Erik Unger's Blog » Space http://erikunger.com Let's Change The World! Tue, 20 May 2014 10:21:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 Space Pioneers in 2013 http://erikunger.com/space-pioneers-2013/ http://erikunger.com/space-pioneers-2013/#comments Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:35:00 +0000 http://erikunger.com/?p=660 Continue reading →]]> Note: This post was first published on the Pioneers.io blog.

What’s going on in space and why should we care? Let me begin with two images:

Solar-System-Resources

I think the first image is self-explanatory; there is enough energy in space as well as down here on earth. The second one depicts asteroids in the inner solar system. Those asteroids have enough material to hypothetically construct big, comfortable space stations that combined would provide 3,000 times the surface area of earth – all as living space for future generations. So are we all doomed because current technology and policy don’t allow sustainable living on earth? Of course not. But it will take bold pioneers to take on the next “giant leap for humankind.”

Cube-Sats

In last year’s space blog post, we heard about top billionaire pioneers who are investing in space. But billions are not always necessary to create something of value. The rising makers movement doesn’t stop at hard space tech. For instance, the development of nano-satellites is driven by the same mechanics that brought computers into every home – smaller, cheaper, built by entrepreneurial teams headquartered in a garage or dorm room:

Startups like GomSpace, Solar System Express, and Infinity Aerospace are catering to that audience with parts and kits to build satellites. The startup NanoSatisfi and the OPS-SAT mission of the European Space Agency are democratizing access to satellites by providing timeshare plans for experiments. On the software side, there are space related hackathons and competitions like Space Apps Challenge, ESA App Camp, ESA App Challenge, or the Austrian FFG Space Apps Competition blooming all over the world.

Makers

The 3D printing boom is also highly relevant to space. Getting parts delivered to the international space station is very costly. Supplying future Mars missions in the nick of time will be straight out impossible. Think about processing the resources from future space mining directly in space instead of transporting them back to earth. We will need completely new fabrication methods that work in zero gravity. 3D printing seems to be the best solution for all of these challenges. There is even a competition to 3D print rocket engines withDIYROCKETS.

But the ultimate DIY rocket maker project has to be Copenhagen Suborbitals. Those guys are building a complete suborbital rocket with solely their hands and outside donations. It will take them some time to really fly a human, but so far they have come further than anyone thought possible. Watch some DIY space capsule building here.

Rocket test flights

What’s new with the big guys? SpaceX has made great progress, delivering cargo to the International Space Station and earning well-paid contracts from NASA, military and private satellite companies. But the most exciting development is their attempt to create a fully reusable rocket to make space travel as efficient as air travel is today. Currently SpaceX is testing the vertical landing of their Falcon 9’s first stage called Grasshopper. Check out the video:

Another contender for the orbital transportation market is Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezo’s rocket company Blue Origin. It’s the most secretive of the lot, but at least we also have a vertical takeoff and landing video from them:

There is also fire behind Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo:

The engines are always the most difficult part of a rocket and The Space Ship Company (TSC, the company building Virgin Galactic’s air- and spacecraft) had to completely redevelop its engine with help of a more experienced contractor. Now it’s looking good for the first suborbital flight by the end of the year and passenger flights at least one year after that.

More space crafts

A new entry in the race to space is Swiss Space Systems. Their technical concept is similar to Virgin Galactic. The difference is that their spaceship will be mounted on top of an Airbus 300 instead of under the wing of a carrier plane:

Further down the development road is Sierra Nevada Corporation with their mini Space Shuttle-like Dream Chaser that will be boosted on top of a conventional rocket:

NASA and Bigelow

Even NASA is working on a new rocket, the SLS (Space Launch System). It will be built with components from the shuttle program and the strongest version will be able to haul 130 tons to low earth orbit. That’s 12 tons more than the Saturn rocket from the Apollo program. Such heavy lifting capabilities will enable new human exploration programs, like to asteroids, for example. Or it will be able to bring the biggest inflatable space station modules from Bigelow Aerospace into orbit. Here is an image of Bigelow’s medium-sized modules:

Bigelow Alpha Station

Bigelow just announced an agreement to place a smaller test module, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) onto the International Space Station. There are also plans to use the modules as shelter for a moon station.

Interplanetary

Let’s move on from space stations to inter-world space travel. Mars One and Golden Spike are aiming to bring humans to Mars and Moon, respectively. Their business models couldn’t be more different at the moment. While Mars One wants to select their astronauts out of average citizens and finance the mission with a reality show, Golden Spike is looking for wealthy individuals to pay US$1.5 billion for a two-person Moon landing. Mars One has no immediate plans to bring their crew back, in contrast to a tourist round-trip package offered by Golden Spike.

Not a landing, but just a flyby around Mars is the goal of Denis Tito’s Inspiration Mars project. Denis Tito, the first space tourist, won’t be flying himself. He is looking for a married couple to make the trip. If it’s true that most relationships end during vacation, then this couple better have a very strong marriage to survive!

Space Mining

So there are quite a few fascinating space projects in the works, but maybe none will be as important for humankind than space-mining. We only have limited resources here on earth, and if we desire to settle in space and resupply earth, we will need to make use of the limitless wealth that space has to offer.

Planetary Resources is on its way to becoming the first space mining company, that is, if they are not beaten by their new contender Deep Space Industries. As with any other serious mining project, Planetary Resources begins with prospecting. Thus, their first generation of spacecraft will consist of telescopes designed to find, map, and categorize those hundreds of thousands of asteroids. One of those telescope satellites will display images from Kickstarter campaign funders, which will be photographed with a backdrop of earth, the moon or whatever they choose. Oh, and Richard Branson funded the Kickstarter campaign with 100k and also joined Planetary Resources’ core group of investors.

Let’s wrap up this long post with Deep Space Industries gorgeous introduction video. If you only want to watch one video from this post, this is the one:

Image courtesy of Flickr; Video courtesy of Youtube

]]> http://erikunger.com/space-pioneers-2013/feed/ 0 Contemporary Pioneers: Investing in Space, the new innovation race http://erikunger.com/contemporary-pioneers-investing-in-space/ http://erikunger.com/contemporary-pioneers-investing-in-space/#comments Wed, 06 Jun 2012 08:42:15 +0000 http://erikunger.com/?p=593 Continue reading →]]> Note: This post was first published on the Pioneers Festival blog.

What do Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Robert Bigelow, Ross Perot Jr, Paul Alan and Peter Thiel have in common? Well, first of course, they are billionaires. But secondly, they invest in space companies. When top billionaire entrepreneurs start to invest in something new, we may see the formation of a new trend. But why space, such a hard and long term endeavor, why not just simply betting on the next billion dollar app? It’s because of the question these people are asking: what are the biggest challenges humankind is facing? One of those challenges is increasing population vs. scarcity of resources.

When thinking about resources, most people have a very depressing view of the future. We are extracting everything that mother earth has to offer at exponential increasing speed. The 6 billion poor people want to live like the richest billion, and who could blame them for that desire? It just won’t be possible if we divide up all resources that are still available. And we haven’t even started talking about the permanent damage that is done to the ecosphere of our planet by extracting and processing those ever harder to obtain resources.

There are even otherwise smart people who belief life on earth will end in high entropy chaos and decay because we are converting all available high quality energy forms into lower forms to power our civilization on the difference. In this view, all we can do to prolong this process of decay and chaos is to reduce the human energy footprint to the lowest possible level.

Of course this is complete nonsense because earth will be bathing in 173 petawatts (that’s a number with 15 zeros) of fresh solar energy for the next 5 billion years or so. But it demonstrates the depressed mindset that a good part of humankind – faced with ever scarcer resources and dying nature – has adopted. Robert Zubrin, author and president of the Mars Society, describes in one of my favorite speeches the fundamental problem and threat to humanity of this of closed future mindset: it effectively means that  in the ever fiercer competition for depleting resources every person becomes the enemy of every other person on the planet and every country the enemy of any other country.

So are we doomed? Well yes, if we see earth as the only resource in the universe. Of course that’s not the case, but isn’t it interesting how many people still can’t grasp the simple fact, that earth is not the center of the universe and that there is so indefinitely much more out there? Since the early days of humankind only few pioneers dared to dream what could be on the other side of a great mountain, vast desert or sea. But when those pioneers did the voyage to the other side, to the new land, usually great prosperity followed for those associated with them (note: Mars doesn’t have an indigenous population – space is just waiting for the gift of life).

After exploring and conquering all valuable land on earth, our solar system is the next logical step for human expansion and prosperity. But again, only few pioneers are seeing and believing the obvious. Maybe we all have been burned by the Apollo program; the biggest and boldest steps of humankind only to have it all shut down by Nixon when the political goal of beating the Russians was accomplished. No further human exploration of space, no Space Odyssey in 2001 and no Contact in 2010.

So this first wave of space exploration has gone by, only with the ISS to show for today, when we could have thousands of humans in space with 1980s technology if we just wanted it hard enough (for the same price: bank bailouts or the solar system, anybody?). But a new wave is gathering. This time it’s not governments but private entrepreneurs, and that’s the reason why it will work: there are no changing political agendas, just prosperity waiting for everyone who can think and act big enough. Maybe China’s ambitions will ignite a government space race again, but at the time that happens, private companies will be in the lead.

Technology Waves:

Technology Waves

Now where are we in this new wave? It may have started around the year 2000. A couple of smaller companies have come and gone with the winning of the Ansari X Price as the first real breakthrough (this is a great read about that first period). But we are still in the rather flat infrastructure phase. Maybe Planetary Resources will open up the next phase by providing a network of space gas stations, that will enable cheap commercial space exploration.

It won’t happen tomorrow, but I am certain that within our lifetime we will have affordable, private access to outer space. And then the second chapter of human history will begin.

Following is a list of so called NewSpace companies, the pioneers that are making it happen:

Planetary Resources

SpaceX

  • http://www.spacex.com/ (Wikipedia)
  • Founder: Elon Musk
  • Investments: $100M Elon Musk, $20M Founders Fund, $30M Draper Fisher Jurvetson + Founders Fund
  • Development costs for Falcon 9 Rocket: $300 million
  • Total development costs until 2011: $800 million
  • 40 flights booked for a total of $3 billion in revenues
  • Profitable since 2007
  • Spacecrafts: Falcon 1 & 9 rockets, Dragon capsule

Space Exploration Technologies – short SpaceX – is building the Falcon series of rockets and the Dragon spacecraft and has been awarded a contract with NASA to supply the International Space Station.

The big vision behind the company is to make humankind a multi-planetary species. The Dragon capsule is already designed for a atmospheric re-entry from moon and mars return trajectories.

SpaceX has already accomplished something that previously only three nations had done before: launched and returned a spacecraft safely from orbit.

Stratolaunch Systems

Scaled Composites will construct the largest plane in the world to launch a SpaceX rocket  and Dragon spacecraft from the stratosphere to low earth orbit.

Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace is working on an inflatable space station technology taken over from NASA to build private space stations.

Virgin Galactic

Blue Origin

This very secretive company from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is working on a suborbital vertical takeoff and landing spacecraft, the New Shepard, and a larger version to reach low earth orbit. SpaceX is working on a similar vertical landing technology for their orbital rockets.

Xcor Aerospace

Armadillo Aerospace

Founded by computer game programming legend and genius John Carmack, Armadillo has incrementally developed their rocket technology to a point where they now can aim for suborbital flights, eventually with paying space tourists.

Masten Space Systems

Interorbital Systems Corporation (IOS)

This small Californian rocket startup’s first orbital goal is to launch very small and cheap CubeSats and TubeSats to a 300km decaying orbit. First TubeSat kits including launch were available for only $8,125.

MoonEx – Moon Express Inc.

Goals: winning the Google Lunar X Prize, and ultimately mining the Moon.

Space Energy

Developing space based solar power technologies.

Shackleton Energy Company (SEC)

Developing fuel stations in space for cheaper exploration of space.

Copenhagen Suborbitals

Copenhagen Suborbityals is a non-profit suborbital space endeavor based entirely on sponsors, private donators and part time specialists.

Hermes – STAR Systems

  • Spacecraft: Hermes (not to confuse with Hermes from the European Space Agency)

Kickstarter Project

Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems

Not a NewSpace startup, but their privately developed Star Chaser crew transportation spacecraft is really interesting for the private space scene.

Interview with Mark Sirangelo: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Skylon – Reaction Engines Ltd.

REL is working on the holy grail of space launch technologies: “single stage to orbit”. That means that there are no stages that are dropped off and lost, the spaceplane takes off like a normal airplane flies into space and lands again like an airplane. This could dramatically reduce the cost of accessing space if the vehicle can operate like a normal airliner. Key to this capability is the engine technology that REL is working on. It’s an hybrid of a jet engine for atmospheric flight and a rocket engine for space.

Google Lunar X Prize

The GLXP challenge calls for privately-funded spaceflight teams to compete in successfully launching, landing, and then traveling across the surface of the Moon with a robot, while also sending back to Earth specified images and other data.

Liftport Group

More NewSpace Information

Video Podcasts:

News:

Books:

]]> http://erikunger.com/contemporary-pioneers-investing-in-space/feed/ 0 The Ultimate Reason why Space is Important http://erikunger.com/the-ultimate-reason-why-space-is-important/ http://erikunger.com/the-ultimate-reason-why-space-is-important/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:47:18 +0000 http://erikunger.com/?p=455 Continue reading →]]> In this new entry to my Favorite Speeches Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars and founder of The Mars Society, explains the ultimate reason why colonizing space is important.

It’s not about surviving the next big asteroid that will hit earth or other events far in the future. It’s about the psychology and development of humankind in the immediate future!

Highly recommended!

]]> http://erikunger.com/the-ultimate-reason-why-space-is-important/feed/ 0