Economist / Shell Writing Prize 2000

The World in 2050 The space industry and space exploration

By Peter Baker

Like the computer and telecommunications industries at the end of the twentieth century, in recent years the space industry (along with biotechnology) has come to symbolise the cutting edge of what modern technology is capable of. We have come to take for granted re-entry vehicles that are as reliable as conventional aeroplanes, zero-G factories producing anew generation of smart materials and a tourist industry which puts more and more people into space every year, just for the fun of it. In the last few decades satellite launching, zero-G manufacturing and space tourism have all gone from emergent technology to multi-trillion Euro industry. In this article we take a look at the current state of play, some of the likely technological and business innovations over the coming years and the projected progress of mankinds efforts to explore the solar system.

We got the power Despite enormous advances in engine technology since the emergence of space flight in the last 100 years, there are two problems central to doing business in space, getting there (historically the growth of the space based industries has closely shadowed the cost per unit weight of getting mass off the Earths surface and into orbit) and getting anywhere else interesting once you get there. Two new tools in our technological armoury are now close to making considerable progress on both these fronts. Now fusion power has come to dominate power production on earth, aerospace companies are attempting to refine the engineering of existing reactor designs in order to fit them inside launch vehicles and spacecraft. Once this is done, fusion engines look to become the power source of choice for launch vehicles and near Earth spacecraft and to bring down the cost of space travel significantly. This will make a whole range of new space based activities economically feasible. The main problem with getting spacecraft across interplanetary space is that, unless you are prepared to move very slowly, it requires prohibitive amount of fuel. Ion engines, which work by stripping the electrons from Xenon atoms and using them for propulsion require the least fuel per unit thrust of any engine that can now be made. Their main disadvantage is that they accelerate and decelerate very slowly. It is ion engines that are being used on the new Earth-Mars-Earth freighters that will soon be ferrying men and equipment between the two planets. These freighters are effectively to be put into slow complicated orbits and require small amounts of thrust over long periods of time. Ion engines are perfect for this and they will require very infrequent refuelling.

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There are now over 100 orbital manufacturing, scientific and leisure facilities in orbit around the Moon and Earth. Over the coming decade the cost of building structures in space will continue to fall and this will drive increases in both space-based tourism and manufacturing. Currently most space tourists only get into space for a few hours to have a look around. This is all very well, but the industrys goal is to build leisure facilities in orbit and on the moon for the mass market. The other large problem for space tourism is that until significant amounts of water can be extracted from the Moons crust or from asteroids (see below), keeping people in space for prolonged periods in relative comfort environment will remain extremely expensive. Once these facilities water needs do not have to be ferried from Earth, better recycling technology and the ability to create larger habitable spaces will allow tourists to not only get into space but stay there for a while and do things. Maybe even go for a space walk or two.

..and making things As researchers continue to discover a stream of useful goods that require a zero-G environment to produce, manufacturers cant get factories built in space fast enough. The development of larger working spaces will quickly lead to larger volumes of space based mass production. While getting materials up and finished goods down is still a problem, manufacturers do not require the expensive pressurised environments that are so important to the tourist industry as all the work is automated and controlled by the same AIs which have taken over most non-strategic decision making in terrestrial manufacturing. Some observers believe that its current extraordinary levels of growth will continue until zero-G production represents a major part of and eventually the major part of total global manufacturing. Whether you believe this depends on the extent to which you agree that this is desirable and your faith in emergent technologies. Right now, the only manufacturing processes in space are ones that require a zero-G environment. Eventually space based manufacturers are likely to find that there is a limit to the number of useful production processes will only work in a zero-G environment and therefor a limit to what it is useful to move into orbit. Some analysts argue that with the world economy and its ability to harness and manufacture resources growing at the apparently steady rate of 2.5% per year it will, at some point in the future, be necessary to move the bulk of Earths productive needs off planet. Environmentalists point out that now solar and fusion technology have largely brought to a close the era of large scale polluting energy production terrestrial manufacturing industry as the major source of environmental contamination. Many are already calling for the movement of polluting manufacturing off planet to become a long-term policy goal. Two developments could, over the next 100 years, begin the movement of nearly all nonagricultural production off planet - asteroid mining and space ladders. Asteroid mining is already well understood and already quite feasible. The international Asteroid Mapping Program (AMP) is close to having mapped of the location, size, orbit and rough chemical composition of every body more than ten meters across out to the orbit of Jupiter. The asteroid belt contains every element found on Earth and represents an enormous and accessible resource for space based activities. Once the legal framework is in place for allowing companies to collect material from the asteroid belt the existence of the AMP will allow more detailed studies to be completed and, shortly thereafter, resource gathering missions. These will use fleets of AI controlled robotic landers and (probably ion engine fitted) space freighters to bring material back to the

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Earth and Moon. This should eliminate the need to get raw materials off the Earth, provide an effectively limitless supply of water and easily refinable metals and mean that all future spacecraft production will take place in orbit. Space ladders, still more at home in science fiction books than on the drawing boards of engineers would (in theory) be super strong cables fixed to the equator and going up to a space station in geocentric orbit. Ironically, it will call for space manufactured super-strong carbon based nano materials to make them work, but when (and if) they become feasible they will precipitate a revolution in terms of what is and is not feasible to do in space. A working space ladder would reduce the cost of getting mass into orbit by at least 100 fold. The initial investment is, of course, enormous but Bukht Limited, an Indian engineering company, is looking to try out a prototype design in the next ten years. Watch this space.

From the Moon to Mars Initial efforts to put permanent bases on the Moon are largely complete. The new generation of domed ecosphere moon bases, capable of producing their own food are already coming on line and efforts to extract water from the Moons crust are reaching completion. In the future the Moon will act as a port for interplanetary travel and a base for increasing numbers of space tourists, but for the time being, the main reason for humans activity there so far, as a testing station, is complete. As with the original International Space Station (which came on line nearly 50 years ago) did with zero-G living, the moon bases have provided us with nearly all the data we have regarding the medical and physiological problems encountered by the crew of semipermanent extra-terrestrial bases. This data has been invaluable in planning what is rapidly becoming the focus for the government backed space programs - the establishment of a permanent human base on Mars. There are two overwhelming reasons that make Mars a great place for humans to live. The first is that its gravity similar to the Earths, which makes it possible to live there with minimal physiological problems. The second is its enormous exploitable resources, the most important of which is water. Effectively Mars is the only body in the solar system that could act as a second cradle for human civilisation. All the others are either too big, too small, or too hot. The robotic station is largely complete. Humans arrive to stay in the next few years and their first tasks will be to secure a water supply and begin food production. When this is done and the Earth-Mars-Earth freighters are in place to transport materials, the colonisation of the surface can proceed apace. There will, eventually, be working bases on Europa and other bodies that are found to be water rich, but it is unlikely that significant numbers of people will choose to live permanently anywhere other than the Earth or Mars for the foreseeable future. Indeed it is unlikely that any other body would be able to sustain large permanent populations. It is Mars that will be the first, most important step towards exploration of the solar system. To even go beyond Mars is going to require a completely new type of mission.

Onward and outward The next giant leap mankind will take into the cosmos will be the joint Chinese/Japanese project to land men on the surface of Europa in 2085. The distances involved are staggering, far further than from Earth to Mars and, consequently, the project managers are designing a

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whole new generation of interplanetary vehicle. The planned spacecraft will effectively be a travelling village in space, able to support astronauts for years, even decades. The trip to Europa will be an enormous logistical achievement in keeping with the first moon landings of the 1960s/70s and the first human Mars landings in the 2030s. As Stephen Hartley of the Devlin Planetary Engineering centre, part of Durham University, recently pointed out, if all the spacecraft in use today were canoes then the space craft taking men to Europa will be a galleon. This galleons maiden voyage will open up a new era of deep space flights into the solar system which is likely to last several hundred years.

Next - the stars? While one group of scientists and engineers begins the slow process of exploring our solar system, another group is looking even further afield to our suns nearest neighbours and their associated solar systems. Thanks to planet finding satellite arrays we already have a good idea of the size and chemical make up of the nearest extra-solar systems, but getting a probe physically inside one of these systems would provide scientists with a mountain of new data to go with their so far tantalising results. A succession of increasingly sophisticated extra solar system probes have already been launched to nearby stars. However, the return signals from even the first of those so far launched is centuries from returning any useful data to Earth. The introduction of reliable fusion engines should allow probes to be built that can get to the nearest stars within a matter of decades. A new breed of fusion powered very-long-range spacecraft are now being built that will be able to travel at appreciable fractions of the speed of light and be controlled by onboard AIs capable of reacting intelligently to whatever it is they find when they arrive at their target system. The first of these probes due for launch - NASAs Battuta should get to Proxima Centuri in under fifty years. If all goes well, fusion powered probes could be returning data from our nearest stellar neighbours shortly after the beginning of the next century.

Two worlds are better than one The last big question that will start to be seriously debated in the lifetime of people alive today will be whether it is feasible, or for that matter moral, to terraform (cause massive artificial environmental alteration) other planets with a view to making them habitable, or at least more habitable. Such an operation is, for the time being, academic - the logistics involved are orders of magnitude beyond any large project undertaken by mankind thus far. But as Simon Peace of the Gupta Institute, a think tank, summed up Once there is a scientific consensus that terraforming Mars is feasible and it is established beyond reasonable doubt that no form of native life exists there, the public pressure to begin the terraforming process is likely to be overwhelming

Conclusion Space technology moves on apace. The last 50 years has seen space change from being the preserve of a few government funded agencies, aerospace companies and scientists to a

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place exploited directly and indirectly by thousands of businesses and into which most ordinary people can reasonably expect to travel to if they wish. The coming century will see increasingly sophisticated space technology, the first significant permanent population movement off Earth and the beginning of mankinds exploration and exploitation of the solar system. One day soon we may all be going to the stars.

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