Will the Future of Space Travel Be Driven by Entepreneurs or Nations?

Costa Rican-American physicist/rocket scientist Franklin Chang-Diaz is typical of the new breed of entrepreneurs driving the future of space travel. The future astronaut has some interesting insights on the kind of power and propulsion will need in order to truly colonize space. By his calculations, a trip to Mars could take as little as 39 days, and, with the development of nuclear powered travel, people could visit anywhere in the solar system within a few weeks. Chang-Diaz believes that these kinds of developments aren’t too far away.

“I think lots of people are going to be moving into space. I think we will be populating the moon, building enclaves of research and even money-making ventures there. Just last month, Ad Astra signed an agreement with Excalibur Exploration Ltd., a British company, to mine asteroids [when the time is right]. I believe there will be a huge demand for resources, particularly water, from asteroids and comets, because taking water from the earth is going to be very expensive. We're probably going to supply the moon and the habitat on the moon with water from comets.”

But in order for this future to come to full fruition, Chang-Diaz believes we have to let go of our current, archaic notions of how to travel through space.

“In order for us to conduct a serious space-exploration program, we need to develop two things: power and propulsion. Power in space is still severely limited. Mainly, we use solar power. This is fine as long as we stay near the sun, but the issue remains that for and beyond, we will need to develop nuclear electric power. If we don't, we might as well quit. We're not going to get anywhere without it.”

Chang-Diaz is president and CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company. He is working on such a propulsion system that could vastly shorten travel time in space and greatly improve fuel efficiency. Chang-Diaz will participate in the Emerging Technologies Conference later this week. In January, his company will test the VX-200, a full-scale ground prototype of the variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMIR), first conceived by him back in 1979.

The rocket will use hot plasma, heated by radio waves and controlled by a magnetic field, for propulsion. Chang-Diaz believes that the system will allow rockets to travel through space at higher speeds, with greater fuel efficiency—something that he says is vital to meaningful space travel.

“Trips to are prohibitively long and would expose the travelers to very high levels of radiation. I came to realize after my [NASA] flights that space is a tough place to be…and you're going to discover what loneliness is all about. I think that pretty much sums it up: space is a vast void, and you're really going to have to travel fast if you're going to have any chance of surviving. I also would not want to send people to on a fragile and power-limited ship. If you send people that far, you have to give them a fighting chance to survive, and the only way you can do that is if you have ample supplies of power. Power is life in space.”

If the prototype demonstrates sufficient efficiency, thrust, and specific impulse on the ground, the next step will be the VF-200, a flight version of the rocket. Ad Astra plans to fly the VF-200 to the International Space Station, where it would help maintain the space station's orbit. If all this goes according to plan, Chang-Diaz hopes to eventually build VASIMIRs that will travel to and beyond.

According to Chang-Diaz, “Someday, the earth will be a place humanity will come back to, sort of like our national park. I don't mean to get rid of the earth like an old shoe. We need to protect it so that we can always come back to it.”

But critics of space explorations wonder why we’re investing so much in space travel, when we have so many problems “at home” that need addressing. But Chang-Diaz says that space travel isn’t just for fun—it’s a necessity. 

“We're investing in our survival…we are a species with no redundancy. If something ever happens to our planet, it could be the end of our civilization. Investing a few dollars to ensure the survival of the human species--I don't think that's too much.”

But like many others in the private space sector—he’s lost his faith in relying on government programs to get us to that point.

“For NASA and the government programs, the motive is not really exploration. It's mainly national prestige. The process of going on missions is very slow. I just don't think that model is going to get us too far very fast. I think that the dynamic nature of the private sector is what's really going to kindle the fire. I think if you want to go to the moon, you might as well start thinking about packing your bags, because it's going to happen very soon.”

Posted by Rebecca Sato

Related Galaxy Posts:

Space Odyssey 2: Plasma-based Space Travel a Reality -A Galaxy Insight
Space Colonization -Our Future or Fantasy?
"The Overview Effect": Is Space Travel Next Step in Human Evolution?
The "Hawking Solution": Will Saving Humanity Require Leaving Earth Behind?

Links:
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19427/?a=f
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/researching/aspl/vasimr.html

Comments

[Silvanus]

I'm generally leery of private corporations taking over jobs NASA used to do, especially when ideologues like the Bush Admin routinely allow corporations to defraud the taxpayer on a regular basis. The Justice Department is only pursuing 100 of 900 whistleblower cases, and of those 100, the Justice Dept has retrieved 14 billion dollars. I just see private space exploration as another vehicle to defraud the US taxpayer and enrich themselves. So yeah, I have little faith in private sector space travel and think NASA is still the key component to the survival of our species.

[Reason]

It simply isn't likely that VASIMR will be taking us around the solar system or even to the Moon any time soon. First off is the VF-200. How soon does Diaz actually believe NASA would fly his engine? He should know, having watched them for decades, that the funding to buy it from him has a good chance of being canceled no matter how well his prototype works.

They'd just say "Sorry, but we feel this technology isn't proven to the point where we are ready to commit to it." They would say this around 2015, after years of delays, studies, bureaucratic dithering and stringing him along. Even in the unlikely event they commit resources to installing and testing such a system, it wouldn't be flown until late in the next decade, and they would refuse to officially draw any conclusions about its viability for years afterward. It's simply a political fact - NASA will never make large-scale moves toward this. It would take contracts away from Lockheed, and the Centers in Alabama and Texas.

If Diaz wants VASIMR to take off, he has to get serious with the Newspace community and stop wasting all his time with NASA.

[TrueReason]

The problem of space travel is well beyond the private sector. We need advances in human and machine intelligence before space travel will be viable.

Human beings are too slow witted and too fucking stupid to get their, no matter what sector they belong to. Private or public. We need serious advances in biomedical research, technology and computer science. After all, who and what do you think is going to do all the mathematical heavy lifting necessary for these endeavors?

These quaint comments show just how stupid and ignorant human beings are.

The private sector gets it's money from the public or from the government, there would be no private sector if there was no government to enforce the current market model of economic relations.

People get rich primarily because of geometry of population size, try getting rich in a population the size of 30, see how that works out for any private sector actor, no matter how talented.

[krk sastri]

it is a wonderful eye-opener, in our long range planning to live on this planet, with fall-back support systems! it needs vigorous public feedback too, before obtaining vital R & D `s active support.