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.

Crashes and Accidents

A piece of SpaceShipTwo

"Space is Hard - but worth it" Sir Richard Branson

At the writing of this post the private space industry has suffered two major accidents. A failed launch of an Orbital Sciences Antares Rocket and the crash of SpaceShipTwo during a test flight, which killed one pilot.

These accidents will no doubt have huge detrimental effects to the industry which was just beginning to gain a bright outlook on the future. Public opinion will likely swing back into fear of space as opposed to the wonder of it.

It is important to remember that at this point space is at the same place aviation was after Lindbergh's flight. The technology is proven to get us to the moon. Private companies can make it into space. Now we are all waiting for the space age Boeing 247 to take us to the stars.

But creating a space liner is leaps and bounds more difficult than building an airliner, and that was difficult. There have been and will continue to be accidents as space develops. But we must not let those change the resolve to go to space.

Space is far more than a commercial opportunity. At the moment there is actually very little money in it compared to other industries, due to the expense. Space is a future that only a few really believe in and others fear. The trouble is that those who fear it want to project that fear onto others. And that fear is unfounded because it is like being afraid of the first Russian spacecraft. The fear is of what it is today and not of what it will become tomorrow. They point to the accidents and warn of the dangers which come with space travel though they have never experienced it and don't see that the "now" is not the "future."

The people that died in the accidents were not afraid because they could see what the future held and it excited them. And the only way to truly honor their memory is to continue on towards the goal that they themselves gave their lives believing in.

Any space travel company will have to come face to face with the possibility of the loss of life. But the only thing they can do is work to avoid it as much as possible. Negligence cannot be allowed, for it is the only thing which causes these accidents.

Space travel is more than a half a century old but commercial systems are coming into service. It took aviation 30 years to go from first flight to airliner. Considering the challenges and the cost of space travel we are doing decently well. But fear and accidents cannot be allowed to stop the progress, otherwise it may be delayed decades.

Space companies must be able to take the lessons learned from their mistakes and work to improve. While it may be tragic, fear cannot be allowed to win.

Fortunately fear of progress never wins. As is proven by aviation and any number of other advances. Fear is only able to slow something down but never stop it. Possibilities outweigh fear any day. These accidents may cripple the industry but they will not stop it

But possibilities only become real when they are made real. Space companies and entrepreneurs must learn how to create possibility out of tragedy. By doing this they will be able to progress without so much as a break in step. People may die but they would not want it to be in vain by having their work undermined by the failure of the company or industry that they represented in life. They are the leaders of the space crusade and others must take up their positions.

Space is the future of the human race. What better industry to support and be a part of.

Asteroid Mining

Asteroid mining concerns the finding and then mining of any of the rocks which float around in the void.

In order to be successful, a mining company in space has to do just what a mining company on earth does. They have to prospect for potential mother loads. Then figure out how to extract the materials they want. And finally transport all of that material to some one who will buy it to build a space station or a cellphone.

Several companies are already working toward the goal of exploiting the resources which are available in space. Planetary Resources in near to launching their first asteroid tracking satellites and Deep Space Industries is developing technologies which will allow humans to refine and use the materials mined from the asteroids.

Mining has always been one of the main reasons for going to space. The vacuum above our atmosphere is not as empty as many believe. An abundance of raw materials float aimlessly in space. Approximately 37,000-89,000 tons of these rocks fall to Earth each year. The value of asteroids comes from the fact that many many of them are expected to contain quantities of rare earth metals, such as platinum, as well as basic elements like iron and sources of water.

Planetary Resources is currently focusing on the rare earth metals that asteroids could supply to earth markets.

However, many critic mining companies who are going for the rare materials which appear to be abundant in asteroids. The traditional argument is that as soon as a company creates as steady supply of the materials to the earth then the market will become saturated, prices will drop, and the ability to finance the expensive space missions will disappear.

While this argument is legitimate to a point (if gold were common it would not be valuable) it is short-sighted.

First rare earth materials like platinum will be in high demand for sometime no matter how large the supply is. Materials like platinum have untold untapped potential. The demand would grow if it were possible to work with pounds, instead of grams, of the metal and its cousins.

Secondly, companies like PR are nowhere near to creating a supply that will saturate the market. Within ten years they might be able to retrieve an asteroid the size of a basketball.

When space mining companies do grow they will quickly grow out of the need to rely on earth-based markets to pay the bills. Once the infrastructure is set up, these companies will be the ones to provide the water and raw materials to build space stations and colonies. The prime technology behind DSI is their zero-gravity 3-D printing technology which will allow them to turn rock and raw iron from an asteroid into a beam or plate or someday a rocket nozzle.

And concerning the inability to pay for expensive missions with the profits from mineral returns, that assumes that space launches and missions will remain expensive. This is clearly not the case seeing that space launch companies like SpaceX have already dramatically reduced the cost of launch and are continuing to do so.

In reality asteroid mining has far fewer market obstacles than many of the other space ventures being pursued.

Unlike the space launch industry, there is currently more than enough demand for the materials space mining companies intend to deliver. And that demand is not within the space industry but across many ranging from battery manufacturing to catalytic converters.

Mining companies also have an unlimited growth potential, however far into the future you look. No matter how technology changes the raw materials will always need to be collected to build the stuff.

Space mining is a great industry to be on the ground floor of right now because the demand is there and the possibilities are many. The only problem a fresh entrepreneur may have getting into the race is the cost of creating the technology to deliver the goods. Even though PR and DSI are using off the shelf components and micro vehicles they are still not cheap companies.

But, if someone in a garage would like to contribute to space mining there are some technologies which could be pursued quite easily.

Currently there is no definitive way to securely land a craft on small space body. The lack of gravity makes it almost impossible to just set down on the surface. Stemming from this problem is the problem of grabbing a rock and putting it in tow. And then once the asteroid is secured tools and techniques for actually mining it in space are still on the drawing board. Any of these problems are hardware and even software problems which can be pursued and solved on a shoelace budget and a little clever design.

Asteroid mining is happening. True, it is only in its early stages but there always has to be the first prospector to go to California and find the first nugget. Asteroid mining will be one of the foundations of the future space economy. The infrastructure it creates, information it gathers, and the materials it refines will support nearly every other aspect of space travel, colonization, and commercialization.

Here is a great presentation on the quantitative aspects of asteroid mining

Space Arena

Space Stations are one of the most expensive propositions in the private space industry. The only one in operation today is the ISS and it is estimated to have cost $150 billion in construction and occupation expenses. Certainly, the construction of the ISS is a poor example, especially when comparing to some technologies in the private sector. SpaceX is reducing cost of launching stations and Bigelow Aerospace is making stations simpler to build and deploy. But even so, constructing a "building" in orbit is not a cheap or easy proposition no matter how you look at it today.

The cost of a space stations is not all that surprising. After all it is something which has to provide all of the comforts of home (i.e. food, air, water) with none of the resources. It has to keep humans alive in one of the most inhospitable places for life that we know.

But does a space station really need to provide all of these resources in order to have value? What is a space station really for in the private space industry, as far as money-generating options?

A space station can be a place to rent space to companies to perform experiments in zero-g. It can become a space hotel to paying tourists. It can be a stop-over to someplace else.


These are all very viable industries once people gain a greater presence in space. But again, all of these "products" for a station to act as are incredibly expensive. Because they are meant to separate a person from the outside.

But if someone is going to go to space for the experience, they probably will not want to be separated from the outside by a cramped station or capsule. They will want to get the full benefit of the absence of gravity and the views of the planet and stars.

So why not build a station that doesn't protect anyone from the elements but instead just keeps them from getting lost. Build a station that is basically a giant cage.

Such a structure would basically be a Space Arena. A huge playing field where spacefarers can get the EVA experience without the safety hazards.

From a design standpoint it could be a huge geodetic structure which deploys to create a faceted sphere which is covered in a soft mesh that keeps things and people from floating away. Easy to build, deploy, and maintain. All of which decrease the cost of the station.

Instead of having to launch it in sections it could be launched in a single unit, perhaps on a Falcon Heavy, and then literally just sit there. Since it wouldn't require any complex life support systems those would not have to be maintained and since space has no other stresses than changes in temperature there is nothing to wear out the station structurally. And other resources such as the development of orbital tugboats become available, it wouldn't even be necessary to have much of an attitude control system.

With this kind of station all the travelers need is a spacesuit to keep them protected for the elements and a capsule to go sleep in. Both of which are already necessary for the trip. So why have a station which is a repeat of both of the other two just on another scale.

Since the permeable station is easier to construct and maintain is is easier to to make large. The size of such permeable stations allows them to be used by industries that have yet to consider space. The station could be used as a playing field for a space sport, creating a viable return and interest to people on Earth. It also gives a complete "space experience" to any tourists, much more effectively that a standard station. Just imagine the difference between seeing the curvature of the earth through a porthole and being able to have a panoramic view as you fly, un-tethered in the ether.

The experience and the low cost that such a "Space Arena" provides makes it a viable entry into the industry by many companies other than the standard aerospace and research firms. It is something that could be pursued by the entertainment or sports industry.

The business model for the company which owns the station could take any number of forms. If the station was built for space tourism it could be like a low cost motel. Travelers pay to use the space during the trip. If it is created to host space sporting events then it may pay for itself through the interest and entertainment value of the sport.

If you consider the Space Arena something akin to a stadium in orbit for sporting events it is actually much cheaper than earth-bound stadiums which run anywhere from $500 million into the billions. Whereas the cost to build and launch the Space arena would likely be only $150-200 million dollars. Still a huge gamble but it also has more utility and range of markets than a basketball stadium does.

The creation of a "Space Area" is something which really has very few technical hurdles. It is really a matter of "just doing it." The only things for a company or entrepreneur to consider with such a station is that it can increase the risk of a standard space excursion. Imagine someone in a space suit pushing off of one side of the sphere and then colliding hard with a structural member on the other side and perhaps over-straining their spacesuit causing it to rupture. Safety will be a huge concern for such a venture but materials and designs do exist which can help to mitigate most of these risks.

As far as space stations go the concept of a "Space Arena" or permeable space station are concepts which are relatively unexplored and potentially underestimated. They are a structure which can be easily and cheaply constructed and can be used to create a fantastic space experience both for those utilizing the station and to those on Earth, if it is used for televised sporting events.