The Farthest Shore - Chapter One - A 21st Century Guide to Space
From The Space Library
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Chapter One The Farthest Shore: A 21st Century Guide to Space
“That’s one small step for (a) man—one giant leap for mankind” — Neil Armstrong, US astronaut, the first human being to step onto the Moon
Why is there an Earth, and why is our planet unique and perhaps alone in the Universe? As Arthur C. Clarke once challenged us to think what might be, he said: “Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
1.1 The Journey
As thinking human beings, we explore space in our quest for understanding everything, both large and small, everything on our planet, within our solar system, throughout our galaxy, and indeed in the Universe beyond. Since the time of Rene Descartes, who famously expressed the thought “cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am), humans have striven for a better understanding of the Universe. In the age of the “enlightenment” the role of “science” was expanded to find out if the “rules of life and human existence” were the same everywhere throughout the Universe. We continue today to strive to understand why universal rules about time, space, energy and mass obey common laws of behavior throughout the cosmos. Just as Albert Einstein improved on the knowledge provided to us by Isaac Newton, space explorers may someday help us to achieve new insights even beyond those of Einstein. Exploring space is about comprehending the role, purpose and opportunity of our species on our beautiful yet endangered planet -- in the past, present and, especially, in the future. It is also about understanding what the human condition might become once our species moves beyond the bonds of Earth’s gravity to other parts of our solar system and, ultimately, into the great Milky Way.
Since the beginning of time, humans have wondered about the stars and the “wanderers” in the sky called planets. Ancient cultures built temples, monuments and cities based on their understanding of the skies, the seasons, and of the Sun and the Moon. For many millennia those who searched the skies made what seemed to be a logical assumption that the stars, the Sun and the wandering planets somehow moved above the fixed Earth. The Greek astronomer living in Egypt, Claudius Ptolemy, developed a complex model that showed how this might be possible, and this concept of the heavens persisted for many, many centuries. It became a part of religious dogma that made consideration of other theories that much more difficult. Finally, after a number of people, including Galileo Galilei, who was severely punished for the offense, had questioned whether such a complicated explanation made sense, the Polish astronomer, Nikolai Copernicus, developed a heliocentric (Sun-centered) model of our solar system. Once improved by the calculations of Johannes Kepler, which showed that the best explanation was that the planets traveled in elliptical orbits, we began to understand that the Sun was indeed the center of our solar system. Then most people still believed that our Sun must also be the center of the entire Universe.
In time, with the development of increasingly sensitive telescopes and other new concepts, we began to understand that we lived towards the outskirts of a huge and vast galaxy of stars. When the astronomer Edwin Hubble developed the breakthrough concept that allowed us to understand the expanding nature of the universe due to the “red shift” of the light from receding stars, it changed everything. We truly were able to understand that the Universe was much, much larger and much, much older than we had ever imagined. NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite launched in 1989 precisely documented the existence of the cosmic microwave background noise--radiation left over from the “Big Bang” origin of the Universe that occurred some 13.799 billion ±0.021 billion years ago. The reason why all the stars are moving away from us was seemingly explained. But the stars of the Universe are not all moving away from our planet or solar system - they are all flying away from the “singularity” of the “Big Bang”. All parts of the Universe have been moving away from each other ever since this mega-explosion.
However, as we, decade by decade, century by century, through observation, experimentation, study and thought began to understand that the Earth was a six million million million million ton planet (i.e. six Sextillion tons) orbiting as the third rock from the Sun in a solar system, in a vast galaxy, part of a still vaster Universe, we developed new tools to explore our world and the worlds about us. We developed areas of knowledge that included physics, chemistry, medical science, agriculture, cartography, mechanical and other types of engineering, mining and transportation, and a host of new skills and tools of analysis, and we devised economic and legal systems.
These areas of knowledge enabled us to evolve more rapidly than before. Agriculture allowed us to create permanent settlements and build towns, cities, and ports; we built bridges, and walls for fortification. Hominoids have now evolved over a period of some five million years. Perhaps the key milestone was the development of farming and agriculture. This started some ten thousand years ago. This development allowed human society and knowledge to move ahead with remarkable speed. The observation and study of the skies that began while humans were exclusively hunter-gatherer nomads could now be examined by specialists. Permanent settlements and specialization led to a human populace that became able to design tools and to write down our language, all knowledge that could be applied to building a permanent human culture.
Imagine a gigantic building that is 10,000 stories (some 32 kilometers) high, representing 5 million years of hominoid evolution that has developed since Australopithecus Man. When humans began farming we find ourselves on floor 9,980 of that 10,000-story building. At the time represented by our recent technologies of modern rockets, satellites, computers, lasers and transistors we are only a few tens of centimeters from the ceiling of the top floor. Yet if we consider this same 10,000-story skyscraper in terms of information and our human capabilities, only the bottom 1,000floors represents all information and knowledge that preceded the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957. The top 8,000 floors of acquired global information have come since the start of the Internet Age in the mid-1980s. If the current doubling of information continues apace this “Skyscraper of Human Knowledge” would extend more than 500 kilometers into space within the next decade.
The point is that our pursuits in space, the development of science and human discoveries, have moved ahead in close step for many years. Sometimes the driving force has been military (such as the V-2 rocket, or the development of nuclear missiles or surveillance satellites) and sometimes civilian, for scientific objectives. Today the exploration of space, plus space science and applications, has spread to a dizzying array of activities. Whilst we now know that our space systems are imperiled by magnetic storms, we use space as a vantage point for making key observations to understand more about environmental issues such as global warming or the holes in the protective ozone layer. We now use space for astronomy, telecommunications and broadcasting, navigation and surveying, education and medical training, new developments in materials, and a growing array of business services. Technology transfer from space generates new applications in sports, medical care, ground transportation, urban planning and construction.
Today tennis rackets and fishing rods are stronger based on materials developed for the space program. Air conditioners and heating systems are more efficient and insulation systems for homes and offices work more effectively. Laser surgery and health monitoring equipment developed for space programs are now employed in hospitals around the world. The next generation of transportation systems will be safer, stronger, more fuel efficient or faster as a result of space research spin-offs. And many of the improvements here on planet Earth are directly dependent on space applications—not just industrial spin-offs. Airplanes take off and land more safely because they can use satellite navigation to know exactly where they are. Many rural and isolated parts of the world have access to broadband communications and the Internet because of satellite communications. Many, many thousands of lives have been saved because meteorological satellites have provided timely warnings of deadly storms. Other satellites have helped locate and save downed pilots, stranded hikers, and ship crew and passengers that have sunk or been swamped. One can go to the web sites of NASA or the European Space Agency and find literally hundreds of space spin-offs and applications that are critical to the world’s economy today.
Nor have all of the benefits of space programs yet been realized. Thanks to the space programs of today and tomorrow buildings of the future will be constructed of lighter and stronger materials that will age better and demonstrate greater energy efficiency. Space scientists are trying to develop new techniques to use “smart satellites” to help us predict coming natural disasters and to assist with recovery when emergencies occur. It is possible that solar power satellites might be able to provide clean energy from space and new Earth observation satellites and scientific satellites can help us to restore the ozone hole that increases the risks of genetic mutation. There have been economic studies that have shown that in several areas that money invested in space applications have yielded a twenty-fold return on investment in terms of new goods, products, services and improved economic output. Today as we face significant peril from coming climate change, space technology in its many dimensions will be critical in saving our planet from the destructive path followed by our sister planet Venus. On the second rock from the Sun greenhouse gases trapped in within its atmosphere destroyed all life. When someone asks: Why do we need to spend money on space?” There is a really good and short answer. We need space systems, space science and space applications if we humans—and indeed all flora and fauna on the planet—are going to survive another century or two.
The “Space Age” which began in October 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1 was clearly seen in the context of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The competition spurred a number of space firsts and led to the Apollo Program, with astronauts landing on the Moon from 1969 to 1973. The early days of the Space Age focused on nuclear missiles, spy satellites, monitoring systems for atomic blasts, and military uses of space. The last thirty years, however, have seen civil space programs grow and spread to an ever-expanding number of nations. Today it is incredibly exciting to examine, explore and exploit space. We are now planning to return to the Moon, to establish a continuing presence there and even to go to Mars.
Today only just over 500 people have gone into space. Almost all of these have been official explorers of the national space agencies. The USA, Russia (and the former Soviet Union) and China provided the launches of astronauts from many nations. But to date only about a dozen private or “citizen” astronauts have gone into space to visit the International Space Station (ISS).
But the future is now like it used to be. There are now even plans for a private astronaut to orbit the Moon. Private space enterprises are developing space planes so that private space tourists experience a sub-orbital flight into the dark sky of space, to see the Big Blue Marble from a height of over 100 kilometers, high enough for them to be designated “astronauts”. Over 40 companies in more than a dozen countries have already tried or are now seeking to make commercial space tourism a viable industry or to develop new types of space planes or launchers. The so-called “New Space” revolution is happening right now. Private space stations, hotels in space, reusable space planes and private commercial orbital transportation systems (COTS) to the ISS are all either underdevelopment or happening right now.
The so-called space billionaires are key to this “new space” revolution. Pioneers of this new space future include such billionaire entrepreneurs as Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and head of Vulcan Industries, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. com and the Blue Origin launcher company, Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX, and Richard Bigelow, owner of Budget Suites hotels and Bigelow Aerospace are just some of the new kids on the block that are inventing a new space industry. Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Facebook are also powering new space projects forward as well. Some people project that space industries could represent a trillion dollars in annual revenues in a little over a decade.
Space is no long a fringe or exotic activity – it is an activity for all. And our quest in space today is international, intercultural and interdisciplinary, to mention the mantra of the International Space University (ISU). As one of the premier space education institutions in the world, the ISU is dedicated to bringing space not only to specialized students in field, but also to the world at large. Betty in Peoria, Indu in Agra, Habib in Dubai, Francine in Lyon, Zhengzhu in Shanghai, Renaldo in Santiago, and Takashi in Kobe, this book is for you. Whilst we have avoided complicated formulas and too much technical jargon, we have tried to define acronyms and technical phrases as we have gone along.
1.2 The Book
The Farthest Shore: A 21st Century Guide to Space is a different kind of book about space. First of all, it is not just a book, but a web-based interactive teaching and learning system that will be continuously updated over time. Secondly, exactly like the International Space University, it is aggressively interdisciplinary in its scope. We hope that you will find that it is written in a lucid, expository style that favors clarity rather than complexity. The Farthest Shore addresses not only the past, present and future of space activities as well as related space research and exploration but also seeks to explore the myriad scientific, technological, legal, commercial and even social and literary elements of the field today.
Being linked with the ISU, we know that space is exciting, challenging, forward looking and essential for our survival. If we are to combat global warning, avoid societal destruction from a wayward asteroid or comet, use satellite technology to share international health and educational systems, locate key resources, farm and fish more efficiently, discover the secrets of the Universe and evade the most destructive forces of Mother Nature, we must use space and space systems. The understanding of space of the future requires a broad understanding, one that is international, intercultural and interdisciplinary in approach. The breadth of our understanding of space today is thus presented in the following nine fields of study.
Space and Society: Since the dawn of human awareness, the cosmos has fascinated humankind, stirred the imagination of artists and scientists, and helped to lead us forward to a new understanding of the human condition. Futurist, storyteller and interpreter of the arts par excellence, Dr. James Dator examines the rich history of how the stars and the arts and humanities have been interlinked, from tales of science fiction to the fine arts.
Stories from Space: Here we hear from astronauts and follow their stories. We begin with the earliest days of space travel and the transcendent story of Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart. Next, we hear from an astronaut who had the very tough assignment of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) the first time around. Astronaut Dr. Jeff Hoffman, who is one of the most traveled of all human space farers, has made a career out of capturing and repairing spacecraft and telescopes in orbit. We then hear from the scientists and engineers who are preparing exotic space probes to gather precious new information so that one day humans will explore the surface of Mars. As well, we hear about the stories of the billionaires who are financing commercial space developments, and the progress that is now being made to establish the incipient new space tourism business. Finally, Astronaut Dr. Bob Thirsk and Payload Specialist Dr. Larry DeLucas share stories of their missions. All these people who have made amazing advances in space are, in fact, social and warm individual human beings. They feel that sharing their experiences with others was, and still is, an essential part of their job. It is a way to repay society for the special honor of leading the way forward into a deeper knowledge and understanding the cosmos.
The Future of Space: The future of humankind and the future of space are inherently intertwined. We need to use space systems to understand weather, escape the full fury of hurricanes and monsoons, cope with global warming, and to understand how the Earth, the solar system, and indeed the entire cosmos came into being. We need satellites to aid us when communicating, broadcasting, navigating, and remote sensing; we rely on space telescopes and observatories to unlock the mysteries of the Universe. What does the future hold? Could space elevators put satellites into orbit? Could mirrors in space cancel global warming? Could space colonies on the Moon or Mars be followed by the terraforming of planetary atmospheres? Could von Neumann machines help us to explore the cosmos or space probes be used to divert an asteroid from wreaking havoc on planet Earth? Or could Solar Power Satellites bring us clean energy from space? Only if we manage to overcome the many dangerous challenges of the 21st century will we know the potential of humans and our roles in outer space. The potential is enormous, however.
Understanding the Cosmos: The centuries since the early astronomical findings of Nikolai Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Galileo Galilei have produced a great body of science. We now know much about the Big Bang, the huge number of galaxies in the Universe, and how they are arranged, the existence of black holes and of dark matter. We know of the four basic force fields that exist everywhere and which we believe obey the same laws of physics throughout the Universe. Yet for all that we know there is much that we still do not know. We do not know if the Universe is open or closed, or how many dimensions there may be beyond the three familiar dimensions of space and the one-time dimension. The great wonder and interest of science in and from space is that the more we know the more questions we have to solve. The Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the Kepler space telescope have revealed amazing new information about the universe, but the James Webb telescope planned for launch this year may give us even more amazing information about the make-up of the universe with its unparalleled resolution.
Space Applications: The term satellus from the ancient Greek language means servant. In its first usage, the Moon was seen to be at the command of Earth’s pull of gravity as it moved through the heavens. Today over a thousand satellites are in orbit around the Earth to provide valuable services to people everywhere. Over 10,000 television channels are provided around the globe via satellite as well as countless telephone and data links every day. Satellites today are vital for global business, banking and financial transactions, as well as for weather forecasting, aircraft landing and taking off, and for monitoring weapons systems to enforce strategic arms limitation treaties. Satellites are necessary for almost every aspect of our lives nowadays.
Space Engineering and Space Systems: The many people concerned with space exploration and space science instruments to learn more and more rely upon the scientists and engineers who design, manufacture, launch and operate increasingly elaborate space systems. Over the past fifty years space engineers have designed better, more efficient satellites and safer launch vehicles that have made all of our advances in space possible. Only an overview of the complexities and intricacies of orbital mechanics, new propulsion and steering systems, advances in various materials, and space operations will be given here. However, we shall discuss why and how we build space systems and space vehicles, and how these various demanding programs are executed.
Space Medicine and Life Sciences: Some may think that the only difference between living on the ground on Earth and living in space is to experience living in a weightless condition -something like learning how to swim. The truth is that if you put a human, or indeed any plant or animal, into space everything behaves in a dramatically different way. The way that bones and hair grow, the way that ears keep our balance, the way that the heart and the blood circulatory system function, and thousands of other things about “normal human biological operations” are different. Sometimes the differences are dramatic and at other times only minor adjustments have to be made. Understanding these differences and why they occur are the key to understanding new possibilities for the future. In time these might help us to cure diseases, extend human lives, or develop new drugs for use here on Earth.
Space Business and Commerce: Various forms of communications satellite services and related industries now represent a US $100 billion enterprise worldwide. Navigation, broadcasting, and remote sensing and Earth observation systems all support growing industries. Remote sensing now supports fishing, “smart” farming, detecting crop diseases, developing urban landscapes, managing water resources, controlling pollution in the atmosphere and the seas; all of these affect the global economy in important ways. New systems being developed to support tele-education and telehealth services, to bring broadband Internet services to remote areas, to take people into space as “space tourists” and even to deploy space habitats. Entrepreneurial people, as well as companies like Google, Virgin Galactic or O3b (for the Other 3 billion people on Earth), popularize commercial space travel or bring broadband services to the developing world using the latest space technologies.
Space Law and Security: Sometimes overlooked elements of space relate to the legal, regulatory and policy aspects; space programs do not run on science and technology alone. Budgetary allocations, the regulation of radio transmissions to and from space, conventions on the status of Moon and celestial bodies, international cooperation on space programs and international treaties on the peaceful uses of outer space need to be worked out by politicians, lawyers and policy experts. Institutions such as the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, plus the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the International Telecommunication Union, UNESCO, standards bodies, and other regional bodies collaborate to promote global cooperation in space. These entities, along with national governments and professional organizations, devise the international “rules of the road” for peaceful cooperation in space, create rules to limit the increase of orbital debris in space, and develop ways to regulate commercial space flights. One of the most critical elements of space policy is the use of space for strategic purposes. Ever since the development of ballistic missiles, space policy has had to consider the possible use of space and space systems for military purposes. Capabilities such as anti-satellite weapons, multiple re-entry vehicles, space targeting systems and space-based weapon systems are just some of the many strategic concerns that have to be addressed. The annually produced Space Security Index provides the latest assessment of possible conflicts in space and warns that tensions over space weapons are at an all time high, akin to the heights of concern during the Cold War of the 1960s and 1970s.
1.3 Diversity and Rewards of Space
To explain the multi-disciplinary nature of space becomes more and more of a challenge every year. This book is designed boldly to explore the true richness of every aspect of space. The International Space University, headquartered in Strasbourg, France, is uniquely organized to include all the disciplines of space. It prides itself in its pursuit of the so-called “3i’s” of space -interdisciplinary, intercultural and international. Space is a field that is rewarding, with the need to develop knowledge in a rich diversity of disciplines from astrophysics to zoology, as well as to engage in complex international ventures. The International Space Station, for instance, has participants from eighteen nations, so everyone has to be sensitive to intercultural differences.
The chapters that follow span the many dimensions of space and all of the wonders that they entail. There is a wide range of the arts and sciences, engineering, business opportunities, cultural riches, plus a treasure trove of applications, and a smattering of policy and law, not to mention plenty of excitement and wonder in the pages that follow. A diverse group of space experts from around the world has joined in creating the panoply of space knowledge and information that follows. Enjoy your trip through the many interesting and challenging facets of space!
The Farthest Shore – Chapter Two Humans and Space: Stories, Images, Music and Dance
