaceplane. Mass tourism however requires prices for a space tour to drop a thousand-times, down to about a trip to Hawaii. Preferably cheaper.
Is that possible? Not if you want to launch complete human bodies into space, with food and booze and games and companionship and all other comforts a tourist is expecting from his travel agency. Robotic spacecraft are already equipped with excellent cameras for Earth observation and space telescopes. With some effort they can be equipped with miniaturised IMAX 3D cameras, giving armchair tourists a virtual space tour experience, much like what they can experience today at Kennedy Space Center and DisneyWorld EPCOT in Florida.
NASA should stop investing Gigadollars in human space flight and concentrate on robotic exploration of our solar system and on large space telescopes looking at the Universe.
Human colonisation of the solar system and beyond is a pipe dream. A relic from the roaring sixties. If any place in near Space could be colonised by some humans it should be the Moon. It makes sense to establish a permanent Moon base, appropriately called Alpha, to build very large, thousand-feet diameter, interferometrically-linked telescopes, in a permanently dark crater like Shackleton, using Moon materials for construction and for sheltering against solar and space radiation. It could be build by robots and a few astronauts. It will be operated unmanned remotely from Earth. Eventually some rich tourists could go there to experience the joys of low gravity for newly invented extreme sports like megajumping and armpowered flying.
The Moon is only a few days flying from Earth, and you can communicate with it over SpaceInternet with less than 2 secs of time delay, almost real time. Mars on the other hand ….
NASA, ESA, RSA, JSA, ISA, CSA should cooperate on vastly expanded robotic exploration of Mars, Io, Europa, Enceladus, Titan, asteroids and other solar system bodies, providing 3D IMAX video coverage of robotic adventures in space, for which many tourists would be willing to pay. In this way leisure can contribute to the advancement of science.
Last remark : I was rather amused by the message that SpaceX would be using aluminum bolts of 30 cents apiece instead of (presumably) the usual titanium and stainless-steel fasteners. Why not use Velcro ? It’s probably stronger than aluminum and it’s already space-qualified for fixing thermal blankets.
You're ignoring the physical presence, intrusions and influence of ETs upon Earth societies, if they can ever get loose from the clutches of the Black Hat Secret Coverment. If you have a brain in your head, I don't think you want to do simply mandate commercializing relationships that much. Commercialization of space is ONLY for Elites who have the where-with-all to pay. "Let them eat cake," is that the drill?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have just read all of the comments associated with this article, and I find some of the thoughts both perplexing and disturbing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first thing that I always think of when I hear of moon bases is that the moon has 1/8th the gravity of earth. As I ponder that and what that would mean for life on the moon, I can't help but to continually come to the same conclusions. with 1/8th the gravity, that means several things, such as the fact that construction of complex structures would become easier, as less material would be needed to support the weight of the structure (buildings and such). By that same token, any vessel built on the moon would need only 1/8th the energy to reach escape velocity as it does on earth. This should mean that we could either build a vessel with the same mass and 1/8th the fuel, or 8x the mass and the same amount of fuel. Also, the as the moon revolves around the earth, it reaches much higher velocities relative to the surrounding space when compared to earth based launches. This would be useful for getting probes with larger payloads or manned vessels into the solar system much easier.
On top of that, them moon has many environmental aspects going for it. There is a premade vacuum there for any vacuum deposition that needs done. The crust has all of the materials in it for solar cells that can take full advantage of the abundant sun light for power (which could even be beamed back to earth). It also has quite a bit of iron, and a smelter could easily be made using solar concentration from that abundant sunlight again.
Then there is the point of us looking up one day and saying "hey, look at that big rock... where you think it is going? oh, here. that bad." when, and I do mean to say when, that happens, we as a species will need populations elsewhere in the solar system so that we aren't wiped out like our predecessors. Even Stephen Hawking has said that it is imperative that we become a two planet species if we intend to survive into memoriam.
Don't get me wrong, I do understand that robotic exploration is the current means of exploration, but a ship launched from the moon could carry everything of a probe and the people to fix it when it breaks, like the mars rover's wheel (and before anyone mentions it, I am aware that the broken wheel is how we found water under the dust of mars).
Do not forget that all the Nasa Bonzes have a vested interest in keeping the rocket industry alive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey leet a incompetent group, headed by a MM in Cleveland screw up an experiment, using the Saucer technology (Gravity Control, patented) after the Space Disasters and causing the big black-out of 2003 by using the configuration of an E-Bomb.
Then they advised Nasa Headquarters, that the technology of the Flying Saucer was unsuitable for Space Travel.
If this had been Communist Russia, these clods would have been executed. Here they got Golden Handshake.
I'm quite amazed that nowhere in your article wa sany mention of Arianespace made.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.arianespace.com/index/index.asp
While America bickers, this European private business has been launching heavy payloads, reliably and consistently, for years. Granted, they have had financial backing from within the EU, but they are now a private company in all important details.
Next major project is a manned version of their "space truck" used to supply the ISS.
A while back, Europeans used to hitch lifts on Shuttle launches to the ISS, assuming they worked and were able to launch. Tomorrow the reverse will be true, with Americans launched to the ISS by Arianespace in a vehicle built by EADS Astrium.
I'd suggest that if anyone wants a model of a successful heavy launch private company, they should check out the web site above. Of particular interest might be the number of personnel employed at the European Space Center.
One starts to wonder if America still has the drive and ability to manage a real space exploration effort without getting constantly bogged down in politics and red tape, producing overpriced and unreliable vehicles and wasting vast sums of money on false starts and, in all honesty, dithering.
John Fortier
Rochester NY
David Cota,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe word is "moot", not, in this context, "mute".