Infographic on Space Debris

Space debris is an opportunity to start a trash business or a salvage business

Original JPL Link

Nuclear Devices in Space

Here is an essay that was written by one of the authors for a college course several months ago. We thought you might enjoy it though it might be better to just skim it. This paper was meant for an uninitiated audience.

Mars has long been a target of space colonization. This little planet is actually quite similar to Earth in many different ways. But in order for Mars to be a planet that is truly amenable to humans, that is, a place where people can go and walk in the Martian sun as one would on Earth, the planet has to be terraformed. Terraformation is the global engineering of a planet’s environment (Moss). In Mars’ case terraformation refers to the heating of the planet. Several methods for terraforming

Elon Musk with Stephen Colbert

Mars have been put forward. These ideas have included pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or dropping asteroids on the planet. But the concept which is now receiving the most attention is one referenced by Elon Musk on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. When Colbert asked what it would take to make Mars livable, Musk replied that “There are two ways, the fast way and the slow way.”(Colbert) The slow way was to use greenhouse gases to hasten global warming on Mars. The fast way was to drop thermonuclear weapons on the poles. It was the fast way which has received the attention.

In order for Mars to be the planet which humans leave Earth for, it will have to be terraformed. The use of nuclear weapons is one of the most practical methods of accomplishing the task. While technological challenges exist even with this approach, it will be the geopolitical and interplanetary ethics which will pose the greatest challenge to any type of Mars transformation.

Why is it that Musk believes that thermonuclear weapons would be ideal for terraforming Mars? The goal behind the plan is to create a runaway greenhouse effect on Mars. Mars is full of carbon dioxide. The tenuous atmosphere that exists there already is primarily carbon dioxide, and the poles are composed of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice. Detonation of nuclear weapons over the poles is expected to heat them enough to release huge amounts more CO2 into the atmosphere. Ideally, this initial release of CO2 would heat the planet enough that more CO2 would be melted, and from that warming more still, continuously until all the dry ice has been melted and ejected into the atmosphere. From there plants can be introduced to convert the CO2 into oxygen. Nuclear weapons are ideal to start this process because they are understood, powerful and compact. Other options for starting the process of CO2 release require huge infrastructures and technologies which have not yet been developed.

However, even though the plan is feasible technologically it is almost insurmountable politically. The current Outer Space Treaty which is signed by most nuclear powers of the world, and all space powers, states that no weapons of mass destruction will be placed in space (United Nations). Basically, the global UN treaty prohibits nuclear weapons in space. There is a possibility that the treaty can be amended to allow thermonuclear devices to be deployed for the peaceful purposes of terraforming Mars. After all, peaceful applications of thermonuclear devices in space have never been a large consideration. Also, conveniently the treaty does not apply to individuals or companies, and may become even less of a factor.

A bill up for vote in the U.S. senate is set to give companies control of extracted materials from asteroids, (Fecht) even though the UN treaty states that no country may control any resources in space. The U.S. bill will set a precedent for private organizations to make decisions about space utilization outside of international treaties. The bill will also allow for the United States to develop local legislation to allow private organizations to decide the fate of Mars. So essentially, the U.S. may not be internationally allowed to unilaterally claim parts of space or Mars, but it can provide the resources to a private company, not bound by the treaty to terraform Mars. This all operates under the assumption that the Space Act of 2015 is ratified by Congress. But it does present the possibility that Elon Musk could obtain the means to terraform Mars with nuclear devices as a peaceful utilization of the devices without forcing the U.S. to break its treaty.

If the humanitarian effort to terraform Mars with nukes was ratified by the UN, or enabled by U.S. legislation, there would be multiple primary objections to the possibility, both are based on safety. In order to get to space one must take a rocket. Rockets, the world over, only have a success rate of, at best, 96 percent (Lafleur). What would occur if a rocket carrying a nuclear device exploded upon launch (Jauregui)? Also what should occur if terrorists or hackers hijack the device and point it back towards Earth. These are the concerns of a nuclear device being launched.

The latter argument is inconceivable. Such a device would have higher than normal military security. It would not be as if it is a basic laptop to be hacked. If the nuclear arsenal of the US has not been breached then neither will a rocket to Mars be compromised.

So, regarding the issue of a failure. This is a legitimate concern. But what few people realize is that there have already been multiple nuclear payloads sent into space. The Curiosity rover uses a radioactive device to power itself which would have disintegrated should it have exploded at launch. There have also been multiple SNAP-10A fission reactors launched since the 60’s (Bennett). Thus far there have been no accidents. But the reality is that even if one of these nuclear devices were to explode in the rocket the danger of radioactive fallout would be minimal. A nuclear blast creates dangerous fallout because it is able to eject decaying plutonium in all directions very energetically and evenly. A rocket exploding is a firecracker in comparison. The reactor and its contents would fall out of the sky and into the ocean, not spread like a plume across a continent. Overall, the dangers of safety are arguments similar to saying that we might get hit by a car if we cross the street, so one should never cross a street. It would not be negligent to attempt to launch a nuclear cargo to Mars.

So, assuming that nuclear devices have been approved to go to Mars and detonate, the next argument for the opposition would be that of the ecological impacts such an act would have on Mars itself (Jauregui). These objections stem from the idea that humans do not fully understand Mars yet. Mars has been considered one of the prime locations in the solar system to find life or remnants of life. Mars is theorized to have once been very earthlike, warm and wet. These theories lend credence to the idea that there are either fossilized or living organisms to find on Mars (Johnson). But should humans go and start nuking the planet, they could obliterate evidence of that past Martian life, or possibly even that life itself if it still exists. This issue can be likened to endangerment and human caused extinction of animals on Earth. The trouble is on Earth there are other resources, other solutions to deforestation, on Mars those options are limited because terraformation is required to even open the door to those other possibilities. Mars must be terraformed in order to provide a human presence that is capable of fully understanding and studying the planet. This cannot be achieved with rovers, but it can with humans.

There exists the possibility that small colonies will be established before the planet is terraformed. The stations would conduct the science to prepare the planet for the terraformation and design the process. While performing these studies scientists would be able to conduct the final surveys for life. If found, the organisms can be protected from the terraformation process so that they can be fully studied. In this way the transformation of the planet will not eliminate any potential existing residents, and the scientific value of those organisms can be viably and organically retained.

Mars is generally touted as a second planet for humans, to ensure that if a life ending event occurs
on one planet the other will preserve the human race. Should initial preparation and study of the planet not be performed the terraformation should continue. It is not appropriate to put the protection of a hypothetical organism or fossil ahead of the actual dangers posed to the fully conscious and creating organisms that are human. Some would say that the dangers to Earth are of the same probability of getting hit by a car while crossing a street, which I presented previously, therefore why should Mars be colonized out of fear. To this let us be clear, if human protection was the only reason then there would be no interest in Mars. Humans can’t fight the urge of a donut even though it could kill them. The idea of a multi-planetary society extends far beyond survival as a benefit. These include solving problems such as population density, political oppression, and economic growth. A new planet allows humans to develop in ways that we have never seen since Europeans started coming over to the Americas. Mars is bare ground for people to create a new start. The colonization must occur for human progress to continue. That is indeed more valuable than a scientific curiosity which may or may not exist, and would still be able to be studied even after the terraformation. The development of the human race is also a hypothetical which is justified through the data of history and how expansion has improved quality of life but also scientific and economic ability to protect and understand environmental issues.

Elon Musk is a marketing genius. He often drops hints and ideas in order to improve visibility of projects he is working on. But he is also a proven achiever of lofty goals. He already operates several technology companies, one of which provides orbital rockets to service the International Space Station. When Elon Musk states that nuclear weapons are a viable method for preparing Mars for human colonization, it is generally a well substantiated belief and even future plan he is working on (Masunaga). Terraforming a planet with nuclear devices is a possibility (AOL.com), and though there are hypothetically-based concerns about it, none of them are legitimate enough to prohibit the plan. The primary issue with actually implementing it will be the fears of what may occur on Earth, either due to potential political backlash or a failure of the vehicle carrying the devices failing. It is possible that the political hurdles can be overcome and the other is a concern based on hyperbole. Nuclear devices can and should be used to prepare another planet for human development.


Bibliography
 Bennett, Gary. "Space Nuclear Power: Opening the Final Frontier." 4th International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference and Exhibit (IECEC) (2006). Print.

"Citation Machine Automatically Generates Citations in MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, and Harvard." Citation Machine: Format & Generate Citations – APA, MLA, & Chicago. Imagine Easy Solutions. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Colbert, Stephen. "Elon Musk Might Be A Super Villain." YouTube. YouTube, 10 Sept. 2015. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.

 Fecht, Sarah. "Is Space Mining Legal?" Popular Science. Popular Science, 23 Sept. 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

 Jauregui, Andres. "Sorry, Elon Musk: One Does Not Simply Nuke Mars Into Habitability." Huffington Post. Huffington Post, 11 Sept. 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Johnson, Carolyn. "Ancient Lake on Mars Could Be a Prime Target in Search for Life - The Boston Globe." BostonGlobe.com. Boston Globe, 27 Mar. 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

 Lafleur, Claude. "Spacecraft Stats and Insights." The Space Review:. The Space Review, 5 Apr. 2010. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

 Masunaga, Samantha. "What Scientists Say about Elon Musk's Idea to Nuke Mars." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 11 Sept. 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Moss, Shaun. "Terraforming Mars." Mars Papers (2006). Print.

"SNAP-10A." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

"United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs." Outer Space Treaty. United Nations Office of Space Affairs, 19 Dec. 1966. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

 "Why Elon Musk's 'nuking Mars' Idea Isn't All That Far-fetched." AOL.com. 10 Sept. 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

Killer Asteroids from Asteroid Mining

Many great developments and goods will come from space industries such as asteroid mining. But with every new technology or capability comes the potential misuse and weaponization of those capabilities. It is imperative that such dangerous possibilities are addressed before errors occur.

In recent years there has been a great deal of hype about preparing for a possible collision with a stray killer space rock. People are scared that what happened to the dinosaurs may be repeated. The trouble is that while the world has been working to create ways to deflect these rocks which might hit us, others have been working to bring them right to us.

Asteroid mining is going to be a reality. Telescopes are already mapping potential candidates and companies and NASA are creating hardware to retrieve them. The reason space rocks will have to be returned to a close proximity to Earth (most plans intend to have the rocks delivered to Lunar orbit) is so they can be mined easily. Why drive a truck to a mine over and over when you can just bring the mine to the factory?

The meteorite which was supposed to have killed the dinosaurs was believed to be several miles in diameter. Now there are no plans by anyone to return a rock that big, now or in the near future, though it will undoubtedly occur someday. But a rock only 20 meters in diameter can have more strength than a nuclear bomb, as witnessed with the Chelyabinsk meteor.

All it takes to move an asteroid is a little bit of power and time. The intentions, when these
asteroids are being brought toward Earth is science and mining. However, what protections and countermeasures will be in place when the ship moving the asteroid is hacked and put on a collision course with Earth? What if the ship just loses control while carrying what is essentially a nuclear payload, if allowed to fall to Earth?

The key to stopping an asteroid impact is knowing that it is coming ahead of time. What will be the lead time when an asteroid, supposedly under control, breaks free of the leash? A pedestrian can jump only if they know the car won't hit the breaks, but we all know that a car is supposed to stop at a crosswalk so we don't look for it. We may be looking for the stray rock but it might be the one everyone knows about that gets us.

Preparations for defending Earth from space hazards must be pursued and considered. Natural events need to be prepared for, but so far humans haven't had to fear nature so much as other humans, when searching for a source of annihilation. Asteroid mining creates a plane with nuclear bombs which could be hijacked by terrorists.

Many solutions already exist to prepare for the event of a rock getting off the leash. Fortunately, large countermeasures are not something which have to be implemented for sometime. Conventional weapons are allowed in orbit, and these could destroy small asteroids coming toward Earth. Proper security protocols will inhibit most hacking, but cyber-security is a perpetual arms race. A very simple solution would be to have a certain location far away from the Earth where asteroids could be delivered and broken up into smaller pieces for Earth delivery. If a rock doesn't remain in that area it is immediately counted as a rogue and destroyed. The trouble is this solution creates a great inhibition to asteroid mining companies which need the asteroids as close to Earth as possible to allow proximity to mining technology.

Asteroid mining is going to happen. Asteroids will be brought to Lunar and even Earth orbit. Generally there will be no dangers with these practices. But the possibility will exist of having one of those rocks getting loose or being loosed and falling toward Earth. Countermeasures must be created for this event. It is far more likely than some killer asteroid appearing out of the darkness.

For methods of deflecting asteroids read this article.

Invasive Species in Space

Tardigrades or "water bears" can survive the extremes of space

From time to time one will hear of something called “invasive species.” Invasive species are organisms which are introduced to an area where they have no competition and thus begin to roust the native species and wreak havoc with the ecosystem. Such species include numerous noxious weeds, fish such as carp, and animals like pet pythons.

Nearly all of these invasive species were introduced by human interaction. A seed stuck to a boat, a pet released into a swamp, etc. All of these species which began as only one or two loose seeds have become major problems on our planet and within many countries as they can destroy what makes a river, lake, land desirable in a particular area.

It is too late now to point this out as all the harm has been and is being done now. However there is no reason to allow it to continue, at least for some time.

It has been said many times that humans are on the cusp of an exodus to space. The price of launches is expected to decrease dramatically in the coming decades so that a trip into the void could be within the range of vacation expenses. There are also plans to begin colonizing Mars. But will the mistakes of old be overlooked? Will we carry invasive or undesirable species with us as we move into space?

The Curiosity Rover being assembled in a clean room

NASA and other space agencies have long worked to ensure that biocontamination does not occur between its craft and the heavenly bodies they explore. And yet even with all the scrubbing, baking and sanitizing that is performed on craft such as rovers, they have  been found to still harbor microbes which could colonize the Red Planet before humans. If highly polished equipment is still carrying bacteria what is expected to occur when people are throwing suitcases into the cargo hold of a spaceship for a vacation? Mosquitoes might be released into what could have been an Eden.
The private space industry is moving quickly to develop technologies for transportation. But as the transit becomes more viable the industry must remember to perform the annoying housecleaning tasks and consider them before history is simply repeated. Invasive species are a large problem on Earth where they have little competition, but they could be devastating to a space mission if resilient bacteria  were introduced to a colony’s single water supply where there is no competition. Not to mention the potential extraterrestrial conservation issues such an outbreak might incur.

While a cleaning bureaucracy does not need to be created to hinder the industry it is something that should be developed before it is needed. Because when a biological invasion occurs it will appear as gross negligence on the part of the industry. From that will spawn a truly hindering organization.
The industry must work on problems such as invasive species and others which are all preventable. This will show responsibility and due diligence which will give the industry leeway when other unforeseeable problems occur.

As always, this potential cleaning problem opens an opportunity for space entrepreneurs. Currently space rovers are not being cleaned completely. But they are being cleaned as well as they can be. This means that new methods of scrubbing spacecraft need to be developed as well as means of containing microbes and large potential invasive species during manned flights.

Such a business could begin life performing basic cleaning on spacecraft going into orbit. Basically a prepper for low risk launches. Then as more rovers are deployed and more people move into space launch companies could solicit the services of such a company to screen passengers and cargo for potential biohazards and invasive species. Some launch companies may elect to do this themselves but until launch reliability is the same as an airplane launch companies will likely not wish to hold the liability for a potential infestation of a space station. A company dedicated to the screening and cleaning of cargo and people could develop the methods and the technologies to keep invasive and dangerous species out of pure areas.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Weeds, reptiles, germs, fish and many other kinds of creatures have repeatedly been carried into areas where they can wreak havoc and destroy something that was devoid of such organisms. In space, humans have a completely clean slate. We can have any kind of flora or fauna we want. But there must be means of keeping what shouldn’t go to space from going to space. A few mosquitoes would completely ruin a trip to a space station.

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.

A Company for Reactivating Vintage Spacecraft

There are more spacecraft added to the menagerie in orbit every year. Some are operational. Many are
not. But that is not because they are broken.

Many spacecraft simply have served their purpose. They are no longer needed or have become out of date. So they are shut down.

A Space Junkyard from Star Wars

This collection of used satellites and probes (basically space junk) leaves an opportunity for entrepreneurs to repurpose them by simply regaining contact with them, creating new missions, and perhaps maintaining the vintage equipment needed to operate them.

The chance here is that the all of the expensive work of designing and launching the craft has already been done by someone else and now the scavenger gets all of that for free, outdated though it may be. All a new company would have to do is design new missions for the craft and recreate the tools needed to operate it. This just take a few software or electrical engineers

Now a satellite that used to monitor earth weather until its resolution became too poor, can instead become an open source orbital photography platform. Or it could be moved into a new orbit to be used as a practice dummy for docking. Or in the case of the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, it can be sent to study an asteroid.

The ISEE-3 Reboot Project is crowdfunding effort underway to perform the kind of spacecraft refurbishment just discussed. The group wishes to regain contact with a a defunct solar probe and command it to fire its engines so that is can be sent to explore a nearby asteroid. While they are doing this simply as an exercise and valiant research effort, the results from the project could be the foundation of a future space company.

The company that pursues this kind of a mission would basically just be the antique dealer of  spacecraft. You go to their shop and you find the CRT TV of spacecraft  and buy control of it to drop an anvil onto it.

And this company doesn't have to make the old satellites do anything complex. The regaining of a means of controlling them is of huge value. With that returned control, the space junk can be collected, repurposed, reused, scrapped, or eliminated. All necessary operations in the space industry gaining a litter problem.

Any company that regains control of defunct spacecraft would have a large foothold in the private space industry as it becomes the dealer of the vintage space paraphernalia. And really, all they would need is a few software developers, a ham radio set, and maybe a retired rocket scientist.

The Danger of E.T. to the Private Space Industry

Aliens are bad for business.

No, I don't mean that there will be little green men working to destroy us commercially. In fact, I mean something as basic as a single celled organism could bring the current space industry and prospects of settlement to a halt.

Let me paint a picture for you.

The single largest discovery that could both spark great interest in space but also bring colonization to a standstill would be the discovery of extraterrestrial life in our solar system. Or even the remains of such life.

This is where space colonization differs completely from all historical explorers. In the past, as colonists and explorers spread across the New World they contaminated it with their diseases and, in some ways, their cultures. It is known that the Americas were once home to millions that were never observed because they were destroyed by European plagues. The potential discoveries were destroyed before they could be discovered. This is what is feared may happen in space by space environmentalists.

Mars and Europa are among the primary targets for space life hunters. They both are expected to have significant enough amounts of water and friendly enough environments to have once or still harbor life. The problem is that these characteristics are also what make those locations prime colonization prospects. But what would happen if either fossils or living samples of life existed on one of those bodies. In our environmentally conscious world, they would be cordoned off as preserves. The E.T.’s would have to be kept separate from all other biological life so that it could not be contaminated by Earth life. This would require that no colony could exist any where near the discovery.

So if life were to be discovered on Mars it could stop all Mars exploration for close to fifty years. Because instead of sending missions to colonize and  then study, missions would be sent to study and then possibly colonize.  The danger of destroying or contaminating either the E.T. or ourselves would entice Earth governments to stop human transport.

Now, what is truly disturbing about this condition is that an E.T. could be discovered that originated on Earth. Right now there are numerous rovers on Mars. And even though they have been cooked and sterilized they still could have carried to the planet microbes that could survive if they were exposed to the right conditions. Now suppose that another rover came along behind one of those dirty rovers. And low and behold that rover finds microbial life  that the other rover "missed." But the new rover can not recognize it as an earth-based contamination. At this point, having found E.T. on Mars, the planet is locked down and only particular scientific missions are arranged. After about ten years a sample of the organism is brought back to Earth by robotic rover. By that point the microbes may have evolved enough to adapt to the Martian environment. While they will still appear similar to Earth bacteria, it will continually be questioned whether they could just have been seeded by an earth rock on Mars or vice-versa. And there would be no way to prove that the rover planted it. Because by that time, the bacteria could have spread across all of Mars.

Now Mars has life, of sorts, and the decision has to be made if we will allow Humans to colonize/continue to colonize the planet, and introduce all kinds of new biological systems, or simply keep it as a preserve in honor of the first place outside of Earth to contain life.

So basically, we may create the E.T. by delivering infested spacecraft, but then decide that it was indigenous to the planet and attempt to protect it by stopping future exploration. Not an ideal future for a new and growing industry.

While this scenario is fictional, it is still something that is incredibly possible. 

At the current rate of planetary bio-research it appears that many Mars launches and colonies will be established before any type of life is discovered, if ever. So, if perchance, the organism is legitimately alien, a human colony will most likely have to be one of the means of studying it. So instead of stopping colonization such discoveries may simply limit ideas of terraforming or expansion of colonies. It will really come down to a question of how much of the planet should be preserved or if it is even possible to. More or less it will be a system just like that of the United States with its parks and preserves.

As the industry grows detection and preservation of possible E.T. locations will have to be consciously considered. Something that was lacking in much past exploration of our globe. But all preservation will need to be conducted in a way that is beneficial it the people that are risking their lives and fortunes to open the gates of space. Preservation on Earth has led to the devastation of several industries where the protection was taken too far.

Now the fear of certain parts of space being restricted due to biological contaminations may not be an issue at all for several decades. Since many governments today are relatively Earth-bound there is no means for them to prohibit colonization except to prohibit Mars-bound launches. And if one country grounds launches to Mars another may not. So policing of bio-contamination would have to be a uni-world decision. Something that is unprecedented.

There is also the question of when a life form no longer becomes "from Earth." In the case of a false positive mentioned earlier, organisms that live on Mars for any period of time will evolve to match that environment. There will come a time when new species will have to classified that only exist on certain planets. New rules will have to be created to determine when a species that originated on Earth but now can only live on Mars requires special attention or protection.

Overall, the the possibility of bio-contamination is is much more of a legal hypothetical than a business opportunity, except that is for the burgeoning space-lawyer and legislator.

To see more visit this NASA page for the Office of Planetary Protection. It discusses means the organization uses to prevent forward contamination of planets with earth organisms.

Human Preservation Company

A company that preserves human genetics in space

One of the more exotic and maybe even "snake-oil" kind of businesses that could be pursued in the space industry of, not only tomorrow, but today is that of selling tickets on "Preservation Spacecraft."

This is basically the idea of creating a time capsule or "stasis pod." Customers would pay to have hair, blood, or some other genetic material stored/preserved on a spacecraft. In this way, it could start out be marketed as either preserving the human race, should our planet be entirely wiped out, being the "ambassador" should an alien race ever find the craft, or just as a way to satisfy personal ego.

Now this is a bit of an outlandish idea. But not unheard of. Many people have a desire to be preserved in someway. What better place to preserve something than in the nothingness of space? Many people also believe that the entire human race should have a few ways to mark our existence to extraterrestrials should we ever destroy ourselves. These are both legitimate reasons for some people to pay to have their genetic material sent to space.

As far as the technical aspects are concerned. A beginning company could simply create small satellites, such as CubeSats, which are outfitted to protect genetic materials from the radiation of space. This a relatively simple thing to accomplish. The spacecraft itself would also probably need some type of transmitter that can last for longer periods of time. This would be the cater to those that want to leave something for E.T. which they can find and recognize as from a technological society.

Where would these spacecraft be sent? Well, just starting out they could be sent into high Earth orbit. This would keep them in space for around a hundred years. As technology grows, these craft could begin to be sent out of the solar system like space probes have just begun to accomplish (Voyager). This expansion would be marketed as the "seeding of the universe" by humans. The company would be able to profess how the genetic material may start the advent of life on other worlds and the people that purchase the ticket for their DNA would be the "parents" of that life. (think Prometheus)

Understandably this business can be twisted, very easily, into some kind of fraud. Having people buy space for blood samples on a CubeSat that is sent into space and then burns back to Earth and no one would ever know. Or the genetic material could be launched and not appropriately protected so that it is obliterated by the cold and radiation of space. But if approached correctly this "preservation craft" does have a legitimate mission to many people. (it all depends on who you are)

Far in the future, should a company like this exist, its purpose most likely would be some type of "whole body" preservation. It would be a model like the cryonics companies of today, preserve entire humans for revival at a later date, either by humans or E.T.

There is no telling how profitable a business like this would be. It is has never been tried. Though such things have be performed for free on some launches, for dignitaries. But whether it is a complete business or not, perhaps it is an idea that companies, or even researchers, can adopt to help pay the large cost of space launches today. A little blood or hair is not a heavy thing to add to a spacecraft, but it may be worth several thousand dollars the customer that wishes to purchase a place for their DNA in a launch. (this actually creates another opportunity to create the protective containers for the material by yet another company, but we'll leave that to the reader to consider.)

Human preservation is something many people think about today. While we can't explore space completely yet, it is possible to send ourselves out into it and create a "human backup." This ideal is something that many people can relate to and creates a unique opportunity that can be explored immediately. From someone as low as a college student to as high as an experience business magnate.