The Space Race and Urban Air Mobility — What Can We Learn From History?
Over the past 3 years, the hype for the future of mobility — especially flying taxis — has been on a marathon with hundreds of press articles and commentaries being published, 60+ urban-specific designs unveiled, and a growing ecosystem of airspace integration, battery technology, propulsion systems companies, and the like, being bred to support the adoption of Aviation 4.0.
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) — as it is being increasingly known — which also covers drone-related operations in cities as well (e.g. cargo, maintenance, medical services), is approaching an inflection point that will make or break the technology in the short- to mid-term future. That inflection point is the first piloted commercial eVTOL operations in our cities carrying passengers without any fatal accidents. Otherwise, if a single fatality is attributed to Urban Air Mobility, the inflection curve will collapse and the recovery of the industry from the negative externalities of a frightened public will likely surpass the lifetime of most aviation professionals within the industry.
Resulting from this, there may be significant questions in the mind of the public:
- If there is a decent probability that the UAM industry can be impeded by the repercussions of a single but fatal accident, why invest large amounts into UAM technologies which may not affect our lives in the next 15–20 years?
- Why spend billions of euros on R&D, manufacturing, and industry partnerships rather than strive to eradicate poverty, injustice, and hunger? Are urban congestion and air pollution the real problems facing our global civilization as opposed to people dying of hunger, thirst, and war?
- How will a technology that is mainly developed in higher-income regions of the world benefit the city that I live in, even though I may come from a developing or underdeveloped country but still have the wealth to solely import that technology?
Let’s take the abovementioned questions in focus and see if there is any precedent that we can learn from in history.
The Race to the Moon
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with its foundations being laid more than a century ago has also been subject to scrutiny from circles less enthusiastic about space exploration. Have the funds which had been allocated to the exploration of the final frontier of human curiosity been gone to waste? Certainly not, quite the opposite.
When President Eisenhower disestablished NASA’s predecessor — NACA — in 1958, the political landscape of the world was quite dissimilar compared to today’s. As the globe and its human inhabitants had been trying to figure out which school of thought is the way towards a better future — leftist philosophies or rightist approaches — the decisions taken on the scientific frontier have been mainly fueled by the rush towards political dominance over the rest of the world. The Space Race between the two superpowers of the human realm — the Soviet Union and the USA — was not merely a technological one but a competition of prestige. Although the large political players were already like the two opposite poles of a magnet, the polarization was not yet determined on a global scale, i.e. Third World countries and their people have been in constant pressure to “decide” which bloc to join. Thus, the main objective of investing in space technologies was to establish the “superiority” of one school of thought and the defeat of the opposing forces demonstrated by immense national achievements.
It may even be argued that the landing of the first man on the Moon by the U.S. was a harbinger of the collapse of the Soviet bloc of countries.
From a technological perspective, the Space Race and the period after the collapse of the USSR did not only produce technological know-how and products that would enable the safe travel of rockets, satellites, and astronauts in space but has since directly impacted our lives here on Earth. The following, although not exhaustive, provides the most noteworthy examples of spinoff technologies arising from astronautics research that we employ in everyday life, from biotechnology to IT.
- Fueled by the rush to be the first to space, the Soviets launched the first-ever artificial satellite Sputnik I in 1957. Since then, 6,600 satellites have been launched with the main purposes of communication, navigation, weather observation, and so on, directly providing the infrastructure for many luxuries that we take for granted on Earth comprising TV, GPS, weather forecasting, and many more.
- Developed in the 1970s to make certain that astronauts have access to clean water, the special filter cartridges which use iodine have paved the way for other methods to commercialize water filtration systems. Singapore, the island-state which is in dire need of water due to its geopolitical position, utilizes an advanced water filtration system that meets 40% of the country’s current needs.
- Although somewhat more obscure to the general public, “NASTRAN”, a structural analysis software that was developed for NASA in the late ’60s, was essential in the efficient design of space vehicles such as the Space Shuttle. Having been released to the public as an open-source code, NASTRAN is estimated to have saved US$701 million from 1971 to 1984 in various industries such as automotive, construction, rail, and aircraft.
Thus, it can be clearly seen that the technological innovations due to the Space Race have been significantly valuable to the advancement of civilization in the last 70 years, especially considering the fact that NASA’s federal budget has never exceeded 4.5% of the GDP of the U.S. (currently, it floats around 0.5%).
Economically, the investment in aerospace initiatives has sparked various benefits to the prosperity of society. If we look at the whole U.S. Aerospace & Defense (A&D) industry, which comprises sectors that have skills, organizations, and assets that are complementary to space-specific initiatives, it is conspicuous that A&D is one of the pillars of American wealth. The following statistics of 2017 prove the aforementioned point:
- A&D accounted for $143 billion worth of U.S. exports and with a trade surplus of $86 billion, it is the nation’s leading net exporting industry
- Accounting for 2% of the GDP of the U.S., A&D generated $865 billion fiscal output being a vital sector of the US economy
- A&D in the U.S. alone employed 1.42 million workers directly
Similarly, within the next titanic cluster of A&D on the other side of the pond, Europe also provides strong figures of directly supporting 848k jobs, industry turnover of $262 billion, and exports of $147 billion. These figures do not include the ripple effects of the core A&D industry if one chooses to look at the wider aviation, travel, and tourism sectors and the peripheral industries they support. Thus, the economic importance of aerospace-related investments cannot be minified.
Perhaps, much more important than the economic prosperity created by the industry are the social effects of the success stories coming from the aerospace realm. From the sight of a SpaceX rocket landing back on Earth to the roaring flyby of F-16 Fighting Falcons in an airshow, and from the arid Martian scenes of one of Matt Damon’s most successful films to the cool but somewhat arrogant Maverick character of Top Gun, the dreams of flight and space exploration have been ingrained in the lifeblood of our societies since, arguably, Jules Verne’s sci-fi novels. Although these have an enormous entertainment value to most, the intellectual and academic after-effects are incredibly important to the advancement of our civilization through the inspiration caught by many generations in becoming active innovators in these fields.
Thus, the incorporation of children from a young age into STEM fields can be partially attributed to the success stories of aerospace and the dreams sparked by pop aerospace culture. This, in my opinion, far outweighs the other benefits of aerospace to society and is one of the shoulders that civilization steps upon to reach greater technological and economic prosperity, creating a better, more interesting, and promising future for us all.
However, question #3 remains unanswered. What is the benefit of all of this investment and technological progress to countries who cannot afford it? And even if they can buy but cannot develop the technology themselves, is the overall benefit on par with the countries who develop AND use that technology at the same time?
This may well be the greatest argument against costly technological investment in underdeveloped and developing countries. For example, if countries like Honduras or Thailand decide to invest in space technologies and have the aim of putting one of their nationals on Mars, the way to do that will not be in developing all the technologies necessary for the mission. Since these countries lag behind the likes of the US, EU, and Russia in terms of rocket technologies, astrophysics, and astrobiology by about 50 years, the logical step would be to import most of the technology and know-how necessary to execute such a mission. However, this means virtually that all the cash spent on these efforts will be leaving those countries. On the other hand, if most complementary assets of that technology such as R&D, manufacturing, operations, logistics, and other key enablers are also located in the country of development, money associated with the investment will circulate around internally in the economy.
This is exactly the scenario for states like Russia or the U.S. who mainly buy those technologies from their own industries, creating a feedback loop by positively feeding their own companies, organizations, talent, thus the whole population.
Therefore, it can be concluded, quite obviously, that super-high-tech investments mostly benefit the country of origin and create a techno-political hegemony over other states of the world.
How can we apply these historical lessons learned to the hottest trend in urban transportation and aviation right now? There is no doubt that Urban Air Taxis (UATs) will likely revolutionize the way we live in and interact within and around our cities. Join me in my next article entitled “Why The Jetsons Will Have a Greater Impact on Human Civilization Than You May Think” to dive deep into this yet nascent but incredibly promising industry and find out the broader impact of UATs from a political, societal, technological, and economic point-of-view.
Pamir Sevincel is a Founding Partner of The Aviary Project, a wide-reaching initiative connecting all stakeholders of the Urban Air Mobility movement. Following his experience as an aerospace engineer and a businessman focused on the eVTOL startup ecosystem, he is very passionate on democratizing aerial mobility, making it cheap & accessible for everyone, and bringing eVTOL operations to the U.K. in a swift and responsible manner.
Get in touch with Aviary if you would like to be a part of this revolution!
