The Future Of Space
On December 11, 2017, the President signed White House Space Policy Directive 1, a change
in National Space Policy that provides for a US-led integrated program with private sector
partners for a human return to the Moon, followed by missions to Mars and beyond.
The policy calls for the NASA administrator to “lead an innovative and sustainable program of
exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the
solar system and bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.” The effort will more
effectively organize government, private industry, and international efforts toward returning
humans to the Moon, and will lay the foundation that will eventually enable human exploration
of Mars.
According to then NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot, “NASA looks forward to supporting the
directive strategically aligning our work to return humans to the Moon, travel to Mars and
opening the deep solar system beyond. This work represents a national effort on many fronts,
with America leading the way. We will engage the best and brightest across government and
private industry and our partners across the world to reach new milestones in human
achievement. Our workforce is committed to this effort, and even now we are developing a
flexible deep space infrastructure to support a steady cadence of increasingly complex
missions that strengthens American leadership in the boundless frontier of space. The next
generation will dream even bigger and reach higher as we launch challenging new missions,
and new discoveries and technological breakthroughs on this dynamic path.”
According to the NASA web site, the future will continue to be a story of human exploration,
technology and science. NASA “will not be racing a competitor. Rather, we will build upon the
community of industrial, international and academic partnerships forged for the space station.
Commercial companies will play an increasing role in the space industry: launching rockets
and satellites, transporting cargo and crew building infrastructure in low-Earth orbit.”
That was then, this is now. President Biden, inheriting a global pandemic, a stumbling
economy, a climate in crisis, and racial inequality does not leave a lot of time to focus on space
exploration. President Trump did leave the space program and NASA in surprisingly good
shape. The direction of the space program semes to have broad popular support. Polls taken
last year show 78% of those polled had a favorable impression of NASA, 73%said NASA
contributes to our national pride and patriotism, and 71% said NASA is not just desirable, but
necessary. None of that could have escaped Biden’s notice.
But as with all matters in Washington – to say nothing of all matters cosmic- things are more
complex than they seem. Biden has said nothing to date about whether he sees any value in
continuing the NSC, and with the focus he has placed on addressing the climate crisis here on
our own planet, it’s entirely possible that the NASA initiatives he prioritizes will have less to do
with exploration and more to do with Earth science and observation missions.
Scott Pace, a professor at George Washington University, said, “If (space policymakers)
architect it properly, embrace the leverage of commercial space and let go of the notion that
NASA has to do everything, I think 226 or 2027 for a moon landing are realistic dates without
increases in NASA’s budget. Given the complexity of the space environment, a coordinated
body that integrates every part of the country involved in the space domain is valuable.”
THE COMMERCIAL SPACE AGE IS HERE
There is no shortage of hype surrounding the commercial space industry. While tech leaders
promise us moon bases and settlements on Mars, the space economy has thus far remained
distinctly local – – at least in a cosmic sense. Last year, however, we crossed an important
threshold: humans accessed space via a vehicle built and owned not by any government, but
by a private corporation with its sights set on affordable space settlement. It was the first
significant step towards building an economy both in space and for space. The implications for
business, policy, and society at large are hard to overstate.
In 2019, 95% of the estimated $366 billion in revenue earned in the space sector was from the
space-for-earth economy. The space-for-earth economy includes telecommunications and
internet infrastructure, earth observation capabilities, national security satellites, and more. The
economy is booming, and though research shows that it faces the challenges of overcrowding
and monopolization that tend to arise whenever companies compete for a scarce natural
resource, projections for its future are optimistic. Decreasing costs for launch and space
hardware in general have enticed new entrants into this market, and companies in a variety of
industries have already begun leveraging satellite technology and access to space to drive
innovation and efficiency in their earthbound products and services.
In contrast to governments, the private sector is eager to put people in space to pursue their
own personal interests, not the state’s, and then supply the demand they create. This is the
vision driving SpaceX, which in its first years has entirely upended the rocket launch industry,
securing 60% of the global commercial launch market. Building ever-larger spacecraft
designed to ferry passengers not just to the International Space Station, but also to its own
promised settlement of Mars.
Today, the space-for- space market is limited to supplying the people who are already in space:
that is, the astronauts employed by NASA and other government programs. While SpaceX has
visions of supporting large numbers of private space travelers, their space-for-space activities
have all been in response to demand from government customers. As decreasing launch costs
enable companies like SpaceX to leverage economies of scale and put more people into
space, growing private sector demand, that is tourists and settlers, rather than government
employees, could turn these proof-of-concept initiatives into a sustainable large-scale industry.
Made In Space, Inc., has been at the forefront of manufacturing “in space, for space” since
2014, when it 3D-printed a wrench on board the ISS. Today, the company is exploring other
products, such as high quality fiber-optic cable, that terrestrial customers may be willing to pay
to have manufactured in zero gravity. The company recently received a $74million contract to
3D-print large metal beams in space for use on NASA spacecraft, and future private sector
spacecraft will certainly have similar manufacturing needs.
Another major area of space-for-space investment is in building and operating space
infrastructure such as habitats, laboratories, and factories. Axiom Space, a current leader in
this field, recently announced that it would be flying the “first fully private commercial mission to
space”. Axiom was also awarded a contract for exclusive access to a module of the ISS,
facilitating its plans to develop modules for commercial activity on the station. This
infrastructure is likely to spur investment in a wide array of complementary services to supply
the demand of the people living and working within it.
In February 2020, Maxar Technologies was awarded a $142million contract from NASA to
develop a robotic construction tool that would be assembled in space for use on low-Earth orbit
spacecraft. Privat sector spacecraft or settlement will no doubt have a need for a variety of
similar construction products.
SEIZING THE SPACE-FOR-SPACE OPPORTUNITY
- Enabling private individuals to take on greater risk than would be tolerable for
government employed astronauts. - Judiciously implementing government regulation and support.
- Moving beyond geopolitical rivalries,
On earth, private economic activity has long tied together people whose states are at odds. The
growing space-for-space economy offers exceptional potential to be such a force for unity-but
it’s the job of the world government not to get in the way. A collaborative, international
approach to establishing – -and enforcing -the rule of law in space will be essential to encourage
a healthy space-for-space economy.
Visions of a space-for-space economy have been around since the dawn of the Space Age in
the 1960s. Thus far, those hopes have gone largely unmet – but this moment is different. For
the first time in history, the private sector’s capital, risk tolerance, and profit motive are being
channeled into putting people in space. If we seize this opportunity, we will look back on 2021
as the year when we started the truly
transformational project of building an economy and society in space, for space.