About

Space: The Door Into Our Future

 Why explore space?

More than forty years ago, we went to the moon, and 

those who went all returned safely to the Earth.

Then we realized we should go slow and so now we are 

learning how to live and work in low Earth orbit.

But the time has come to venture further again and to 

leave the cradle of humankind, the Earth, and start 

settling down at other destinations in space.

There are these romantic notions that space 

exploration helps us find our own place in the 

universe, and how humbling an experience that is.

Even the fact that scientific space exploration can 

help us answer the big questions such as what are our 

origins and how the universe, our solar system and 

our planet came into existence are valid reasons for
space exploration.

The exploration of space also has many benefits back 

on the good Earth from efficient car catalytic 

converters to medical spin offs.

Not to mention of course the vast potential of 

economic benefits that lie ahead in future 

exploitation of materials found in space.

But the single most important reason why we should 

venture out into space is for the survival needs of 

the human species and its biosphere, back on Earth.

Natural disasters such as the impact of a medium or 

large sized asteroid could dramatically end all life 

on Earth in a mass extinction event.

Man made disasters such as global nuclear war could 

evenly so be catastrophic.

Overpopulation, severe environmental degradation or a 

nano-technological disaster (e.g. the surface of the 

planet being overgrown by nano goo!) all could prove 

to have disastrous effects on humankind and its 

biosphere.

So there are plenty of life threatening reasons to 

play it safe and start colonizing space as soon as we 

possibly can.

That way, if the Earth is destroyed or life there has 

become impossible, we will still have a part of the 

population that survives elsewhere, in a space colony
in deep space or somewhere on the surface of another 

celestial body.

 

Baby steps

If we want to colonize space, we should take small 

baby steps at a time and a good way to start is by 

simulations of closed loop environments on Earth.

Such simulations are called analog missions and are 

executed at several locations, preferably under 

extreme and harsh conditions, such as the
antarctic region or deep down at the ocean’s floor.

Other such analog missions were performed in order 

to test psychological and psycho-social effects on 

crew members (MARS 500) or to test a completely
closed environment (Biosphere 2).

 

A space program worth fighting for.

Many studies, papers and road maps indicate that in 

the pursuit of the latest goals in space exploration, 

no single country can possibly work out an entire
space program on their own.

Therefore it is crucial to seek out international 

cooperation that is highly cost effective and reduces 

the timescale for an initial return on investment,
both scientifically and economically.

But i also would like to put the stress on crew and 

mission safety and that is one of the reasons, 

I believe, why future missions will rely heavily on
technologies and capabilities yet to be developed.

In order to be cost effective and reduce the timelines 

associated with preparing for and executing a mission, 

maximum use must be made of local resources found in 

space or on the surface at the destination.

Space program work areas:

First, prospecting of resources like near Earth objects 

(NEO’s) and near Earth asteroids (NEA’s), the Moon, 

Mars and its Moons, and other celestial bodies, 

in order to acquire both the quantitative and 

qualitative analyses of the objects of interest.

The resulting knowledge should then be brought 

together in a database containing resources (objects) 

and their characterization, which will be of
use in choosing destinations for specific missions 

with specific in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) 

objectives.

The main purpose of ISRU is twofold and consists of 

the refueling of spacecraft and building infrastructure 

or large structures in space or at the destination.

Prospective missions are unmanned missions that can be 

executed at extremely low cost using small spacecraft, 

essentially cubesats fitted with propulsion thrusters, 

solar panels and remote sensing instruments.

These enhanced cubesats are particularly useful in the 

discovery of new NEA’s and in developing a better 

understanding of their composition, structure,
density, etc. (their characterisation)

Other prospecting missions should probe the lunar 

surface using lunar polar orbiters and lunar landers. 

These landers can be telecommanded from Earth.

Space telescopes in Earth and lunar orbit and at 

strategic orbits around the sun can observe with high 

sensitivity and can find asteroids in or near the
Earth’s orbit around the sun.

These asteroids could then be captured and brought into

a high Earth orbit (HEO)or lunar orbit at almost no 

propellant cost.

 

Second, building economically productive space 

infrastructure is needed in a decent space program.

The earliest man made resources should be propellant 

tanks stored in space tank farms. These tanks can be 

used for fueling of science or industrial spacecraft 

destined to other planets, and for fueling of 

earth-moon shuttles.

When the tanks are empty they can also be used for the 

construction of space stations or habitats, at least 

they should be designed with this in mind.

The earliest needed lunar material will be oxygen and 

will be used as propellant resupply of earth-moon 

shuttles and for the lunar landers which dock to the
shuttles in orbit.

First, a test facility or pilot plant to process the 

lunar regolith should be set up and in later stages 

identical duplicates should be deployed.

Oxygen is very abundant on the lunar surface and such 

a plant, weighing a few tons at most, could easily 

produce many times its own weight in liquid oxygen
each year.

Also abundant on the Moon is iron which can be used for 

the fabrication of structural components of primarily 

machinery.

Other materials are natural lunar glass, silicon 

(can be used to make solar cells) and metals such as 

aluminum, titanium and magnesium, which can be
separated by chemical processes.

The idea is to build two or three identical facilities, 

be it chemical processing plants, or electromagnetic 

launching machines to launch lunar materials to
specific destinations in space. The trick is to build a 

couple of these identical facilities and space them out 

180° or so in lunar longitude apart, and operate each 

one only during full lunar daylight so they receive 

maximum solar power and so that there’s always one or 

two operational facilities every hour of the lunar
day/night cycle.

All these facilities don’t need to be manned and can be 

maintained from a single location, yet personnel must 

be able to reach them for maintenance or repairs.

 

The third area of a good space program is space science

and exploration and its purpose is indeed to find out 

how life originated on earth, how the solar system
formed and how the universe works.

Apart from that, science and exploration in space also 

takes a good look at the Earth via its countless 

satellites in its orbit to find out more about it
from a scientific point of view.

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