SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and the first commercial Virgin Galactic flight are only the beginning of this new wave of space revolution. For the first time ever, NASA will allow (super wealthy) tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020, priced at USD35,000 per night for up to 30 days.
And in 2022, there will be a dedicated space hotel called Aurora Station. Would-be travellers will get into orbit via either SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, or Boeing’s spacecraft called the Starliner – they’ll charge passengers a ‘taxi fare’, which is around $60 million per flight.
The vision of humans living in space isn’t just limited to sci-fi anymore – an era of interstellar travel where humans live in gigantic space ships or planets like Mars could become reality. Scientists have never stopped looking for ways to explore outer space, and even Singapore is in on the space race; did you know that the Singapore Space and Technology Association (SSTA) has been hosting the Global Space and Technology Convention (GSTC) – Asia’s premier show for the satellite scene and space technology – for over a decade?
Some of the current developments are starting to give us the hope that one day we can conquer our final frontier.
Phase 1: Satellites galore
While many of us are familiar with the fact that there are plenty of satellites orbiting our planet, it may come as a surprise that there are thousands of them, and counting fast. According to the UN’s Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space, there were 4,987 satellites orbiting the planet at the beginning of 2019. There are currently about a dozen Singaporean satellites in orbit developed by NUS and NTU, who’ve just launched their 9th earlier this year.
These range in size, ranging from tiny ones that fit in your refrigerator (aka nano satellites) to large ones that you see on space documentaries. The variety of satellites also mean they serve a variety of purposes, including communication, surveillance, and navigation, and depending on their size and purpose they sit on three levels of orbit.
The next ten years will be interesting, as there will be a significant number of satellites being launched each year thanks to the fact that launching them into space will only get cheaper. The recent launch of Falcon 9 showed that even private companies can send anything to space – in fact, Singapore has its own rocket launching company, started by NUS students, called Equatorial Space Industries. If all goes to plan, our island nation will have launching capabilities for nano satellites by 2021.
Phase 2: Elevator to Space
While rockets have been the conventional way to send people and payloads into space, there may be another method on the horizon. You may soon see a colossal elevator that can actually send stuff from Earth all the way to space, at an altitude of 35,400km, where some satellites orbit.
According to NASA and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, the basic concept is not that crazy, and scientists around the world agree that it can actually be built. Both Japan and China have expressed interest in building one – and if successful, we may soon see one by 2045 (China) or 2050 (Japan). The real-world feasibility study is now underway aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Obviously there would be colossal construction costs – some estimates put it at US$10 billion – but it would also mean that anyone planning to send satellites (or other payloads) into space don’t need to send them in fuel-guzzling rockets in the future.
Going into space in the future may be as easy as pushing a button.
Phase 3: Space Factories
The wide expanse of space is no longer just a place for satellites and even our International Space Station (ISS). Imagine having a factory that orbits the Earth that pumps out products too difficult or expensive to make at home. With easier access to rockets and even a space elevator in the future, building a factory in space could be more than a pipe dream.
Building an entire factory in space doesn’t sound as intensive as building one on earth; if you can print an entire rocket or satellite with a 3D printer, you can also print parts of a factory to be assembled in space. It’s cheaper, faster, and more accurate than conventional methods.
This ‘low Earth orbit economy’ can truly break new frontiers when it comes to manufacturing structures designed for orbit. Space factories will be far more efficient due to the absence of factors like gravity – you can 3D print massive structures in space so you don’t have to get them into orbit, making them much cheaper to build. Potentially hazardous processes can also be performed in space with minimal repercussions on Earth.
Companies like Made in Space and Tethers Unlimited are already producing things with their 3D printers in space, so it’s not a stretch to say that this is just the beginning.
Phase 4: Space Junk Cleaners
If we need an analogy for the current situation in space, it could be compared to fast fashion. With the lower costs to send things into space, it also means that it’ll be more affordable for poorer nations to see some benefits. For instance, everyone can finally get access to cheap broadband internet.
But, as with fast fashion, the eternal question is the issue of waste. Already we are seeing tons of inactive satellites floating in space, and with more launches being planned, there’s the inevitable issue of space debris. As it stands, only 1,957 of orbiting satellites (under 40%) are active, meaning there are over 3,000 lumps of metal flying around Earth at thousands of miles per hour as space junk.
It’s only a matter of time before we see more ‘space sweeper’ companies like Astroscale – a Singapore-headquartered company – pop up to clean up our space junk. Companies like these will act like our garbage trucks, sweeping space debris away from our orbits so that any shuttles that launch into or return from outer space will be safer (since these debris are at a higher orbit which prevents them from burning up and falling into our atmosphere).
Phase 5: Building extra-terrestrial colonies
It’s been proven that we can sustain large-scale habitable structures in space; just look at the ISS. As NASA prepares to retire the station in 2024, private companies like Axiom and Bigelow are rushing to take its place.
NextSTEP, a partnership between NASA and public companies for deep space exploration, is currently working on providing a safe place for human habitation for extensive missions beyond the moon. Both the government and private sector are working on human spaceflight, including the journey to send people to the moon and Mars.
NASA’s Mars Exploration Program is well underway to explore the possibilities of life on Mars. There’s even a company that’s specialising in 3D printing housing units for the red planet.
All these possibilities simply indicate that a future in space is not just a dream, but possibility. We probably won’t be able to take a ride on a space elevator or live on a Mars colony in our lifetime, but in a couple of hundred years, we may. We may even conquer interstellar travel – it would be possible in around 200 years, according to a former NASA propulsion scientist. Starship Enterprise, here we come!
Want to read more about topics of the future? Check out our Future Issue, out now!
