“Future wars will be won or lost in Space” — Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, US Space Force
While we’re busy on Earth dealing with inequality, natural catastrophes, political theater, war and a raging pandemic, there’s a new Space Race brewing between the world’s space powers, and it will deeply impact the next couple of decades, with profound benefits to humankind.
Here’s a quick, recent timeline:
🇺🇸 US Space Force, founded December 20, 2019.
🇺🇸 In November 2020, SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission, the first operational human flight from US soil since the NASA Shuttle, carried US astronauts to the ISS.
🇨🇳 On 23 November 2020, China launched the mission Chang’e 5 to the far side of the Moon, and it brought a handful of lunar rocks back to Earth.
🇺🇸 First flight for NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter achieved on April 19, 2021.
🇨🇳 The first module of the Chinese Tiangong space station, Tianhe core module, was launched on 29 April 2021.
🇺🇸 On May 6, 2021, SpaceX Starship SN15 prototype blasted off from its launch site in Boca Chica, soared to 10km altitude, and successfully landed.
🇨🇳 Chinese Zhurong rover successfully soft landed on Mars on May 14, 2021.
🇯🇵 On June 23, 2021 Japan votes the Space Resources Act, allowing private companies to commence exploration and mining operations in space.
🇺🇸 Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spaceplane flew its rocket on the way to the edge of space on July 11, 2021, carrying Richard Branson and others.
🇺🇸 On July 20, 2021, Blue Origin flew suborbital with Jeff Bezos and others onboard of New Shephard 4, on their first commercial flight demo.
🇺🇸 SpaceX launced Crew Dragon Resilience for Inspiration4 all-civilian mission on 16 September 2021.
🇷🇺 Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft delivers film crew to the ISS on October 5, 2021, for a 12-day visit to shoot scenes of a sci-fi drama.
Many of the missions above were historical premieres.
Never mind the multitude of SpaceX flights for deploying their Starlink global network of Internet satellites, missions from up-and-coming companies such as RocketLabs, Astra, Black Sky (and more), the upcoming launches of SpaceX’s orbital Starship test, or the launch of the James Webb space telescope in December, these past years have been extremely exciting for Space and Space exploration.
2020, equally, saw the largest number of satellites ever launched in a single year with a figure of 1 283, which is more than double the amount in any other year since records began. According to the Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space, maintained by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), there were 7 389 individual satellites in space at the end of April this year; an increase of 27.97% compared to 2020. For perspective, at the end of 2011 there were an estimated 994 active satellites in orbit around Earth.
The Commercial Space Progam
The commercial firsts open the door to the larger public to explore the Blue Marble from a different angle, stunning, fragile, unique, without apparent borders, in what is known as “the overview effect”. Over the next few decades, space hotels and slings around the Moon will probably be available, and the public will be able to see the Earth rising, just like Lowell, Borman and Anders did on Apollo 8 in 1968.
But, for the time being, only high wealth individuals are able to afford a trip on one of these ships, and the stock market spoke on the immediate market potential for the public by taxing Virgin Galactic’s stock.
Defense Goalposts and the Moon
The US being able to ferry its own crews to the ISS and beyond in 2020 put the Russian Space Program into a corner, devoiding it of much needed capital to sustain its ambitions. This ultimately pushed Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, to blurb about stepping out of the International Space Station agreement and focusing on its own efforts instead, or in a partnership with China, the latter, for now, not entertained by the Asian superpower.
The multitude of active missions to Mars put the US on a massive footing ahead of its rivals, but leaves them weak on the Moon.
Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11) laid out his Unified Space Vision in 2009, arguing that space exploration would bring together five items: exploration, science, development, commerce and security (where security meaning both defense and planetary defense from near-Earth objects).
Unlike the fictional history of the show For All Mankind, the Russian space program did not yet land humans on the Moon. In his book, Mission to Mars (2013), Buzz Aldrin strongly argues against the US returning to the natural satellite. He instead suggests focusing all efforts on Mars missions. In a recent interview Elon Musk quips “Might as well, since it’s here”. However, For all Mankind does explore the dynamic of what being first to set up a base implies, from picking the best landing zone, to adaptation to the environment before competitors, including defense systems.
Despite being inhospitable and desolate, the Moon’s south pole water reserves make a good case for a manned lunar base where technologies and habitats for Mars can be tested before future missions and of course, provide access to sources of fuel for ships on the way there.
So then, why haven’t we returned to the Moon in the last 50 years?
The truthful answer is money. There simply is no advancement of space exploration without government funding. After the US had won the lunar race against the Soviets, having found no valuable resources to explore immediately, NASA focused its resources on Low Earth Orbit (LEO), later with the legendary Shuttle program.
The private sector successes of recent years have all been funded by the US Department of Defense and NASA for various deliverables, anything from in-orbit refueling research, crew ferry services, to robot missions to Mars. If we ignore SpaceX Elon Musk’s ambitions to make life multi-planetary, all institutional and private players have goals limited to defense and quarterly profits. That’s not to say SpaceX is naive and idealistic in its commercial endeavor, but they see the government and private contracts as means to attain their bigger objective of delivering a reusable launch system able to explore and colonize Mars with humans.
Whenever the goalpost is moved further, that drags the other powers to match or exceed. The US and the other world’s space powers, being limited to LEO, save for various robotic probes to destinations in the Solar System, were content to stay here. But with China launching its own space station, a rover on Moon and one on Mars, the impetus for NASA and its new Space Force will be to exceed. As a response, NASA plans to return humans to the Moon by 2024, through its Artemis program, near the Shackleton crater, at the satellite’s south pole. The program will include a permanent station in lunar orbit, as well as a future base.
From a defense standpoint this means the opening of a new front beyond LEO and a tell tale is the founding of the US Space Force. This new development, while more timid than the Apollo program in its PR and funding, will explode into a full-on space rece by the end of the decade and bring a host of technological and multi-planetary advancements not seen for 50 years.
Eventually, the Moon will have its own orbital space station, a GPS & satellite communication system, a base and mining operations.
The New Trillion Dollar Economy
These initially US advancements will be matched soon by China, Russia and India, paving the way to moving the goal post to Mars. Multinational collaboration will be limited to existing alliances on Earth, as space stations, satellite constellations, bases or mining operations will be considered defense POI.
The major beneficiary of this new space race will be mankind as a whole.
In order to efficiently travel to and colonize the Moon and Mars, new technologies will need to be invented. The most notable: propulsion, energy generation & storage and habitation are also the most in need of innovation here on Earth as well for tackling global warming, population growth and more efficient transportation, among others.
Thousands of new commercial entities will form to provide hardware, equipment, new materials and technologies to both defense and commercial space operations over the next decades, bettering life on Earth and generating a new trillion Dollar industry.
To those questioning how exploring space makes sense, with all the things that need fixing on our own planet, this new space race, initially funded by governments to secure their defense objectives, will enable the commercial sector to create a new, bustling space economy, millions of new jobs, exciting new technologies useful both at home and in Space.
We are, at our core, a venturing and curious species and should take any opportunity to be a part of the biggest endeavor of our species: making life multiplanetary.
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Dan Berte, as Director, IoT, works in innovation for world cybersecurity leader Bitdefender in Silicon Valley and is Tech & Innovation Associate Professor at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania.
This thesis is extracted from the Product Innovation syllabus of the Online Business Administration Models master I teach at the Academy of Economic Sciences in Bucharest, Romania, where my students and I have been researching this development since 2019.
PS: There are currently 10 people in space right now.
