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Projects: Space InformationThe Next 50 Years“What’s your vision for space for the next 50 years? To what future do you want to introduce a child? Please tell us in 50 to 250 words.” In our March/April issue of The Planetary Report, we started a countdown to the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. We asked you to share with us your vision for the Next Space Age. Replies to our request have varied – from laundry lists of proposed missions, to calls to stay the course, to manifestos about the future and how best to get there. All are valid and valuable. Thank you! We hope you will enjoy reading the entries below, many of which we edited in length so as to include as many of your submissions as possible. Planetary Society Associate Director Charlene Anderson, Member since 1981 offered this. For Baby Boomers, those born in the wake of the most destructive war humanity has ever known, childhood was a bright time, a safe time -- a time, some would say, bought with their parents blood. Those parents had lived through a nightmare and survived to build a secure world for their children. That was their greatest dream, to make their children’s future equate with hope. And hope would blossom in space, the “final frontier,” where humanity would find scope to fulfill its grandest ambitions. I was taught that anything is possible, with the proverbial hard work and determination, and a worthy dream. For me, I can trace vividly the evolution of my belief in a future in space, beginning when I was three: 1955 – “Man in Space” broadcast by Walt Disney, showing the imagined, but reachable, future that could be mine. 1957 – Sputnik launches, bring with it the certainty that we’re on our way to space, the imagined future will be mine. 1961 – JFK commits us to land a man on the Moon. Wow, we’re accelerating into the future, long before we’re dared dream it was possible. 1969 – The achievement, the victory, the first step has been taken. The planets await. 1972 – Apollo ends. Human spaceflight restricted to Earth orbit. Momentum peters out. America’s space program is refocused on the shuttle -- by its name, means a short hop between nearby points. In the shuttle, we blast off Earth with a tremendous rush and go nowhere. When Armstrong and Aldrin stepped onto the Moon, the Earth below them stopped. From tiny villages in India, to remote desert stations in Australia, to Trafalgar Square in England, all of humanity shared in their triumph. “We came in peace for all mankind.” The plaque might have been signed by a crook, but for the brief instant he took to sign the words, he led the species to the pinnacle of achievement. Triumph not an easy state to sustain. It dissipated as it must, and the impetus to achieve dissipated as well. The “real” reasons we went to the Moon – political expedience, industrial welfare – don’t matter much anymore. It’s the spirit that was created that matters in the end. And that is what will be remembered. No, you can’t call back time. Nor can you recreate a particular time. All you can do is remember what you tried, what you accomplished, how you felt, and try to create a new time when such things, great things, can be done and felt again. For my child, I want to pass down a belief in the future as strong and vital as the belief I felt in 1957. I want her to feel at her back the momentum of humanity moving toward a shared goal that is difficult, uplifting, and good. I want her to feel that the species is pushing into the future, not just being carried along by the turning of the Earth. Can this be done? Creating a new time when the future looks limitless and bright? I don’t know. It’s sort of like trying to go to the Moon. Planetary Society Members respond:Fifty words are not needed. One has to contemplate the vastness of the universe only to know that intelligent life must exist. It behooves us to explore it in order to make contact – the sooner the better! My most outstanding thought for where we might be fifty years from this moment is that I hope we have survived the 2029 and 2036 asteroid passes. Among other sadnesses, I've pondered what would happen to all those incredible planetary probes we have sent and will be sending into space if there is suddenly nobody at the switch We are at the beginning of a new space age -and a new space race...with several new participants….I think a lot can be accomplished within the next 50 years, especially through peaceful corporation between different organizations from different countries. What I really want to see happening in the near future is the colonization of Mars. On my 25th birthday this February, I said to my buddy Paul, “we are going to celebrate my 75th on Mars.” So we've got 50 years. I hope it comes true. In 2057, we shall have permanent human settlements on the Moon and Mars. The first human expeditions to Jupiter and Saturn will be underway. A feasibility study of sending a human-crewed submarine into Europa’s ocean (if it exists) will also be underway. As for robotic exploration, a Venus sample-return mission will have just taken place. Rover missions on the moons of Uranus and Neptune will be taking place and there will be sample-return missions to the moons of those two planets being prepared for launch. Also being prepared for launch will be the first rover on Pluto. As for planets of other stars, a space-based or Moon-based observatory will have discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting another star. In response to the discovery, the various space agencies of the world will begin feasibility studies of sending robotic spacecraft to planets of other stars (interstellar space flight). If these feasibility studies show that it can be done, the first probe to go to the planet of another star may depart the Solar System in approximately 2057. S -Schools, provide your magazine [The Planetary Report] and similar publications free to high schools, NASA representatives visit to show and tell
--Rob Brodsky, Member since 1994 I see a healthy child whose parents have never been on another planet. I see a civilization that could, if necessary, survive and grow using only the Sun's light and material from small moons and minor planets. Then, my child and her children can be confident that if life does not already fill our galaxy, it will in the future. If we don't achieve this vision, the Milky Way may be dead forever, except for a brief episode on a few planets around a single star. I have been a space enthusiast since October 4th, 1957 (and even before), following with passion all the steps of space exploration and new discoveries in astronomy. So, quite naturally, I became a member of The Planetary Society a few years ago. But, after 50 years of efforts – and many fantastic successes – to explore and increase our knowledge in this field, your question is fully legitimate: what’s the point of doing all this, apart from fulfilling our congenital curiosity and trying to answer the philosophical question of our place in the universe and the ultimate meaning of it. Introducing a new generation to the future, as far as space exploration is concerned, is answering the question, “what are we doing on this planet?” and also, “how can we use the vast experience and knowledge accumulated by the rich countries on this planet to improve the way we treat our environment, and to meet the social and political issues of our way of life and industrial civilization?” – the technical “benefits” of which include space exploration itself! If space exploration does not, in a way or another, contribute more efficiently to solve some of the huge problems we face here on Earth…is it really worth all the trouble? I am of course aware that this can be said not only of space exploration but more generally of science and technology as a whole. Consequently, children and young adults should not be taught only about the technical marvels and achievements of our generation, but also made aware of the political, social and moral responsibilities that science and knowledge imply. This is a pedagogical choice with which the Planetary Society could be more involved. The United States will demonstrate leadership and gain an economic future in the global marketplace by aggressively developing expertise in space research and manned exploration for global prosperity. Cooperation between public and private concerns will result on immediate U.S.-led international consortiums of firms and government organizations, and national projects….I believe that the U.S. is truly dedicated to space research and exploration and that there will be little or no such enterprise without its leadership. This sharing will promote mutual trust and shared needs among all these worlds. Children will need to know not only the technical aspects of this future society, but will also need to acquire the abilities and knowledge necessary for honest appraisals of their own and others’ situations, needs and resources. This challenges us to develop a technically advanced standardized curriculum and to understand other’s cultures, points of view and all the little things that make us special and make others too valuable to ourselves to harm them. On October 4, 1957 the orbiting of Sputnik 1 launched planet Earth into its newest step of space exploration. The Planetary Society should thank all countries that have stepped up to the challenge of contributing to the science and technology of Space Exploration over the last 50 years. Our species is vulnerable to objects falling to Earth from space, as in the days of cave men. There is little change regarding options, should something big come our way. Is the planet Saturn showing signs of the onset of an accretion event?...I believe it is urgent that we as a species build some options to forestall a common fate with the lizards.… Reverse-engineered space travel, or travel by our own design, needs to be available to interstellar space and habitable planets. A variation of Dr. Robert Winglee's "M2P2" Solar Sail would be in keeping with The Planetary Society’s applied method for space transport….A better approach than rockets to be sure. Fifty years from now, ‘space’ will not be much different from what it is now if still controlled by politicians and bureaucrats. Most funding will be consumed by attempts to put people in space, put 'boots on the ground', and gain military advantages. Equipment used to do that will be old, frail, and dangerous fifty years from now, and science will be an afterthought. In this environment, the only hope for advance will be efforts of private enterprise. Even there, efforts to make a profit will lead to a philosophy of pillage and pollute, much as on Earth for the last few thousand years. This will need to be controlled. On the other hand, if engineers and scientists gain control of space efforts, we can expect great advances in understanding the cosmos and our place in it; see new products, processes, and materials that trickle down to benefit us on earth; and gain a better understanding of ourselves. Remote-controlled robots will dominate space efforts, since they will be able to do everything that man can do and the logistics required to support them will be a tiny fraction of those required to support man in space. When the time lag for radio signals becomes a problem, only then will it be necessary to send man to other planets – in control stations orbiting the planets in question rather than ‘boots on the ground’…. …In later years, the direction should be determined by the results of yet to be performed projects. We have to build another Noah’s Ark….Time is beating us; we have to find a quay in ours or other constellations. Is it Mars? Europa? Ganymede? Titan? Neptune? Rhea? Dione? Or Iapetus? My vision for space goes as follows. I see humanity boldly going forth into the solar system by the millions….The development of either fusion propulsion or anti-gravity propulsion will allow travel to the planets by people with many skills. In addition, I see solar sail cargo ships for use of taking water, materials, and goods to various places in the solar system. There will be thousands of solar sails darting around our solar system. I see millions owning their own homes on many bodies throughout our solar system….. There is a good chance this will happen, provided humanity does manage to overcome its enviro-social-economic and technical worker and skill problems shortage. I would like to see the following happen in the next few years:
3. The possibility of mining the asteroids should be explored. I think that in the next 50 years, we should get started on building a, say, one square mile greenhouse pumped full of carbon dioxide, to grow plants in and so produce oxygen. These greenhouses can be used to allow humans to sleep there, and to feed themselves. Also, we should start building a bridge to the Moon, with space stations serving as a ladder to the Moon. That will facilitate going to the Moon and back to Earth, and these space stations can be used to store things needed on the Moon. The Earth is the seed or seeds of the gods. We explore space because we hope to people other planets. We aim for a vast civilization, and perhaps eternal life. Nothing is impossible, and our history, what we can discover of it, inspires us. While I recently became a grandfather for the first time, I wasn’t just thinking of my granddaughter, but of all children. I thought of a literal vision, of a Sputnik-like calling card for all those young eyes looking to the night sky for inspiration, for a beckoning. I was thinking of a kind of beacon or searchlight placed on the Moon, perhaps in some large crater like Tycho or Clavius, that would shine out or strobe when that part of the Moon was in darkness. A lighthouse in the night sky shining a way into a brighter future that happens to be of another place, not just another time…. I’d like to see us inspire the heart and soul, as well as the mind So, when we plan our next mission to Mars in search of water, search Valles Marineris by land and air – talk about visuals! I’d like to see us launch probes to gas giant planet moons suspected of having water ice and water (Europa, Enceladus). Beyond that, just a commitment to funding, primarily for more efficient and robust propulsion systems, because getting there is 50% of the fun. Science will take off; the Moon will be settled; we will go to Mars. I expect the Solar System to become big business by 2057. That’s not so far away. That’s my forecast. My vision for space has no limits. Within a century, future generations Eventually, the logic of evolution that The full nature of universal existence, In a few years, it will be conclusively found how to break the light barrier. In my optimistic view, these events could then transpire by 2081, rounding to the nearest half-century. 2007 Phoenix launches to Mars Being already a long-time member of The Planetary Society, I always was intrigued by the question: when could we expect a reply to our first antenna signals for Earth having gone out in the last century? Assuming that our radio signals from the 60s could be heard by a somewhere outside civilization with a similar status to ours, an earliest response from a 50 light years away civilization should be received in about 50 years (considering that the velocity of light is constant everywhere). Today, in 2007, the “replyzone” must lay within a 25 light years distance from Earth. Could The Planetary Society make a data collection about he stars in a distance of less than 50 light-years and make a probability assessment of finding more planets with Earth-like conditions? In this context I got informed today, that Mayor et al. have discovered the first Earth-like planet in a distance of 20,5 light-years away from Earth around a sun called Gliese 581. I think, thus, the SETI dream is approaching more to reality. I also would like to instruct my four grandchildren about the fantastic progress in space exploration. POINT: Science fiction is a literature genre that thinks about the future. In the next fifty years we cannot expect a Star Trek world. There will be no transporters, warp drives or time travel. But much CAN happen. It was only fifty years between the presentation of Maxwell's equations and the invention of radio. It was only forty years between Einstein’s e = mc2 and the first atom bomb. The time between the elucidation of structure of DNA by Watson and Crick and the first gene splicing technology was less than thirty years. A popular plot for this time frame is the first human expedition to Mars. The explorers generally find life.... After dropping a dozen rovers onto the plains of Mars over a twenty-year period, NASA gambled and sent ‘Daredevil’ into a deep valley. Interrupting the monotonous red on one canyon wall was a blue-green patch near what looked like a trench carved by falling water. Trundling over to it for a closer look, the intrepid robot found evidence of metabolic processes. It identified amino acids unknown or uncommon in Earth life. The genetic material was neither DNA nor RNA, but related to them as a distant cousin. It identified and chemically characterized the photosynthetic molecule that was, of necessity, far more efficient than chlorophyll. Knowing the structure of this molecule, Earth scientists could synthesize it and also genetically engineer crops to make and use it. Agricultural productivity soared, and finally transportation fuel from biomass became economically attractive, permanently ending all worries about OPEC, Hubbert’s Peak, or climate change. COUNTERPOINT: I am a Charter Member of the Planetary Society, and I believe the unmanned space program has real value. The manned program is a publicity stunt and a huge drain on capital. Members of the Planetary Society are a small, vocal, homogenous group of space enthusiasts…. I write the following, not because I believe it, but as a counterpoint our Society’s members should think about. Congress today pulled the plug on NASA, ending America’s 60-year space effort. The religious right had always objected to the space program because it studied space rather than glorifying God’s handiwork. The liberal left had opposed it for wasting money shooting rockets at the sky while families starved and children died of inadequate health care. What finally pushed the coalition over the top were the fiscal conservatives who noted that NASA had spent $100B on the International Space Station, and it had accomplished nothing. When a financial audit revealed NASA had spent $100M entertaining CEOs and consultants of the aerospace industry, and lobbying Congress for more support, the agency’s budget was toast. Axing the Supercollider had no impact on anyone except some spoiled physicists. We can live without a space program too. For the next half-century in space, I envision permanent human settlements on the Moon and Mars, as well as extensive robotic and manned missions to all the planets in our solar system. I believe most of this progress will be commercially driven by space tourism companies and publicly driven by member-funded organizations like The Planetary Society, because government-funded space exploration is hopelessly mired in political funding battles. Earth is becoming a much smaller place due to population and economic growth; we must explore and find new places to grow and survive beyond Earth. The future I want to introduce to a new generation must be based on hope and progress, not the war and despair that seems so prevalent today. It will be a future based on international cooperation, space exploration, and wonderful new technological discoveries. The elephant in the room is "using rockets"! EVERYBODY in the space biz knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the future demands a new type of spacecraft propulsion. Rockets are just too limited! NASA is an applied science group….A (r)evolutionary new propulsion system is not in their books! We cannot look to NASA for the next answer. Enter the quiet theorists, the kitchen table experimenters…doing their thing. My vision is for humankind to build a spaceship that has light speed potential. My personal candidate is photonic drive combined with a time energy field that will handle gravity….These minds are the area from which really new ideas will come. Two Members sent us poems: On Seeing Mars This morning I encountered Mars, The war god’s name I do not favor Rovers and flybys send details galore, I wonder where the fossils lie (8-24-06) The Universe Look at the Universe and what do you see, An absolute mystery to you and me. A cosmos stretching endlessly forever, Will mankind understand why, probably never. / Why does life exist only on this grain of sand, Was it just random selection or an intelligent plan? Such a lonely, small planet revolving around, Searching for a soulmate that may never be found. / Because the Universe is beyond our understanding, Is there a purpose, a creator commanding? Is there an answer to this eternal riddle, Perhaps, but until then we know so little. / A Universe that will always exist no doubt, To contemplate and ask what's it all about? All we can do is look and see, A wonderous Universe that will always be. Joe Oliver, a Member since 1989, sent us a story. 2012 Good morning, Juan Cristo/Unit 13. It’s 7:00 am September 20, 2012. It’s cloudy outside. Do you want your cloud car brought around at 9:00 a.m. as usual? The astronomers are saying that the space cloud from Orion is still approaching Earth, and Happy Birthday. Thank you. It happens to be Quetzalcoatl’s birthday, too. And, yes, I’ll want it as usual. There seem to be clouds everywhere. The lighting in my unit is even cloudy. I think I will relax on my massage bed awhile before I get up. It’s probably like a combination of the plane oscillating and my mother contracting when I was born on the descent to GUA from LAX in 1982. My parents were participating in a group exchange on Mayan studies. Since some M.D.s and R.N.s were in the group, they thought there wouldn’t be a problem, but I was a month precocious. They dropped oxygen masks and my father assisted. Since the myelinization of my brain cells wasn’t complete, I don’t remember it, but it’s what I am told. I’ve wondered how regression analysts get through this interval. Since my parents were both U.S. citizens and it was a U.S. carrier, they called ahead to the U.S. Embassy, announcing my birth. They met us at the airport with the appropriate paperwork. When I was 21, I contacted the U.S., Mexican and Guatemalan authorities to affirm my U.S. citizenship, and option for Mexican and Guatemala citizenship, too. Since today is my special day to finalize the tests on my Quetzalcoatl space game at Computer Space before it’s released, I will ritualize my ablutions. I will shower as a simulation of rain. I will shave with my straightedge razor with Quetzalcoatl on it. I will brush my teeth with brushing sticks. I will anoint my hair with oil. Next, I will don my work clothes. A tank t-shirt, boxer shorts, guayabera shirt, slacks, socks and simulated reptile skin shoes (I thought they almost hissed when I broken them in), and my silver watch with a quetzal on it. Then, I will break fast. There is my poem on the refrigerator door: Cloudy Sky/Cloudy brow/Where is my lover now?/Cloudy Sky/Cloudy brow/How could I know?/Could I understand your leaving?/Could I predict your return?/Everything is cloudy/I see clouds everywhere/Cloudy sky/Cloudy brow/How could I know? I’ll gobble space swirls with sliced plantains and milk, and put a drop of my blood in the coffee for my blood brother. Finally, I will put on my bandanna, straw hat (I think I almost hear birds sing when the wind blows), and drive to work. The 13th floor at the Computer Space Building is where the final pre-release tests are done. We even have cloudy lighting here. People are watching a news channel on the TV screen showing how the space cloud seems to have structure now. It’s supposed to reach Earth on 12-21-12. I enter the test chamber where Quetzalcoatl fights incoming space objects (it is almost like Quetzalcoatl returning for the cycle changes at he Mayan calendar). I activate the system and proceed destroying the space objects. Outside the monitor shows the space objects disappearing while the TV shows the space cloud disappearing simultaneously. Then there is silence. They open the chamber door to check if it is empty. But the screens only show this message: There is a new heaven and a new Earth.
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