Cities in Space
The solar system is to us what the American West was to Lewis and Clark, and, showing the same vision and courage they once did, we should go forth boldly into the new frontier.
—Jeffrey E. Brooks, “Jefferson’s Dream”
First, a cautionary word before we take another “giant leap for [hu]mankind”: the Outer Space Treaty was formed by the United Nations and entered into by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union on October 10, 1967.[1] As of July 2017, 107 countries were parties to the treaty, while another 23 have signed the treaty but have not completed ratification.
According to the treaty, all parties are prohibited from placing nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on the moon, or on other bodies in space. Nations cannot claim sovereignty over the moon or other celestial bodies.[2]
Despite this, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order in December 2018 for the creation of a “US Space Command.”[3] The United States Space Force (USSF) is the proposed space warfare service branch of the US armed forces and is intended to have control over military space operations. It would be the sixth branch of the US armed forces and the eighth American uniformed service.[4]
Although it is supposedly used to “consolidate space operations under a single authority,” according to CNN it could also be a response to what news outlets have called a “space arms race,” as powers like China and Russia are developing possible antisatellite technology.[5]
The new space command won’t be the first one founded by the United States. One was established in 1985 but disbanded in 2002 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when attention was refocused on homeland security.[6]
Judging from Trump’s administration, the president’s flight of fancy would seem to be almost certainly seeking to establish military superiority in the heavens. Per the Outer Space International Space Treaty, Trump won’t be allowed to weaponize space—although nothing has stopped him in the past from fracturing treaties.
Hopefully Trump’s aggressive pitch is just a cartoonish form of jingoism. But his hunting dog, Mike Pence, rattled his saber, too, stating that plans are in place for forming an “elite group of war fighters specializing in the domain of space.”[7]
Next, a word about the exploration and the commercial exploitation of space and other celestial bodies: The examination and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all humankind, according to the outer space treaty, specifically:
Outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all states.
Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.
States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner.
The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of humankind.
States shall be responsible for national space activities, whether carried out by governmental or by nongovernmental entities.
States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects.
States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.[8]
Here’s a good question: Will the “development” of the planets become a billionaire boys’ club, or will it be sucked up and/or manipulated by corporate conglomerates—all seeking planets for profit? Despite progress in technology and the allure of valuable resources, space settlement has been hampered by the lack of clearly defined legal rules for recognizing property rights in space under current United States and international law.[9]
There is internationally recognized legal precedent for retaining ownership of resources mined in space, as lunar samples have been returned to Earth on both the United States’ and Russia’s behalf. But actually owning the portion of the celestial body from which the resources are harvested—as in a traditional mining claim—is more problematic. Without legally recognized rights to buy, own, and sell titled property, it is difficult if not impossible to raise capital to develop land or extract the resources it holds.[10]
But someone or some entity will find a way. A wily entrepreneur has already been selling extraterrestrial real estate. In 1980 the (US) Lunar Embassy Commission started selling real estate plots on the moon. As of 2009 it claimed to have sold 2.5 million one-acre plots for around twenty dollars per acre. The legal loophole the company crawled through was the contention that the law prohibits nations, not individuals, from selling chunks of green cheese.[11]
However, without exploration and exploitation of those resources, there may not be any civilization in space, as large-scale colonization of space is going to take very big bucks. The monetization of the moon, Mars, and space can’t be claim-staked only for plans of profit but has to be executed with careful preparation, protections, and protocols. Unfortunately, in the past we have seen profits supercede the rights and the property of others.
But as the beginning of the race to space spurts, profits will push the pursuit for the treasures of outer space. Even in Mars, the fictitious TV series, after a short time on the planet corporate visitations almost immediately cause concerns and arguments about rights to precious resources, like water.[12] Will the brave new world of outer space continue to be business as usual?
It took humankind about two hundred thousand years to colonize almost every corner of Earth[13]—while always looking up at the stars—and less than a century from propeller to propulsion to leave our planet as we begin to inhabit space.
There are many reasons for venturing out into the ink and vacuum of space, from insurance against extinction to scientific inquiry, enjoyment of travel, and—perhaps the most compelling—the human compulsion to see what’s beyond the next horizon. Gene Roddenberry wrote of striving “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”[14] Stephen Hawking said, “It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves.”[15]
It should be pointed out that not everyone is in agreement. “This whole idea of terraforming Mars—are you guys high?” Bill Nye the Science Guy sputtered in an interview with USA Today. “We can’t even take care of this planet, let alone another planet,” added his pal, respected astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.[16] Tyson believes any plans to make Mars livable for humans are absurd, but he does believe we should send astronauts to explore the Red Rock.[17]
A space settlement is a structure like a small city in size and built either within Earth’s orbit or on another planet. At present the International Space Station (ISS) currently houses only six astronauts at a time, but a space settlement would have hundreds or thousands, or maybe millions, on board.[18]
The four most common arguments in favor of colonization are survival of our civilization in the event of a planetary scale disaster—a kind of “get out of jail free” card—the availability of additional resources in space that could finance the expansion of humankind, simple conquest, and pure scientific exploration. The most common objections to colonization include the fact that the value of raw materials in the cosmos may likely be irresistible to major economic and military institutions[19] and provide a reason for conflict.
Needless to say, the building of a space colony will present a set of mammoth technological and economic challenges. Living in space and on other planets is going to be a tough techno-nut to crack. Besides the volatile and careening temperature changes, radiation, and lack of immediate resources, there’re the horrendous vacuum of space, dangerous moon and Martian razor-shaped dust everywhere that contains carcinogenic chemicals,[20] and countless other obstacles to overcome on other planets. Unless we can crack open asteroids and the poles on Mars for water to ensure enough oxygen, people won’t last months, let alone years.
However, high-tech ionizing and filtration systems could be used on the moon and Mars to keep habitats dust-free, and the water they bring, which will be constantly cleaned and reused, will be enhanced by Martian ice at the poles. Then there is the predicament of food and habitation. The use of human waste for fertilizer mixed with the questionable soil of Mars would help,[21] but so far we don’t know what the food value and yield would be, although it looks promising.[22] And hydroponics, which is the best bet for growing produce, is still problematic due to water shortages. If burrowing underground or in caverns is not possible, robotic 3D printers might be able to make thick enough walls to shelter against radiation.[23]
Space settlements would have to provide for just about all their material needs in an environment that is hostile to humanity. They would require technologies for controlling life support systems that have yet to be developed. They would also have to deal with the physical and psychological issues of how to behave and thrive long-term in such places. Expenses would have to be reduced, as sending anything from the surface of the Earth into orbit costs around $2,500 per pound.[24] Of course, this would decrease with increases in technology—such as space elevators and platforms, space planes, and inexpensive, reusable launch systems—reducing the cost to about ten dollars per pound to Earth.[25]
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t plans in place by entrepreneurs, scientists, and several countries that are hot to trot for the first shot at an extraterrestrial colony. Just fifty years ago, after the moon landing, we were so infatuated with the idea of space travel that it seemed only decades away. The Space Shuttle was so named because it was intended to make fifty round trips per year, and there were active plans for expanding civilization into space, the moon, Mars, and beyond. But interest, passion, the Cold War, and economics sagged along with the deflated NASA budget that sank from 5 percent of the US federal budget to less than 0.5 percent.[26]
But now the children of the Apollo age have resurrected the hot-to-trots to take on some of the biggest difficulties of large-scale space settlements. On the celestial menu are basically a few choices: terraforming, using massive geoengineering projects to generate a new environment; creating biodomes to build an alien metropolis;[27] burrowing beneath the surface of Mars for protection and water;[28] helium-filled airships cruising through the Venusian atmosphere[29]—a colony in the clouds—and a low-Earth-orbit model expanding upon the current space station scheme of a “planar-cluster,” housing billions of people across thousands of miles of space.[30]
Another possibility is an outer space model of floating cylinders with artificial gravity (think 2001: A Space Odyssey); survival would be based on towing and digesting the natural resources of asteroids, which contain water and other raw materials. As the saying goes in space travel, “Once you’re out of Earth’s gravity you’re halfway to anywhere.”[31]
There is no atmosphere and very little magnetic field to protect moon and Mars colonists from radiation, which is lethal and could render them cancer-ridden or sterile. However, with the proper protection both inside and outside, a transplanted “Martian” could live for sixty years before any problems would arise.[32] As far as the moon is concerned, at one time the pale rock was volcanic, and it has a number of ancient lava tubes left over that would be ideal for living spaces.[33]
A lunar city has the advantage of being practically next door to Earth and as such could participate in Earth’s economy to some extent. Possible anchor industries could include space tourism and mining as well as industries that require microgravity.[34] The first rule for planning a base on the moon is that you want to use as much lunar material as possible, especially for 3D printing.
There have been rumors that the United States and Russia would be teaming up to build a lunar base. Russian Roscosmos and NASA have both released statements saying the two countries share a “common vision for human exploration” and will cooperate in building a “deep space getaway” starting in 2020.[35] This is a big deal for many reasons, as working together, despite earthbound political tensions, means that our countries might be less likely to start a shooting war in space.
From books amd movies such as H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds and The Martian to the TV program Mars, the idea of extraterrestrial life or pioneering Mars has been a popular theme of sci-fi space culture. Possible methods to help make the planet habitable could be using bioengineering organisms to convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to oxygen or darkening the Martian polar caps to reduce the amount of sunlight they reflect to increase the surface temperature and provide water.[36]
Dr. James Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, presented the extraordinary idea of putting a magnetic shield around Mars to restore its atmosphere. It would shield the planet and generate an artificial magnetic field, allowing Mars to slowly restore its atmosphere, deflect radiation, and perhaps deliver up part of its ancient oceans. The shield would also protect the planet from solar winds and the greenhouse effect.[37]
NASA has established three phases that must be completed before dropping off humans on Mars’s doorstep. The first is one that NASA calls “Earth-reliant,” in which scientists continue to test the feasibility of living in space and conduct more research aboard the ISS. The second, “proving ground,” consists of operations around the moon to establish how humans will return to Earth safely. In the third, “Earth-independent,” humans will establish a self-sufficient colony on Mars.[38]
When NASA gets to Mars, sometime in the 2030s, its rather optimistic goal will be a proper human settlement, first using a spacecraft capable of sustaining a crew in orbit around Mars, with accompanying landers.[39] SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk bets on landing an unstaffed spaceship by 2022 and having the first one hundred humans onboard for a settlement by 2024.[40]
Jeff Bezos, founder of both Amazon and the space company Blue Origins, hopes to set up a cargo delivery service to the moon in 2020. Bas Lansdorp of Mars One intends to send a group of humans to Mars—one way. Of 202,586 applicants, only 100 have been selected. Plans have been pushed back numerous times, and the most recent timeline indicates that Lansdorp hopes to launch a crew by 2031.[41]
The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has been given the go-ahead from NASA to begin full-scale production of its “Dream Chaser” commercial space cargo plane, scheduled to make its first mission in 2020. It’s capable of carrying approximately 12,125 pounds of cargo and returning to Earth on a runway landing. Increased competition between corporations is helping to reduce the high cost of launches and is opening new doors for smaller companies.[42]
Another flag posed to be planted on Martian soil belongs to the United Arab Emirates. They have a tendency to think big and move slowly, and they are set to build the Mars Scientific City as part of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre’s Emirates Mars Mission, which aims to establish a viable human colony on the planet within a hundred years.[43]
China is seeking to become the first country to conduct joint robotic orbital and surface exploration of Mars in a single mission by 2020. As for a potential partnership with China, since 2011 the US Congress has prohibited NASA from working with the country because of national security concerns.[44]
The idea of sending humans to Venus and Mars was first proposed after Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk, when NASA was flush with funds and promise. Robotic explorations of Venus could potentially lead to the development of a human mission to explore the clouds of Venus by solar-powered aircraft that ultimately could even envision colonization in the Venusian atmosphere.[45]
If you like it hot, you’ll love Venus—it’s scorching enough to melt lead, and its acid rain will blister flesh off bones. Venus is the “cloud planet,” nicknamed for its thick swaths of carbon dioxide (97 percent), sulfuric acid, nitrogen, and trace elements (3 percent). It’s a gross example of a greenhouse-gas-affected planet.[46]
Venus is four to five months closer to Earth than Mars is. Opportunities of a trip to Venus come once every 1.6 years, compared to every two years for Mars. The gravity on Venus is about 90 percent that of Earth’s, and Venus is 30 percent closer to the sun than we are. If Mars has almost no atmosphere, Venus has too much; it is ninety times thicker than Earth’s. However, about thirty miles above the surface, the air pressure is close to Earth’s and has enough atmosphere to shield radiation. The temperature at that height is almost the same as Earth’s, or about 70°F.
Carl Sagan advocated bombing the upper atmosphere with genetically modified blue-green algae to reduce the carbon-dioxide-saturated atmosphere to a level conducive to supporting terrestrial life. However, three decades later Sagan himself declared the idea “fatally flawed.”[47]
And since Venus’s gravity is nearly as strong as Earth’s, colonists living there wouldn’t develop the brittle bones and weak muscles associated with low-gravity environments. Another happy coincidence is that CO2 is heavier than air, so a balloon filled with oxygen is lighter than the Venusian air and will float in the sky with no problem, part of a plan called the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC).[48]
The scenario of a balloon deflating by ripping or popping open is not as probable as it simply slowly leaking, because the pressure inside the balloon would be the same as the pressure outside.
A dirigible one kilometer in diameter will lift seven hundred thousand tons; one with a two-kilometer diameter would lift six million tons and offer an environment as spacious as a typical Earth city. And dirigibles could be made out of Teflon, which is tough enough to protect against sulfuric acid clouds. Scientists are figuring that a Venusian settlement of one hundred people will require a slew of resources to keep its inhabitants alive. However, if the project works, there are plans for massive dirigibles for thousands of potential Venusians.[49]
The CO2 atmosphere of Venus could be split into oxygen and carbon, and the sulfuric acid could be split into water, oxygen, and sulfur. And while the surface of Venus would remain inaccessible to humans, robots could explore and mine the rocky terrain, and there would be no need for complicated terraforming.[50]
Other bizarre, outlandish plans to pacify the atmosphere have included infusing the planet’s atmosphere with forty quintillion kilograms of hydrogen obtained, somehow, from the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, and removing the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in a process called a Bosch reaction. This would produce enough water to cover 80 percent of the planet’s surface.[51]
A foothold in space might be had by snagging a trip on an asteroid. We could capture it, spin it to induce gravity on the interior, and freewheel a free ride in space, unbound by planetary gravity.[52]
The sun’s energy will enable immense amounts of power for electricity, manufacturing, or mining. It’s been estimated that a specific asteroid could contain more gold than has been mined on Earth.[53] Asteroids such as Ceres have enough surface area to provide uncrowded homes for more than a trillion people. Buildings could be so large that they would feel like the outdoors.[54]
Beyond the asteroid belt, another possible spot is Jupiter’s moon Europa. It’s completely covered in a thick layer of ice, protecting enormous oceans. So life might be thriving beneath this protective crust, and if so, it might be a welcome place for us.[55]
Still another idea is the Analemma Tower, a skyscraper that would be suspended from an asteroid placed into orbit right above earth, at the height of about thirty-one thousand miles. The advantage of making such a building is that since it’s being built in the air, it can be constructed as large as needed and transported anywhere. It would be powered by solar panels constantly exposed to sunlight. Water would be recycled in a semiclosed loop.[56]
But before we blast off to extraterrestrial regions, we will need the help of city planners to execute where and how we are to survive and thrive as engineers and scientists develop life support systems; develop sources of food, water, and fuel; overcome the negative effects that living in space has on the body and mind; and find a faster way to travel.
As for gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while there isn’t a solid surface to build on, the planets might also sustain floating cities. But we would need to be heavily shielded from radiation, and technology for that is not available just yet.
These gas giants are also known as Jovian planets. It’s unclear what the dividing line is between a rocky planet and a terrestrial planet and some may have a liquid surface. For example, in our solar system, gas giants are much bigger than terrestrial planets, and they have thick atmospheres full of hydrogen and helium. On Jupiter and Saturn, hydrogen and helium make up most of the planet, while on Uranus and Neptune, the elements make up just the outer envelope. These planets are also inhospitable to life as we know it, although this region of the solar system has icy moons that could have habitable oceans, but at present they are out of bounds for any type of human exploration or colonization.[57]
When we choose to move into permanent space colonies, a new set of challenges will arise. A large one is sustenance. Our only colony outside of Earth is the ISS. It’s only 254 miles from Earth and relies on a continuous resupply of resources for its crew of three to six people. NASA is working on developing techniques to regenerate oxygen from atmospheric by-products, such as the carbon dioxide we exhale.[58]
Mars can be fairly comfy (70 to 100°F) during the day in the warm season but very cold, especially at night (−90 to −200°F), so plants will have to be kept covered indoors. Its atmosphere of choice is primarily carbon dioxide, so we can grow plants there.[59] Agriculture will be essential to settling Mars, as every resupply mission will take up to ten months, and a suitable window for launching those missions only happens once every two years.[60] Scientists have raised crops in simulated Martian soil and found that it’s surprisingly arable for carrots, green beans, tomatoes, and potatoes—except that they only grow to about the size of a salt shaker, and their taste is reportedly . . . blah.[61]
Bland foodstuffs made of algae called chlorella or spirulina might not look like four-star dishes, but they are loaded with powerful nutrients such as most of the necessary vitamins, minerals, iron, magnesium, beta-carotene, gamma-linolenic acid as well as all the essential eight amino acids. They are also rich in potassium, phosphorous, and calcium, and contains significantly large amounts of protein when compared to various other sources.[62] They contain sugars and proteins, but the balance between the two depends on the nutrients in the water, the light the algae receives, and how you can manipulate the taste—again . . . blah. But with 3D printers we can produce everything from pizza to chocolate. (See chapter 10.)
An initial settlement would need to carry a certain amount of water and recycle all waste liquids. This is already done on the ISS, where no drop of liquid—washing, sweat, tears, and even urine—is wasted.[63] A colony would also likely try to extract water, possibly from underground supplies of liquid that may exist on Mars or from ice on the poles.[64]
On the ISS, oxygen is generated through a process known as electrolysis that separates it from the hydrogen in water, but the process only has 40 percent efficiency. We need to solve how to convert hydrogen or CO2 directly into oxygen. Crops can also be used to convert carbon dioxide in the air back into breathable oxygen.[65]
Another requisite will be to develop ways to produce electricity. A substance called perchlorate, a human-made chemical used in the production of rocket fuel, missiles, fireworks, flares, and explosives exists in relatively high quantities on Mars, making up about 1 percent of all the dust on the red planet.[66]
The value and intensity of sunlight on the surface of Mars is lower than on the surface of Earth because it is farther from the sun. Mars’s atmosphere is also subject to periodic sandstorms, which are notoriously problematic, limiting the amount of available light and increasing sand piles on solar panels.[67]
Fossil fuel stores will quickly become depleted unless we can construct supply stations to produce methane as a fuel. And it’s obvious that future cities will need a cleaner, renewable energy source. An answer might be a “Luna Ring,” a permanent array of solar collectors around a planet’s equator. The majority of the solar cells would always face the sun and collect massive amounts of solar energy, which would then be beamed via microwave power transmission antennae.[68]
Another possibility being tested is the LightSail 2, which moves through space by harnessing the power of solar photons, no fuel tanks or thrusters required.[69]
Another requirement for habitats is an environment able to maintain air pressure, temperature, and protection from radiation. The first settlements would probably be made of domes, like Bucky Fuller’s geodesic domes, because a sphere is the best way to hold in pressure and is structurally strong.
Structures will have to be built with what’s available from boring machine by-products of rammed earth built by robots, or by second-generation, lightweight 3D printers using the soil of the planet as a building material. Missions to the moon and Mars have proved that there’s silicon available for windows, aluminum, iron, and magnesium for parts of the main structure.[70]
The interiors would be basic, collapsible forms of 3D-printed materials to make the best use of available room. Think space-age Motel 6. It will be functional, not glamorous, which will come later when resorts and hotels are built for tourists.
Freewheeling space settlements must be airtight and should rotate to provide pseudo-gravity. People standing on the inside of the hull will feel gravity, but when on the outside, they will enjoy the fun and freedom of weightlessness. Settlements in low Earth orbit (LEO) would be 760 times closer than the moon and 100,000 times closer than Mars. The moon would be a few days away, but trips to Mars would still take many months.[71]
According to outer space entrepreneur Elon Musk, a city on Mars with a million inhabitants could be achievable within fifty years, complete with factories and ice cream and pizza parlors. He claims he will build a “Mars Colonial Fleet of more than one thousand cargo ships which could transport 200 passengers at a time, along with tons of supplies.”[72]
Musk says, “Probes and robotic rovers have already been on or around Mars for 40 years. It would be quite fun to be on Mars because you would have gravity that is about 37 percent of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around.” He adds that “he wants to be on the first flight to Mars, where he would like to die, but not on impact.”[73]
NASA has also said it is planning to establish a Mars colony by the 2030s. But the agency has plans to establish a base on the moon first, to create “deep-space habitation facilities” that will act as stepping-stones to the red planet.[74]
There will also be a weight limit for supplies, meaning colonists will have to watch their calories and rely largely on local resources for their building materials. Surprisingly, an effective way to get building materials is to pound the ground with a sledge hammer. Scientists found that this primitive method could be used for making Martian bricks—stronger than steel-reinforced concrete—by 3D printing Martian ice, turning it into vapor, then converting it into water, and using it to print solid structures. Construction would use digital manufacturing techniques and autonomous machines, releasing people for other tasks.[75]
In the future people won’t be ferried into space by huge booster rockets but via elevators made of grapheme carbon nanotubes. One hundred times stronger than steel and more flexible than muscle, these will be anchored to Earth by a tether and held under tension by centrifugal force via a counterweight thousands of miles high.
The concept of a space elevator is older than the first space film (c. 1902); the first space elevator was proposed in 1895. The present project calls for sending a robot two kilometers up via a cable and building a test platform of high-altitude balloons that are tethered to the ground. Then the robot launch could help with the lunar elevator, which in turn could help with the Earth elevator.
In the lunar version, a space capsule would be attached to a rocket and sent toward the moon. When it got close enough, a cable would eject from the capsule and attach to the surface of the moon, allowing for transport between the surface and the capsule hundreds of thousands of feet high.[76]
The biggest structure ever made might be built from one of the smallest materials ever made—nanotubes approximately fifty thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. They are strings of extremely “sticky” carbon atoms that bind together, becoming stronger and stiffer than any other known material. The space elevator would be made by “cooking” carbon in a special way and aligning the nanotubes vertically—like trees in a carbon forest. So far, the longest nanotube made has been only a few millimeters long—a little short of the planned twenty-two miles. Scientists claim that it probably can be done—when the technology catches up with the concept.
Although the space-elevator concept was once thought to be the stuff of science fiction, some aerospace engineers believe the idea is essential to the future of space exploration as an alternative to building ever-larger rockets; in terms of payload, rocket power has more or less reached its limitations.[77]
“Cubesats,” are miniature satellites that have been used exclusively in low Earth orbit for fifteen years and are now being used for interplanetary missions. In the beginning, they were commonly used in low Earth orbit for applications such as remote sensing or communications. In the future they would be released onto the elevator as it moves along a cable with its own electrical, solar-powered motor. Robotic climbers would patrol up and down the tether, reporting when to replace parts.[78]
Today the biggest space operation isn’t NASA, Musk, or even the US Defense Department, but DirecTV, which is very interested in low-Earth-orbit transmission, called New Space, a $50 billion business.[79]
Space capitalists include hotel tycoon Robert Bigelow, the owner of Budget Suites of America. He founded Bigelow Aerospace in 2015 and was supposed to build a “commercial space station” in 2015, but apparently it’s been a little slow on the takeoff.[80]
Bigelow plans to use a SpaceX rocket to send one of his inflatable space habitat modules up for testing at the ISS. These blow-up houses are capable of operating independently as space stations, and the motel magnate wants to lease them as suites, laboratories, or maybe lunar motels.[81]
The Space Tourism Society (STS) was founded in 1996 by Jim Spencer as the world’s first society focused on the establishment and expansion of a profitable space tourism industry. One of the Society’s long-term research, design, and promotional programs is establishing an orbital super-yachting community complete with snuggle tunnels for zero-gravity sex.[82]
Space tourism is no longer a distant dream as multiple companies want to be the first to get tourists off the ground for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Well-heeled tourists will soon pay big time to go on “cruise ships” either in LEO or a nice, week-long trip around the moon. Orion Span joined the ranks of Virgin Galactic, Axiom Space, SpaceX, and Space Adventures by revealing a fully modular space vacation station called “Aurora Station” for trips to space that can last up to twelve days. Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic’s Virgin spaceship (VSS) Unity, a suborbital, rocket-powered space plane, will be taking flights closer to the Karman Line (the official border between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space), located sixty-two miles above Earth’s surface.[83]
Virgin Galactic will supposedly send people to space very soon. Sort of. Probably. Maybe. Virgin’s Richard Branson first made this promise more than a decade ago.[84]
Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered Spaceship Two (SS2) space plane won’t actually launch from the ground but will hitch a ride up to an elevation of roughly 9.4 miles via a mother ship. At that point, the SS2 will detach and accelerate to a top speed of approximately 2,300 mph in about eight seconds. Tourists will experience weightlessness and check out a view of Earth’s curved horizon. The ninety-minute flight will cost $250,000, but that price is expected to decrease.[85]
Next up is a jolly fellow named Rick Tumlinson, the head of Deep Space Industries, an asteroid mining company that aims to be a gas station/building-supply center/air-and-water stop in space. Tumlinson was one of a group that leased the Mir space station from the Russian government for a few months in 1999. Rechristening the station the MirCorp, the group sent up a Jolly Roger pirate flag. No one—not Russia, not NASA, and not the State Department—was amused. But seriously, Tumlinson and partners have pledged their lives and fortunes to “making the human breakout into space” happen in our lifetimes.[86]
And our old frenemies, Russia and China, are already part of the global space community, although China holds its cards close to its vest. As part of China’s twelfth Five-Year Plan, a Chinese lunar rover made its first soft landing on the moon in 2019. Among the country’s stated goals is to establish a crewed lunar base and then on to Mars.[87]
In two or three decades, humankind might have a couple of small hotels in orbit, with people checking in and out on a regular basis. The sleeping rooms could be arranged in a ring that rotates at a comfortable 3 RPMs, providing three-fourths of the artificial gravity of Earth. In the next two to three decades, the price of space tourism will come down so much that a flight to LEO will be about the same as a vacation to a Caribbean resort.[88]
By the way, if you are elderly or infirm, you might like to retire to a space resort. You wouldn’t be subjected to gravity, so you wouldn’t need a walker or wheelchair. After a couple of months, you might not want to be earthbound ever again.
Technologically and psychologically, space colonization will be a test for humanity. The first people to stay on Mars for years will be selected for their physical and emotional skills and basic suitability for the challenge.[89] At some point the base camp will become an actual village with people bonding into a society with their own set of idiosyncrasies, prejudices, lexicon, and rules.
Then there are the societal considerations: laws and a government based on democracy or an outer space corporate empire that may base its political, legal, economic, and social structures on a new sovereign state model, the “company nation.” A colony may even declare itself a tax haven from the nations of Earth. Penal colony countries might be created in orbit, for a price, as they should be fairly escape-proof.
If we want to create communities outside of Earth, we will need more collaboration from more people, from more disciplines, from more countries than ever before—and that would hopefully include no ancient flag planting and claim filing. Remember that Buzz Aldrin didn’t claim the moon for the United States when he planted the Stars and Stripes in the lunar dirt.
Space pioneers will have to be very careful to avoid any mini-takeoffs of Aliens and not bring microorganisms on board during their comings from and goings to Earth. Such organisms might have unknown but nasty effects on unprotected flora and fauna on a planet where someone didn’t wash his or her hands after using the space potty.
A recent survey of bacteria on board the ISS revealed five different strains of Enterobacter, a type of bacteria notorious for its ability to survive our strongest antibiotics, ability to thrive in both aerobic (air) and anaerobic (nonoxygenated) environments, extraordinary mobility, and estimated 79 percent potential for infecting humans. At present they are not immediately dangerous. However, experts aren’t certain how much of a threat these bacteria pose since we don’t fully understand how bacteria operate in space.
Even if contamination isn’t outright harmful, it could compromise any research we hope to conduct on foreign bodies. After all, if humans accidentally contaminate some alien environment with microorganisms the first time we visit, how could we ever know whether the life we find later is native to the planet or has evolved from our alien microbes?
We’re currently entering a new era of space exploration, and we need new planetary protection policies lest we forget the lessons of our early explorer ancestors on Earth and the diseases that they unwittingly passed around, and exchanged with indigenous peoples.[90]
No one is asking permission to colonize space. So far, astronauts are only subject to the laws of their home countries. For example, by whose laws would someone be tried for the first space theft or murder? How would mother countries respond to rebellious colonies? Could these settlements become independent? How would various settlements on the moon, Mars, or anywhere else interact among each other and with Earth society?
A key advantage of space settlements is the availability of “new land” and resources to develop. Hopefully, colonists will create thriving, expansive civilizations without war or the destruction of a planet or colony’s biosphere and without the thought to ripping off others. The asteroids alone can provide enough material to make available new lands hundreds of times greater than what’s on Earth. Perhaps these lands will be divided into millions of settlements, creating wealth beyond our wildest imagination and easily supporting trillions of people.
The challenge to these kinds of questions comes from the fact that alienation of offshoot colonies happens, and future space societies may find themselves in need of entirely novel governmental structures. On Earth, colonization by and eventual secession from governing nations have often been a bloody mess. And try to remember George Santayana’ s quote: “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”[91]
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