The international space exploration industry faces two related and bewitching obstacles to its long-term programmatic health. The first is a U.S. administration that views exploration through the lens of the overall economic and political problems afflicting the American economy. In other words, no blank check is forthcoming for NASA, given the nation's deep fiscal woes. [...]
When I was 6 years old my first grade teacher turned on the television so we could watch the launch of one of the first Space Shuttle missions. From the amazing moment that the Main Engines ignited and my classmates and I saw this marvel of technology rise into the Florida skies, I knew I [...]
From the very beginning of its Founding Conference in 1987, the International Space University (ISU) has lived with the vision that one day it would be able to educate students in space. The founding vision saw three steps in the development of the University: first, a postgraduate summer program (which continues today as the Space [...]
For the aspiring space entrepreneur, rocket science may be the biggest obstacle. This is definitely not because rocket science is impossibly difficult. Since at least the time of Robert Goddard, we have known that however difficult it is, it is not impossible. In fact, rocket science is an obstacle as much because of the impression [...]
Since the days of the Apollo program, most of NASA’s manned exploration activities beyond LEO have used what could be called a ‘mission’ based approach. This approach requires that the astronauts take all of the resources required for the mission from Earth, at great expense and difficulty, while providing little (if any) infrastructure for future [...]
Concepts for relieving the terrible mass-fraction penalties of launching out of Earth’s gravity well by re-fueling spacecraft on-orbit have been proposed for decades (Reference 1). Certainly it makes theoretical sense to avoid carrying all needed mission propellants (as well as other vital fluids and/or gases) from liftoff to the final orbit by ‘topping off’ at [...]
This paper discusses some methods and institutions that will bridge the gap between today’s practical reality of space commerce as satellites and signals and future visions of commercial empires in an outer space populated by thousands of human beings and shared by space enthusiasts. It argues that the present and future of space commerce are [...]
The journey through the twenty-three preceding chapters has taken us across the spectrum of space science and its application in space technology and to living and working in space, as we understand them today, in 2010. It has been a mere 211 years since Jefferson wrote his prophetic words, and while the storehouse of our [...]
As commercial endeavors expand into space, the need to communicate goes with them. Most of the entrepreneurs, scientists, explorers, and tourists who journey to space will expect to remain in more or less constant contact with the rest of human civilization, which will require a significant communications infrastructure. Businesses will require constant exchange of data, [...]
At a recent symposium held at the International Space University (ISU) in Strasbourg, France, the topic of the International Space Station (ISS) was discussed in a broad context. One of the presenters, highlighting the international character of this project, made the statement that if the ISS had been operational by the beginning of the twentieth [...]