Space is going mainstream

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OPINION SPACE
Space Set To Go Mainstream

Space telecommunications is now a sturdy and lucrative industry, which
is constantly evolving to meet the needs of the mainstream customer in
the world of commerce and media while supporting the all-around needs
of the defense establishment as well.
by Madhu Thangavelu
Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 14, 2008
It is now more than 50 years since the dawn of the space age, and even
today much of space activity remains the monopoly of governments and
their sensitive defense establishments. Space exploration budgets are
closely tied to defense and intelligence pursuits, and their budgets
are all linked in some way, shape or form.
Indeed, it is correct to say that space activity is a niche human
endeavor and not yet fully integrated into the mainstream of peaceful,
sustainable, progressive human activities.

Commerce, the lifeblood of modern civilization and a chief agent of
transformation, continually creates, evolves and sustains mainstream
activities. Transportation infrastructures, housing, factories, and
manufacturing and energy production and distribution are clearly
mainstream activities.

The recent proliferation of Internet technology and associated
business developments, which continue to spur its growth at a stunning
pace in arenas as diverse as education, telemedicine and gaming, make
it an ubiquitous and mainstream activity.

Energy production and distribution, with the petroleum industry
playing a significant role, is a mainstream activity. While the media
these days tends to highlight our addiction to fossil fuels and its
effects on the biosphere, we rarely pay attention to the fact that
petroleum by-product utilization, like polymer technology, have
entered the mainstream and become an integral part of daily life for
all of modern civilization.

Space exploration programs, both manned and robotic, are not
mainstream activities. The allotted budgets for space exploration
across the entire world simply pales in comparison to the resources
oil companies bring to bear just for prospecting " exploring for new
oil fields.

However, even while shackled to national security, space activity has
managed to grow roots into modern society and continues to engage our
noblest aspirations and uplift the human spirit.

A ringing success story of space entering the mainstream is
telecommunications. Ten years after the birth of the space age,
satellites were beaming TV pictures around the world and people were
watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon.

Twenty years later, geosynchronous communications networks made the
world smaller by hooking up the financial and commerce hubs of the
world and transporting data in ways and rates that terrestrial systems
find hard to compete with, even in the age of the Internet and surplus
dark fiber.

Space telecommunications is now a sturdy and lucrative industry, which
is constantly evolving to meet the needs of the mainstream customer in
the world of commerce and media while supporting the all-around needs
of the defense establishment as well.

What are the other areas of mainstream human pursuits where space can
play a significant role? The production of clean, environmentally
friendly power from solar energy in space and its transmission and
distribution globally could be a very lucrative industry.

Such a vision was first proposed in the 1960s, and after many
iterations and reincarnations at various think tanks and conferences,
it now again is becoming a strategic interest of both our nation and
all the exponentially growing economies around the world.

Wireless transmission of energy, also known as power beaming, has
inherent implications for environmental modification as well.

This nascent technology, which would allow us to control weather by
design to ameliorate the effects of hurricanes and precipitation that
cause deluges and droughts, could become a beneficial off-shoot of
space-based energy production.

Power beaming, when trained outwards into space also could provide
energy for spacecraft. Some concepts even propose using such beams to
mitigate rogue asteroids that might endanger Earth.

Transportation is a vital infrastructure where the need is growing,
ratcheting up the technologies for quicker access to the various
metropolitan cities all over the world. Los Angeles, New York, London,
Paris and Frankfurt now compete on equal footing with Shanghai, Dubai,
Mumbai, Singapore and Tokyo. In this flat world model, quick and
efficient worldwide transportation plays an even more crucial role.
Transatmospheric vehicles, based on crafts like the space shuttle,
could usher us into a new era in mainstream global transportation.

If space activity can do for energy production, power distribution
(with potential for environment modification technologies) and
transport infrastructure in the next three decades what it did for
telecommunications in the last three, the ramifications for modern
society are truly staggering.

Cheap and clean power in space and on Earth, and the ability to move
goods and people swiftly around the world in a fraction of the time
that it takes today, would make the world smaller and perhaps a much
more tightly knit community.

The emerging private space companies, with little or no government
support, are helping to mainstream space. Virgin Galactic and Burt
Rutan's SpaceShip series are quite close to carrying people to the
edge of space while ground support infrastructure is being created in
parallel.

Bigelow Aerospace, with hard data trickling down from test articles in
orbit now, is getting ready to commission its luxury hotels. Teaming
with SpaceDev, Bigelow also is planning tourist missions to the lunar
surface.

The Falcon series of launchers by Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
will soon bring competitive pricing to the market. The X Prize
Foundation, which successfully administered the first completely
private suborbital spaceflight, now has teamed with Google Inc. to
offer a prize for the first nongovernmental lunar surface mission.
Other companies are working on spacesuits and related products and
some have their eyes on the Moon, asteroids and beyond.

All these activities will contribute to a progressive and self-
sustaining industry, catering to a wide range of economic interests.
Just as the petroleum industry and the Internet now pervade every
aspect of mainstream society, the space industry has the potential to
transform modern civilization.

While many of us are wary of actions that might lead to an arms race
in the orbital regime and weapons in space, the leaders of nations
also know that space activity is the ultimate international arena for
collaboration.

When commerce between nations grow, so do bonds, and history tells us
that goodwill and peace dividends follow. There is no doubt in my mind
that mainstream space activity holds the key for a peaceful and
vibrant, pluralistic and multicultural modern civilization in this
21st century.

Madhu Thangavelu conducts the Graduate Space Concepts Studio in the
Department of Astronautics and School of Architecture at University of
Southern California, and is co-author of "The Moon: Resources, Future
Development and Settlement."