Chapter 13 Thoughts about Space Exploration.
“In my own view, the important achievement of Apollo was a demonstration that humanity is not forever chained to this planet, and our visions go rather further than that, and our opportunities are unlimited.” Neil Armstrong, press conference, 1999
It’s hard to describe the enthusiasm that I felt when I first saw images of man landing on the moon on a black and white TV in Canada. It just seemed like magic. It captured the imagination of the world, and it also played a part in stoking my interest in science and technology. NASA was king then.
Now NASA is in the doldrums. Public interest in space exploration has waned. Nothing is exciting people the way the prospect of putting a man on the moon did. The mission to Mars has all sorts of potential technical pitfalls. Overall, not a happy state for the space program.
I think it’s time to introduce a new plan to explore further into space. We should treat space exploration as a gradual infrastructure project that we build up. Rather than isolated events like landing a man on Mars or anything like that. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as the old saying goes.
I like comparing space exploration to the Interstate system in the United States. As much as we all complain about the Interstate highway system, it was a well-engineered project, especially considering when it was started. What we are trying to do now is to build a highway from coast to coast without any sort of incremental approach. We would be much better off dividing the job into smaller projects, funding them accordingly, and building enthusiasm amongst people for the infrastructure being built.
In hard economic times, it’s hard to whip up enthusiasm for any space projects. The first order of business, it seems to me, is to get people excited about space again. After that, eventually, funding will arrive for projects.
I think the secret to success for this is virtual reality technology. It’s amazing how far this has progressed over the past 20 years. NASA should put a space station up into space whose sole purpose is to allow any old Joe (like me say), to get a virtual reality feed into their living room. It would be even better if the existing space station could be outfitted to provide this service. That would be really cost effective. Naturally, you have to pay for something like this. Say $10,000 per day or something like that. That’s $3.65 million per year (at least, because you could do multiple feeds at once) and I don’t think you will have much trouble getting takers. Especially if you split it up into smaller denominations for a 3 hour period, for example.
Just imagine this. Like you can get NetFlix, Amazon or other video services, you have one that says ‘Space station Alpha One’. As soon as you pony up the dollars and you push the button, your living room turns into the inside of the space station and you get magnificent views of Earth. It could be just on your TV to start with, but to be really effective it should really turn a dedicated room with specially outfitted CCD cameras into a virtual space station. Anyone who got something like this setup in their homes would invite their neighbors over for a view of course. You would get to virtually manipulate controls (within reason, with supervision from astronauts/cosmonauts). Consequently, there’s a natural multiplying factor in terms of spreading the interest. I hear the rich already have virtual reality rooms for golfing and other activities in their mansions. This would be kind of a natural extension. You should be able to operate your seat in the space station and perform some simple maneuvers that have no impact on the functionality of the station. Perhaps like just a simple extension and retraction of a robot arm. It should be like you are there for 3 hours. I don’t think that’s beyond the reach of our current technology. The cost might be too high for the ordinary guy at the outset, but as the technology spread it would become cheaper.
This is sort of like travelling in space for the ordinary man. I’m not sure how expensive it would be to do something like this, but the ripple effect it would have for getting kids and others interested in space exploration would be enormous and could last generations. In the long run, something like this would make NASA an exciting place again to follow for everyone.
A venture like this is much cheaper than projects like building a base on the moon, or sending a man to Mars. And it would do way more to promote a general sense of enjoyment about space travel again. There’s a lot of technology here to develop, but I can’t believe it is more complex than sending a man to Mars, for example. And it would be better use of the developed technology, because it has immediate practical use for the general population. Technology like this would have great use in remote teaching of classes, or remote medical diagnoses.
Another result of a project like this is that you would raise enough interest and money to start projects like building a base on the moon. There you would repeat the successful formula. Have a “hotel on the moon” where you do virtual renting of the moon rooms. You could also have people participating in the building of the base itself, by virtually operating or viewing the operation of robots. Again, the technology has to be really good and leave people with the feeling that they were really on the moon watching or participating. Otherwise, no one will spend their money.
The final question is, can you scale this up to the rest of the solar system and create enthusiasm for broader space exploration? I think the answer is yes- instead of focusing on a single man landing on Mars, which has little broad public appeal at this time, focus your efforts on robotic builds of space stations in space and in orbit around the planets You could prototype the procedure by having robots build a space station near the moon base, say at a distance of around 500,000 miles away.. I think it is feasible if not now, in the very near future. Once again virtual reality technology could allow for the general public to be part of the project. Even if you can’t physically go, the virtual room rental would be a satisfying experience for you. And you can also physically rent out rooms to the public and send them out there to stay for prolonged periods of times. The ½ million mile distance is a range that is very similar to one that has been accomplished already. It’s important when you are building out infrastructure that you do it to appropriate scale. Trying to go from the moon (a distance in the range of 250,000 miles) and then attempting to send a person to Mars (a distance in the range of 37 million miles) seems like too big a leap. Gradually building out space stations between the two seems like a much more constructive and feasible approach, especially for manned space travel. Manned space travel has an extra premium on safety for obvious reasons. It seems like what we are trying to do is to build a cross country Interstate highway, with no way stations or rest stops in between. It probably makes more sense to take a gradual approach.
For the next phase of the infrastructure build out, you increase the scale and double or quadruple the distance. So the next space station/hotel would be located somewhere between 1 and 2 million miles from the moon. Each build out phase will result in a dramatic increase in knowledge of both the engineering involved and any potential issues from any other angle (such as feasibility for transporting people, biological reactions to prolonged space travel, etc.). Eventually, you will end up with a station around orbit in Mars, and you could have common interplanetary travel. By this time, the state of technical advances would be such that the next deployment could be directly to the orbits of all planets in our solar system.
At that point, shuttles could take you into the tropospheres of the planets, which is a much more feasible project than any landings. You would still capture much of the glory and beauty of outer space travel. Once done with the tour, you would come back and dock back with the space station. One must also remember that actual landings on the gas giants are not really feasible anyway. The hotel –in-orbit is a plan that will work for any planet. Sections of the space station should be reserved for scientific personnel so they can carry out research projects.
Note that the gradual build out satisfies everyone. Scientists will gain huge knowledge from experiments in space. Engineers, who love to build in phases, will see their desires met. The well to do, who can afford to be the first ones in space because of their superior affordability, will use their money and get out there. This will help NASA out financially. The ordinary person, who can’t afford to directly be part of the exploration (initially), will enjoy his/her virtual reality experience and develop enthusiasm for space projects. Eventually, economies of scale will take hold and interplanetary travel will become common place.
Schemes like this contribute to the financial wellbeing of NASA as well as space exploration in general. You may even get some private companies involved in plans of this nature, if they see potential for profit. At first only the extremely wealthy could afford actual travel to the moon and beyond, but with more use, economies of scale would make it more affordable for the regular guy as well. Also, the virtual reality creation plan would encourage ordinary people to take part. There are plenty of millionaires in the United States to prime the pump for the rest of us.
Discuss and enjoy!