How Private Companies Are Changing The Future Of Space Exploration

Private companies like SpaceX are testing vehicles for manned space missions. We’ll peer out into the near future and next steps in human space exploration.

Guests

Ariel Ekblaw, founder and lead of MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative. (@ariel_ekblaw)

Charles Bolden, NASA administrator from 2009-2017, and a former astronaut and Marine Corps general. (@cboldenjr)

From The reading List

Wall Street Journal: “Space Is Poised for Explosive Growth. Let’s Get It Right.” — “In the 19th century, urban planners wrangled the chaotic metropolises of Paris and New York into “planned cities,” turning warrens of streets into orderly grids, building sewage systems and transit lines, and allowing for new types of architecture, such as apartment buildings. Today, we face a similar inflection point in developing the nearest reaches of space.

“The next decade is set to bring explosive commercial growth and more private industry players to low-earth orbit, the area spanning 100 to 1,240 miles above the planet’s surface. SpaceX has proposed a satellite-based internet, and Planet is growing its fleet of Earth-imaging satellites. NASA plans a transition towards commercial management of the international space station. Several startups are developing low-earth orbit advertisements—logos or other designs, visible in the night sky, made from tiny, reflective satellites. Entrepreneurs are making plans for space hotels.

“Before we let rampant development go unchecked, we should consider how these efforts might conflict with or complement each other. We still have the chance to intentionally design humanity’s first ‘planned orbit.’”

MIT Media Lab: “Democratizing Access to Space” — “The Space Exploration Initiative’s founding mission is to rigorously, vigorously build out the technologies of our sci-fi space future while keeping our innovations and team as open and accessible as possible. When we say we’re ‘democratizing access to space exploration,’ what do we mean? In the context of our blue sky goal — to realize an inclusive, impactful — we approach democratization in four core ways. We are:

“1. Democratizing access by inviting and uniting new disciplines in our creative practice]

“2. Democratizing access by designing space tools, products, and experiences for all of us, not just the pinnacle of human talent embodied by astronauts.

“3. Democratizing access by developing hands-on, widely accessible opportunities to shape the technologies of our space future.

“4. Democratizing access through the celebration of new narratives through which we can tell the story of Space Exploration, writ large.”

The Verge: “This was the decade the commercial spaceflight industry leapt forward” — “Two years into the decade, on May 25th, 2012, a small teardrop-shaped capsule arrived at the International Space Station, packed with cargo and supplies for the crew living on board. Its resupply mission at the ISS wasn’t remarkable, but the vehicle itself was unique: it was a Dragon cargo capsule, owned and operated by a private company called SpaceX.

“Before 2012, only vehicles operated by governments had ever visited the ISS. The Dragon was the first commercial vehicle to dock with the station. The milestone was a crowning achievement for the commercial industry, which has permanently altered the spaceflight sector over the last 10 years.

“This decade, the space industry has seen a shift in the way it does business, with newer players looking to capitalize on different markets and more ambitious projects. The result has been an explosion of growth within the commercial sector. It’s allowing for easier access to space than ever before, with both positive and negative results. Such growth is providing the commercial space industry with lots of momentum coming into the 2020s, but it’s unclear if this pace is something that can be kept up.”

Axios: “NASA’s murky commercial space future” — “NASA’s plans to create a robust economy in low-Earth orbit where private spaceflight companies can flourish could eventually leave the agency’s astronauts stranded on Earth with nowhere to go.

“Why it matters: NASA hopes to play a lead role in developing a private spaceflight economy, including private sector astronauts. The agency sees this as a way to free it up to focus on farther afield goals like bringing humans back to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars.

“But if private industry takes over human spaceflight destinations in low-Earth orbit and funding and political support for NASA missions to the Moon or Mars dissipates, there may be no point in having a government-sponsored human spaceflight program at all.”

This article was originally published on WBUR.org. [Copyright 2020 NPR]