Space Research; Down to Earth?

For years, I have been interested in the space industry and the developments which have taken place. Back at the start of this millennium, getting internet at home meant that I was capable of looking at photographs of ‘a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away’, whilst also reading up on the latest satellite developments by ESA and NASA. As a child, I had very little care of the funding required and the reasons why they needed a satellite, but now – having grown up a bit – I realise the difficulties that exist. More than often, I have heard people tell me that we are “wasting money” and space is only for the rich; that there are no benefits except to spy on our neighbouring countries. Sure, the last may be true but are we really wasting money? Are there no benefits? I would argue this is not true. So what benefits are there? Mine gold and platinum on asteroids? Maybe, we might just see in the future!

I do not want to go into the details of the space race and about who was showing off the most with their most fanciest of technology, this is a done deal which has brought us to today. But did we gain anything from it, back on Earth? Yes! There are a lot of spin-offs and contributions to various technologies developed, that we use every single day. Think of mattress' Memory foam, scratch-resistant lenses on our sunglasses, and solar cells on the roofs. But also satellite telephones, Navigation Systems, and a vast amount of monitoring systems looking at weather patterns, air quality, soil erosion, and much more.

Research

We are a curious species and we want to understand where we come from, why materials behave as they do, and improve our industrial processes. Micro-gravity environments such as the ISS but also places like the Moon and Mars will aid in the knowledge we seek and will support human exploitation. As an example, detecting life on Mars bring us closer to understanding our evolution, the creation of next-generation fibre optic cables such as ZBLAN (photo below, ZBLAN produced with the same setup in micro-gravity on top and on Earth below; credited to NASA) are much more pure, and placing bottles of whisky in a micro-gravity environment may just create new flavor profiles.

Medicine

Spaceflight has brought a range of problems for the human body which we either do not yet understand or that we are still trying to resolve. These are, but not limited to, fatigue, loss of bone density and muscle mass, eyesight problems, decrease of mental abilities, radiation exposure, and sleep disorders. Although a lot of research is conducted to counteract the effects on the human body in space, the studies conducted have resulted into medical technology or aided medicine developments on Earth. As an example, protein crystallography can be a very difficult and expensive study on Earth, with high probabilities of failures. Due to the unique effects of micro-gravity environments on crystal growth, protein crystallography can be accomplished on-board the ISS. Companies, interested in proteins or other forms of crystal growth, can submit samples to be grown and analysed in micro-gravity, such as below (credits to MERCK).

Problems do not just occur with humans in space. Other organisms behave differently as well, such as plants and microbes. Due to the gravity studies on plants and the production of ethylene, technologies were designed to scrub ethylene in closed and isolated rooms. Not just ethylene but food and the overall environment, or ‘life support’, technology has played a vital role for space technology but is also implemented on Earth. Life support technologies, such as the Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) programme from the European Space Agency, are being used to recycle waste products such as urine into fresh water and fertilisers. The whole concept of the MELiSSA programme is to have a fully circular environment. These environments do not need to be off-world, as initiatives are taken for a clean, sustainable, and circular Earth (SEMiLLA IPStar). Examples of treatment facilities are with ballast water, creating a closed loop (zero liquid discharge) brewery (Koningshoeven Brewery), and giving safe sanitation, clean water, and food in disaster areas. This is a set of technologies designed and based on our natural and biological life, in which I truly believe. The concept is illustrated below, in a graphical image; credited by ESA.

Technologies developed for space are almost always thought in consideration with practical applications on Earth. As a civilisation on Earth, becoming self-sustaining means recycling to the maximum where we only have input from inside our own bottle. On Earth, this means anything in Earth, on the Moon or Mars, this means just the Moon or Mars; although reality is not as true as that. Creating these closed loop systems is challenging and can also be fun. Many try to establish this in a 'bottle garden' (also known as a vivarium) or an aquarium but also large scale projects such as the Biosphere 2 and BIOS-3 projects are good examples. Recently, the start-up company Interstellar Lab has announced to create space-inspired villages which can be used to prepare for future off-world missions. The first 100-person colony will be build in the Mojave Desert (California, USA) where testing of new and sustainable technology can begin. Astronauts can prepare for a life on Mars, back on our own planet. Tourist (or those who want to pretest a life on Mars, such as those thinking of joining SpaceX) can pay a few thousand dollars to have a week stay, as well. The photo collage below is from Interstellar Lab in which four renders of their space-inspired city is seen. This plan is called 'Experimental Bioregenerative Station (EBIOS).

Navigation Systems, Earth Observations, Communication

Various satellite constellations such as the USA’s GPS and Europe’s Galileo system give us high precision localisation technology, which is used every single day by millions of people. Most of us have come across the GPS technology in our phone (pin pointing our location in a Map-app) but satellite navigation systems play a vital role in sea-, air-, and land navigation. Satellite navigation, inter-linked with associated technology, result into a more safe and reliable travel route. With a car, traffic jams can be avoided, search and rescue can be greatly improved by emergency responders, marine transport can be optimised, and autonomous travelling systems can be created for all modes of transportation.

Over a 100 of Earth Observation satellites feed us information about our planet’s health status. Using this technology, we can detect hot-spots of environmental problem such as forest fires, earthquakes, CO2-levels and even nitrogen estimations (see the photo below, illustrating nitrogen quantities in the air, credited IUP Heidelberg and ESA). Due to these satellites, we now know how fast the ocean is rising, where ice is breaking apart, the rate that our ozone layer is closing, and a lot more.

Commercial communications satellites play a major role for television, radio, and telephone networks. Unlike ground based networks, a single satellite can broadcast signals over a large section of a single continent enabling a much cheaper and more stable signal. Although the technology has existed now for many years and is widely applied within various communication industries, this has largely been on a low-speed data connection. Recently, interests by various companies have resulted in the installation of large satellite constellations to enable high speed broadband internet, such as Starlink from SpaceX (see the image below, stack of 60 Starlink satellites ready for launch, credit by SpaceX) and Kuiper Systems by Amazon.

NewSpace, Space4.0, and the Future

A new era has dawned upon the space industry. NewSpace! Space 4.0! We have arrived! But what does it mean? Well, let us start with NewSpace, because this might just be the easiest: it is the new space movement. We are in the age of commercial spaceflight where space has become cheaper and economically interesting for commercial companies. One of such companies, Momentus, founded in 2017, was born out of discussions with satellite operators and mission planners, looking for rides to destinations that weren't commercially being offered. Their mission is simple: they want enterprises and existences to flourish in space and they are creating efficient in-space transportation systems to make that possible. Their transfer vehicles, loaded with satellites from their customers, will be taken to space by launch vehicles with affordable access to common staging orbits, before navigating, and deploying their payloads to their final orbits. One of their rides can be seen in the rendering below. This NewSpace age is what we call the fourth space era or Space4.0. The first space era is the study of the stars – back in the dawn of civilisation – followed by becoming space-faring species (Space2.0), and Space3.0 was the enlightenment of great international collaboration and conceptions, such as the ISS.

We now see the developments of hundreds of companies in the space sector: SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stofiel Aerospace, Excalibur Almaz, Made in Space, Innovative Solutions in Space, NanoRacks, and the list goes on. The space industry’s growing economy for launcher support, satellite development, research, and tourism. The industry is quickly speeding in the new Space4.0 era. What will the future hold for it? Soon we will start building the Lunar Gateway and companies such as SpaceX would appear to be well on their of establishing outposts on the Moon and Mars. For me, seeing companies such as Stofiel Aerospace – a company dedicated to balloon-based small satellite launcher – shows me that there is a great interest. Companies, such as them, have a great outreach and dedication not just for their own products in space, but their spin-off technology, 3D printing heat resistant composite ceramic material, is aimed for use on Earth. This means, highly customisation parts can be created and used in, as an example, the motorcycle and industrial industries. A collage of their activities can be seen below. Companies are not just producing satellites and rockets but also create service platforms. One company, Space Impulse, offers a platform where all participants in the space industry supply chain can network, engage, negotiate, form contracts, and transact with other members, providing tools such as RFP management and bidding, project management, and more. Exciting times and exciting companies are forming all over the world.

Technological advancements in circularity, sustainability, and cradle2cradle will be required. For example, efficient plant growth and harvest systems under low temperature and low light quality/quantity (on Mars) can also be implemented on Earth (hydroponic / vertical farming, smog areas, et cetera). Understanding the use of recycling waste products and using ‘dead’ soils, such as presumed on Mars, can aid in food security. The photo below contains brassicas growing on Mojave Mars Simulant Dust, MMS-1. In an earlier article, I had touched upon plants and ISRU (in situ resource utilisation, https://bit.ly/3593KW3). Perhaps someday, we can use plants to function as ISRU and produce food whilst keeping our air clean. Plant can keep us happy with the 'green feeling'.

I can recognise technologies which are designed, enabled or contributed by the space sector in my daily life. I have used the studies of hydroponics, used slow release fertilisers, watched satellite television, been helped by medical technology, analysed EO data, and often use the GPS and Galileo system for navigation.. Unfortunately, the bottles of wine and whisky in the cupboard have not been in space (yet!). Thank you for reading the article.