Politicians dither as climate crisis builds

 

GLOBAL heating appears to have entered a new and fast-moving trajectory. Amid record-breaking temperatures, melting ice and a sharp increase in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures during the month of July, veteran climate scientists are now becoming increasingly alarmed about the pace of change.

“A few decades ago some people might have thought climate change was a relatively slow-moving phenomenon but we are now witnessing things happening at a terrifying rate,” said Prof Peter Stott, leader of the UK Met Office’s climate monitoring and attribution team.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has also warned of record temperatures and extreme heat in the near future after confirming the latest climate-heating El Niño event had “arrived”.

The last major El Niño was in 2016 – which to date remains the hottest year on record. But for 2023, it comes on top of increasing global heat driven by human-caused carbon emissions, an effect described by the WMO as a “double whammy”. Its officials say urgent preparations for extreme weather events are now vital to save lives and livelihoods.

“As El Niño builds through the rest of this year, adding an extra oomph to the damaging effects of human-induced global heating, many millions of people across the planet and many diverse ecosystems are going to face extraordinary challenges – and unfortunately suffer great damage,” added Stott.

The WMO estimates there is now a 90 percent probability of the latest El Niño continuing to the end of 2023 at a moderate strength or higher, with the added risk of it supercharging extreme weather.

New records for high temperature have been broken almost daily on every continent in recent months whilst in the UK, the average temperature for June was beaten by nearly a full degree with an unprecedented heatwave also affecting the country’s coastal waters.

Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, admits that he doesn’t fully understand what’s going on with this summer’s crazy climate data.

“It feels to me like the climate may have shifted into some sort of new regime of global heating that scientists don’t yet understand. And yet the media and everyone keep acting like things are basically fine and leaders keep expanding fossil fuels,” he says.

Cambridge University’s Prof Emily Shuckburgh, a leading climate scientist and director of Cambridge Zero, says that after the UK’s record-breaking month of high temperatures, it looks likely the rest of the summer will be warmer than normal too as global temperatures continue to rise.

“We’ve been warning of these changes for 30 years and warning that the planet is overheating,” she told listeners on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme (3 July 2023).

“We’ve got record melting in Greenland occurring right at this moment, we’ve got record low levels of sea ice in Antarctica. From pole to pole we are seeing dramatic changes and it is nature as well as humans that is witnessing the impact.

“Those extreme temperatures of 40 degrees that we saw in the UK last summer had a dramatic impact on our wildlife and a dramatic impact on us. Across Europe thousands of people died prematurely in that heatwave.

“Sadly the UK used to be a global leader in terms of climate change and it was only two years ago that we hosted the big international climate conference COP-26. We’ve now relinquished that leadership.”

Prof Shuckburgh says the recent progress report from the UK Government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) on how the UK is doing against its own decarbonisation plans was “covered with red” because goals and targets were not being met.

“We should be responding to the cost of living and energy crisis by investing in insulation, in solar, in wind, offshore and onshore,” she suggested.

Prof Shuckburgh urged people to accept the global scale of what is at risk. “We know that if we don’t respond to climate change as a country and as a world then the risks are enormous,” she said.

“They are potentially catastrophic in terms of our food supplies, the global spread of disease, the risk from migration by communities that have been impacted by climate change, the risk of conflicts and, most importantly of all, the risk of passing catastrophic tipping points.

“This is what’s at stake. The really frustrating thing from my perspective is that we know what the solutions are. We have them at our fingertips and what we need are stable policies in support of them.”

Such stark warnings are echoed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, who also described addressing climate change as a “human rights” issue.

Evoking a “dystopian future” if urgent action isn’t taken, he said: “Our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s flooding. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying. We, the generation with the most powerful technological tools in history, have the capacity to change it.”

He accused world leaders of performing “the choreography of promising to act” before getting stuck in a rut dominated by short-term political expediency. Turk called for an immediate end to “senseless subsidies” of the fossil fuel industry and said the Dubai COP28 (2023 UN Climate Change Conference) climate summit in November and December needs to be a “decisive game-changer”.

At the end of June, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was accused by a resigning government minister and environment campaigner, Zac Goldsmith, of being “simply uninterested” in the environment and climate emergency.

Lame political leadership – mirrored by many of those in power and supported by the fossil fuel industry and elements of the right-wing media – along with a cost-of-living crisis and war in Ukraine, have all contributed to a prevailing laissez faire attitude.

At the start of 2023, when Sunak introduced his five key policy pledges, the climate and environment were noticeable by their absence, a clear indication that the country’s third prime minister in as many years does not view them as a priority.

Nothing has changed and, despite mounting climate relasted emergencies around the world this summer, Sunak, who favours flying about the country on short-haul private jets and helicopters, also shunned a recent Paris summit on the climate, debt and poverty hosted by the French President Emmanuel Macron.

If there can be a final thought and persepctive (for now) on this challenging issue then perhaps, somewhat surprisingly, it might go to the actor William Shatner.

As Captain James T Kirk of Star Trek’s Enterprise spaceship he explored the universe, espousing a vision of the future where humanity had not only survived but overcome many of the Earthly problems we face today.

Last year, 90-year-old Shatner had what he described as a “life-changing experience” when he physically travelled into space for the first time, expecting to experience “a deep connection with the immensity around us” and “a deep call” for endless exploration.

“The strongest feeling I had, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief I have ever experienced. I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death,” he said.

“I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.

“This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realised that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside.

“I did my share in popularising the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. It is the final and only frontier, and we have been ravaging it relentlessly, destroying it at an unprecedented rate and making it uninhabitable.” 

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This article by Clive Simpson was first published by Central Bylines under the title, 'Politicians drag their heels as the climate crisis intensifies'.

Spotting leaky pipes from orbit

PRIVATE utility Anglian Water, which supplies water services to around seven million people across eastern England and is under pressure to cut back on excessive wastage from leaky pipes, is turning to out-of-this-world technology for help.

The Huntingdon-based company is using space age technology, originally developed to detect water lying below the surface of Mars, the red planet, to locate hard to find underground leaks. Information gathered by the latest Earth-orbiting satellites is crunched by specialist computer algorithms and then turned into images as a way of helping engineers solve the costly environmental problem.

The system was first created to detect water on Mars and pioneering space firm Asterra is now redeploying its space know-how to help utility companies like Anglian Water solve a long-standing problem.

“It’s not just water that is wasted by leaking pipes – every drop also represents a substantial emission of carbon,” says founder and chief technology officer of the London and Tel Aviv-based company, Lauren Guy.

Anglian Water admits it loses 182 million litres of water per day across its network, an equivalent leakage of approximately 16-18 percent when compared to the amount of water running through the network each day.

“We recently used the Asterra technology to pinpoint some significant leaks that would never have been identified due to the relatively low percentage loss”, a company spokesperson said.

“These non-visible, underground leaks were in remote areas and would never have been reported by a customer, or indeed found using traditional detection sweeps.

“They often run through agricultural and rural farmland where traditional detection, or even smart distribution leakage technology, is difficult to use due to the lack of fittings and the sheer geographical size of an area.”

The water firm says the Asterra expertise allows it to use satellite data to detect leaks from otherwise difficult-to-inspect transfer pipes and trunk mains right across its system.

Before space technology stepped in, staff from water utility companies had to ‘walk the line’ in search of leaks, often manually inspecting mile upon mile of pipes each day in the hope of catching the sound of trickling water.

More modern techniques, such as installing acoustic sensors to listen automatically for leaking pipes are effective but can only cover limited areas before becoming cost prohibitive. Planetary scientists searching for the holy grail of Martian water then realised that orbiting spacecraft with special radar sensors could be used to spy out water lying below the red planet’s surface.

Asterra’s adaptation of this space-based solution for terrestrial use came after Guy realised that if satellite technology could locate water under the surface of Mars it could also be used to help track down water leakages closer to home. His discovery was made possible by sensors known in the space business as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which are used on many of the latest low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and can peer through cloud and below Earth’s surface.

L-band SAR uses the motion of a radio antenna to build up images which typically cover areas of around 3,500 square km at a time. It works by transmitting radio frequency waves and recording what is reflected to the receiver, revealing details on the nature of the reflective material, including the moisture content of soil.

Asterra’s breakthrough relies on sophisticated data processing using proprietary geophysical modelling and analysis. “It allows us to pick up the signature of leaking water in densely populated urban areas packed with interferences to SAR imaging”, explains Guy. “The observations are much more than high-quality images and, since perfecting the art of extracting a signal from the noise, we can provide game-changing insights to the water industry.”

All this means city and county-wide systems for transporting drinking water and wastewater can be more easily analysed to identify subsurface leaks that otherwise go undetected. (See satellite image from JAXA at top of article with blue lines showing water pipes and yellow dots “points of interest” where satellite data indicates a leak).

“It goes without saying that if leaks can be plugged, then the volume of water saved can amount to an entirely new water source and the requirement to drill new wells, raise dams or invest in expensive desalination plants is significantly reduced,” says Guy.

“Cleaning, treating, pumping and distributing water is an energy-intensive process, and any water going to waste represents unnecessary greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere. Our mission is to help water infrastructure companies improve the distribution of clean water and cut back on waste.”

 Editor's note: an original version of this article was published on Central Bylines.

Satellites lost in UK launch failure

AN INVESTIGATION has been launched after an attempt to make space history by launching satellites from British soil for the first time has ended in failure due to an anomaly in the second stage of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket.

After successfully taking off from the runway at Spaceport Cornwall and travelling to the designated drop zone, Cosmic Girl, the customized 747 Jumbo Jet that serves as the LauncherOne system's carrier aircraft, successfully released the rocket.

The rocket ignited its first stage engines, quickly going hypersonic and successfully reaching space. The flight then continued through successful stage separation and ignition of the second stage but at some point during the firing of the rocket's second stage engine, and with the rocket travelling at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, the system experienced an anomaly which prematurely ended the mission.

The first stage burns for around three minutes before reaching main engine cutoff (MECO) and stage separation occurs some three seconds later. The second stage’s NewtonFour engine ignites four seconds after separation to begin the first of two planned burns.

The payload fairing separates from the nose of LauncherOne about 20-30 seconds after second stage ignition. The first burn was to last about five and a half minutes, ending with second stage engine cutoff 1 (SECO-1). With this complete, the second stage would enter a coast phase, performing a barbecue roll to help manage thermal conditions.

Around the D+47 minute mark in the mission, the second stage was planned to begin to reorient itself to make its second burn. This burn would have commenced about six and a quarter minutes later, with the burn lasting a few seconds to circularise the orbit. Payload deployments were expected to begin about a minute after the end of the second burn.

A Virgin Orbit spokesperson said: “Though the mission did not achieve its final orbit by reaching space and achieving numerous significant first-time achievements, it represents an important step forward.

“The effort behind the flight brought together new partnerships and integrated collaboration from a wide range of partners, including the UK Space Agency, the Royal Air Force, the Civil Aviation Authority, the US Federal Aviation Administration, the National Reconnaissance Office, and more, and demonstrated that space launch is achievable from UK soil.”

The company said that out of five LauncherOne missions carrying payloads for private companies and governmental agencies, this is the first to fall short of delivering its payloads to their precise target orbit.

Earlier in the evening the Start Me Up mission had got off to a seemingly perfect start as Cosmic Girl - which had previously only been launched from its Calfornia base the Mojave Air & Space Port - took off from Newquay Airport in Cornwall on the south west coast of England.

On a cold and windy night, it was cheered on by around 2000 spectators who had been lucky enough to receive tickets to witness the start of the mission from special viewing areas at the airport and on giant screens. The plane took off precisely on time at 1701 EST (2201 GMT) Monday (January 9, 2023).

Piloted by Sqn Ldr Matthew Stannard, a Royal Air Force test pilot, it headed out over the Atlantic to the south west of Ireland to reach a height of 35,000 ft (10,700 m) where it performed a ‘race track’ manoeuver before releasing LauncherOne.

The two-stage, expendable launch vehicle is designed to place small satellites of up to 500 kg (1,100 lb) into a wide range of low Earth orbits (LEO). Rather than launching from the ground like a conventional rocket, it is carried to launch altitude by the 747 aircraft which has its own mission control room in the plane's former Premium & Economy cabin.

Among the nine satellites onboard were the UK's Ministry of Defence, the sultanate of Oman, the US National Reconnaissance Office and British startups including the Welsh company Space Forge, which is developing reusable satellites. All were lost before reaching orbit and are likely to have burnt up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit CEO, said: "While we are very proud of the many things that we successfully achieved as part of this mission, we are mindful that we failed to provide our customers with the launch service they deserve.

“The first-time nature of this mission added layers of complexity that our team professionally managed through; however, in the end a technical failure appears to have prevented us from delivering the final orbit. We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure, make corrective actions, and return to orbit as soon as we have completed a full investigation and mission assurance process."

The UK-launched mission - titled Start Me Up in honor of the Rolling Stones' 1981 hit - brought timely publicity to the emergence of a competitive small-launch sector, just as Europe grapples with reduced launch capability due to the Ukraine war, which has cut access to Russian Soyuz vehicles, as well as Ariane 6 delays and the grounding of Vega rockets after a failed launch last month.

Matt Archer, director of commercial spaceflight at the UK Space Agency (UKSA), said he was hugely disappointed that the mission had not been successful but still pleased that the first launch of satellites from Europe had taken place from British soil.

“We don’t know what caused the anomaly but we achieved a launch,” he added. “A lot of positives have been achieved but space is hard and we knew that this had a risk of failure because launches don’t always work. But we’ve created the conditions for launch here. We’ve shown we can do it and we’ll look to do it again.”

Spaceport Cornwall received the United Kingdom’s first-ever spaceport license from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in November and in late December Virgin Orbit was issued launch and range control licenses, which ensured all regulatory, safety and environmental requirements had been met.

Expressing her own disappointment, Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, said: “We put our hearts and soul into this and it is absolutely devastating. But this isn’t the first time we’ve been knocked but this is definitely the biggest definitely. We’re a resilient team and we’ll get up and we’ll go again.”

Virgin Orbit’s previous four operational launches, which all lifted off from California, were all successful and had deployed a total of 33 small satellites. Despite its latest failure to orbit satellites on Monday night, the mission notched up a number of space firsts including the first orbital launch from the United Kingdom, the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, and the first commercial launch from western Europe.

The idea of releasing a rocket from a converted jetliner was pioneered by Orbital Sciences in the 1990s as a novel way of offering a flexible and low-cost route to orbit as the demand for sending small satellites into low Earth orbit grows exponentially.

Chris Larmour, CEO of UK-based rocket company Orbex, said: “Space is never easy, so we were sorry to learn that Virgin Orbit's first horizontal orbital space launch from the UK did not go as planned. We know how much time, effort and energy must have been invested to deliver that launch attempt, and we wish them well for their next mission.

“The Orbex team is fully focused on introducing the UK to vertical orbital launches with the debut of our UK-built environmentally-friendly rocket, Prime. We will be launching from our own pad at Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland in the near future.”  

Editor's note: Original versions of this article were published by Spaceflight Now and ROOM Space Journal.

A whiter shade of pale

MOST Europeans live under light-polluted skies and the first colour map of Europe at night, created with images from the International Space Station (ISS), shows a sharp increase in light pollution. The resulting picture is not a pretty one for the environment.

Over the last two decades, astronauts on the Space Station have witnessed how cities shine whiter at night as new street lighting technologies were introduced.

When ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti gazed at Earth from orbit during her recent Minerva mission, cities glowed brighter than the stars. Since 2003, Samantha and other European astronauts have taken over a million pictures of Earth at night with digital cameras to demonstrate the true extent of light pollution.

A team of European researchers processed the pictures and compared them over time, showing a clear increase of lighting pollution in urban areas, and a shift towards whiter and bluer emissions. This is due to the widespread introduction of light-emitting diode lamps, or LED technology.

“As seen from space, the resulting image looks like a cancer scan or a fluorescent spider’s web that keeps growing,” says Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel, research fellow at the UK’s University of Exeter. Their recent paper highlights how invasive night lights are and their negative effects for the environment.

As Europe turns lights down in an urge to save energy, scientists warn that it should not only be about reducing bills – brighter nights are disrupting the night cycle for humans, animals and plants.

Colour pictures taken from the Space Station are the best source for scientists to map artificial light at night. Current satellite images are not fit for purpose because their colour sensitivity does not show low wavelength emissions with enough quality.

“Without the images taken by the astronauts, we would be driving blind into the environmental impact of the LED transition,” says Alejandro. “Astronaut photos have always been – and will always be – the baseline for night time Earth observations.”

The composite nighttime colour maps created before and after the spread of LED streetlight technology show a pronounced whitening of artificial light. See view of London from ISS at top of page - the images were taken 400 km above Earth by André Kuipers in 2012 (left) and by Samantha Cristoforetti in 2022.

The changes vary per country, and reflect different systems and policies when it comes to light the streets. Whereas there has been a marked increase in light pollution in Italy and the United Kingdom, countries like Germany and Austria show a less dramatic change in spectral emissions.

Milan was the first city in Europe to do a total conversion of its street lighting to white LEDs, and more than half of all the public street lighting in the UK was converted by early 2019.

Germany’s glow is whitening, and the country has a lot of fluorescent and mercury vapour lights still in use.

“By the end of this decade, all Europe could look white from space,” says Alejandro.

On the warmer side of the spectrum, Belgium shines in deep orange due to the widespread use of low-pressure sodium lights. High-pressure sodium lights make the Netherlands emit a golden glow.

According to the scientists, the transition towards white and blue-rich light radiation is eroding the natural nighttime cycles across the continent. It disturbs the circadian day-and-night rhythm of living organisms, including humans, with negative health effects on species and whole ecosystems.

The study focuses on three major negative impacts: the suppression of melatonin, the phototaxic response of insects and bats, and the visibility of stars in the night sky.

“When we turn the streetlights on, we deprive our body of the hormone melatonin and disrupt our natural sleep pattern,” explains Alejandro.

Most insects and nocturnal animals are extremely sensitive to light. Not only moths, but almost all the bat species that bread in Europe live in regions where the spectral composition of nighttime lighting has become whiter. Scientists claim that this has a direct impact in their ability to move and react to a light source, also called phototaxic response.

Along with other animals, humans have long used the stars for navigation. In modern times, a worsening in the visibility of stars goes beyond geolocation and astronomical observations. Scientists are concerned that not seeing the night sky may have negative impacts on people’s sense of ‘nature’ and their place in the universe.

While the LED lighting revolution promised to reduce energy consumption and improve human vision at night – and with it, a sense of safety –, the study shows that overall emissions have increased. Paradoxically, the cheaper and better the lighting, the higher is society’s addiction to light.

The paper speculates with the existence of a ‘rebound effect’ in outdoor lighting, where power efficiency and associated cost reduction increases the demand for lighting and diminishes any efficiency gains.

Urban nights in Europe are growing a little darker though. Pushed by a looming energy crisis, wasted light is financially more painful. Several European cities are switching off the lights – from Madrid to Paris and via Berlin, hundreds of monuments and public buildings are no longer illuminated at night.

These initiatives are all part of efforts to reduce energy consumption by 15 percent, following plans laid out by the European Commission last month. The objective is two-fold: to foster a resilient and more autonomous economy ahead of the winter, and to responsibly reduce carbon emissions.

Conceived in space

DUTCH-based space research firm SpaceBorn United is targeting a ground-breaking space mission in the first half of 2023 that will see the fertilisation of rodent embryos in artificial gravity followed by a pregnancy and birth in a laboratory back on Earth.

Using SpaceBorn’s new ‘Space-Embryo-Incubator’ flying in low Earth orbit (LEO), several mice will become the first animals in history to be conceived and born in this way.

A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was signed by SpaceBorn United CEO Egbert Edelbroek and Izmir Yamin, CEO of Malaysian re-entry capsule manufacturer Independence-X Aerospace (IDXA), at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris, France.

The agreement paves the way for an initial flight next year of the ARTIS (Assisted Reproduction Technology in Space) mission which will use Independence-X’s low-cost launch service and re-entry capsule.

“Our ARTIS prototype is in full development to prepare for the first test flight. Our goal to enable safe embryo development in space starts with testing the prototype in space with mouse sperm and oocytes,” said Dr Edelbroek.

“A series of ARTIS missions in the coming years will enable research on partial gravity effects on embryo development and help us move towards the ultimate goal of human reproduction and childbirth in space.”

The payload contains male and female reproduction cells and, once deployed in LEO, the embryos are automatically impregnated and start developing in an artificial, Earth-like level of gravity. After five days the incubator is returned to Earth via the Independence-X re-entry vehicle, known as MERCAP (Microgravity Experiment Re-entry Capsule).

In laboratory conditions back on Earth, the embryos will be placed in healthy mouse pups for gestation and birth to occur, their development monitored and compared to control samples.

Independence-X is a Malaysian space company that has developed a small launch vehicle called DNLV (Dedicated Nano Launch Vehicle) with a maximum payload of 200 kg and capable of putting satellites into LEO.

“The signing of the MoA between Independence-X Aerospace and SpaceBorn United marks a historic moment in the space industry,” says Mohd Izmir bin Yamin, Founder, CEO & CTO.

“For the first time an unmanned orbital laboratory with re-entry capabilities is being flown for bio tech research and we see this as a key to unlock potential for the human expansion into the deep space.

“Independence-X will provide the re-entry vehicle and the on board support system, SpaceBorn United will provide the precious microfluidic payload to carry out the experiment in space,” he added.

“This MOA will mark the beginning of human reproduction in Space and the next step for humanity to become a multi-planetary species.”

IDXA is a company of industry professionals and academics based at Sendayan Metropark in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. As well as serving the global space industry, it aims to create a Malaysian space hub and contribute to socio-economic development of the region through space-related technologies.

SpaceBorn United, based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, describes itself as the first bio-tech and mission development company working to make human conception and embryo development in space feasible, eventually enabling human pregnancy and birth in space.

Dr Edelbroek, who is also an MP of the space nation Asgardia which was formed in 2016 and has the stated goal of facilitating the first human birth in space, added: “If humanity wants to become a multi-planetary species we also need to learn how to reproduce in space. This is what we are working towards.”

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In the photo above: MOA signing ceremony in Paris. Pictured are (standing from left): Nor Azila Wirda binti Mohd Din (Deputy Director, MIDA Paris), Abdullah Ma'amor bin Ibrahim, Minister Counsellor (Malaysian Embassy, France), Mohd Fadeli bin Md Halid (Product Engineer, Independence-X Aerospace), Afiq bin Mohd Rashdi (Control Systems Engineer, Independence-X Aerospace), Dr Aqeel Shamsul (CEO, Frontier Space Technologies Ltd) and Mat Zalasiewicz (CTO, Frontier Space Technologies Ltd). Sitting: Mohd Izmir bin Yamin (Founder, CEO & CTO, Independence-X Aerospace) and Dr Egbert Edelbroek (Founder & CEO, SpaceBorn United).

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Editor's note: given the somewhat controversial nature of engineering conceptions in space and its long-term implications, I am suprised this story, from the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris, did not get more traction and/or star billing in some of the tabloid press. A plan to conceive mice in Earth orbit and then have them born in a laboratory back on Earth would write its own headlines!

NASA's real-life "Don't Look Up"

ENTERTAINING and a bit worrying at the same time, the movie Don’t Look Up defied critics and broke Netflix’s record for the most hours viewed in a single week on the global TV platform at the start of the year.

It tells the story of astronomy graduate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her PhD adviser, Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), who discover a “planet killer” comet that will impact Earth in just over six months.

The movie’s rogue comet could be anything – climate change, new viruses, global war, attempts to overthrow a legitimate democracy – and the scientists are essentially alone
with their knowledge, ignored and gas-lighted by society, and ridiculed by the media.

The film is both amusing and terrifying in equal measure, conveying uncomfortable cold truths and demonstrating how hard it is to break through prevailing norms.

Above all, it perfectly captures humanity’s apparent capacity for denying the blindingly obvious, the absurdity of an economic system which puts profit above survival of life on earth, a crass political class, and a superficial mainstream media more concerned with show biz stars and ratings.

Don’t Look Up is most definitely a movie for our time. And do hang around to watch all the credits as there are some interesting bits right at the very end! 

In real life, the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) - a state-of-the-art asteroid detection system operated by the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) Institute for Astronomy (IfA) for the agency’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) - reached a new milestone in February by becoming the first survey capable of searching the entire dark sky every 24 hours for near-Earth objects (NEOs) that could pose a future impact hazard to Earth.

Now involving four telescopes, ATLAS has expanded its reach to the southern hemisphere from the two existing northern-hemisphere telescopes on Haleakalā and Maunaloa in Hawai’i to include two additional observatories in South Africa and Chile.

“An important part of planetary defence is finding asteroids before they find us, so if necessary, we can get them before they get us” said Kelly Fast, NEO Observations Program Manager for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

“With the addition of these two telescopes, ATLAS is now capable of searching the entire dark sky every 24 hours, making it an important asset for NASA’s continuous effort to find, track, and monitor NEOs.”

Each of the four ATLAS telescopes can image a swath of sky 100 times larger than the full Moon in a single exposure. The completion of the two final telescopes, which are located at Sutherland Observing Station in South Africa and El Sauce Observatory in Chile, enable ATLAS to observe the night sky when it is daytime in Hawai‘i.

To date, the ATLAS system has discovered more than 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets, along with detection of 2019 MO and 2018 LA, two very small asteroids that actually impacted Earth.

The system is specially designed to detect objects that approach very close to Earth - closer than the distance to the Moon, about 240,000 miles away. On 22 January, ATLAS-Sutherland in South Africa discovered its first NEO, 2022 BK, a 100 m asteroid that poses no threat to Earth.

The addition of the new observatories to the ATLAS system comes at a time when the agency’s Planetary Defense efforts are on the rise. 

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) - the world’s first full-scale mission to test a technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid impacts - launched last November will deflect a known asteroid, which is not a threat to Earth, to slightly change the asteroid’s motion in a way that can be accurately measured using ground-based telescopes.

Additionally, work on the agency’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope (NEO Surveyor) is underway after receiving authorisation to move forward into Preliminary Design. 

Once complete, the infrared space telescope will expedite the agency’s ability to discover and characterise most of the potentially hazardous NEOs, including those that may approach Earth from the daytime sky.

Flying to the edge

A FEW years ago while attending the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs as part of the ROOM Space Journal team I had the opportunity to sit inside a full-scale pre-flight module of Blue Origin’s space capsule.

It was on display outside the venue alongside a flown Blue Origin New Shepard booster, charred and scared from an earlier brief foray into low Earth orbit and so giving the whole display of touch of authenticity and realism.

Having clambered awkwardly through the access hatch and then across to my capsule seat I lay back and dared to think for a moment that this might be real. As my imagination fired the booster rockets I pushed back into my contoured couch before taking a quick look around.

There were five other passengers also likely lost in their own imaginary thoughts in what seemed a surprisingly simple but spacious space capsule. Big windows were aside each seat but the capsule was devoid of controls, buttons or levers that one might have imagined.

That’s because a Blue Origin flight differs from the Virgin Galactic mission in a few ways. Richard Branson uses a spaceplane with a pair of pilots onboard, whereas the Blue Origin capsule has no pilots (more space for paying passengers) and is be completely controlled by mission control on the ground.

Prior to today’s (Tuesday, 20 July) launch with passengers, Blue Origin has conducted 15 test flights - all spectacular in a very “Thunderbirds Are Go” kind of way but so far without any people on board, just a few experiments and plenty of data gathering instrumentation.

Just like the Virgin Galactic flight, the Blue Origin rocket will not launch its occupants into Earth orbit, but will give the crew a quick trip just above the line separating the atmosphere from space before returning back to the desert in western Texas. The Blue Origin mission will, however, fly at little higher to 62 miles high, compared to Virgin Galactic’s 55 miles.

Bezos’ landmark  10 minute flight is set to fly at 9:00 am EDT (14:00 BST), a date that that coincides with the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. He is being accompanied by his brother Mark and two other passengers - 82-year-old trailblazing aviator Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen - who will each break longstanding astronaut age records on the flight.

Oliver’s father, Joes Daeman - the chief executive and founder of Somerset Capital Partners - was one of the bidders for a seat on the first crewed Blue Origin flight but lost out to an anonymous bidder who paid a reported $28 million at the widely publicised auction.

After a “scheduling conflict” prevented the unidentified winner from joining the first flight, Daeman, who had secured a seat on the second New Shepard flight, was bumped up to take pole position.
       
Be under no delusion this is very much a commercial venture. Daeman’s flight will mark the start of paid space-tourism flights for Blue Origin and there are plans to loft the second round of paying passengers this autumn.

"We intend to have two more flights this year, in 2021, for a total of three [crewed] flights, and many more to come in the future," said Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin's director of astronaut sales, during a press conference in advance of the first flight. "We have already built a robust pipeline of customers that are interested." 

 For both Branson and Bezos one question remains. Will these brief and expensive trips to the edge of space they offer be consigned to the category of joyrides and a series of ‘selfies’ for the family album, or will they prove more meaningful?

The question is legitimate because, since the days of Apollo when astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman became the first to witness a full Earth against the backdrop of space, astronauts are unanimous that viewing our planet from space is life-changing.

Earthrise, the iconic image snapped by Anders, is often credited as spawning the environmental movement and Space Shuttle and Space Station astronaut Nicole Stott agrees, ascribing the impact of viewing Earth from space as an astronaut’s “Earthrise moment”. .

In her forthcoming book Back to Earth (to be published on 11 November 2021) Stott inspires readers of all backgrounds and beliefs to come together to tackle our planet's most pressing problems - from water insecurity and pollution to the existential threat of climate change.

Seeing Earth from space for the first time, Stott was overcome by a realisation that moved her deeply. “This brilliant blue marble, shielded from the cold emptiness of space by only its razor-thin atmosphere, is a naturally existing system perfectly designed to support human life,” she writes.

The benefits of tourists flights to the edge of space may yet prove great indeed if those onboard experience their own “Earthrise moment”.

 Note: the launch can be viewed live via Blue Origin

Space Oddity

 

 

THE fact that the European Union (EU) is consolidating its space programmes under a new agency that is being given an expanded mandate is not particularly good news for the UK space industry - at least as long as the current Johnson government remains in power.

As has already been proven with the Brexit end-of-transition negotiations, anything with EU in the title has been like a red rag to the Tory right, which has used its disproportionate influence to persuade the prime minister cut off as many ties with Europe as possible, beneficial or not.

There are many examples, including the ERASMUS student scheme and perhaps even Galileo itself, the European satellite navigation system in which the UK has played such a significant role.

The politically skewered view that the UK could just go ahead and build its own multi-billion pound replacement to Galileo was, in reality, just more jingoistic hot air to serve the “sovereignty above all else” headlines.

Like so many post-Brexit negotiating decisions, the loss of high-level access to the navigation satellite  system was a politically driven position - a government, huffing and puffing to leave and failing to consider rationally what was the country’s best interest.

The UK's final big industrial contribution to the EU's Galileo sat-nav system was delivered before Christmas after Guildford-based Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) shipped the last of the navigation payloads, which are described as  the "brains" of the spacecraft generating the signals the Galileo network sends down to Earth.

Britain’s "third country" status now means UK companies can no longer be involved in the hi-tech end as they once were because Galileo is regarded by the EU as a security programme and only firms in its 27 member states or those with separate agreements can take on sensitive work.

Of course, like many things with Brexit, it didn’t have to be like this. Norway, for example, which is not an EU member, negotiated itself an agreement giving access to Galileo’s high-level signals and the ability to supply sensitive hi-tech instruments.

A savvy UK government, not driven by political ideologies, could easily have achieved the same had it wanted to rather than erect another trade barrier, this time in “space”, of its own choosing.

So, given the UK’s somewhat intransigent and often seemingly ill-thought out positions of late, the EU’s consolidation of its space programmes may not be to Britain’s long term advantage.
                        
The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA), which  acts as the technical and procurement agent for the EU's space projects, will be renamed the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUASP).

As such, it will also take on managing the use of the Copernicus Earth observation satellite system and oversee new initiatives in satellite communications named GOVSATCOM and space situational awareness (SSA).

The Prague-based agency will continue to manage use of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Systems (EGNOS) and Galileo satellite navigation programmes.

According to a European Commission (EC) press release last week, EUASP “will increasingly support the exploitation and market uptake of EU space activities, and play a bigger role in ensuring the security of all the components of the programme.”

EU Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, praised the reorganisation of the union’s space programmes. “Europe is the second space power in the world. But the global race is on,” he said. 

“With this agreement, we now have the means to develop our leadership in space by consolidating our flagships – Galileo and Copernicus – and exploring new initiatives that will enhance Europe’s resilience, notably in secure connectivity.”

The EU has a seven-year space budget of €13.2 billion ($16 billion) up to 2027 and most of these funds will be focused on operating and expanding the Copernicus and Galileo satellite systems. The European Space Agency (ESA), of which the UK remains a part, oversees technical aspects and development of the spacecraft.

EUASP will also oversee the new European GOVSATCOM that is designed to provide reliable, secure and cost-effective satellite communications for the EU and its member state governments.

In addition, the agency will be instructed to manage a new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme designed to help prevent collisions of objects in Earth orbit and uncontrolled reentries from this increasingly over-crowded environment. The programme will also focus on monitoring space weather and near Earth objects.

So, despite remaining part of ESA, which at least for the time being will give the UK an on-going role in the Copernicus programme, it remains to be seen what effect the EU’s increasing involvement in the organisation of European space programmes will have.

Allied with the UK’s irrational desire to cut off as many ties with the EU as possible, will it ultimately be to the detriment of UK involvement and leadership of this hi-tech and lucrative industry?

Over the coming months, and years, such matters will go much deeper than the “temporary” disruptions and difficulties that are now becoming more and more evident by the day for firms and traders at UK borders.

The term 'Long Covid' has become increasingly familiar as the Covid-19 pandemic has progressed. Sadly, if previously vibrant and successful UK industries suffer the very practical fallout of misplaced political ideology and British exceptionalism, it may not be long before 'Long Brexit' becomes a thing too. 

*          *          *

Editor's note: thanks to Prof Chris Grey for the acknowledgement and mention in his Brexit & Beyond blog on 22 January 2021, and the suggestion that the term Long Brexit has better parity with Long Covid by dropping the hyphen.

NASA's sand dune solution

ANTHROPOGENIC climate change and its associated rise in sea levels could prove a significant threat to some of the world’s iconic coastal space launch sites, including Florida’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

NASA is building a massive artificial dune along a stretch of the coast in a bid to protect the nation’s only launch site for human missions - but many experts say that ultimately it isn’t going to be enough.

Even conservative estimates suggest the low-lying Florida peninsula can expect to experience at least 5 to 8 inches of sea level rise by the 2050s, a figure which could double or treble if global warming is not contained at current levels.

Launch Complex 39A, the historic Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle launch pad that SpaceX now leases for its Falcon Heavy rocket, is one of the most vulnerable, as the base of the pad sits only a few feet above sea level and is just a quarter mile from the coastline.

The founding fathers of the US space programme chose a barrier island to launch rockets into space for safety reasons, preferring out of control rockets to explode over the ocean rather than land. But the very quality that makes this location a safe spot for launches threatens to be its downfall.
       
This year, the pad 39A complex is estimated to face a 14 percent annual risk of flooding, a figure which is likely to rise unless additional measures are taken to protect it, according an analysis released in late 2019 by Climate Central, an international organisation researching and reporting the science and impacts of climate change.
                               
Predictions are equally uncertain for launch complex 39B, the future home of NASA’s SLS rocket which will be used to launch the first people to the Moon by 2024. The current annual flood risk, estimated at six percent, is likely to double within two decades.

It is unclear how much damage sea floods could cause to the actual launch pads but, at the minimum, rising water could isolate the complexes as inaccessible islands, also threatening support roadways and other infrastructure.

At the same time, natural barriers along the coastline are also eroding. Based on historical records and aerial photos, the beach in front of the Cape Canaveral area has thinned and moved inland by as much as 200 feet. Losses have been most severe along the stretch near pads 39A and 39B.

NASA biologist Don Dankert, technical lead for KSC’s environmental planning office, is charged with protecting the agency’s valuable launch assets. “Climate change is obviously important to the agency,” he says. “Looking into the future and how we address this with our infrastructure in our inland areas is a top priority.”

After studying various engineering solutions, Dankert and his team settled on constructing hefty inland sand dunes as a barrier between Florida’s launch pads and the encroaching ocean.

AS a result, NASA is currently using 350,000 cubic yards of sand to build a 3.2 mile long dune 17 feet high and 90 feet wide. The sand is being trucked from an inland source and is matched to the sand that is on local beaches for grain texture and size consistency. Once complete the dune will be covered with native vegetation to help maintain its integrity. 

But as global temperatures continue to climb and with forecasters warning of more frequent and stronger hurricanes, not everyone is convinced. Joseph Donoghue, an ocean sciences professor at the University of Central Florida, is assessing the effects of major storms on coastal environments at the National Center of Integrated Coastal Research.

“Sure, dunes are a good short-term solution. But the dunes are only good for as long as no major hurricanes come through,” he says. “Long-term, dunes aren’t going to do the job.”

NASA reckons the $35 million it is spending on the shoreline restoration project, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, is money well spent. But according to Leesa Souto, Executive Director of the Marine Resources Council and Assistant Professor of Ocean Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, sand dunes and sea walls only protect against storm surges and do not address flooding from rising groundwater.

“It's not just flooding from the ocean that we are concerned about; a rising sea level also increases pressure inland, causing the groundwater to rise,” she explains. “The launch pads are particularly vulnerable because they are out on a peninsula in the middle of the ocean between the estuary and the ocean.”

"Ground water is sea level so when sea level rises, ground water rises. So when the elevation of the land and the elevation of groundwater are the same, you have a lake," she added.

“So unless they’re going to build the launch pads on the top of the 17 foot dune they are going to be under water.”

The Jeff Bezos-led Blue Origin commercial spaceflight company, which is pumping a billion dollars into the Space Coast area as a launch base for its New Shepard rocket, is taking no chances. The company leases Launch Complex 36 and is currently building it both out and upwards. “The base of our rocket will be 50 feet above the ground, which is 20 feet above the 100 year flood plain,” says Scott Henderson, Blue Origin's vice president of test and flight operations.

Space Launch Complexes 40 and 41, which could be the site of the first commercial rocket launch of American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), are also at significant risk from future flooding, according to Climate Central's analysis.

United Launch Alliance (ULA), which leases space complexes 41 and 37 from the US Air Force, is not currently addressing climate change related impacts. “It becomes a real challenge of ‘what are you going to try to mitigate?’ and ‘what are you going to accept as an acceptable risk?’ So we’ve tried to balance that,” says Mark Dornseif, senior manager of engineering and infrastructure at ULA.

For an industry that routinely talks about its costs in millions, the billion dollar question remains: how viable will Kennedy Space Center be in the future? Florida’s Space Coast economy, which earns around $3 billion a year from ‘space’, is certainly banking on its success as long as possible.

But Blue Origin's Henderson envisions a time when there will be thousands of spaceports across the world and that, ultimately, Cape Canaveral may prove to have been just a starting point for human space exploration. “Today we’re constrained to coastal areas but in the long haul you need to be flexible and reliable enough to fly from lots of places," he says.
 
This is an extended version of an article first published 
by Clive Simpson on the ROOM Space Journal website.

Paving the road to living in space

A MINDSET anchored within endeavours of the past and established ways of doing things is one of the most significant obstacles to humanity’s space-faring future.

Five decades after the first Moon landing, most major space agencies and all but a handful of private launch companies remain focused on the on-going development of expendable launchers or, at best, only partly reusable launchers.

Undoubtedly today’s rockets are more efficient than their predecessors. But are their inherent inefficiencies truly the way to herald a new golden age of space exploration?

The expendable rocket mindset is one of the biggest remaining barriers to a new Space Age and, if the new US Moon programme is to lead to a ‘permanent’ lunar endeavour, economic and environmental sustainability are paramount. This means leaning towards low-cost, practical and private-sector driven solutions which have the potential to create profitable and sustainable new business opportunities.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), for example, is hardly ground-breaking or inventive - more a product of linear, stop-start development. Of course, it benefits from advanced technology and engineering but, five decades after Saturn V, it lacks true innovation and the spark of commercial endeavour.

The agency has spent about US$14 billion on its super rocket and related development costs since 2010 but SLS is not expected to fly before at least mid- to late 2021. In contrast, SpaceX privately developed its mostly reusable Falcon Heavy rocket on the back of its Falcon 9 for about US$500 million, and has flown three successful missions since February 2018.

Likewise, Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser is the only existing commercial spaceplane in the world that is both fully reusable and capable of a runway landing. Despite this NASA still only wants to use it for the transfer of cargo to the International Space Station.

At a time when reusability, in every sense of the word, should be at the forefront, agencies such as NASA (SLS), ESA (Ariane 6), Roscomsos (Soyuz), JAXA (H-IIB) and ISRO (GSLV) seem intent on pursuing the expendability route to orbit, albeit with a modern technical twist.

Do projects like SLS cast us far enough into the future or, in some perverse way, do they limit our future ambitions? The future of space and human exploration is intrinsically intertwined with our future on Earth itself. It should not be owned by politics and politicians but by risk-takers and the visionary.

*        *        *

ROOM Space Journal is delighted to be a media sponsor of this October’s International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Washington DC, one of the biggest and most important annual gatherings of space people.

Autumn also sees the first ever Asgardia Science & Investment Congress (14-16 October, Darmstadt, Germany), ‘Paving the Road to Living in Space’.

ASIC’s goal is to offer an alternative pathway to the future, eschewing the establishment mindset as it homes in on the parallel and interconnected themes of the extraordinary science and technology required to support permanent space habitats and the first humans born in space.

Specialist speakers will also assess how the vital investment and commercial returns needed to support these bold endeavours can be created.

If you want to join like-minded visionaries in planning the practical first steps to our future in space, there is still time to register via the ASIC website

My editorial in the autumn issue of ROOM Space Journal
Image: Envisioning a space-faring future by James Vaughan

Space: Brexit's new frontier

Control centre for the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system.

CHINA'S out of control space station, which is set to come crashing out of orbit this weekend, offers an alarming metaphor for the possible trajectory of Britain’s multi-billion-pound space industry after Brexit.

The sector, which is worth £14 billion a year and estimated to contribute £250 billion to the wider economy, was almost universally dismayed by the result of the referendum. As Richard Peckham, head of trade organisation Ukspace and director of strategy for Airbus Defence & Space, put it: “I don’t think I’ve met anybody in the space industry or academia who wants Brexit.”

Along with broader warnings, about how the sector will cope with the likely impact on the cross-border movement of goods, services, data and people, on which it relies, there have also been specific and immediate threats to the sector. This includes uncertainty over the UK’s continued participation in the EU’s Galileo navigation and Copernicus Earth observation programmes, as well others such as Govsatcom (which deals with communications), IRIS (air traffic management) and SSA/SST (space debris).

Peckham, and others in the sector, have said that the impact of Brexit has already been felt, with foreign customers and suppliers making contingency plans to exclude British firms, as a precaution, in case UK companies become ineligible for future contracts.

His advice to the government has been not to approach negotiations with the EU in an “adversarial manner”, because other countries might see this as an opportunity to take work from the UK, while UKspace also outlined five things it wanted from negotiations with the EU: to retain full access to EU space programmes; to avoid UK industry being marginalised; to retain access to and influence in the collaborative R&D programmes run by the EU; to maintain access to the EU pool of skilled labour; and to keep frictionless access to the EU single market without burdensome customs and administration.

There is no evidence that ministers have been listening to these pleas, but space has certainly been elevated to the higher echelons of government this week, after it was revealed the European Commission had written to the UK to explain that it would be inappropriate to divulge highly sensitive information to a departing member state about post-2019 contracts for the secure element of its Galileo satellite navigation system.

“If the commission shared this information with the UK (which will become a third country) it would irretrievably compromise the integrity of certain elements of these systems for many years after the withdrawal of the UK,” the letter said.

It suggests Britain’s space industry will be locked out of the programme, with its companies frozen out of the next round of long-term contracts relating to the system – which are expected to be awarded in June.

Basic navigation services from the Galileo satellites are available for all, but use of the encrypted, robust Public Regulated Service (PRS) is designed for government-authorised users – such as the military, fire brigades and the police – and is restricted to those inside the EU.

The row suggests that every fear the industry has may be realised. The sector is so closely entwined with Europe that after the UK leaves the EU, it risks being lost in space.

This is not to say that ‘Europe’s’ space ambitions equate to the EU’s, of course. The European Space Agency (ESA) is a separate body, after all, and not part of the EU. Norway and Switzerland are members of the ESA, for example, but not members of the EU. And not all of the EU’s 28 members are members of ESA.

But the EU itself is a major contributor to ESA, principally for the Galileo global navigation satellite system (GNSS), which began operations in December 2016, and the Copernicus Earth observation programmes, and it is likely to become ever more involved in this field.

Airbus UK and other British space companies believe their expertise puts them in a strong position to win more Copernicus business and there will be dozens of new lucrative Copernicus contracts up for grabs in the next two to three years. But the latest row over involvement in Galileo might indicate otherwise.

The UK’s space industry, which provides jobs for around 40,000 people, has been doing well, buoyed by its previous close involvement in European space programmes, and is currently showing growth of around 7% a year. The sector’s success has helped prompt the Space Industry Act 2018, which received Royal assent earlier this month and is aimed at providing a regulatory framework for the commercial launch of satellites from UK spaceports.

Though receiving much publicity this is perhaps more a flight of fancy than anything grounded in near-term reality, and should not be seen as something that would provide anything like an alternative to ESA membership. 

Plans for commercial spaceflight launches from UK spaceports might become more viable in the future with cheaper launch systems, including some of the horizontal launch systems with which entrepreneurial UK space businesses are involved. On the other hand, several of the proposed spaceport locations are in Scotland, which might be affected if the country, which voted to remain in the EU, had a further independence referendum and decided to leave the UK in order to seek membership of the EU.

So what of the future of the UK space programme? As ESA and the EU are separate organisations, the UK will most likely continue with ESA membership as the preferred option for the foreseeable future. Although it is possible that the UK might look for other models, including a home-grown space programme, it is highly unlikely that Britain alone could undertake the breadth of activities in space science and technology that has been possible as a member of the ESA, including human spaceflight.

Stormy waters lie ahead for any organisation linked to Europe and the knock-on effects of Brexit for one of the UK’s most buoyant and future-looking industries and the thousands of people it employs couldn’t be more profound.    

This article by Clive Simpson, a freelance journalist and managing editor of ROOM - The Space Journal, first appeared in The New European newspaper (Easter edition, 28 March -11 April). 

Did we fly to the Moon too soon?

UNBELIEVABLY it has been almost a half century since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bounced across the lunar landscape for the first time.

Certainly, in terms of human exploration, project Apollo was perceived as a stepping stone to greater things rather than marking a pinnacle of human achievement.       

But the sudden cancellation of the final three missions - despite the fact that the hardware for each had already been built - ably illustrates the financial and political difficulties of sustaining space exploration. Apollo 20 was shelved in January 1970. Eight months later, Apollo 18 and Apollo 19 were also cancelled, making Apollo 17, all the way back in December 1972, the final and most recent human mission to the Moon.

Five decades on and the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Japan and India, along with a handful of private entrepreneurs and firms, all harbour new lunar exploration ambitions.

In October 2017, US Vice-President Mike Pence announced a significant re-direction for NASA - a new road map to create a sustained human presence on the M oon’s surface. It’s a big change for the agency which, for the past decade, has been heading, somewhat tentatively, for a future of deep space exploration and taking humans to Mars.

But words are not enough and to become reality ambitious programmes require ambitious sums of money, along with sustained long-term political commitment.           

Fortunately, NASA’s rapidly maturing new hardware for deep space missions can also be easily re-purposed to take us back to the Moon.

Its giant rocket - known prosaically as the ‘Space Launch System’ (SLS) - and a crew capsule called Orion designed to carry people into deep space, can easily become the mainstay of future lunar missions.               

A so-called cislunar architecture and an associated economy that supports or is part of a return to the Moon offers many opportunities.

Fresh political direction and some of the essential hardware may almost be in place but establishing a sustained presence on the Moon is also going to require the creation of a lunar lander, habitats, life support systems and more.

Long-term funding (at one point, NASA estimated a return to the Moon would cost upwards of US $100 billion) and time (particularly in a political context) are rare commodities in our modern world.

To succeed, space exploration projects still need to be challenging and inspirational, perhaps with a nod towards commercialism.

They must also cover the bases of meaningful international partnerships and private sector
participation, and include the less glamorous aspects of building components, delivering cargo and providing ‘multi-layered’ services.   

Today, the nature of leadership in space is very different to the politically driven aspirations of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then it was more about doing things that no other country could do - and being there first.

Ten years after Apollo 11, the science writer and science fiction author Arthur C Clarke suggested that space travel might be “a technological mutation that should not really have arrived until the 21st century”.

If mankind was not really ready to go to the Moon in the late 1960s and the early 1970s then perhaps now is exactly the right time.


This article was first written by Clive Simpson as the Editorial in the Winter2017/18 edition of ROOM - The Space Journal for which Clive Simpson is also the Managing Editor. For online subscriptions please go to: www.room.eu.com.

Choosing our destiny

 James Vaughan

SIXTY years ago this month the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 became the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth and the world woke up to a new age - the Space Age.

This first satellite was a marker in human history and heralded a massive period of growth in science and technological development, much of it spurred by the subsequent six decades of space exploration.

In its broadest sense the whole sphere of space exploration, its inherent international cooperation and the expanding worldwide business of space has had a massively positive impact on the world.

Despite this, one wonders whether planet Earth has perhaps become a rather gloomy place of late - a world where vested interests often trump the wider common good, a world where optimism might be in short supply?

Like so many inventions and revolutions that have come of age and spawned a new breed of adventurers and entrepreneurs, there are also significant pitfalls and dangers on the road into deeper space.

In his magnum opus De Re Metallica (Of Metal Matters) on natural resources, the 16th century scientist and philosopher Georgius Agricola wrote, ‘Good men employ the elements for good and to them they are useful. The wicked use them badly and to them they are harmful.’

The approach of Agricola, widely regarded as the originator of the experimental approach to science, is perhaps more sensible than either the blind faith of the pure optimist or the destructive cynicism of the pessimist.
 

De Re Metallica (Of Metal Matters)

His renaissance philosophy speaks to many of the challenges society still faces today because many of our most potent technologies - space included - are finely balanced between creation and destruction, between benefit and exploitation.

Whereas sometimes a mechanism might be needed to tip the balance towards good, Agricola’s philosophy also reminds us of the need for wise leadership whether in politics, business, science or technology.

In Earth orbit, for example, we continue to exploit the opportunities provided by satellites for communications, navigation, TV broadcasting, observation and research, whilst at the same time creating a serious debris problem.

Space exploration is inextricably linked to the great reach of human progress and, if our further expansion beyond Earth is not to stall, the considered words of a scientist such as Agricola might just provide guidance enough for our future custody of the space realm.

We might also be wise to heed the solemn and inherent warning in a Buddhist proverb which tells us that,‘to every man is given the key to the gates of heaven, the same key also opens the gates of hell.’

Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, was launched on 4 October 1957.

In the days following the first Sputnik our vision of the future was perhaps more constrained. Today we find ourselves on the threshold of an unimagined space tourism era, eagerly anticipating the first crewed flights to Mars and perhaps even human colonies on the red planet.

At the same time zealous entrepreneurs, and even whole countries, are eyeing the untold mineral wealth of asteroids and the opportunity of a new mining ‘gold rush’ for which the old ways will not suffice.

Neatly juxtaposed with the Sputnik anniversary is the first birthday of Asgardia, the world’s first ‘space nation’ which is also about to mark its presence in orbit with the launch of its
inaugural satellite.

In all of these ventures judicious leadership and governance are vitally important. By the same token, we are all part of the whole and hold individual keys to our own destinies. And, as we recall the anniversary of the first Earth orbiting satellite, it means we can all be part of the future in whichever way we choose.

This article was first published as the Editorial to the Autumn 2017 edition of ROOM - The Space Journal for which Clive Simpson is the Managing Editor.

On Earth as it is on Mars

The UAE (United Arab Emirates) confirmed plans this week to build a city called ‘Mars Scientific City’, a US$135 million (Dh500 million) project that will simulate life on the red planet on Earth.

The announcement was made on the first day of the Annual Government Meetings in Abu Dhabi and also coincided with the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) being held in Adelaide, Australia. Dubai will host the IAC in 2020.

The high-tech city will cover 1.9 million square feet, making it the largest space-simulation city ever built, providing a viable and realistic model to simulate living on the surface of Mars.

The project encompasses laboratories for food, energy and water, as well as agricultural testing and studies about food security in the future.

It will also include a museum displaying humanity’s greatest space achievements, including educational areas to engage young citizens with space and inspire a passion in them for exploration and discovery. The walls of the museum will be 3D printed, using sand from the UAE desert.

"We are seeking a better life and education as well as a stronger economy and the internationally most sophisticated infrastructure for generations to come," said His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The Mars Science City project falls within the UAE’s objectives to lead the global scientific race to take people to Mars and is part of the country’s Mars 2117 Strategy which seeks to build the first settlement on Mars in the next 100 years.

The project seeks to attract the best scientific minds from around the world in a collaborative contribution in the UAE to human development and the improvement of life. It also seeks to address global challenges such as food, water and energy security on Earth.

The plan for the Mars Science City project includes an experiential element, which will involve a team living in the simulated red planet city for one year, involving a range of experiments are to be devised, which will lead to innovation around self-sufficiency in energy, water and food.

The Mars Science City structure will be the most sophisticated building in the world and will incorporate a realistic simulation environment replicating the conditions on the surface of Mars.

The city will consist of several domes, with innovative construction techniques providing support for the structures. A team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers, led by a team from the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre and Dubai Municipality, will carry out the project, in cooperation with internationally renowned architects.