SUMMER 2019 | INNOVATION & TECH TODAY 75
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zone NASA“How we get at the water, or any other
resource, is going to be critical to that planet’s
sustainability of us moving forward,” author
Antonia Juhasz, a consultant on NatGeo’s Mars
series, said. “On Earth, we’ve extracted,
polluted, and killed to the point where, even
now, the planet cannot sustain most of us in a
healthy manner. That’s only happened in the last
150 years of industrialization. Before that, we
have thousands of years of living in harmony
with our planet; we know how to do it. We can
carry that part forward. If we learn that lesson,
then we can live on Mars for a very long time –
and hopefully, become more sustainable on
Earth as well so we maintain and protect this
planet.”
As we move ahead, it’s time to stop looking at
space travel as a NASA or American launch, or a
Russian launch, or a Chinese launch. We’re
more than NASA now. On any given launch,
products and materials from upwards of a dozen
nations are on the trip. Furthermore,
commercial space plans are developing just as
quickly as NASA’s. It’s time to view our push
forward to the moon, and Mars, and our near-
earth orbit and deep space efforts as a fleet of
missions, built around the driving forces of
exploration, discovery, technology
development, and our furtherance as a species.
Besides Space X, Blue Origin, and Virgin
Galactic, new companies making big moves
include:- Space IL, Israel (lunar rover deployment);
- Axiom, USA (space station to replace ISS
when it retires in the 2020s; for astronauts,
space tourists, and in-orbit research; missions
tentatively scheduled to start in late 2019); - SpacePharma, USA (production of bacteria
for help with Earth-borne diseases); - The Cohu Experience and Space Nation,
Finland (open competition to send a space
tourist to the ISS to conduct experiments); - Deep Space Industries, USA, partnering with
Luxembourg (mining asteroids for metallic
resources, water, and ice for potential way-
station refuels on future Mars missions); - Bigelow Aerospace, USA (constructing
portable habitats for astronauts. “We believe
crews traveling to the moon, Mars, asteroids, or
other destinations could use them as habitable
structures or as labs or work areas,” said NASA
Project Manager Rajib Dasgupta.); - Vulcan Aerospace, USA (Orbital launches
that rely on high-atmosphere planes to develop
small payloads into Earth orbit; founded by the
late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen); - Odyne Space, USA (Getting nanosatellites
into space cheaper by working on more efficient
rockets for smaller amounts of cargo); - Rocket Lab, New Zealand (creation of a
launch vehicle designed for manufacture at
scale; its first rocket, launched in 2015, cost just
$4.9 million); - Ixion, USA (working with NanoRacks,
Space Systems Loral, and the United Launch
Alliance to convert upper stages of rockets
(which have considerable hollow interior space)
into long-term habitable environments for Earth
orbit, the moon, or even Mars); - Firefly Space, USA (light rocket design for
nanosatellite payloads of as many as 100 small
satellites per mission).
Within these and many other initiatives, the
Apollo and Gemini astronauts still alive can
enjoy their legacies stretching on new wings.
From Aldrin’s Mars fascination to Shepard’s
focus on Earth sciences and the environment,
from Cernan’s angst over no more manned
exploration to Conrad’s determination to press
the technology forward, we’re seeing their
visions, views, and hopes come to pass.
“I think it’s really important for a society to
have optimism and to see a future for itself and
be a player in its own destiny. Exploring space is
such a perfect metaphor for that,” said Casey
Dreier of The Planetary Society. “You have to
create new technologies and processes from
scratch. You have to work together with other
people, internationally. You’re doing it for
curiosity, science, maybe extending human
presence different than what we’ve done in the
past. We have to take care of ourselves – and the
act of exploring space will bring that benefit to
us. If we can get ourselves together and organize
ourselves properly, I feel we will see this in our
lifetime.”
What an exciting next 50 years it’s going to be. Q
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article also references and
pulls from One Giant Leap for Mankind, edited
and compiled by Robert Yehling , which NASA
commissioned in 1993 as its 25th anniversary
commemorative publication for Apollo 11.
Photo: Blue Origin