Mission to Mars Read online

  The “experiences” goal of ShareSpace is to create a prize mechanism (such as a sweepstakes, raffle, or television game show) that will offer people who win actual trips into space, along with other space-related awards. There’s need to establish the legal framework for a prize-based program for zero gravity flights, suborbital flights, and a flight to the International Space Station. In conjunction with such efforts, the experiences part of ShareSpace is to share information and resources to prepare and educate the public about travel and tourism in space.

  Education of America’s youth in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is critical to our future. The “education” goal of ShareSpace is to share the wonders of space with students in kindergarten through 12th grade in ways that will motivate their interest in STEM subjects. In this regard ShareSpace welcomes partnering with the educational arms of organizations such as the National Science Teachers Association, NASA, and other education organizations. Ideally, these relationships can develop programs that will fortify and advance space-inspired studies. In addition to specific program initiatives, the Education section of the ShareSpace website will provide a useful clearinghouse of space and science educational resources for teachers and students.

  I truly believe that, by popularizing the experiences available in the emerging space travel and tourism industry as part of a program to award actual suborbital and orbital trips into space as prizes, ShareSpace can broaden involvement in spaceflights. Obviously, when you jump from suborbital to orbital, you would increase the cost of the share.

  More to the point: It would be the ultimate “outreach” program. It would spread enthusiasm to the general public, and inspire a whole new generation with the opportunity to reach for new destinations in space.

  Some of those taking part will become the scientists, engineers, and industrialists who build the rockets and spacecraft of the future; some will develop into professional astronauts and colonizers of other worlds; and many will turn into citizen explorers—young global space travelers—who venture into Earth orbit, holiday at space hotels, and, not too far in the future, take even longer journeys.

  Since the 1980s I have envisioned space travel by ordinary citizens and developing space schematics, Mars transportation systems, and more—all linked to one objective: to accelerate public access into space. ShareSpace is meant to pull in public support for space by holding drawings for thousands of awards, including trips into space.

  This idea became more crystallized a decade later, first coming to life fictionally as “ShareSpace Global” in my novel Encounter with Tiber (Warner Books, 1996). Quoting the book’s character Sig Jarlsbourg: “If you want that better world, we need to see space tourism take off right away, and it can’t be as a plaything of a tiny group of super-rich people. It’s got to have broad-based public support and enthusiasm right from the start.”

  ShareSpace could take shape in a number of forms, from small-scale raffles to multimillion-dollar sweepstakes, or even to contestant-driven TV game shows. The prizes would range from trips to space launches and space camps, to high-altitude zero gravity flights, to suborbital ballistic flights above the atmosphere, to orbital flights that circle planet Earth every 90 minutes, and eventually adventure trips to luxury orbital hotels. In the very long term, prizes could include a circumnavigation trip in low altitude around the moon, or even extended cycler journeys to Mars.

  A highly participatory citizen’s space program would facilitate a more egalitarian way for those who do not have the financial wherewithal to afford the high-priced tickets for commercial space travel. For a nominal amount, say $100, citizens will gain access to a chance to win the adventure of a lifetime—a trip into space.

  Human space travel is poised to go from the few to the many, and the ShareSpace endeavor is devoted to sharing the inspiration of space. I’m a firm believer in the motto “Everyone needs space!”

  STEAM Power

  The International Space University (ISU) is a private, nonprofit institution that specializes in providing graduate-level training to the future leaders of the emerging global space community at its Central Campus in Strasbourg, France, and at locations around the world.

  In summer 2012, the ISU held its Space Studies Program on the campus of the Florida Institute of Technology, involving 134 participants from 31 countries. During an intensive nine-week course, a number of team projects were undertaken. One of those 2012 projects focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). More specifically, team participants considered the question What can space contribute to global STEM education?

  Several of their observations and findings are essential to carrying the torch of space exploration to far-off destinations. First of all, space has a wide appeal, the power to inspire, and a collaborative international background that can encourage students to engage with their studies and pursue higher education in STEM fields. Every country needs a strong STEM workforce tailored to its specific economic, social, and cultural situation, the report explains.

  The challenge of space can help attract and motivate students, with space-related content aiding students to recognize the relevance of STEM in their lives and studies. Space activities, the ISU report notes, provide “a shared experience” for people of different countries and can promote cultural acceptance, expand international cooperation, and reduce social gaps.

  There are several reasons space is a powerful tool to make STEM education more global, equitable, affordable, creative, attractive, and adaptable, the study team sensed, among them that space is inherently borderless, belongs to everyone, and is a fast–growing and promising industry.

  Additionally, the study group observed that space-related content is believed to be an excellent motivator for STEM education because it

  • appeals to students of all ages;

  • inspires and motivates creativity;

  • develops curiosity and critical thinking;

  • is interdisciplinary;

  • appeals to both genders and promotes equality;

  • promotes international and cross-cultural cooperation; and

  • strives for a common, thriving future.

  The ISU study also recognized this fact:

  The Cold War energized the space race, and space contributed to STEM education by providing incentives and motivation in research, development, and manufacturing. Tremendous progress has been made between the Second World War and the end of the Twentieth Century. Today’s framework is heavily dependent on international cooperation in space business, industry, and research. It is time to think about what we will need in the near future to build new spacecraft, organize new missions, and train people in new fields to explore our universe. Our information society is intimately interconnected; information and knowledge are now accessible anytime and anywhere.

  The most basic questions of humanity can attract many people of all ages to space.

  Nonetheless, there is more work to do. A major problem identified in the study is that most 21st-century educational systems are in essence the same as those developed for the industrial revolution that took place well over 200 years ago. Old teaching methods die hard, and are no longer suitable for modern students who were born into a technology-driven world. Lastly, art can be used to connect space and STEM in a more attractive way, to help change the common perception of STEM as elitist, hard, and boring. This adds up to science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics, or STEAM for short.

  The “STEAM power” that space provides, therefore, is a new perspective and collaborative environment that can help challenge stereotypes as well as lead to national, cultural, and gender equality. Using space to promote STEM education helps develop open-minded and creative future leaders, the report concluded.

  Sky-high Business Plan

  A limited handful of individuals have paid the $20 million to $35 million ticket price to train and fly on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International
Space Station—trips facilitated by Space Adventures. Founded in 1998, Space Adventures continues to be the leading private space exploration company and the premier group to have sent self-funded individuals to space. Company chairman Eric Anderson and his team are also orchestrating the first private mission to circumnavigate the moon.

  Suborbital space tourism opportunities are being developed by a number of companies. Within the next few years, the public will have the option to fly on suborbital flights, such as those being developed by Virgin Galactic, and later on orbital flights offered by private companies to space hotels.

  For a sky-high business plan, look no further than the private American company Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nevada. Since 1999 the firm has been engaged in fabricating affordable inflatable space habitats. Bigelow Aerospace’s founder and president is Robert Bigelow, a general contractor, real estate tycoon, hotel businessman, and developer. He has invested several hundred million dollars of his own money to bring the promise of expandable habitats to fruition.

  Bigelow’s visionary zeal is more than just mental pictures. Two prototype space modules built by his company are now circuiting Earth. Lofted by Russian rockets in July 2006 and in June 2007, respectively, the company’s Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 expandable modules served as forerunners to ever larger and human-rated space structures: A three-person Sundancer module and the larger BA-330, a unit that offers 330 cubic meters of leasable internal volume for a crew of six.

  Artist’s concept: two Bigelow Aerospace expandable space habitats docking with other spacecraft

  (Illustration Credit 3.3)

  The testing of expandable habitats in Earth orbit is central to providing generic space structures for use as habitats, adding room to my cycler designs, depots, storage warehouse facilities, and giant laboratories, too.

  For the last few years, Bigelow Aerospace has been establishing an international consortium of what the group terms “sovereign clients” along with hammering out the financial and legal structures for such partnerships to blossom in low Earth orbit.

  Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Bigelow Aerospace agreed last year to conduct a joint marketing effort focused on international customers. The two companies will offer rides on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to carry passengers to future Bigelow habitats orbiting Earth. Additionally, Bigelow is teamed with Boeing on the CST-100 (Crew Space Transportation) capsule under NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability Program. The CST-100’s primary mission would be to transport crew to the International Space Station and to private Bigelow space facilities. The CST-100 capsule is compatible with multiple launch vehicles, including the Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9.

  NASA has taken notice of Bigelow’s work. Discussions between the two have centered on the space agency possibly acquiring a Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, called BEAM for short, to enhance use of the International Space Station. If the green light is given, BEAM would be a subscale demonstration of the company’s expandable technology at a human space complex.

  Inside Bigelow’s BA 330, operable as an independent or a modular space station

  (Illustration Credit 3.4)

  Space is big, and so too are Bigelow’s ideas. Expandable habitats offering 2,100 cubic meters of volume—that’s nearly twice the capacity available on the International Space Station—have been drawn up, while another plan sketches out use of a super-jumbo structure providing 3,240 cubic meters of volume. The company has also blueprinted a quick-deploy moon base capable of housing up to 18 astronauts in inflatable modules on the lunar surface. Bigelow and his team are sketching out architectures that place their expandable structures in the Earth-moon Lagrangian point L1 and position them as depots for outbound expeditions to Mars.

  Prototype expandable crew habitats dot the factory floor at Bigelow Aerospace.

  (Illustration Credit 3.5)

  Derek Webber, Executive Director of Spaceport Associates, has a parallel long-term view, making the case for a new destination for space tourists in geosynchronous Earth orbit, or at the Earth-moon Lagrangian point L1. Lagrangian points are locations in space where gravitational forces and the orbital motion of a body balance each other. A spacecraft positioned there has to use modest rocket firings or other means to stay put. Orbits around these points are called “halo orbits.”

  Webber advocates that spot as the next step beyond suborbital flight and low Earth orbit, calling it “Spaceport Earth”—a combined hotel/space station at the rim of Earth’s gravity well. Webber argues that NASA can use Spaceport Earth as the starting and finishing point for journeys to and from Mars and beyond. Tourists going up and down between low Earth orbit and Spaceport Earth in its earliest form effectively open up—and pay for—this new part of the orbital infrastructure.

  But first things first.

  Pay-per-view Seats

  I am an admirer of my fellow adventurer Sir Richard Branson, who is backing and bankrolling his spaceliner operation, Virgin Galactic. I have personally taken part in a number of Virgin Galactic milestone-met activities out in southern New Mexico’s Spaceport America, the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

  That groundbreaking facility—roughly 45 miles north of Las Cruces—is taking shape, and the desert scenery is sprinkled with Spaceport America structures. The gateway to space covers 18,000 acres of land. It is expected to be not only an outbound and incoming hub for tourists who ascend to and return from the suborbital heights, but also a high-tech haven for experimental craft that push new ways to access space.

  Spaceport America is being built for $209 million and is financed so far entirely by state taxpayer money. But public funds subsidizing the New Mexico spaceport will end by December 2013, moving it from a state-funded enterprise to a self-sustained enterprise.

  A visitor to the sprawling complex can see a tomorrowland-looking terminal hangar facility and an ultralong runway that is to be utilized by Virgin Galactic. Operations by the company at Spaceport America make use of the passenger-carrying WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo suborbital launch system.

  The WhiteKnightTwo mother ship aircraft hauls the six-passenger/two-flight-crew spaceship up to 50,000 feet altitude, where it releases the sleek craft that then powers its occupants out of Earth’s atmosphere. Those on board will travel in a matter of seconds at almost 2,500 miles an hour, over three times the speed of sound, and soar upward to 68 miles, some 359,000 feet in altitude. That’s enough elevation to earn astronaut wings. The duration of the suborbital hop, from runway takeoff to landing, will be approximately two and a half hours, with customers experiencing a few minutes of that time in free fall. Then SpaceShipTwo wings its way back to Earth, gliding homeward to a tarmac touchdown.

  Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo, carrying SpaceShipTwo, flies over New Mexico’s Spaceport America.

  (Illustration Credit 3.6)

  That pay-per-view seat price is $200,000. Hundreds of customers have already signed on the dotted line to get their chance to rubberneck out SpaceShipTwo windows, to see for themselves the curvature of planet Earth and the deep blackness of space. Commercial suborbital passenger flight could start in the 2013–2014 time frame—if shakeout testing of the rocket plane proceeds without a hitch at its Scaled Composites building site, the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California.

  Branson has often stated that, as his suborbital spaceline business gains financial momentum, seat prices can be lowered. In the interim, rocketing off into space has made its way onto a 2011 Virtuoso “Travel Dreams” survey of Top 10 Trips of a Lifetime, competing with setting sail for a world cruise, calling on all seven continents, renting a castle on the French Riviera, or lounging around on a rented private island.

  New Spaceflight Industry

  In July 2012 the Tauri Group released Suborbital Reusable Vehicles: A 10-Year Forecast of Market Demand, a study jointly funded by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transp
ortation and Space Florida.

  The central message of the report is that suborbital reusable vehicles (SRVs) are creating a new spaceflight industry. Nine SRVs by six companies are currently in active planning, development, or operation, the study observes. SRVs are commercially developed reusable space vehicles that may carry humans or cargo.

  If projected high flight rates and relatively low costs per flight emerge, SRVs can service distinct markets—commercial human spaceflight, basic and applied research, technology demonstration, media and public relations to promote products, education, satellite deployment—as well as spur point-to-point transportation of cargo or humans at faster speeds than now available around the globe.

  The Tauri Group report points out that the dominant SRV market is commercial human spaceflight, generating 80 percent of SRV demand. Their analysis indicates that about 8,000 high-net-worth individuals (with net worth exceeding $5 million) from across the globe are sufficiently interested and have spending patterns likely to result in the purchase of a suborbital flight at current prices. Roughly one-third of these consumers are from the United States. About 925 individuals currently have reservations on SRVs, the report says.

  Tauri’s study estimates that about 40 percent of the interested, high-net-worth population—3,600 individuals—will fly within the ten-year forecast period. Also, space enthusiasts outside the high-net-worth population are expected to generate modest additional demand (about 5 percent more).