Space Technologies

Why explore?

Ryan Weed, CEO of Positron Dynamics, started off his TED Talk “Have you ever imagined how interstellar travel could work?” by asking why to explore space. He delved deeper through tieing it into, why explore in the first place. As humans, we have a natural tendency to explore, to ask ourselves why things work, and to “look for truth”. Some could even argue that the purpose of their entire lives is to find the Truth… that’s why, we as a society value education, and religion.

And this search for truth constantly creates progress and change. Whether the change is positive or not, is up for debate.

The landing on the moon was a historical development of space exploration for the following years in NASA and even in public opinion. Change is enacted by someone who thinks differently, someone who thinks bigger, and beyond the constraints of what’s normal in our society.

Without a doubt, the innovation of space technologies requires us to think big. But the question is, how much of a drastic change are we as a society willing to implement? To what extent can we push ourselves, to innovate new technologies and implement wild out-of-the-box ideas. How wild is too wild?

“Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month, electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now, if America’s new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.” -John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy’s speech gives us a glimpse of America’s rapid technological advances at the time. But now, there is an even faster revolution, where we are legitimately innovating things, and solving big problems that we never thought imaginable. By the end of 2022, SpaceX plans to launch two missions to Mars.

Field experts are genuinely considering developing the idea of photonic propulsion, to where a laser can push a rocket to Mars within 3 days.

Really, nothing is too wild.

But it’s a matter of choosing what technologies to invest in and develop. One significant out-of-the-box idea includes colonization. This being colonizing the moon with a human civilization that will eventually become self-sufficient. Let’s look at the example of how we plan to colonize Mars and explore innate problems that come with it.

There are three steps to colonize a state, that being:

1. Exploration and collecting data. This could be similarly compared to Europe’s exploration of North America during the 15 century. Exploration expeditions must be justified and have an incentive. The incentive for Christopher Columbus and his Conquistadors were Gold, God, and Glory (given the militarism culture in Spain at the time). As a result, the Indigenous people were exploited for their resources, bodies, and even knowledge.

Luckily, there will be no bloodshed to colonize Mars, given that we have established human rights ideals in our society.

The purpose of exploration is to provide a reason to continue the stay and future pursuits of the area. And this incentive to colonize matters hugely. For now, we might just be intrigued by the idea of setting up colonization in the first place, and the glory that comes with it. The context is sort of a: look how far we’ve come! Look at our advances as mankind, we can truly push past all barriers.

But to further pursue space exploration, we need financial funding from investors, who care significantly about the financial payoffs. So, what are the financial payoffs?

A direct economic source would be asteroid mining, which aims to extract rare metals, Helium 3, and water. The value of a single sizable asteroid is huge, like quintillions of dollars. NASA estimated the asteroid belt is in the range worth $700 quintillion USD.

• Rare metals, such as Gold, Silver, Platinum, Copper, and Idium. However, mining for scarce metals would only crash the market when supply is significantly higher than demand. This means that we can dole out metals in small amounts, just like how other mining companies, like diamond companies, do. However, then the profits from the asteroids would only be the same as those mining companies on Earth. Although you would seemingly get rich, it wouldn’t be worth it. The cost to extract those minerals is more burdensome than mining companies on Earth.

• Helium-3 is such a big incentive!! It is a potential fuel source for nuclear fusion and has power Earth for generations.

• Asteroids have resources that can make rocket fuel, which can be sold to telemarketing companies to launch satellites into orbit.

• Although the main purpose of asteroid mining is precious metals, water is a huge factor. The new supply of resources extraction opens up an abundance of water. This new source of water can be used to help solve our climate crisis. But how much of a long-term solution would it be to exploit the resources of another planet? Shouldn’t we learn to implement a sustainable culture first here on Earth?

One asteroid can get you rich easily, but we still have to invest a costly amount of $10bil to create technology to harness the benefits.

2. Set up outposts and settlements. Some of these outposts will stay put while other settlements would fail drastically. NASA and SpaceX are trying to enter into this stage, making technological advances that allow for adaptation to characterization changes. If we can successfully achieve step two, then we are well on our way to being legit!!

Mars has the potential to be inhabited, with familiar features that include polar ice caps, liquid water, large valleys, and moons. Right now, the outlook of life on Mars is meek.

Characteristics that make mars so inhabitable:

• No breathable air
• Radiation. The accumulative radiation that any human would get on Earth would be an average of one millisievert. However, the radiation on Mars would exceed a high amount, that being 200 millisieverts per year, which would significantly increase the likelihood of cancer.
• Lack of nitrogen in the soil for vegetation to grow.
• Mars only has 38% of Earth’s surface gravity, which will create muscle-wasting, bone loss cardiovascular problems.
• Spacecraft and any tech in space relies on solar energy. Mars is farther away from the sun than Earth and is often covered by dust storms. This makes energy more difficult to obtain.

3. And of course, the last step of colonization is at the stage where the colonies can sustain themselves economically, with little to no help from the ‘motherland’. In fact, the ‘motherland’ would rely on the colony to generate profit.

• Building a colony requires innovating new technologies, and conducting research to do so. Even if the technology doesn’t get used on space exploration projects, it will have some sort of use here on Earth. Research conducted for radiation in the space exploration field has a relevant place in the medical field as well. The carbon ion particles are so strong and effective that they can shot a tumor, which cures cancer. However, in the context of Mars, the carbon ions is a dilemma to colonize.
• The payoff also includes the ability to exploit unlimited resources, but that just feeds off into our irresponsible habits.

In cases, if we succeed, then we would have a colony that generates wealth back to those on Earth. The question is: who gets the profits and the distribution of wealth?

I am generally intrigued by the social construct that will be built if this colony succeeds. No doubt, pursuing space exploration time and time again will push our comfort limits as a society… pushing ourselves further towards progress.