Thursday, August 29, 2024, 9:00 pm to 10:15 pm EDT

The New World on Mars:
What We Can Create on the Red Planet

Register for this Space Forum

With:

Dr. Robert Zubrin
President, The Mars Society
Astronautical Engineer and Author
Founder, Pioneer Astronautics

Join us at the next National Space Society (NSS) Space Forum for an exclusive opportunity to dive into a bold, new vision for humanity on Mars. Hear from Dr. Robert Zubrin, one of the most influential voices in space settlement, as he presents insights from his new book, The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet. Dr. Zubrin, who revolutionized our thinking about Mars with his classic The Case for Mars, is back with a detailed and actionable plan for establishing a sustainable human presence on the Red Planet.

In this forum, Dr. Zubrin will lay out the technological breakthroughs, economic strategies, and political commitments required to turn the dream of Mars settlement into reality. Dr. Zubrin provides a compelling case for why Mars should be humanity’s next great adventure. From the first steps of reaching Mars to harnessing its resources and building thriving cities, he will explore the full scope of what it takes to create a new world. You’ll also learn about the incredible scientific discoveries and cultural innovations that could emerge from a Mars settlement—ushering in a new era of human civilization.

Dr. Zubrin, in making the case, will draw on his deep expertise and passion for space exploration as he offers this positive view for the long-term survival of humanity; suggesting a new frontier that could inspire innovation, drive economic growth, and safeguard the human race from potential global catastrophes.

Don’t miss this exciting and informative space forum that offers an inspiring and thought-provoking vision of expanding our human boundaries and settling Mars. Register for the space forum using the links in this message.

As a special bonus, the NSS has secured four copies of The New World on Mars. These books will be signed by Dr. Zubrin and will be given away as virtual door prizes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dr. Robert Zubrin is the President of the Mars Society and a veteran astronautical engineer. In 1996 he founded Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace R&D company he led for twenty-seven years, successfully executing more than seventy programs for NASA, the USAF, and the Department of Energy until selling the firm in 2023.

Prior to founding Pioneer Astronautics, Dr. Zubrin worked as a senior engineer at Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin, as well as in areas of nuclear power plant safety, radiation protection, and thermonuclear fusion research. He holds a master’s degree in Aeronautics and a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Washington.

Dr. Zubrin is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, a former Chair of the Executive Committee of the National Space Society and holds twenty patents. He is the author of more than two hundred published technical and non-technical papers in the field of space development and settlement, and twelve books, including the Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must, now in its 25^th anniversary edition; and the recently published The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet. He lives with is wife Hope, a retired science teacher, in Golden, Colorado.

Register today to reserve your seat and ask your questions. Use the link below.

Register for this Space Forum

Register no later than August 29 at 8 pm EST

Past NSS Space Forums and Town Halls may be viewed here.

The Grand Prize winning 7th grade project team consisted of (left to right) Misato Sobue, Darby Powell, Leo Shiina, Jinwon Lee, and Kara da Luz of the Saint Cecilia School and San Francisco Japanese School, San Francisco, California.

How Space NoɅ+ Was Born

By Leo Shiina, Team Leader, Space NoɅ+ Project (7th Grade small group entry)

“Space NoɅ+ is not a science fiction story. We believe in the future, but the real question is, do you?” As I thus finished my presentation, everyone in the crowd stood up and started cheering. We bowed and went off stage but were brought on stage again because the audience would not stop clapping.

We had just finished presenting our Space NoɅ+ project at the 2023 International Space Development Conference (ISDC). The concept is a space settlement that travels to an Earth-like planet at a time when Earth is no longer livable.

Leo Shiina, Team Leader of the Space NoɅ+ Project, meets with Jared Isaacman, the commander of both Inspiration4 (the first private spaceflight) and the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission, at the 2023 NSS International Space Development Conference. CREDIT: Daniel Fox/NSS.

Last year, we won First Prize in the category of the 7th Grade and Younger. This year, we won the Grand Prize. When I first heard the news, I was celebrating so loudly that my Apple Watch warned me that it was 103 dB and prolonged exposure to this noise can cause hearing loss. Last year, I studied the posters that I saw at the conference and noticed that many of the space stations were proposed at a Lagrange point, which is a balanced position between the gravitational forces of two bodies (in this case the Earth and the Moon). We decided to propose an original idea. In our scenario, humankind needed a space station to travel to another planet. We researched Earth-like planets that would be habitable for humans. Ross 128b was the most Earth-like, but the downside was its extraordinary distance from Earth of 11.02 light years. The ship would need to reach Ross 128b before the passengers went crazy from boredom or died of old age.

The fastest spacecraft that humankind has built is the Helios-2 which travels 70km per second. This would take 47,000 years to reach Ross 128b. To make the trip faster we designed an accelerated plasma propulsion engine that would travel at 1G for 60 days, then at a constant speed for 65 years, and deaccelerate on the last 60 days. Even though this engine is fast, the travel time is too long for the human lifespan. To manage this, we proposed artificial hibernation.

The 7th grade team with a model of their interstellar space settlement, Space NoɅ+.

I’ve been interested in artificial hibernation since last year’s Space NoɅ proposal. Our new proposal would take 65 years to get to Ross 128b, and artificial hibernation could slow down the aging process. Many people believe that humans cannot hibernate but that may not be the case. There was a report about a man who was stuck inside his car for 60 days in the mountains of Sweden without food or water. When he was rescued, doctors said the reason he survived that long was because he was in a hibernation state.

Dr. Genshiro Sunagawa is the world expert on artificial hibernation. He succeeded in stimulating Q-neurons in the brain of non-hibernating mice to induce hibernation. I wanted to ask him questions about his work but I doubted that a world expert would respond to my email. Then I remembered what Mike Mongo, an astronaut teacher whom I met at ISDC last year, said: “Don’t be afraid to ask. If they say no, you’ll still be where you are now. But if they say yes, you have just gained new knowledge.” To my surprise, Dr. Sunagawa replied that he was going to Chicago for a conference, so he could stop by San Francisco and meet with us. I was super excited to hear this news. From this I learned: never to be afraid to ask.

Dr. Sunagawa explained that animals that hibernate naturally like bears and marmots do so by lowering their body temperature. However, for humans this lowering temperature would cause major health risks. Last year, Dr. Sunagawa found a way to induce hibernation in mice without lowering their body temperature. This has led us one step closer to achieving our goal of using hibernation to help humans survive long trips.

During hibernation, the minimum necessary metabolism to maintain life is still functional. Waste is still produced, which would be dangerous on a 65-year-long journey. We had to think of a way to remove waste from the body while the passengers hibernated. Our first idea was to use artificial dialysis to clean the blood. We soon figured out that this was a very dangerous idea. Having a needle connected to a body for 65 years can be problematic. So, we proposed an intermittent hibernation system where the passengers will hibernate for 6 months which is short enough to avoid needing dialysis, then stop hibernating for 1 month to “rest” before returning to hibernation again. We believe that intermittent artificial hibernation can be used soon.

To solve the mental stress issue of living in a limited closed environment for 65 years we proposed a virtual reality room. The walls, floor, and ceiling are covered with LCD screens, which can display different sceneries with aromatherapy and spatialized audio to make it seem as if you are in the landscape. All furniture can be stored under the floor, with needed furniture only brought up when required. I got the idea from the “high floor” Farnsworth House designed by Mies van der Rohe, who famously said, “Less is More”. We thought using the same high-floor concept with unused furniture stored beneath the floor would be the ultimate example of “Less is More!”

While working on the NSS project I was happy that I could meet many people I admired. After I finished the oral presentation at ISDC I was already thinking about what to do next year. The NSS contest is now a part of my everyday life. With all these technological advances, what seemed like science fiction yesterday, could very well be reality tomorrow.

See the full Space NoɅ+ project entry.

A big thumbs up from the Grand Prize winning 7th grade project team consisting of (left to right) Darby Powell, Kara da Luz, Leo Shiina, Jinwon Lee, and Misato Sobue of the Saint Cecilia School and San Francisco Japanese School, San Francisco, California.

Photo by Christian B. Meza.

It is with condolences and appreciation for his past service to the National Space Society that we announce the passing of Mr. Mark Hopkins on Monday, May 8, 2023.

Anita Gale, NSS CEO, said, “Mark Hopkins has been a visible part of the space settlement movement from the very beginning. Much of what NSS is and does today is because Mark made it happen. As the torch is passed to a new generation of space settlement advocates, we will remember Mark’s many contributions.”

Hopkins was a long serving member of the National Space Society and one of the key founders from the organization’s early days as the L5 Society. He had a BS in Economics from the California Institute of Technology and an MA in economics from Harvard University. When not volunteering for NSS, he had a long career with the RAND Corporation, and provided economic analyses of space settlement for multiple studies including one that resulted in the publication of NASA SP-413, “Space Settlements: A Design Study” in 1977.

Lori Garver, former NSS Executive Director and former Deputy Administrator of NASA, said “Mark Hopkins was one of the early space pirates and among a handful of people who initially recognized the value of expanding the economic sphere beyond Earth and its atmosphere. As a leader in the L5 Society, he was instrumental in negotiating the merger with the National Space Institute, creating the National Space Society. Mark’s dedication to establishing a spacefaring civilization was unmatched and his determination advanced the day when this will become a reality.”

In 1975 Hopkins join the first Board of Directors of the L5 Society, a citizen group dedicated to making Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision of the human settlement of free space a reality. In 1987 he was part of the team that negotiated the merger of the L5 Society with the National Space Institute to form the National Space Society (NSS). He held many positions within the organization over the decades, including most recently CEO Emeritus. Hopkins was especially interested in using the political process to advance the cause of space settlement and founded Spacecause and Spacepac for this purpose. He was also active in the successful fight to prevent the United States from ratifying the so-called “Moon Treaty” which would have created obstacles to space development and settlement. Hopkins also traveled to India and China to discuss challenges facing global space powers.

NSS Board of Governors Chairman Karlton Johnson said, “Over the years, Mark shepherded an influx of donations to strengthen NSS’s educational programs and advocated for NSS priorities in Washington, D.C., as well as strengthening the society’s international ties in key strategic growth areas. His belief in space settlement has served as a cornerstone for NSS.”

More recently Hopkins initiated the NSS annual Space Settlement Summit, an invitation-only gathering focused on bringing together leaders in the field of space settlement. The sixth annual Summit is currently planned for October 27-28 in Phoenix Arizona under the co-chairmanship of Greg Autry and Zaheer Ali, both professors at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.

As NSS Secretary David Brandt-Erichsen commented, “It’s people like Mark Hopkins who will give humanity the stars.”

Those wishing to honor Mark Hopkins’ work with NSS may make a donation at go.nss.org/settlement-donate.

Who was Roy Scarfo? Ask any space aficionado this question, and you will probably get a blank stare. What a shame.

Luckily, a recently released documentary titled Beyond Tomorrow explores the life and work of Scarfo, who in 1957 began a 16-year career as the creative art director for General Electric’s Space Technology Center. Initially tasked with illustrating early American ballistic missiles, Scarfo’s artwork eventually depicted humans living and working in space.

One highlight of Scarfo’s career was his collaboration with engineer Dandridge Cole. This resulted in the 1965 book Beyond Tomorrow: The Next 50 Years in Space. In the book, the two men lay out a grand vision of a spacefaring civilization that, unfortunately, has never happened yet. Many futuristic ideas, such as a space settlement inside a hollowed-out asteroid, are illustrated by Scarfo. Despite the book being rare and long out of print, many NSS members will probably want to obtain a copy for their collection.

The documentary, named after the book, notes that Cole and Scarfo’s relationship wasn’t the first or last partnership between a space visionary and a space artist. It is pointed out that Wernher von Braun worked with artists such as Fred Freeman and Chesley Bonestell in the 1950s. Later on, Gerard O’Neill worked with artists like Don Davis and Rick Guidice. The Cole/Scarfo pairing is interesting in that it is the least well-known. Cole would die of a heart attack when he was only 44. Who knows what could have been? Roy Scarfo himself died in 2014 at 88 years old.

Beyond Tomorrow features several interviews with other space artists and Scarfo’s own family. During one interview, Don Davis talks about how he was inspired by seeing Scarfo’s work in Space World magazine. Hearing from his family is really special, as there is no shortage of interesting stories about his life. At one point, his widow is filmed at their home in July 2021. While standing near a Scarfo illustration of a space hotel, she mentions Sir Richard Branson’s then recent suborbital flight on July 11, 2021. Interestingly, she notes that Scarfo’s birthday was July 11. According to her, Roy Scarfo always said that no one was going to live in space until it went commercial.

The best part of watching Beyond Tomorrow is learning about a mostly forgotten space pioneer. It is always fascinating to hear about an individual’s contributions to space. This is especially true when such an individual, such as Scarfo, is not that well known, even to space buffs. Viewers will learn a lot in the 75-minute documentary. It would have been nice, however, if Beyond Tomorrow were perhaps a half-hour or so longer. Learning about Scarfo was so interesting that it would have been great to go into more detail. In any case, it was a nice documentary.

Another attraction of the film is that it’s a great introduction to space art. Viewers will want to learn more about this field. Even a half-century after the days of Cole and Scarfo, artists are still doing interesting things in the space industry. They do things such as illustrate future space transportation concepts, speculate what distant exoplanets look like, and design the colorful mission patches for new spaceflights. There is even an organization called the International Association of Astronomical Artists. A few astronauts, most notably Apollo 12’s Alan Bean, were artists. Furthermore, there is dearMoon, an upcoming mission that will send several artists on a flyby of the Moon. The human expansion into space will, like planet Earth, require talented individuals with a variety of occupations. Space will need artists.

Overall, watching this documentary was a fun experience, especially since Roy Scarfo’s art has many similarities to the NSS vision.

Do yourself a favor and go see Beyond Tomorrow (available on YouTube).

By Emily Carney

Apollo 9’s Russell “Rusty” Schweickart began the 1970s with a quest to figure out why he’d suffered from unwelcome bouts of space sickness aboard his March 1969 Earth orbital flight. After submitting himself to a series of taxing and frankly uncomfortable medical tests, he and NASA researchers couldn’t figure out what made him (or anyone else, as we now know space sickness occurs in about half of space travelers) more susceptible to the phenomenon than, say, fellow crew member Dave Scott. Schweickart thought (not incorrectly) that it probably would’ve helped him and other colleagues if Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman had been more forthcoming about his space sickness experiences. His tenacious research into space sickness was rewarded with…absolutely zilch, nothing, and nada, as he was not slated to be on the prime crew of any upcoming spaceflights.

But no matter. The redheaded Schweickart always had stood out among the NASA astronaut cadre as a truthteller and more of a “scientist” than an engineer/pilot, which wasn’t always appreciated. In Colin Burgess and Francis French’s book In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965 – 1969, he stated, “…One thing if you know me, whether it sits smoothly or not, you get the truth. I don’t play games. I’m a very straightforward person, and I probably see the world a bit more simply than it is. Other people sometimes see subtleties that I just overlook, but it isn’t my nature to play games.”

He knew his refusal to be blindly obedient didn’t always gain him supporters. He knew he was a bit of an outcast and a rebel among the crowd who sported crewcuts; by this point, he’d grown his hair out to a length some of his more conservative colleagues found unacceptable. There weren’t many – okay, real talk, there were zero – other Apollo-era astronauts who extolled the virtues of transcendental meditation and an interconnectedness with the Earth that Frank White would later christen the “overview effect.”

His views on, say, international diplomacy differed from those of his colleagues; when the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) was being established during the 1980s, he and fellow longhaired ex-astronaut Al Worden nearly came to blows over matters of world peace (the entire hysterical story is recounted in Worden’s memoir The Light of Earth, which you really should read). A 1974 New York Times article by Molly Ivins entitled “Ed Who?,” ostensibly about Skylab 4’s apple-pie-cheeked, definitely not hippie-ish science pilot Dr. Ed Gibson, left no stone unturned when it came to how “Red Rover” stood out compared to his fellow astronauts:

Rusty Schweickart has earned himself a reputation as a radical (everything’s relative—about half the male employees at the space center still wear crewcuts). A few years ago, the Pacifica radio station in Houston, a free‐wheeling, listener‐sponsored outlet that permitted all manner of hairy radicals and black militants to use its air time twice had its transmission tower blown up by the Ku Klux Klan. Schweickart came to the rescue, helping to raise money for the station, going on the air and being generally helpful. “He’s the closest thing there is to a freak astronaut,” said Larry Lee, former station manager at Pacifica Houston.

As the early 1970s progressed, his fellow Apollo 9 crew members Jim McDivitt and Dave Scott took expected roles in NASA management. McDivitt spent his silver fox years as the Apollo program manager until he retired in 1972; Scott was rewarded with the command of Apollo 15 and became the eventual chief of Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center, where he remained until his 1977 retirement. But Schweickart stayed true to form and forged more unorthodox paths during his 1970s career, starting with his criminally underrated Skylab work.

Skylab and Landsat

On May 14, 1973, the Skylab space station launched from Kennedy Space Center on the Apollo program’s final Saturn V but was in peril only a minute into its flight when it lost its micrometeoroid shield and, minutes later, SAS-2 solar panel; the station’s remaining solar panel was jammed by debris. Over ten days, NASA mobilized its efforts to save its first space station from scorching temperatures and power deficits. One of the figures at the forefront of this effort was Schweickart, who served as Skylab 2’s backup commander and was now mobilized to develop the extravehicular activity to free the stuck SAS-1 solar panel.

Utilizing tools procured from A.B. Chance, a company that made lineman-grade tools such as wire cutters, Schweickart and other astronauts (including Gibson and future “Buck Rogers” Bruce McCandless II) spent ample time devising contingency procedures and performing practice EVAs in Marshall Space Flight Center’s water tank located in Huntsville, Alabama. While a standup EVA performed by Skylab 2’s pilot Paul Weitz did not free up the stuck solar panel, a 3+ hour EVA performed by mission commander Charles “Pete” Conrad and science pilot Dr. Joseph Kerwin on June 7th ultimately did the trick – thanks to Schweickart’s research and development in the tank. If you’re reading this, you may be surprised Schweickart played such a massive role in Skylab’s revitalization and success because this story has never been publicized much. This is why he arguably hasn’t received much credit for this.

However, despite his success, he did not fly aboard any of the actual Skylab missions. He also viewed the Space Shuttle program as a non-starter for him (to be fair, many of the remaining Apollo astronauts at NASA viewed the Shuttle program with derision, including McDivitt and Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden, who titled a chapter of The Light of Earth “I Never Liked the Space Shuttle”). Schweickart, like McDivitt and Scott, decided to move into NASA management. In 1974, he was reassigned to NASA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., as Director of User Affairs in the Office of Applications. He put his passion for protecting the Earth’s environment to work in this role. Having copious experience in diving and Earth observations (after all, he’d viewed the Earth from a unique spot during Apollo 9), he soon became involved in utilizing satellite technology to explore the world’s seas.

During August 1975, he – along with a crew consisting of oceanography legend Jacques Cousteau and President Gerald Ford’s son – conducted dives and research in concert with Landsat data. According to a NASA Landsat article written by Laura E.P. Rocchio, “For days, the [research vessel] Calypso played leap frog with the Landsat 1 and 2 satellites in the waters between the Bahamas and Florida, sailing 90 nautical miles each night to be in position for the morning overpass of the satellite. Ultimately, research done on the trip determined that in clear waters, with a bright seafloor, depths up to 22 meters (72 feet) could be measured by Landsat. This revelation gave birth to the field of satellite-derived bathymetry and enabled charts in clear water areas around the world to be revised, helping sailing vessels and deep-drafted supertankers avoid running aground on hazardous shoals or seamounts.”

The photos from this expedition also show Schweickart in his mid-1970s sartorial prime, with a mass of wild wavy hair that rivals Judy Resnik’s. More seriously, fellow diver and NASA’s then-Deputy Administrator George Low was also a big supporter of this project; in 1976, Low enthused, “It was a tremendous example of how modern tools of scientists can be put together to get a better understanding of this globe we live on.” This project arguably influenced other oceanography-facing satellite programs, such as JPL’s Seasat, which utilized synthetic aperture radar to make topographic maps of ocean floors, among other tasks.

Politics and Persuasion

During the decade, Schweickart also emerged as an early champion of Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill’s space settlement vision, which was also supported by fellow MIT graduate and Apollo astronaut Dr. Philip K. Chapman. A 1981 Christian Science Monitor profile sums up Schweickart’s thoughts regarding homesteading space: “For Schweickart, going into space is more than an opportunity to find a better dump to dispose of our garbage and a cheaper way to mine energy. He agrees with Freeman Dyson, the physicist and visionary thinker at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, that the world has a spiritual need for an open frontier and that the ultimate purpose of space travel is expansion of the spirit. ‘What expands our spirit is a larger vision and new horizons,’ Schweickart says.”

In a 2021 interview with this author, Schweickart recounted, “I thought the space colony concept was a pretty fantastic out-of-the-box (and into-the-cylinder!) idea. Far out, but with advanced technology, and a good bit more time than Gerry [O’Neill] allocated, a remote but possible future…Gerry was great! Very smart, very gregarious. Soft-spoken and thoughtful. He had no real illusions [about] the challenge of the concept, but felt that ultimately the technical challenges could be solved, and the concept needed championing, or it would never happen. So he risked his reputation to back a truly imaginative concept to open up the system…from the pragmatic point of view, foolish perhaps. But I don’t think he ever regretted his decision to go for it.”

By 1978, Schweickart had cut his long hair, tucked his t-shirts and flared jeans neatly into his dresser drawer, put on a business suit, and began the next phase of his career – this time in politics. He had been appointed as California governor Jerry Brown’s assistant in science and technology, focusing particularly on securing funding ($5.8 million specifically) for the Syncom IV communications satellite that the January 28, 1978 issue of The Fresno Bee optimistically described as being prepped to “launched with the Space Shuttle in 1980.” The article began with a rather hilarious description of the then 42-year-old Schweickart: “With an average build, lean features and thinning reddish hair, Rusty Schweickart doesn’t look like your basic $6 Million Man.” The newspaper went on to describe him as the “$5.8 Million Man,” a pun based on the ubiquitous television drama starring faux-stronaut Lee Majors (“A man barely alive…”). A March 19, 1978 profile of Schweickart in the Asbury Park Press featured an interview with his mother, Muriel, who mused with some relief, “We’ve always said he was a non-conformist. For instance, when everybody had their hair long he had it short. When they had theirs short, he wore it long. At least now it’s short again.”

All motherly concern over his hair length aside, Schweickart continued his political ascent, serving as chairman of the California Energy Commission under Governor Brown. Since the 1970s, Schweickart helped establish the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) and co-founded the B612 Foundation, an organization dedicated to planetary protection and asteroid mitigation. Again, when the foundation was established in 2002, the idea of redirecting an asteroid was something out of the movies Deep Impact and Armageddon – fun entertainment, looked cool in CGI graphics, but nothing rooted in real life; Schweickart’s vision, as usual, seemed fanciful. Fast forward to 2022, and NASA’s DART Mission proved that impacting an asteroid with a spacecraft could effectively alter its orbit – and thus prevent it from colliding with nearby objects such as planets.

Though they nearly got into fisticuffs over, yes, world peace, even self-described “old curmudgeon” Al Worden admitted he deeply admired NASA’s rebel with many causes. In The Light of Earth, Worden wrote:

I have to admit that he’s doing some of the most important work any astronaut has done after their space career was over. I admire him for this and thank him.

What if, one hundred years from now, a huge asteroid headed directly for Earth is deflected and humanity is saved – including my own descendants – as a direct result of Rusty’s tireless efforts?

This old curmudgeon is going to look pretty foolish for ever doubting him, isn’t he?

*****

Top photo: Astronaut Russell L. “Rusty” Schweickart in 1971. NASA photo.

A version of this article was published on Medium. 

Emily Carney is a writer, space enthusiast, and creator of the This Space Available space blog, published since 2010. In January 2019, Emily’s This Space Available blog was incorporated into the National Space Society’s blog. The content of Emily’s blog can be accessed via the This Space Available blog category.

Note: The views expressed in This Space Available are those of the author and should not be considered as representing the positions or views of the National Space Society.

Most NSS members take it for granted that the term “space development” is widely understood. After all, we have been running the International Space Development Conference since 1982, so it has to be well understood, right? Sadly, this is not the case. A team of NSS space experts recently participated in a NASA organized workshop aimed at providing “outside” input to the Artemis program. Much to their surprise, the NSS team found itself having to explain what they meant when they said “space development!”

NSS advocates for space “exploration, development, and settlement.”  My blog post defining space settlement appears here. “Exploration” is what NASA thinks of itself as doing, including going places for the first time, discovering new scientific knowledge, and furthering our understanding of the universe. What then might “space development” be?

The most relevant dictionary definition defines “development” as the “act or process of developing; growth; progress.” When the word “space” is added in front it is easy to see how confusion may exist. The confusion only grows when taking a look at the wiki article on “Development” where it can be seen that the term is used in an extremely large number of different contexts. This blog post is only concerned with how space advocates use the term “space development,” and not what use some other community may make of the term.

Generally, when “space development” is mentioned by space advocates it almost always refers to “space economic development.” Legal issues arising from or related to space development are covered under “space governance” or “space law.” It is also worth noting that when we refer to “property development” on the Earth, this does not involve the form of government under which the property is managed nor the culture of those who live in the property to be developed.

In some cases when space advocates refer to “space development” they have in the mind the definition of “sustainable development” used by the United Nations. This definition includes economic development but adds a variety of additional considerations such as social development and environmental protection. The topic of “space sustainability,” which logically includes “sustainable space development” is a substantial matter in its own right that I plan to address in a future blog post.

With the above in mind when NSS or the Alliance for Space Development refers to space development it includes the construction of reusable infrastructure in space, the use of space as a location to create economic value, the manufacture of products in space, the provision of services to the Earth, and the extraction of resources from objects in space. Examples of each of these include:

1. Inspiration4, Axiom 1 [use of space to create economic value, in this case via tourism]
2. Redwire crystal sales [manufacture of products in space]
3. GPS, weather satellites, comsats [provision of services to the Earth]
4. MOXIE on Mars [extraction of resources, in this case oxygen from the atmosphere]
5. The International Space Station, Lunar Gateway [reusable infrastructure]

The first three areas relate to the creation of economic value in space, which in turn enables more space development and eventually the development of self-sustaining human communities in space. The use of space resources in space is a fundamental enabler for large scale space development and the vision of humans working and living throughout the solar system. Finally, infrastructure in space creates capabilities at various locations in space on which further space development can build in an economically sustainable fashion. Put another way, with infrastructure in space every new activity no longer requires a trip back to the Earth to get needed parts and supplies, nor does it require the expending of a specially constructed vehicle.

Space development also includes scientific and technological efforts that enable the economic development of space. As an example, the reusable first stage and fairings of the Falcon 9 have made a major contribution to space development by lowering the cost of getting to space by about 10x and by providing more frequent access to—and from—space. Starship/SuperHeavy promises a further 10x reduction in the cost of getting to space when fully operational.

Certain kinds of exploration are strong space development enablers. Virtually all asteroid exploration, including Lucy, Psyche, OSIRIS-Rex, Hayabusa I and II, and Dawn provide valuable information that is foundational to future asteroid mining. Although NEOSM is mainly for planetary defense, the same near-Earth asteroids that are potentially dangerous may also be good mining targets. The same is true of lunar probes like VIPER and Mars probes like the Ice Mapper that create geological surveys and establish the ground truth of mineral resources.

There is, however, a key enabling element required for space development, namely that the economic development of space be sustainable from an environmental viewpoint. Environmental concerns in space are sufficiently different from those on the Earth that new terminology may be required. Because there is no “ecosystem” as it exists on the Earth, space advocates sometimes talk as though no space environmental issues exist, which is not the case. This is a largish topic I will leave for a future blog post, but I note that space debris in Earth orbit is an issue that requires immediate action before it becomes a barrier to space development. NSS has been active on this issue as can be seen in the following NSS position papers: Comment on Orbital Debris Research and Development Plan, Space Debris Removal, Salvage, and Use: Maritime Lessons, and Orbital Debris: Overcoming Challenges. Space debris is tricky to manage from many angles, but from a space development perspective methods of minimizing risks without impeding innovation and business operations are essential. It is easy to imagine a heavy regulatory regime that in the name of controlling space debris effectively banned space development.

A strong legal foundation is also essential to space development. Unfortunately, the fundamental “law of space,” the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), pays scant attention to commercial activity in space. The later Moon Agreement (often referred to as the “Moon Treaty”) raises even greater concerns. It should be noted that NSS, and its predecessor organization the L5 Society, have a long history of opposing the Moon Agreement. These efforts reached a kind of culmination in an April 6, 2020 Executive Order, which stated among other things “the United States does not consider the Moon Agreement to be an effective or necessary instrument to guide nation states regarding the promotion of commercial participation in the long-term exploration, scientific discovery, and use of the Moon, Mars, or other celestial bodies.” The recent U.S. led Artemis Accords (now with 21 signatories) seek to build support for the extraction of resources in space along with associated notification zones, and the ownership of the resources so extracted based on the OST, rather than the much less supported Moon Agreement. We stand at the beginning of the true age of space, and the fight has just begun to secure the right of future space settlers to the kind of economic freedoms we enjoy on the Earth in many countries.

A key idea driving the NSS strategy is that space development enables and drives the establishment of space settlements. In other words, if we advocate for the economic development of space, that will over time create the conditions under which communities in space can be created in a sustainable fashion rather than as a giant public works effort.

NSS works through the Alliance for Space Development to advance an annual set of objectives. The objectives for 2022 include:

1. Support planetary defense by continued funding of NASA’s NEO Surveyor Mission (NEOSM) and other planetary defense initiatives.
2. Support commercial LEO Development by fully funding NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) Program.
3. Support the development of Space Solar Power capabilities through multiple programs between the Departments of Commerce and Defense.

Although NEOSM aims to protect the Earth and all of humanity from dangerous asteroids, finding the locations of nearby asteroids and learning about their composition strongly enables eventual asteroid mining. The Commercial LEO Destinations Program plans to replace the ISS with a network of commercial stations that are less expensive to operate, enabling the growth of a self-sustaining LEO economy including materials manufacturing, tourism, movie production, and the provision of services to support NASA programs. Finally, space solar power beamed back to the Earth promises clean energy and the resolution of the current climate crisis.

None of these three objectives mentioned directly calls for the construction of space settlements [note that the ISS/CLD are bases or outposts], but each one brings closer the day when humans will be working, living and thriving in communities throughout the solar system.

On a concluding note, the current state of space development is routinely exaggerated by those who fear the long-term consequences of humanity’s expansion into space, as well as overly-optimistic space advocates. In fact, we are at the very beginning of space development, and it is far from clear that the current “boom” will continue. After having experienced decades of stagnation in space, SpaceX launching 6 times in a month feels like the future has arrived. Sadly, it has not. To put things in perspective, Newark Airport in New Jersey has 1,100 flights PER DAY. 2021 was an all-time record for orbital launches—133 vehicles reached orbit. If the global orbital launch rate increased by three orders of magnitude—1,000x—this would be much less than the economic activity deriving from a single major airport.

© 2022 Dale Skran

The deadline for submissions is midnight, Pacific Time, on September 1, 2022.

Dr. Rothblatt has been a pioneer in satellite communications, founding the Sirius XM radio network in 1990. She later became the chairwoman and CEO of United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company devoted to prolonging human life. Her trailblazing work in organ replacement has saved countless lives and will be a key technology in creating sustainable communities in space. Her vision for space settlement is vast, encompassing the next century of human migration into space.

“Dr. Rothblatt’s vision for space settlement explores every facet of our ultimate journey beyond Earth,” said Michelle Hanlon, the president of the National Space Society. “She foresees not just the migration of human beings to off-Earth habitats, but the preservation of individual human identities via digital ‘mindfiles’ that can be integrated into new bodies. This kind of thinking really pushes the boundaries of human creativity and innovation. We are confident that her Space Settlement in our Lifetime Business Plan Competition will continue to push the same boundaries.”

For this second competition for 2022, winners will be announced at the Society’s annual Space Settlement Summit in Los Angeles on November 10-11, 2022. One representative from each winning team will have their travel expenses covered to attend the conference, and each finalist will receive a cash award.

The Space Settlement in our Lifetime competition is open to anyone, of any age, anywhere (local laws and restrictions may apply). Entrants must create a compelling business plan that will help to enable some aspect or increment of space settlement. See more at spacebizplan.nss.org where informative video presentations by Dr. Rothblatt can be viewed. All business plan submissions should be made in PDF format.

“We hope to see some remarkable new business plans as we have in her previous competition,” said Rod Pyle, Editor-in-Chief of Ad Astra magazine, the NSS official publication. “Dr. Rothblatt is a true visionary, and her concepts for the future of humanity are truly inspiring. This competition, now in its third iteration, fills me with a sense of hope for our future in space. Thanks again to her for supporting this endeavor, and I encourage anyone with a profound idea for a business that will, in some way, support the future of human communities in space to enter the competition.”

Image: Large space communities of the future will need a variety of businesses to support them. Credit: Alexander Preuss.

By Dale Skran
Image from the program on Discovery+ with red graphic added

There is an old cliché that new ideas go through three stages: (a) first they laugh, (b) then they fight, and (c) eventually those who laughed at the new idea and then fought against it claim it as their own. For a long time, space settlement has been in the “laughter” stage—simply not taken seriously by more than a small community of advocates. We are now moving into the “fight” stage, and Rudolph Herzog’s documentary LAST EXIT: SPACE is the latest volley against space settlement. Narrated by Werner Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God and many other films and documentaries), LAST EXIT is slick and even beautiful, shining a light on unfamiliar individuals and incidents. However, let there be no doubt—the Herzogs are producing propaganda with no respect for truth.

The main “trick” Herzog uses to mock the idea of space settlement is to show a series of vignettes of ascending craziness level, concluding with a look at a cult that believes they are descendants of aliens from the star Capella. This last segment betrays the rotten core of LAST EXIT, which is to portray space settlement advocates as loony-bin inhabitants suffering from moral and mental decay. The “Capellans” are clearly deluded, and have nothing to do with any kind of serious discussion of space settlement. They are included to create a kind of “insanity by association” impact on the viewer.

Another “trick” Herzog employs is to lay out a problem facing space settlement, present an appealing solution, and then demolish that solution with as big a hammer as he can find. This creates the impression that the idea of space settlement is being thoroughly demolished, when in reality Herzog has created a “fish in the barrel” exercise that ignores all the other possible solutions, and in most cases uses false/or misleading arguments as the “hammer.” It is not surprising that LAST EXIT: SPACE is appearing only on the “Discovery+” streaming channel, which despite some excellent programming also includes a number of pseudoscientific “reality” shows.

The third “trick” rolled out is to spend only a short part of the documentary on serious, short term, and relatively plausible plans for building a city on Mars, while most of screen time is devoted to interstellar colonization, something far more difficult. Herzog’s attack on anti-matter starships is similar to a writer in ancient Egypt complaining that chariots will never travel faster than a horse can pull them, and will thus not support long journeys. The statement is true, but wildly premature. It’s actually worse than that, since Herzog spends a lot of screen time explaining how CERN is a very inefficient anti-matter factory that cannot plausibly produce the anti-matter needed for an interstellar journey before the end of the universe, without mentioning that no serious advocate of anti-matter rockets suggests using CERN to produce anti-matter since [drum roll] CERN is not designed to produce large amounts of anti-matter.

A related “trick” is to treat the possibility of interstellar colonization as something being advocated in the near term, when in fact it is a project for a future solar-system-wide civilization as advanced beyond our current capabilities as we are beyond ancient Egypt. In this future—which is 100s if not 1000s of years away, anti-matter might be produced by automated factories orbiting the sun inside the orbit of Mercury. The anti-matter starships, generation ships, and hibernation technology Herzog looks at only to demolish will have been advanced far beyond the faltering baby-steps he presents only to mock. But these three ideas are only a few of the possibilities, and only one of them needs to work.  But the most fundamental error Herzog makes is that by skipping over the “settle the solar system” part he creates a “fish in the barrel” exercise. He is absolutely correct—our current capabilities are not up to interstellar colonization. This is why interstellar colonies are Step #30 on the NSS Roadmap to Space Settlement and not Step #2. He is, in effect, arguing that ancient Egypt can’t build a Moon rocket.

There are some further tricks employed in LAST EXIT: SPACE. In particular, rhetorical ad hominem attacks on space settlement abound. Various speakers attack a “straw man” conception of space settlement with terms like “exploitation” and “locusts” to suggest that space settlement is inherently destructive.  In a particularly egregious attack, it is suggested that Elon Musk will turn Mars into a slave colony while he stays on Earth, using his control of oxygen and food supplies to enforce long working hours on his Martian employees. Given that U.S. law will control working conditions in any Martian city Musk builds, and Musk remains on Earth, subject to U.S. law, this dystopian vision is revealed to simply be propaganda.  Similar suggestions are made with regard to Bezos, i.e., that the space colonies he constructs will resemble Amazon warehouses. This seems unlikely, but regardless, they will be subject to U.S. law all the same for decades and even centuries to come.

LAST EXIT: SPACE is stuffed with factual errors and dubious declarations. Anti-matter rockets are presented as being unrealistically useful in enabling interstellar travel. Marshall T. Savage, author of The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps [1994], is described as “…the world’s most fervent prophet of space colonization” which is at best misleading. There are many candidates for this title, but Savage wouldn’t make my top ten list. I am fairly sure footage from the movie Gravity was borrowed to dramatize a Mir accident. And so on.

Another running theme is the cramped, uncomfortable, and dangerous nature of space travel. This is returned to over and over again in different contexts, as though it was being proposed that Martian settlers would live in an Apollo capsule on Mars. Yes, it is true that if you stuff small groups in tiny cans, problems result. Putting one woman and seven men in a can for 90 days leads to problems. Shocking, simply shocking!!  If a settlement is to be at all successful, the “cramped quarters” stage is going to be short-lived. Also, there is an enormous difference between designing a home in space, designing a scientific camp, and designing a spartan spaceship. One thing I thought was particularly funny was Herzog’s focus on settlers drinking “recycled urine,” as though the water on Earth has not passed through an endless number of urinary tracts over the last billion years or so.

Lastly, there is no mention of Gerard K. O’Neill and free-space settlements in LAST EXIT: SPACE. Given O’Neill’s vast influence, this is a curious omission. It is unclear if free-space settlements were skipped since Herzog did not take them seriously, or because he found that he could not easily demolish the idea with a potted story.

The participation of the father and son Herzog team in this project should not be a surprise. Werner Herzog’s films often focus on how human ambitions lead to disaster, as for example, in Aguirre, the Wrath of God. His is a deeply pessimistic view of human potentiality, so this attack on space settlement is par for the course.

A final thought with regard to why the Herzogs are so focused on interstellar colonization:  they have a fear that excitement about exo-planets will lead to a growing mass interest in space settlement. When the images of the real Mars and Venus came back from early space probes in the 1960s, a lot of wind went out of the sails of the space movement. This excitement was to a large degree restored by O’Neill’s vision of free-space settlements with Earth-like conditions, but a bleak Mars and a hellish Venus are still downers. More recently advanced space telescopes have revealed about 4,000 “exo-planets” around others stars, and perhaps a dozen that might be described as “Earth-like.” These numbers are clearly just a start, and public interest in “other Earths” around distant suns is building. The Herzogs appear to have decided to push back this growing wave of interest by attempting to show that interstellar colonization is impossible.

The good news is that space settlement has come far enough that the Herzogs felt the need to spend a lot of money making it look silly/bad. That’s real progress. Although LAST EXIT: SPACE was interesting viewing for me, please don’t rush out to watch it. The less attention it gets the better.

©2022 Dale Skran

The National Space Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Martine Rothblatt has renewed her challenge to the space community to develop compelling business plans to enable space settlement in our lifetimes. The annual Rothblatt Space Settlement in Our Lifetime competition consists of three awards of $16,000, $10,000, and $6,000 USD for the best business plans that reflect Dr. Rothblatt’s vision for space settlement.

Dr. Rothblatt has been a pioneer in satellite communications, founding the Sirius XM radio network in 1990. She later became the chairwoman and CEO of United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company devoted to prolonging human life. Her trailblazing work in organ replacement has saved countless lives and will be a key technology in creating sustainable communities in space. Her vision for space settlement is vast, encompassing the next century of human migration into space.

“Dr. Rothblatt’s vision for space settlement explores every facet of our ultimate journey beyond Earth,” said Michelle Hanlon, the president of the National Space Society. “She foresees not just the migration of human beings to free-floating space habitats, but the preservation of individual human identities via digital ‘mindfiles’ that can be integrated into new bodies. This kind of thinking really pushes the boundaries of human creativity and innovation. We are confident that her Space Settlement in our Lifetime business plan competition will continue to push the same boundaries.”

The first Rothblatt business plan competition selected three prize winners at the NSS’s Space Settlement Summit in Beverly Hills, California in November 2021. For 2022, winners will be announced at the society’s annual International Space Development Conference in Arlington, Virginia which runs from May 27-29. One representative from each winning team will have their travel expenses covered to attend the conference.

The Space Settlement in our Lifetime competition is open to anyone, of any age, anywhere on Earth (local laws and restrictions may apply). Those wishing to enter must create a compelling business plan that will help to enable some aspect or increment of space settlement. See more at spacebizplan.nss.org. Two informative presentations by Dr. Rothblatt can be viewed there. The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2022. All business plan submissions should be made in PDF format.

“We hope to see some remarkable new business plans, just as we did in 2021,” said Rod Pyle, Editor-in-Chief of Ad Astra magazine, NSS’s official publication. “Martine is an incredible person—one of a small number I can call a true visionary—and her concepts for the future of humanity are truly inspiring. Writing about competition for Ad Astra each year fills me with a sense of hope for our future in space. Thanks again to Martine for supporting this endeavor, and I encourage anyone with a profound idea for a business that will, in some way, support the future of human communities in space to enter the competition!”

You don’t have to hang around the space movement for very long before you hear the story of how Gerard O’Neill’s thoughts about space colonies became the catalyst for the first post-Apollo space generation’s aspirational efforts to get humanity off Earth in a big way. Many familiar faces among the NewSpace entrepreneurs, including Jeff Bezos, were O’Neill acolytes in their younger days; some of them still humorously refer to themselves as “Gerry’s Kids.” But there’s much more to O’Neill’s story than the part space nerds are familiar with. His story is, from start to finish, the story of an exceptional mind merged with a sanguine personality, living an exceptional life.

O’Neill learned about service and contribution to society from a young age, growing up the only child of a badly wounded World War I veteran and a mother who volunteered as a nurse in that war (his parents met on a troopship heading home after the war). His father was a prominent lawyer in New York state who led a task force prosecuting racketeering, and who helped draft several amendments to the state constitution. Meeting prominent reform-minded politicians like Governor Al Smith influenced young Gerard to look for ways to make the world better. His contributions to that end wouldn’t be in politics, however. After serving in the Navy at the tail end of World War II, he came home and went to school to become a physicist. He made a great contribution to experimental physics with his revolutionary design for a storage ring synchrotron, which allowed electrons to reach much higher energies before colliding with each other and shattering into their component subatomic particles. Other physicists earned Nobel Prizes using his invention, but there was no Nobel for him. He applied for NASA’s first class of scientist astronauts, but didn’t make the final cut.

His road to fame lay elsewhere, and it began with a question he posed to his undergraduate physics seminar students at Princeton in 1969: “Is the surface of a planet the right place for an expanding technological civilization?” As he and his students explored the question together, they came to an unexpected conclusion. It would be much easier and faster to expand civilization in free space; outside of the gravity wells of planets, large (very large) habitats could be built with lunar and asteroidal material and virtually limitless solar energy. The idea gained urgency in his mind after his encounter with the infamous book Limits to Growth. The authors of that book had concluded that civilization here on Earth was doomed within a few more generations at most, after increasing population used up all the natural resources of our planet. O’Neill’s space colonies offered a way to sidestep doomsday: forget about using Earth’s resources. Move out into the solar system and use its resources instead. Forget about endless dictatorships of impoverished masses. Create limitless variations on human freedom in space instead.

For the remainder of his life, O’Neill pursued this vision with a calm patience. For the first decade he tried to persuade the federal government to fund the first colony as a large government program, but eventually he came to the conclusion that the job would have to be done with private capital. As a means to raise that capital he founded Geostar, which would have offered a GPS service before GPS was even thought of. On the verge of success, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He lasted seven years after this fatal announcement, much longer than anyone expected him to live. Here is where his natural nobility of spirit moved into the realm of heroism. In his twilight years, despite many hospital stays and ever-closer brushes with death, he never stopped fighting to live a good life with his family and do whatever work he could still manage to. Geostar did not survive him. His vision will remain for centuries to come.

Sometimes, when a movement looks back on its founding heroes, it finds they were less than their public image. How grateful the space movement must be to Dylan Taylor and John Desimone for showing us, in this biography, that one of our heroes is not only as good as his image, but much greater.

© 2022 Clifford R. McMurray

Please use the NSS Amazon Link for all your book and other purchases. It helps NSS and does not cost you a cent! Bookmark this link for ALL your Amazon shopping!

NSS index of over 400 book reviews