The Genius of America
In memory of Eugene Cernan, the last living human being to walk on another world. May God speed him to his rest.
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Rice University, 12 September 1962
On the 10th of May 1869, former Governor of California Leland Stanford[1] drove the last spike that joined the rails of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads together. That spike united two railroads, two oceans and one nation in the mightiest feat of engineering ever before attempted. Until it was attempted, the best engineers in the world said it couldn’t be done. Building 2,000 miles of line from Sacramento to Omaha, over three of the most rugged mountain ranges in the world, across the Nevada desert, across a Great Plains full of hostile tribes seemed like folly to many. Everything would have to be manufactured and assembled on the East Coast and shipped hundreds of miles to the Union Pacific depots being built in Council Bluffs; or else transshipped thousands of miles to California around Cape Horn to California for the Central Pacific. To begin this vast endeavor in 1863 in the midst of a great civil war only seemed to compound it. Yet only six years passed from inception to completion — and it wasn’t even until July 1865 that the Union Pacific laid its first mile of track.
President Lincoln recognized the urgent need to bind the country together, even as it was being torn apart. There was no time like the present, for the building of the railroad would “demonstrate that the Union was strong enough to crush rebellion and take measures to insure its future prosperity at the same time.” He helped the Republican Congress draft and pass the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, that authorized the creation of two companies and guaranteed the land and financing needed to attract the needed private investors. The Act represented one of the largest expansions of Federal power and authority until that time; but in the midst of the massive efforts needed to conduct the war, these additional measures hardly provoked a stir. The government backing eventually came to over $2.6 billion in current dollars — a truly vast sum in the 1860’s.
The railroad needed those vast sums of money and more, but even with the backing of the government, it also required every ounce of American ingenuity to be carried out. They had to invent modern finance: not even the government’s largesse was sufficient to provide the two railroads with all the capital that was required to overcome the daunting obstacles they faced. The had to invent modern corporate management to ensure that their supply chain, stretching over thousands of miles and across hundreds of small firms, functioned smoothly and delivered the needed materials into the American wilderness in a timely manner to avoid delays. They needed to create modern labor organizations, integrating a racially diverse workforce into a highly specialized and stratified army capable of chewing through a foot of solid granite or laying a miles of track per day, every day, in all weather, using no mechanical power whatsoever[2].
The Transcontinental Railroad was characteristic of the spirit of industrial America and pioneered many of the features that would be replicated in other large scale projects to come. It challenged the nation with a goal that others considered unattainable and accomplished it in an amazingly short time. It required the invention of entirely new technologies, organizations and methods of work that were later adopted around the world. It required the combined efforts of both the public and private spheres, working in collaboration, to advance the national interest in a manner that neither could have achieve separately. It introduced an element of profitable competition that spurred innovation and the best efforts of participants.
This was the genius of America: daring to do the great things, the things that others had only talked about or dreamed about. Ferdinand de Lesseps built the Suez Canal, but the difficulties of working in tropical Panama were too much to overcome. The Americans took over in 1904, but it required the pioneering research of Drs. Carlos Finlay and Walter Reed to identify the mosquito as the carrier of many tropical diseases, and the invention of modern sanitation and fumigation systems to eliminate the malaria and yellow fever that had plagued the earlier French efforts. The American plan was also radically different from the original French design, which had called for an entirely sea-level canal. The U.S. engineering panel that studied the problem determined that the sea-level approach was impossible and that the best approach was a series of lock and reservoir system: but locks of unprecedented size and complexity. President Roosevelt accepted the panel’s “can-do” recommendation and the work proceeded. The Canal was inaugurated on August 15th, 1914 — ten years after America took over the French project and just two weeks after the outbreak of the First World War.
War and threat of war also spurred other great American projects. The involvement of the United States in the Second World War and the threat of German domination over Europe lead President Roosevelt to authorize the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the development of the atomic bomb[3]. The project involved over 130,000 people; the construction or renovation of over 30 new research facilities and industrial plants across the country; development and perfection of new industrial techniques; and overcoming the most daunting scientific and technical challenges. In 1939, the best scientists in the world didn’t know if controlled fission was even possible or if it might not set fire to the atmosphere. Yet even in the midst of the greatest war in human history, faced with the daunting task of organizing the nation, supplying our allies and preparing to fight on both oceans and three continents, the United States was able to dedicate the industrial, scientific and financial resources to build the bomb and launch the nuclear power industry at the same time.
On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union became the first nation into space. The “beep-beep-beep” of Sputnik 1 orbiting around the Earth sent chills through the Eisenhower Administration and the entire nation. Americans were not used to being second. The government had been attempting to launch a satellite into orbit since 1955, but our rockets kept blowing up. Sputnik was just what the nation needed: a gunshot to signal that the race was on. Eisenhower went on to reorganize the space effort and create NASA, and he also was responsible for the first series of US rockets that didn’t blow up[4]. But it wasn’t until September 12th, 1962 that the whole nation — indeed the whole world — was galvanized by the vision laid out by President Kennedy. Americans would go to the Moon and return safely to Earth before the end of the decade. The President was giving NASA just 7 years and 3 months to accomplish a goal that they hadn’t even known they had[5]. They had to design an entirely new class of rockets; they had to build new facilities and convince private industry to invest in new plants and equipment; they had to develop new materials and technologies. They had to design a system that was small enough, light enough yet robust enough to be launched from Earth, fly to the Moon, set down, lift off again, and then fly back to Earth and survive reentry. They didn’t even know if a human being could survive in zero gravity long enough to reach the Moon and return. But on July 20th 1969, the Apollo 11 mission fulfilled President Kennedy’s vision, landing Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface and returning them safely to the Earth. NASA had 5 months to spare.
The genius of America — it lies in our ability to rise up to the challenge to do the great things, the hard things, those that no one else can or will do. We are at our best when faced with adversity, for it was the Civil War that produced Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation and the Transcontinental Railroad; the Spanish-American War led to the Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal; the Great Depression and the Second World War made Franklin Roosevelt and the Manhattan Project. If not for his lunar legacy, John F. Kennedy might be better remembered as the President who first led us into Vietnam[6]. Who remembers the Presidents between Lincoln and Roosevelt? The ability to fire the imagination of the nation, to set an impossible goal, to organize the energy of our united people and then to achieve it — this is what America excels at. Without it, our nation descends to fractious squabbling, to materialistic mediocrity[7].
We have before us today a task suited to the greatness of the country. We must colonize Mars. Not visit Mars, not take samples, not set foot on the surface of the Red Planet and return safely to Earth. We must lead the way in the permanent colonization of space and Mars is the natural location. It has an atmosphere, it has water that can be extracted through simple chemical reactions[8], it has needed minerals for construction and industry, it has a significantly stronger gravity than the Moon, and it is our closest large neighbor. Given how inhospitable the rest of the Solar System is — Venus is hot enough to melt lead — and Mars looks like it has been purpose made by Providence.
Our greatest obstacle is just getting off the ground. We live on Earth at the bottom of a very significant gravity well. Getting out of the well and into space requires an immense expenditure of energy and chemical rockets simply aren’t that efficient. Most of the mass we start with on the launch pad, up to 98% of it, is simply fuel. This imposes a costly burden on us: for every ton we need to lift into orbit, we need to burn 15 tons of fuel. This is known as the payload fraction. If we need to go further and leave Earth’s orbit, then the payload fraction[9] rises even more and we need to burn 50 or 60 tons of fuel. It costs about $10,000 to move a pound into Earth orbit, but those first 100 miles cost as much to traverse as the following 141 million. The real trick is just getting off the ground; after that it’s not too difficult to get around the neighborhood.
America must commit itself to the challenge of establishing a permanent settlement on Mars by the year 2030. We will accomplish this in the same manner as we accomplished our previous great feats:
- Through the close cooperation of the public and privates spheres;
- Through the use of generous government financing and incentives to competition;
- Through the relentless promotion of this vision to engage and unite the American people behind it;
- Through the practical application of the “can do” spirit to overcome all physical, technological and organizational barriers.
This cannot be “the Big Government Operation”, which has characterized the space programs of every nation until now. We have reached the end of that stage; while NASA and other space agencies have a vital role still to play, we must now utilize the talents, ingenuity and energies of private enterprise and those intrepid individuals and families who will be the unsung, but vital pioneers crossing the gulf.
The government will specify the objectives, the Executive will supervise the overall cooperation and direction of this enterprise, and Congress will enact the necessary laws to provide financing and incentives. The first task is to build the necessary infrastructure to reduce the exorbitant cost of launching payloads into orbit. We’ve already seen that these are significant and remember: every drop of water and every molecule of air will initially have to be sent from Earth to Mars, at least until we can set up the facilities to manufacture these locally. Even then, every nut and bolt, every circuit, every stitch of clothing will have to be supplied from Earth for years, decades to come. This will be unsustainable unless we can bring down the payload costs by several orders of magnitude.
To begin with, the Federal government will hold competitions and invite private industry to participate in these. The winner will receive a substantial prize as well as a short-term monopoly on the use of their technology with guaranteed government contracts. The government could also offer funding in the form of bonds to those competitors that meet established hurdles and milestones. Fire the gun and begin the race:
Competition Number 1 - Build a working space elevator: The concept is exactly what it sounds like: an elevator to take people and materials up into space without the need for a rocket or expensive fuel. The idea is not new, it’s been around since the brilliant Konstantin Tsiolkovsky theorized it in 1895 (along with a great deal more that started modern rocketry). Until now, space elevator designs have failed due to our inability to manufacture a material both strong enough and light enough support their own weight. However, a Canadian firm has recently patented a concept for and inflatable “near space” elevator. The Thoth Technology patent[10] is for an inflatable structure rising 12 miles above the surface. Passengers and payload would then ascend the elevator — powered by electricity generated on the ground — to a platform where they would then take a space plane or rocket for their journey into orbit. Although not a true space elevator, the reusable Thoth structure could reduce the cost to orbit by 30%, possibly more. With projected costs per Mars mission in the billions, that is a very large savings.
Prize: US $30 billion and a contract to build and operate 3 space elevators in locations to be designated by the US government and a guaranteed exclusive service contract for non-military launches for 5 years.
Competition Number 2 - Develop a self-landing, reusable rocket that can be safely launched and recovered from a platform of similar dimensions to the space elevator concept. Space X practically has this one in the bag[11]: the Falcon 9-R variant of the successful two-stage delivery vehicle has undergone repeated testing and modification. It has already proven its capabilities by landing on both a stationary ground platform and a moving platform at sea. The ability to recover and reuse both stages of a rocket — within hours — would reduce the cost to LEO[12] from approximately $55 million per launch today to only $5 or $6 million. Using the “near space” elevator rather than a surface launch site could reduce that to $3.5 million per launch. That would be an incredible game changer: it might not be within the average middle class budget, but it is not a lot of money and would put space within reach for many companies that today can only theorize about it. That would lead to further decreases in cost through innovation and scale.
It is nonetheless worthwhile holding the competition, because the prize would be for the most economical design. There might be alternatives to the Falcon 9R which could reduce the cost of launches even more or prove safer to operate.
Prize 2: US $30 billion and an exclusive contract to supply reusable rockets and services to the government for 5 years.
Competition Number 3 - Build and operate an efficient propellant fuel depot. That too is just what it sounds like: a gas station in space. But instead of refueling Fords and Chevys, it would be refueling rockets to Mars. That’s a necessary step if a Martian colony is to be supported; even with the tremendous savings from the space elevator and the reusable rockets, sending everything direct in one go is too expensive and the quantity of material is too limited. The trick is to send everything up into Earth orbit, assemble a big payload, fuel a rocket in space with propellant, and then send that on to Mars.
It is also critical to ensuring that colonists can reach Mars in safety. In the 1840’s, there were only three ways to get from New York to California: overland, which took at least a year; around Cape Horn, which took on average 6 months; and by ship-land-ship over the Isthmus of Panama in around 3 months. All had their dangers and all were expensive. We face a similar problem getting from Earth to Mars: there are essentially two trajectories. There is the direct intercept route, which takes 6 months, but requires a high expenditure of delta v (i.e. energy and money); then there is the long, slow and cheap route, which has a spacecraft fall towards the Sun and use its gravity to slingshot onto a new trajectory that eventually intercepts Mars on the far end of its orbit in 18 months. We will need to use both, but the human colonists will want to go via the fast route. This is necessary to avoid them going insane over such a long period of time, but also to minimize the exposure to harmful cosmic rays and high-energy solar particles.
The propellant depot requires no still-to-be-discovered technologies to be built, but at this point there is no commercial reason to build one. There are design issues to be overcome, such as fuel boil-off and cryogenic embrittlement of materials, but these have solutions that are effective if costly. The depot would initially make money by providing fuel to the Mars missions, but eventually, it would act as a refueling depot for other commercial purposes, including refuelable satellites, scientific and commercial missions from other nations, space tourism, etc. Applications will be found by entrepreneurial individuals who will take advantage of the now cheap access to near Earth space.
Prize 3: US $30 billion and an exclusive contract to supply fuel to all NASA Mars and Outer Solar System missions, to US military satellites for 5 years. Also open to servicing other customers and nations.
Competition Number 4 - Build and operate a fully autonomous robotic tug capable of completing a full Earth-Mars roundtrip. Remember: fast route is for people, slow route is for non-critical supplies. Building and deploying a fully automated tug will allow NASA to send non-critical, bulky materials by the cheapest route possible. The tug would have to be fully automated, since we would not want a human crew on a 3-year round trip to Mars and back ferrying machinery or construction material. The tug should be highly fuel efficient, since it would remain in space once assembled. It would never land on Earth or Mars, avoiding the need to overcome the gravity well of both planets and also avoiding the necessity of an aerodynamic design. The rest of the time it could deploying a solar sail when heading away from the Sun and nuclear thermal engines[13] while heading towards it. The lack of a human crew means that you don’t have to worry about much radiation shielding, making the tug less massive and more efficient. If the cost of the tugs and their operation is low enough, the competition winner could be operating a small fleet of them, guaranteeing reliable delivery of supplies to the Martian colony on a monthly basis … with an 18 month lead time, of course.
Prize 4: US $40 billion and an exclusive contract to supply the Martian colony for 20 years.
The Mars colony itself would initially require the investment of the government to build and operate the facilities. There is no commercial incentive at this stage. But that should not be an excessively difficult challenge to overcome: it requires no new technologies to begin with. In fact, the development of new technologies in robotics and 3-D construction are making the plan more feasible all the time. The successful completion of the competitions would provide America — and the world — with a reliable and cheap means to move large quantities of material and eventually people to Mars at a fraction of today’s cost.
Many will complain that these endeavors will cost too much, that there is no money for them, and that they will bring a scant return on investment. None of those claims are true. Leading the efforts to colonize Mars will result in direct benefits to American businesses and workers who will have to build the infrastructure and machines to get us there and keep us there. It will also, as in past achievements, drive innovation, lead to new technologies and new opportunities. Americans should be at the forefront, as we have been for the past 150 years. Our competitors will reap the rewards if we do nothing. As for financing, the United States remains the richest nation in the world: we have the wherewithal to reach Mars. Assuming even the extravagant NASA estimates of $700 billion dollars over 10 years: we have been paying out $100 billion per year since 2003 in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and what return on investment have we seen? For the same amount, we could send perhaps 600 people per year to Mars — and bring them back as well, if they wanted to return. And we can get there more easily and for less by harnessing the energy of private industry. In a decade, we would have a fully functioning community with its own nascent economy and individual society. Within 50 years, it could be fully self-supporting: a Martian Republic that might be a new birth of freedom for this tired old Earth.
Sources and Notes
[1] He was, at the time of the “Last Spike” ceremony, the President of the Central Pacific Rail Road Company. As Governor, he was one of the foremost proponents of the Central Pacific and the Transcontinental Railroad at its birth. He later became a Senator to Congress for his state.
[2] Supplies were transported to the end of the line by steam engine and black powder charges were used in tunneling, but only after holes had been dug into the rock by hand. Everything else — grading, laying tracks and rails, filling ditches, digging cuts, building culverts and bridges — was done by hand.
[3] This was not an all-American project. The British had already established a substantial lead in fission research and without their open contribution, the Manhattan Project would not have been completed in 1945. However even the British acknowledged that only the United States had the industrial and financial resources to carry the project to fruition while at the same time fighting a world war.
[4] Project Redstone
[5] The Space Race with the Soviets, like the Speed Race to break Mach 1 and then Mach 2, was always about going faster and higher than the other guy; but it was Kennedy who turned it into a race to the Moon. The Soviets had never had that as an objective.
[6] The Cuban Missile Crisis might have burnished his historical image, but no one can deny that Kennedy’s Rice University speech is one of the most inspiring and best known of any American President and the Apollo Program his proudest legacy.
[7] And so are the times we are living in, without even the great challenge of our Soviet rival to focus our attention and harness our efforts.
[8] Through the Sabatier Reaction, a well-known chemical process used in industry since 1910.
[9] Payload fraction is equal to payload weight at destination divided by the total weight at launch. The Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo missions weighed a staggering 6.5 million pounds at take-off — mostly fuel — and sent 107 thousand pounds on a trans-lunar injection, which is a payload fraction of 1.6%
[10] Elizabeth Howell, “Wild Inflatable Space Elevator Idea Could Lift People 12 Miles Up,” Space.com, 17 August 2015
[11] Mike Wall, “See SpaceX’s Rocket-Landing Near Miss in This Amazing Video,” Space.com, 15 April 2015
[12] Low Earth Orbit
[13] NASA has been studying nuclear thermal engines for decades — Project NERVA, Project Timberwind, SNTPP — but the projects have always been cancelled due to funding constraints and concerns about radiation hazards. However, many of the concepts are tested and could be applied to a non-atmospheric spacecraft.
