Space Movie

How often have great designers, engineers, and scientists been interviewed, and when asked about their original inspiration they reference some movie or show.

Star Wars, Star Trek,  2001: A Space Odyssey, Buck Rogers, The Jetsons. These movies and TV shows have literally inspired thousands of people to make the fiction fact.

Now, within the last ten years, point to a movie or TV show which could be the definitive media trigger to inspire new technologists. Many will respond with Interstellar, Avatar, Star Wars, and Star Trek. But the trouble is, of those answers, only Interstellar and Avatar were really new concepts. But across the board, none of these movies had at their core the wonder of discovery or space travel itself. Interstellar was not about exploration but about a man separated from his family. Avatar was not about exploration but the dangers and warnings to consider in it.

In the last decade there has been no single movie which has defined the glory and wonder of space exploration and expansion. In the movies where this has been a possibility, Space has simply been a backdrop, not the focus.

How can an industry which requires a level of public opinion and knowledge to survive, by driving tourism ambitions and potentially tax dollars, survive without becoming a part of  culture.

Movies and media really define the state of American society at any given time. Space exploration used to be lived and breathed by everyone, when the moon landings were happening. Today, the attempt to land a rocket on a barge to reduce spaceflight costs by factors of 10, barely makes it onto Google News.

A movie needs to be made about space travel and exploration. A movie which actually captures the imagination and hope of the world. A movie which makes people "starry-eyed" about space travel again.

The date of the launch of the Jupiter II of "Lost in Space"

While we at "The Space Economy" are not fictional writers, what story could be more endearing than one set ten years from now when the space industry is fully active. Every space movie in recent years, or ever, has begun 50-100 years in the future. People will be amazed and excited by a date at the beginning of a movie of just 5-10 years in the future.

Space Burial

One of the more interesting space businesses, which is really as old as spaceflight itself, is the idea of space burials.

As a means of disposing of the deceased space burials are actually quite practical and even more emotional. Leaving someone in a place where they will perpetually drift and travel and perhaps even seed life into arid worlds, is a very romantic way to send them on to the next life.

Space burials have been going on since the very first moon landers. Ashes of people have been sent up ever since. Celestis, Inc is a company that has formed around the idea of space burial. Celestis purchases empty space on launches and fills them with samples of cremated remains. The people that have been buried in space include Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, as well as several hundred other people.

However, at this point a typical space burial includes less than an ounce of ashes in a sample tube which take the ride, but then typically come back down as the orbit decays or the mission ends. Very few people have had remains placed permanently into space. And certainly, there have been no full bodies sent, only cremated remains.

Space burials as a business, are actually very simple. A basic set of vials are made and ashes inserted. Then they are placed in an empty corner of the next possible launch. Low weight, low effort, but a very moving way to be buried.

In future space burials will no doubt become much more commonplace. While they are currently reserved for rich and famous, as launches become ever more frequent so will the space to place the small caskets. Someday entire bodies may be buried in space. Though there will no doubt be restrictions on this practice to ensure that tourists in orbit are not surprised by a cadaver outside of the station.

Space burials will also grow to be much more than a typical burial. They may come to epitomize the ideals of space travel. Imagine an astronaut or scientist dedicating their entire life to space but dying before their dream was realized. Perhaps they wanted to reach an asteroid or set foot on Mars. Placing to sending their remains to those places fulfills and legitimizes their life's work and can inspire others to follow.

Space burials are likely one of the oldest commercial space businesses and will likely remain after many others die.  While at this moment they may seem a bit sterile compared to a casket and flowers, they are far more meaningful and beautiful. Space is an eternity, why not place a person's remains in eternity after they have entered it.

Space Toys

A company for the creation of toys uniquely suited for the environment of space.

While the beauty of space is awe inspiring, when you live there for long periods of time it starts to lose its charm. Diversions for space travelers will have to become an industry. Toys and games will need to be created which tourists and explorers can enjoy while locked inside of a can or bubble.

So what would a space toy look like? Well, the simplest is a ball. Astronauts in the ISS have used balls as entertainment in the zero-g environment for years. While entertaining space-ball will lose its novelty, especially to people who are watching it. And in an industry where pubic opinion will have huge sway, it is important to create a "Space Experience" that can't be replicated. Catch in space is still just catch.

So any kind of space toy must be able to exist only in space, otherwise the romance and desire is gone from those who are not a part of it.

So, what can occur in a weightless environment that can't anywhere else. The first thing is structures. Gossamer creations can exist in space that would collapse on earth. A building set made of straws could be an option. Or perhaps a strategy game, such at dominoes, where players attempt to limit the movies of other players. Perhaps a dynamic game where players set certain pieces in motion without disrupting others. Or maybe instead of using a board, each space is a separate piece that floats in midair. Anything that utilizes the 3-D, floating experience of space.

Astronauts insert a GoPro into a bubble of water for fun

Now, in the current space environment of high launch costs and no-frills design, a toy may not be high on the shopping list. This is founded. Given the choice between a toy or a tool many will choose the tool when going to space. The weight of even a few pounds of toys or games costs thousands of dollars to launch.

Fortunately, it is no longer necessary to launch toys. They can be beamed to orbit. Made-In-Space recently sent a 3-D printer to the ISS that has been making plastic tools and spare parts for several months. It would be so simple to just e-mail a set of space Legos.

3-D printing will allow crews of space missions to not only create necessary parts and tools but also a little entertainment with no launch cost. And when the toy becomes boring it can be melted down and turned into something else.

Because of technologies like 3-D printing space toys are something that can be created today. A high school kid with Google Sketch-up could create something that could be sold to the astronauts on the ISS tomorrow.

Space toys will be a low-cost-of-entry business. And, at this point, there is no competition because no one has really considered it. But it will be an industry as tourism heats up in coming years. Plus explorers on long missions to Mars will love to have an inventory of "made for space" entertainment that they can download when they want it, play with it, and then turn into a spare part.

Anyone with some time and creativity can create a business that would never have to have inventory, but would help to support the psychological wellness of many space missions in the future. Maybe by just creating a 3-D printable space chess set.

Below Astronaut Chris Hadfield demonstrates a dart game the astronauts created, and tries a game designed by the Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman.

Transporting Nothing

At "The Space Economy" we try to focus on technologies that are either currently feasible or
possible in the near future. But, we decided to break it up a little bit and reach a little further out.

What is the fundamental problem facing nearly every space company today, or even in the future. Cost to move or make stuff to and in space. At this moment it costs just under $1000 a pound to transport something into orbit. Cheap enough that private sector companies have greater access, but it is not something that would become really widespread. And even with further reduced launch costs, traditional transport will always be expensive, it is an historical fact.

The industry expects to be able to mine asteroids to provide fuel for ships, and even make the ships out of asteroid concrete. But, construction is expensive, has always been, and as long as its being built from natural materials, will always be.

Physical "stuff" is the enemy of spaceflight. Now, and even in 50-100 years.

What if it were possible to just get rid of all of it? Just not have mass or materials in spacecraft or habitats or anything else. Space would become something that would be able to grow exponentially since it would cost little to nothing to put stuff in it.

Star Trek had it all right. The ships don't have windows, they have force-fields, no weight. They don't have grapples they have tractor beams, no weight. When people move they use transporters, no transfer of weight, just information. The only thing utilized is controlled energy from the power source that was needed anyway. Imagine how the industry would change if these technologies were available.

Instead of expending millions of dollars to send a person or even materials to the moon or a to a ship in orbit one just calls Scotty and pays a slightly higher electric bill.

Now certainly, not all of this is possible in the near future, but the economic advantages are clear. Transportation and construction of physical things are the bane of the creation of a space organization. Think of a space station. Normally it would he made out of a material, aluminum, kevlar, etc. If you build a large station in orbit you would likely have a frame and then attach panels to seal it. Instead of building the space station with metal panels what if one used force field generators embedded in the frame. Less labor, less weight to transport, fewer parts to replace, just more power.

Note: Power generation is the bane of any force field. The ISS uses less power than an american home it won't be using a tractor beam. But for this post we'll assume that power technologies have progressed far enough to power energy based mechanics or the systems are made more efficient.

Luckily, some of these ideas are not far quite as Sci-Fi as one would expect. Development of a tractorbeam has been underway at NASA for several years. And force-field like technologies are used in particle accelerators to help hold the vacuum. These are all technologies that basically create material things form immaterial things. This is what is needed in space since materials are the primary limiting factor in the industry.

A "Hard Light" company could get started today creating devices such as the tractor beam being researched at NASA. They could fund the research by providing mico-versions for private and public asteroid sampling missions where a mechanical system may not be feasible. (Compare a laser pointer to a drill). From there they could work on systems that collect space junk and then push small satellites into higher orbits. There a lot of basic space operations that exist where energy-based manipulation is useful.

Eventually, such a company would be be poised to create force fields for habitats and energy based manipulation equipment of all kinds that would be lighter and more durable than any mechanical system. (So what if a micro-meteorite punches a hole in an energy shield. And the tractor beam will probably not get bent.)

While some of the most useful space technologies are still far from feasibility. But, there are places where, in the not too distant future, energy can replace matter, thus replacing the primary expense of space.

Interplanetary Communications Company

As the space industry begins to look beyond Earth orbit, communications systems better than those currently used will need to be implemented.

Let's focus entirely on communication with Mars. This is the target planet for most manned missions and the Moon is able to communicate directly with Earth without special systems.

In order to communicate effectively with Mars there are a couple issues that must be overcome. One is the six minute time-lag caused by the distance to Mars. The other is the fact that signals are periodically blocked by wither the planets or the sun moving in front of the communication satellites.

The second problem is the simplest to solve. It just requires more satellites. Perhaps two around each planet so that the signal is never hidden when the satellite goes behind the body. At least two would have to be built around the sun for the same reason. Mars One is utilizing a system like this for its communication with the colony it intends to establish. But they will only be using three satellites. One around each planet and then the sun. This system will ensure that there is only a few two hours periods of blackout when a planet is in the way as well as two week periods when the sun gets in the way.

While the system is effective, for a limited mission, it is not ideal as the colony grows and activity increases. Two weeks of blackout will not be acceptable. A problem of bandwidth will also arise, with increases traffic, which will require multiple satellites in order to transfer information quickly and reliably enough.

Eventually an network of dozens of satellites around the sun and each planet will have to be created to ensure optimized 24/7/365 communication between the bodies.

Then comes the issue of time lag between planets. Relativity stops us from overcoming this problem with available technology. There is no way to have a live conversation effectively between Earth and Mars. So ways of creating the illusion of instant connectivity will have to be created.

Again using Mars One as an example. They intend to allow astronauts to download websites to a colony server to browse on a regular basis. All this requires is a periodic data-dump to the colony with a copy of your Facebook feed from 4 hours before.

The trouble with this system is that it requires a server in the colony, taking up weight and space. If a single company was maintaining the "phone network" then satellites around Mars could be outfitted with local servers just for the purpose of storing information. This would not only reduce the requirements on each new Mars mission to integrate local servers in place of food, but also allows for Mars to develop an information independence of Earth as it grows. Such a system would ensure that Mars would have a completely formed information infrastructure that anyone on the planet could access without having to build it themselves.

Now this is an audacious goal, one which would take perhaps decades to implement but it can begin now. A space communications company can be created which could initially be profitable be serving as the communications hub for NASA research missions as well as potential manned missions. If someone moved quickly enough they could be contracted by Mars One to build and launch a system in the next five years.

It might not even be necessary to build everything from scratch and launch it. If the budget is really tight, it might be possible for a company to purchase existing Mars satellites that are considered obsolete,  then refurbish them remotely to become an effective communications network, limited though ti may be.

Such a communication entity would ensure that systems are standardized for all missions since agencies and companies will not want to develop their own communications systems when they can simply piggy-back an existing one.

The business model for a space communications company would most likely be one of a basic data plan. How many gigabits does the organization want to send across the network? OK. They cost this much. This has worked well terrestrially and there is not reason to think that it wouldn't in space.

It has been mentioned how an interplanetary communications company will eventually change into a planetary communications company just by being the foundational network for a new world. But there is one other aspect as well. As individuals and companies begin to truly go out into space to explore, prospect, colonize it will still be necessary to communicate with home. But the same limitations apply, lag and bandwidth. A series of satellites set up to aide communication between Earth and Mars would also become a hub for all space communications. Whether they be from the asteroid belt, Jupiter, or Venus. The network created to communicate with Mars would become the network used to communicate with everything else. It would basically be the telephone booths and operators of space. That is a successful business. Becoming the primary information carrier.

Companies such as SpaceX obviously realize this potential.  SpaceX recently announced partnering with Google and Fidelity to create a space-based internet service for Earth. This is just a stepping stone, to pay the bills, until Musk can create the connection with Mars.

Space Garden

Long term space occupation is currently limited by the supply chain. The ISS has to be refueled and restocked multiple times a year to keep just a few people alive and fed for small periods of time. While the cost of launching supplies is going down, such disposability of resources is not a sustainable means of developing a large space economy and society.

Food is one of the largest consumables on the space station. Comparable to, or even greater than fuel. Food is the resource that can’t be easily recycled or reused, even with modern technology. And even though there were old proposals to use human waste as radiation shielding and other such applications, these have never been implemented and most likely never will be. Space food, in its current state, also adds unnecessary bulk and weight to missions. At this point if a mission were to be launched to Mars  an entire capsule would have to be stuffed with protein bars and freeze dried-spaghetti.

But food and the waste it creates can be recycled and reused, it simply requires something a bit less sterile than the systems currently in use. Space missions need to adopt a more organic means of food production and recycling in order to reduce bulk and increase reusability.

Ignoring the technical challenges for a moment, if a space garden could be implemented into a space station or capsule it would have benefits far beyond just food production and recycling. An obvious one would be the purification of air though plants’ natural processes. NASA has also performed research that proves that the cultivation of plants while in isolation, i.e. a space capsule, has positive psychological effects on humans. Plants and other living things create a connection with Earth that helps the astronauts feel more at home in space. If appropriately arranged plants would also offer the organic radiation shielding long considered by space technologists.

So that is the market. The creation of an agricultural center for a space station which can produce food and recycle the waste, while providing as many of the side benefits as possible.

Now on to the technical side of the space garden. Weight is always a concern, but one would be able to get around this by developing system that has a lifetime weight savings if it is able to produce food from seed to plate thereby reducing the cost of transportation.

Creating a garden in space is not quite as simple as just sending up some pots and putting seeds in them. If a space garden is to have maximum impact it has to have a complete cycle built into it. Astronauts plant the food, the food grows, astronauts eat the food, and then what is left is put back into the garden. While this has been a common practice on earth for millennia, in space where an entire ecosystem is difficult to create, there will have to be technological systems in place that help turn waste into compost. These could be filtering mechanisms or possibly a bio-reactor that can break down human waste to a form that is more sanitary to work with.

The system would have to be clean, one of the banes of space gardens. Too much delicate machinery has to be protected from stray dirt or water. This means that any type of garden would need to be in a self-contained module. The “module” could range in size from that of a habitat to just the size of a trunk.

Those are some basic considerations. But if the developer of such a space garden wants to maximize some of the other benefits they must go beyond a garden-in-a-box. They may want to leave food production out of it and simply create a biological recycling system. This would mean a focus on the ability of the plants to use human waste to create pure air. This could lead to something like a large tank of algae. If one were truly imaginative they might find a way to turn the algae into food. But if the psychological is the focus maybe a special type of flower would be more appropriate. A space garden can have many variations and focuses, and therefore a large potential product base.

A truly universal space garden would likely be an entire self-contained module which is something that is added to a space station and not simply parked on a shelf. This would most likely be where a young start-up would begin. Building entire gardens designed to sustain a crew with food, air, and fulfillment during a mission to Mars. Then as the space industry grows the size of the garden could be reduced in order to accommodate different missions and needs which require more variability and smaller scales.

A space garden is one of the technologies which does not need to go to space to be perfected. Plants can be chosen, tests run, and systems tested in a terrestrial environment very easily. This makes the cost of development relatively small compared to other space technologies and increases the possibility of pre-orders that can offset start-up costs.

The creation of a space garden can be far less technical than the creation of a rocket engine. But it does take a level of know-how that easily creates a competitive advantage. Sustenance farming in isolation has not been practiced in the capitalistic world for some time. The tricks of the trade may be harder to find than just a few agriculture students. But it can be done and is something that would be immensely valuable to the space industry by reducing transportation cost of food, rising moral in space, and performing cleaning of an environment that rapidly becomes stuffy. This is an opportunity that has hardly been pursued by anyone in the industry, public or private, but it will gain much more attention in the future.

Ecological Benefits of Space Mining

At The Space Economy we continually work to explain the benefits of space commercialization. One that has been overlooked by ourselves and the industry has been the ecological benefits of using resources from space. This pertains particularly to the mining industry.

Mining has a tremendous ecological impact on our planet. Mountains are literally removed every year on order to supply the raw materials needed for our increasingly industrialized planet. But this may not be a sustainable or required practice. Space mining would be capable of replacing it and without negative ecological impact.

Asteroids are rocks out of the ground already floating in space. Excavating them has no negative impact on our solar system, as long as it is not done in orbit. Thousands of times more material is also available in our solar system, which can be exploited, with proper infrastructure, which is growing ever closer.

Many space advocates sell it as something which is the future of our race as a means of survival from cataclysmic asteroid strikes and the like or as a means to satisfy the human needs to explore. While these reasons are founded, they do not resound with some parts of the population on earth. Space has to provide some other benefit than simply making money, exploring, and preventing destruction. Space must create a more encompassing return for Earth to be worth it. Ecology is one of those returns. The fact that the commercialization of space will help to solve ecological problems on Earth is a grand reason to work toward space.

Now, certainly many will argue that space mining will still have negative affects on earthen ecosystems. Because dirty rockets must be launched and rocks dropped from the sky.

This view has little credence as it assumes that rocket technology will remain as it is, which it won't, and that the asteroids would have to be delivered as raw materials to the surface of the Earth, which they won't. Space mining will revolve around the refining and manufacturing of materials in orbit (or possibly on the Moon) which can then be delivered to earth with a gliding space plane. And rockets are already powered by combinations of hydrogen and oxygen which combine to create...water. In fact, the kerosene burning Falcon 9 is "cleaner" than the solid rocket boosters of the space shuttle so we are already creating a greener space industry.

Mining companies would do well to explore space mining as a part of their future. Not only are the resources abundant, but the good will that it would generate by "working to preserve earth ecosystems" would be valuable to the company. And along the road space technologies developed could be applied to Earth problems. Caterpillar, which makes mining machinery, apparently sees this potential as it is partnering with NASA to develop space mining technologies.