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Exploration

Opinion: The Future Now

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
June 11, 2013
Filed under

The Myopia Problem, Space News
It is the year 3013, one thousand years into the future. Looking up into the night sky, you see a crescent Moon that is crisscrossed by a sparkling web of city lights. Millions of people are routinely working, living, and playing on the Moon. Billions live on Mars.
Many would agree that such a bright, promising future is probable. Some would contend that it is inevitable. What cannot be argued is that it is impossible, for we have already slipped the surly bonds of Earth.
The question is “when,” rather than “if.”
We don’t need to wait a millennium in order to get started. Fundamental new breakthroughs in physics are not required. Just as the hang glider and sailplane could have been developed and refined hundreds or thousands of years ago, we already have the needed technology to begin pioneering exploration of the Moon and Mars.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

12 responses to “Opinion: The Future Now”

  1. TheBrett says:
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    Ugh, another one of these pieces. He lost me at the whole “NASA needs to define realistic objectives for the next century”. No agency of the US government can realistically plan things out for the next century, not even the defense department and its far larger supply of money. A “realistic objective for the next century” is a contradiction in terms.

  2. Rocky J says:
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    For better or worse the World population will likely max out at about 10B in this century. Human population will likely shrink considerably over the next 1000 years. India, China, Africa as a whole will “join the modern world”. Family size and birth rates will drop to US and then European levels. It is unlikely there will be a need or desire for billions on Mars. Perhaps millions on the Moon but for the most part (of a Lunar subspecies), once the novelty of a “New World” wears off of Mars or any other extra-terrestrial environment, life on Earth, its biosphere, the Eden that it will return to, will be preferred. Accelerated means of Terra-forming might be developed but it is more likely that Mars in 1000 years will remain a hostile environment (at least radiation wise) and limit humans on Mars to life in mostly confined habitats, be it large and numerous ones. Subspecies of Humans (F. Dyson & others) will populate many niches in the Solar System. Subspecies of humans in the Solar System could number in the billions but the circumstances of advances in agriculture, medicine and slow changes sociologically that caused the quadrupling of human population over the last 100 years, will not last much longer. Extra-terrestrial population growth will not have the same drivers.

  3. Cosmos Mariner says:
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    On the thousand-year plus scale the essential need is to assure preservation of the human species and supporting biota from extinction by KT-type event. E.g., a new comet with our name on it. So at least thousands if not millions or billions of self-supporting folks on the Moon and/or Mars would be the best insurance against total extinction. The radiation problem is huge for survival of an initially small population and must be solved.

    • Rocky J says:
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      The risk of cataclysmic asteroid (or comet) impacts will be short-lived – a few decades. All will be charted, a monitoring system for incoming strays (Aster. or Cometary) will be in place before the end of the century. Asteroids and the monitoring system will be Ronco – “set it and forget it.” Asteroids,Comets will be looked on as just raw material resources. Once branched into sub-species and our genetic makeup safely tucked away, aside from risks from mad-scientist or dictator or Skynet, likelihood of total extinction will be very low. Something unexpected such as a Gamma Ray burst might be a worst enemy which, as seems apparent, has a very low probability of causing mass or total extinction. And its easy to be optimistic on the scale of 1000 years or extremely pessimistic if so bent. Our destiny which I believe will involve much more than just surviving, is likely beyond our present imagination.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        I hope you’re right (and we’re lucky). What makes me wonder, though, is the unknowns. A century ago no one was aware of things like CMEs and EMPs, which could potentially wipe out our civilization without actually damaging the Earth. What have we not yet discovered and prepared for?

  4. Steve Whitfield says:
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    Although I don’t entirely agree with all of Mr. Bridwell’s points in this op ed, I consider it to be a well thought out article, and he has clearly spent time on developing it. His last two paragraphs, in particular, nail down ideas that I consider essential to understand, yet which seem to go unacknowledged by so many people.

    Unlike others, I suspect that Mr. Bridwell’s off-Earth population predictions are probably much more indicative of the future than the more conservative estimates that rebut it — not out of any need or logical requirement, but simply because history shows us that whenever real estate and resources are available, populations will grow very large at an accelerating rate. Making babies is humanity’s oldest and favorite hobby, and the manpower will be very much needed throughout most of that first millennium.

    With some reasonable developments in technology, I’m sure that the bringing of “space” resources to Earth, and other “living places,” will become common practice, and in fact a necessity. Many people have talked about the water (or ice) on the Moon and in comets and asteroids that can be used in space for population habitats, to make rocket fuel, etc., but most seem to overlook the more obvious driver — bringing water from space to Earth.

    I realize that, on the first pass, that may seem crazy; this planet is covered in water. However, most of that water is salt water, not drinkable or otherwise “house-broken” for human use, and the amount of energy needed to desalinate salt water at the rates that humanity will need it would cause energy shortages and weather effects problems unlike anything we’ve seen to date.

    The actual usable water on Earth that is accessible amounts to less than 1% of the total water on the planet, and already, right now, many, many millions of people are suffering from water shortages in many places around the world. Out in our solar system is more usable water than we can ever hope to need, much of it available without any problems. The ice in the rings of Saturn alone would last us longer than Earth will survive and it’s already broken up into conveniently sized chunks; we just need to tow it home. A continuous ice “conveyor belt” need not be fast, just regular.

    I don’t think we need to concentrate too much on 1,000 years down the road, but we definitely do need to start thinking more in terms of the next few decades instead of the next few years.

    Mr. Bridwell states that, “Currently, the most significant barrier holding us back is the astronomical price of space exploration.” While I agree that money is always an issue, I think it’s actually a handful of science and technology problems that are the last roadblocks in our way to starting humans colonizing the solar system. And those problems have been well identified for a very long time. Unfortunately the priorities that are decided for us support political issues rather than the needs/benefits of humanity.
    I recommend Mr. Bridwell’s op ed as a good read; it’s ideas can get people thinking in a more valuable direction.

  5. CadetOne says:
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    Agree and Disagree

    Bridwell’s points and milestones are all good. In particular, I like the focus away from Mars and closer to home. At this point, planning a *mission* to Mars is just a stunt. Anything less than a full commitment of a *campaign* of Mars, with at least 10 missions, including the ability to endure at least 1 complete mission failure (loss of life) and 1 partial mission failure is just a flags and footprint effort that will be cancelled after the first few (maybe just one) missions are completed, and maybe before even the first mission (a la Constellation).

    My disagreements with Bridewell are on the following points:

    (1) “The good news, however, is that space exploration does not need to be profitable.”

    (2) “Although some dreamers would like to see NASA’s budget doubled …”

    (3) “But for the immediate future, the enormous cost of access to space precludes profitable commercial space enterprises beyond geostationary orbit.”

    SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Bigelow Aerospace, Planetary Resources, Deep Space Industries, Google, and others are all trying to change the equation. While still a nascent industry, these organizations are bringing in non-government dollars an innovative approaches.

    Add in the incredible advancements in robotics in the last 10 years, and I think using past models (like ISS) is a mistake.

    Instead of thinking that NASA dollars are going to be the only dollars, we should think how we can use NASA dollars to bring in non-NASA dollars. How do we create a multiplier effect?

    • CadetOne says:
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      Regarding the pace of improvement in robotics, check out this TED talk (with a “skynet” reference)

      Raffaello D’Andrea: The astounding athletic power of quadcopters

      http://www.ted.com/talks/ra

      Or look how poorly the entries did in the DARPA 2004 Grand Challenge and look at Google self driving cars today.

      Now project this rate of advancement out another decade…

    • CadetOne says:
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      15 years ago who would have thought that companies that did not yet exist would could be doing things like this:

      http://www.youtube.com/watc

      or

      http://www.blueorigin.com/u

      or

      Booking seats for anyone to fly suborbital launches

      http://www.virgingalactic.c

      The approach & costs of the Space Shuttle, ISS, and Constellation should not be our measuring stick or model for the future.

  6. chriswilson68 says:
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    Setting some far-future goal like a lunar base for 1,000 people in 100 years isn’t the least bit helpful. That’s too far away for us to know what it takes to get there any more than very than generic things about getting better about building space infrastructure. The list of example objectives he gives are just the usual generic “better space technology” objectives that come up over and over.

    Would it have helped in 1913 to try to come up with a goal for space for 2013? No, not at all.

    The article has all sorts of details that don’t make sense, such as this: “Just as the hang glider and sailplane could have been developed and refined hundreds or thousands of years ago, we already have the needed technology to begin pioneering exploration of the Moon and Mars.” That’s just dumb. In what sense could a hang glider have been developed thousands of years ago? If the people then had known all about the strong, lightweight metals and fabrics that are necessary for a hang glider and has also known all the details of areodynamics that are necessary to make a hang glider work? It takes a long time and a lot of work to figure all that out, and there’s no way the people back then would have even known to think of a hang glider as a goal.

    • Ivan Oranrof says:
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      Hah! Stumbled on this thread 12-11-16. These articles are mostly about baffling the masses with far off sci-fi possibilities, while studiously avoiding building a lunar base now, for about 12, with a private hotel suite for two.

  7. Matthew Black says:
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    As regards to NASA: Leadership is what’s required – pick a path and stick to it, regardless of the ‘wailing and gnashing’ of *some* ‘Space Cadets’!! Take some risks, too. Want to go to Near Earth Asteroids? Find a way within a flat budget to do it as efficiently as possible and use existing launchers either As-Is or with low(ish) budget upgrades. Want to go to the Lunar surface with Astronauts? Find a way to work with Commercial Space and International partners and go do it. Want to go to the Moons of Mars? Find a way to leverage existing and nearly-here technology & hardware and go do it. Pick some destinations and methods and GO. DO. IT…

    And of course, we need Visionaries like Elon Musk and Dennis Tito and their ilk – can’t hurt to have them, eh?