Moving past the final frontier

As you can probably tell from some of my posts, I have quite a fascination with what’s going on at the moment in space exploration and innovation. In fact, I have always been drawn by what we refer to as “the final frontier”, and the inventions that have allowed us to explore and understand the universe beyond our own planet.

The word frontier is doubly apt here, being how we describe a boundary or the furthest extent of an inhabited region, and also something that describes the outer limits of our knowledge or achievement in a particular field. I like that.

I was a bit young to take much notice when Apollo 11 succeeded in getting man on the Moon (I’m no conspiracy theorist here) – and back again – but I did watch as the space race continued throughout the 1970s and have been hooked ever since. The people who are pursuing our interests out there in the solar system think big. They really are wrestling with some of the mammoth “impossible” problems.

It’s something that I’ve been thinking about, given some of the amazing developments that we have seen recently, which are certainly moving the goalposts of what is possible, if not taking us past that final frontier altogether.

One story I enjoyed recently was a report in The Economist that a mysterious entrepreneur called Paolo Fril had declared the International Space Station an independent nation. What? It seems that Mr Fril has been mentioned in connection with various amazing stories in the publication, usually around the date of April 1st…

Elsewhere, serious advances are being made in the endeavour for humans to boldly go where no one has gone before. It might not be an independent nation, but the ISS really does have its own “private parking spot”. This is intended for commercial spaceships as various organisations start to get their interplanetary missions off the ground, and increased traffic to the space station is expected during the next few years.

In other news, the phenomenon that is 3D printing could even make its way to Mars. Using simulated Martian and lunar dust, scientists have used the technology to print tough rubber tools. With almost all of the current colonisation schemes relying on the ability to use supplies from the local environment if they are to be successful, this method could enable colonists to manufacture any tools or objects they need in situ. That is mind-blowing.

Finally, how about installing a mobile communications network on the Moon? This is something we published a joke internal story about at my old company a couple of years ago (spoiler: nobody was fooled here either), but now it looks like a genuine solution could be in place as early as next year.

A company called PTScientists aims to be the first commercial enterprise on the Moon, and they also intend to install its first LTE mobile data station. This will give lunar rovers the ability to communicate with Earth. Fittingly, the rovers will be taken on their interstellar adventure by one of the most important and innovative companies in space travel, on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.

So, are we right to keep calling space “the final frontier”? Or is it conceivable that one day we will go beyond even its boundaries? All I know is that we have a habit proving that we can solve the impossible problems, so I’m keeping an open mind and I’ll continue to follow the developments.

Photo credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center