July 23, 2021 (intelligent-aerospace.com)
• Jeff Bezos’ successful crewed Blue Origin mission on July 20th demonstrated that more and more companies are starting to realize the significance of ‘reusable rockets’ in the burgeoning space industry. New York startup iRocket is banking on its cost-effective resusable launch vehicles
Article by Jackie Wattles July 20, 2021 (cnn.com)
• On Tuesday July 20th, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, along with three other passengers strapped into their New Shepard crew capsule (pictured above) atop a rocket at Bezos’ Blue Origin’s launch site in rural West Texas to blast off on an 11-minute, supersonic joy ride. The capsule traveled 65 miles above the desert landscape, topping out at an altitude of 351,210 feet. At the peak of the flight path, the passengers were weightless for about three minutes and were allowed to unstrap themselves from their seat to float around and soak in panoramic views of the Earth and the cosmos. This flight marked the first-ever crewed mission for Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital space tourism vehicle, upon which the company plans to take wealthy thrill seekers on high-flying journeys in the future.
• Riding alongside the multi-billionaire were Bezos’ brother, Mark Bezos; Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and one of the “Mercury 13” women who trained to go to space in the 20th century but never got to fly; and an 18-year old recent high school graduate named Oliver Daemen who was Blue Origin’s first paying customer and whose father purchased his ticket. Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest people, respectively, ever to travel to space.
• Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, six years after he started Amazon, with the goal of making spaceflight more affordable and more accessible. A few of his rivals in the industry — most notably Elon Musk and Richard Branson — both started their space ventures around the same time. While the suborbital New Shepard vehicle is the first fully operational piece of space hardware the company has developed, Bezos plans to build spinning orbital space stations where people can live and work. The company is also working on a much larger rocket, called New Glenn, and a lunar lander that it hopes will be used to support NASA missions.
• Thus far, the reservations for a trip to space have been offered solely to participants in an auction that Blue Origin concluded last month. The auction’s winner was a mystery bidder who agreed to pay $28 million for a ticket. He or she was expected to be on Tuesday’s spaceflight, but the high-priced traveler had to reschedule due to ‘scheduling conflicts’. Blue Origin is planning to conduct two more New Shepard tourist passenger flights this year.
• Bezos has not indicated what Blue Origin will charge space tourists or what the Dutch 18-year-old Daemen’s father paid for his ticket. The company said that the auction did give a strong indication that there are plenty of people anxious to go: 7,600 people from 159 countries registered to participate in the bidding war. These early suborbital space tourism flights will be prohibitively expensive to the vast majority of people, and that’s not expected to change anytime soon.
• “Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos with the vision of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth,” the company said in a press release. “To preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes that humanity will need to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space. Blue Origin is working on this today by developing partially and fully reusable launch vehicles that are safe, low cost, and serve the needs of all civil, commercial, and defense customers.”
• An online petition garnered more than 162,000 signatures asking for Bezos never to return to Earth. Bezos, who is worth about $200 billion, has funded the company almost solely out of his own pocket. Repeated promises of benevolence and benefit to a ravaged Earth has critics concerned that the ultra-wealthy view outer space as their own personal escape hatch. “They are largely right,” Bezos told CNN’s Rachel Crane of critics who say billionaires should focus their energy — and money — on issues closer to home. “We have to do both. We have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those, and we always need to look to the future. We’ve always done that as a species, as a civilization.” But regarding his sojourn to space on Tuesday, Bezos declared it “the best day ever”.
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, went to space and back Tuesday morning on an
11-minute, supersonic joy ride aboard the rocket and capsule system developed by his space company, Blue Origin.
Riding alongside the multibillionaire were Bezos’ brother, Mark Bezos; Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and one of the “Mercury 13” women who trained to go to space in the 20th century but never got to fly; and an 18-year old recent high school graduate named Oliver Daemen who was Blue Origin’s first paying customer and whose father, an investor, purchased his ticket.
Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest people, respectively, ever to
travel to space. And this flight marked the first-ever crewed mission for Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital space tourism rocket, which the company plans to use to take wealthy thrill seekers on high-flying joy rides in the months and years to come.
The four passengers on Tuesday strapped into their New Shepard crew capsule at Blue Origin’s launch site in rural West Texas just before the rocket lit its engines at 8:12 am CT, sending the vehicle blaring past the speed of sound and up to more than 65 miles above the desert landscape, topping out at an altitude of 351,210 feet. At the peak of the flight path, the 
passengers were weightless for about three minutes and were allowed to unstrap themselves from their seat to float around and soak in panoramic views of the Earth and the cosmos.
The launch was visible to reporters on the ground, with the rocket streaking across the almost cloudless Texas sky with a blooming contrail. The bright blaze of the rocket engine looked almost like a star or planet as it rose into the sky. Bezos and crew could be heard on Blue Origin’s livestream cheering as they moved about the capsule during the microgravity portion of the flight.
“It’s dark up here, oh my word!” Funk could be heard saying.
Bezos declared it “the best day ever” on his communications check upon landing.
3:29 minute video of Blue Origin spaceflight and landing (‘CNBC Television’ YouTube)
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Article from CBS News April 14, 2021 (wsgw.com)
• On April 14th, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin took another step toward sending passengers into space with the launch of the fifteenth unpiloted New Shepard rocket in six years carrying an unmanned capsule on a suborbital test flight. Using live ‘astronaut stand-ins’ before takeoff and after landing to rehearse boarding and egress procedures, launch commentator Ariane Cornell said, “We’re getting very close to sending people up to space and back.” The stand-ins tested their communications gear and reviewed launch procedures before exiting to clear the pad for flight.
• Wednesday’s flight began at 12:51 p.m. ET when the New Shepard rocket’s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine launched from the pad at Blue Origin’s remote Van Horn, Texas, flight test facility. The stubby rocket quickly climbed away from Launch Site One, steadily accelerating to reach a maximum velocity of 2,247 mph before releasing the empty crew capsule about two minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff. The capsule then soared to an altitude of 66 miles, well above the 50-mile-high lower “boundary” of space, before beginning the long plunge back to Earth.
• The New Shepard booster homed in on its landing pad, restarting its engine and deploying four short landing legs before settling to an on-target touchdown. Inside the separated capsule, an instrumented test dummy dubbed ‘Mannequin Skywalker’ experienced three to five minutes of microgravity before atmospheric deceleration forces set in. The capsule floated to a relatively gentle landing a short distance away, slowed by three large parachutes.
• The New Shepard system is designed to carry space tourists, government and civilian researchers and a variety of payloads to altitudes just above the discernible atmosphere. Blue Origin has not yet announced when it plans its first launch with passengers on board or how much tickets might cost. But the New Shepard capsule will afford six passengers at a time several minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this-world view through six large windows.
• NASA, the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration consider 50 miles to be the dividing line between space and the discernible atmosphere, while the international Fédération Aéronautique Internationale puts the threshold at 100 kilometers, or 62 miles. The New Shepard capsule routinely exceeds both of those standards.
• New Shepard is a strictly suborbital rocket and spacecraft that is not capable of achieving the velocities required to reach orbit. It will compete with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceplane for commercial passengers and payloads. However, Blue Origin is developing orbit-class New Glenn rockets that will use a powerful new company-designed engine to help boost large satellites into orbit. The company has built a huge rocket factory just outside the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to manufacture the rockets and is developing a launch complex at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
• The company also is leading a team, one of three, designing a moon lander to carry astronauts to and from the lunar surface in NASA’s Artemis program. NASA is expected to award contracts to one or possibly two teams over the next few weeks.
Taking another step toward sending passengers into space, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin
launched an unpiloted New Shepard capsule on a suborbital test flight Wednesday, using astronaut stand-ins before takeoff and after landing to rehearse boarding and egress procedures.
The company has not yet announced when it plans its first launch with passengers on board or how much tickets might cost. But after 15 unpiloted test flights, the system appears to be on the verge of commercial operations, giving six passengers at a time a few minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this-world view.
“We’re getting very close to sending people up to space and back,” said launch
commentator Ariane Cornell.
To help pave the way, company personnel walked up the launch gantry before liftoff and strapped in aboard the New Shepard capsule just as paying customers will do for an actual flight. The stand-ins tested their communications gear and reviewed launch procedures before exiting to clear the pad for flight.
Wednesday’s flight began at 12:51 p.m. ET when the New Shepard rocket’s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine ignited with a rush of flaming exhaust at Blue Origin’s remote Van Horn, Texas, flight test facility.
The stubby rocket quickly climbed away from Launch Site One, steadily accelerating as it consumed propellants and lost weight, reaching a maximum velocity of 2,247 mph before releasing the crew capsule about two minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff.
The capsule then soared to an altitude of 66 miles (348,753 feet), well above the 50-mile-high lower “boundary” of space, before beginning the long plunge back to Earth. Inside, an instrumented test dummy — Mannequin Skywalker — experienced three to five minutes of microgravity before atmospheric deceleration forces set in.
The New Shepard booster, meanwhile, homed in on its landing pad, restarting its engine and deploying four short landing legs before settling to an on-target touchdown. The capsule floated to a relatively gentle landing a short distance away, slowed as usual by three large parachutes.
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Article by Adam Smith December 24, 2020 (independent.co.uk)
• NASA has announced plans for the Artemis Moon mission to establish a lunar base in 2024, followed shortly thereafter by actual inhabitants. And NASA anticipates a manned mission to Mars by 2033. On the other hand, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, plans to send the first SpaceX craft to Mars by 2022, with humans following within the next four to six years. Musk envisions people living in glass domes as they terraform Mars to support life.
• Musk and SpaceX are already laying the groundwork for a Mars colony. A section of the company’s ‘Starlink’ satellite internet service user agreement states: “For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. …Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”
• Is this a joke, or is it the beginning of a Mars constitution based on existing legislation? Current law resides in the 2020 Artemis Accords and the 1957 Outer Space Treaty. A section that reads: “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” is meant to prevent outright “land grabs” by Earth nations. Lawyer Randy Segal points out that, “The whole of space law contemplates that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something we can all share together.” Segal suggests that Musk could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution, just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles. Does it have any legal precedent or enforceability? No. But it could start a conversation about how legislators should go about planning for a Mars constitution.
• In 2016, Musk said his intentions for a Martian government would be a direct democracy, where people vote on the issues themselves rather than through politicians. “[I]t would be people voting directly on issues,” said Musk. “[T]he potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus a representative democracy.”
• Noting that SpaceX’s goal is to send hundreds of thousands of people to Mars until they have established a truly sustainable colony, SpaceX General Council, David Anderman, expects to “impose our own legal regime” on Mars within our lifetime and “faster than you think.” But it will be “interesting to see how it plays out with terrestrial governments exerting control,” says Anderman.
• Legally, Musk has more of a chance of creating a community rather than an independent colony. A ‘community’ would operate under the governance of the United States. It could be that, in the future, legislators will see the need for a constitution that governs the entirety of Mars, rather than having laws split into geographical jurisdictions. Experts suggest that that the most beneficial Martian government will be one that is eventually decided on Mars itself.
• Professor Von der Dunk, a space law expert at Nebraska College of Law, thinks that it is prudent to determine how legal conflicts should be addressed in space. But companies such as Space X and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin can only go so far. While companies may set the agenda, it will ultimately be up to governments to decide whether to adopt it.
• Bezos envisions millions of people in living in bucolic Martian cities with farms and rivers and universities. But Bezos is taking an intentionally slower approach to space than Musk, and has no opinions on Martian constitutions or legislation.
• An example of how to fashion Martian laws could come from Earth’s mining communities, where Congress was happy to sanction local mining laws as long as they did not conflict with those of the United States, says space lawyer Scot Anderson. There is a human impulse to create stability through the law. An early legal framework could be applied to the entirety of Mars in a way that could not be done on Earth. Legal experts say it is likely that once the first community is established on Mars, it would seek to self-regulate fairly quickly due to the difficulties of interplanetary communication.
The moment when the first human sets foot on Mars is becoming ever-closer. The 140 million mile
distance between Earth and the Red Planet is set to be breached within the next two decades, Nasa predicts.
Just recently, the space agency announced its plans for its Artemis moon missions – aiming to take place in 2024 – which could establish a lunar base on the Moon as a stepping-stone before the first planetary spacewalk.
For some, however, simply taking the first step on an alien planet is not looking far enough into the future. Once a community is set up on Mars, discussions will need to be had about exactly how it is governed and functions. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is one of those people planning for such a future, and seems to already be setting the groundwork in the terms of service of the company’s current products.
In the user agreement for the company’s satellite internet service Starlink, one particular paragraph stands out: “For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonisation spacecraft, the parties recognise Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities,” the governing law section states.”
“Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”
SpaceX did not respond to multiple attempts for more information from The Independent, but experts suggest that the addition of this segment could actually have two purposes: the first is that it is a joke; the second is that it is laying groundwork for a Mars constitution – based on how permissive the existing legislation for space exploration actually is.
The section Musk has added is “a bit of tongue in cheek with his contracts… referring to this Martian constitution he’s going to be drafting,” according to Randy Segal, of the law firm Hogan Lovells. “He’s trying to include in his commercial terms… how you’re going to comply with applicable law.”
The applicable law here are the 2020 Artemis accords and the 1957 Outer Space Treaty (by which signatories of the Artemis Accords say they will abide). Amongst that legislation includes the line: “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” As a result, these treaties stop space exploration becoming a “land grab”, as Segal describes it.
However, the regulations are, in general, “motherhood and apple pie” Segal says – an American phrase to mean something that no reasonable person could disagree with, such as the provisions of transparency, interoperability, and emergency assistance with regards to space exploration.
“The whole of space law contemplates that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something we can all share together,” Segal says.
“Generally, if a clause is unlawful you would read the rest of the contract to be enforceable and standing alone. He has added a section relating to Mars services (which is not being provided today, so has no effect),” but in five or 10 years “he can revise his contract.
“I don’t know that a provision like this other than being humorous and anecdotally noteworthy is something that does anything to the rest of the contract at all. He could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution… just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles. Does it have any precedent or enforceability? The answer I’d say is clearly no; but if you say something enough, people might come around.”
While Musk’s contracts might not be legally potent (or“gibberish”, as one professor deemed them), they are likely to start a conversation about how legislators should go about planning for a Mars constitution. This is something that SpaceX’s General council, David Anderman, is seemingly already looking into.
“Our goal is to be able to send 1,000 starships with 100 people in them every two years,” Anderman said, according to Business Insider.
“We’ll start with 100, then a couple hundred, then 100,000, then a million until we have a truly sustainable colony. It will happen in my lifetime. Faster than you think.”
He also said he expected SpaceX to “impose our own legal regime,” but that it would be “interesting to see how it plays out with terrestrial governments exerting control.” Anderman did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Independent before publication.
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Article by Kristin Huang November 26, 2020 (scmp.com)
• With the launch of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft and Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring Moon rock samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond remarked that China was a threat that could block American access to space, and that the US had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.
• Meanwhile, a successful mission would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. Xu Hongliang, secretary general of China’s National Space Administration, told a space aviation forum on Wednesday that there were more Chang’e missions to come and China was planning to build an international research station on the Moon. Xu also said China would explore small celestial bodies, retrieve samples from Mars and pass by Jupiter and back again. Said Xu, “[W]e welcome international space agencies to participate in China’s future lunar and deep-space exploration cooperation.”
• The space rivalry between the world’s largest two economies is heating up. Beijing has been planning to build its own space station for decades as an alternative to the International Space Station, from which China has been excluded by the US because of security concerns.
• US officials say that China and Russia show threatening behavior regarding space. Raymond referred to an incident in 2007 when China hit and destroyed a disused Chinese weather satellite, testing its own missile capabilities. Until then, space had been considered a “benign domain,” but it was now it is contested. “China and Russia caused this shift in the strategic environment,” said Raymond. China and Russia’s capabilities include jamming of GPS and communication satellites, and directed energy and kinetic destruction of US assets via missiles on the ground.
• Raymond noted that “space really underpins … all of our instruments of national power. [I]t provides huge economic opportunity, scientific opportunity and military opportunity”, and that the US is eager to enhance ties with its allies… in space.” “We have to have different space architectures and we have to have partnerships,” Raymond said. “We’ve got to make sure that we stay ahead of this growing threat.”
• In the first nine months of 2020, China has sent 29 satellites into space – two more than the US. But observers say that China is still lagging behind the US, as private companies such as SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have taken the industry lead.
• China has grappled with launch failures. An optical remote-sensing satellite failed to enter its preset orbit in September, following another failed launch two months earlier, the Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket, with two satellites on board. China also had satellite launch failures in March and April.
Rivalry between China and the United States in space exploration has reached new heights, with a US general saying China was a threat that could
block American access to space.
Just days after the launch of Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond said the United States had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.
Raymond’s comments came as the head of the Chinese space administration said the nation would launch more lunar probes and invite other countries to join China on its missions.
The China-US space rivalry intensified after a Long March-5 rocket carrying the Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft blasted off from Wenchang, Hainan province, on Tuesday morning.
In the first mission of its kind by any country in more than 40 years, the 8-tonne spacecraft comprises four components designed to bring samples back to Earth.
If the mission is successful, it would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. But China’s space ambitions do not stop there.
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Article by Sebastian Kettley October 13, 2020 (express.co.uk)
• Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo recently asked President Trump if there are UFOs, seeing that the Pentagon has set up a UFO/UAP Task Force. Trump said: “Well I’m gonna have to check on that, I mean I’ve heard that, I heard that two days ago, so I’ll check on that. I’ll take a good, strong look at that.”
• Bartiromo then tweeted a thanks to the President, and tagged Elon Musk (pictured above) and Jeff Bezos in the tweet: “Thx @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will f/u on this. Humans want to know. Has earth been visited. @elonmusk & @JeffBezos as earth great space explorers, what do U think? Have we been visited. We will discuss tomorrow @MorningsMaria @FoxBusiness 8a.” “Earth great explorers” refers to Musk’s ownership of SpaceX and Bezos’ ownership of Blue Origin, two leading spacecraft manufacturers and operators.
• “I have seen no evidence of an advanced civilization visiting Earth,” Elon Musk replied in a tweet. “Fuzzy pics that are worse than a 7/11 security cam frame grab don’t count!” “[T]here are literally >1000 percent more cameras than 10 years ago, but still zero clear photos.”
• Musk, 49, is no stranger to controversy. In July this year, he warned that artificial intelligence threatens to overtake humanity “in less than five years”. He was also among 28 people who in 2015 signed a statement warning against “intentionally signaling other civilizations in the Milky Way”. The document, published by the Berkeley SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, was in response to SETI’s sister program, METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) actively calling out to beings in space, not just listening and observing.
• The SETI statement reads in part: “We know nothing of ETI’s (extraterrestrial Intelligence) intentions and capabilities, and it is impossible to predict whether ETI will be benign or hostile. …[I]t is likely that other communicative civilizations we encounter will be millions of years more advanced than us. …As a newly emerging technological species, it is prudent to listen before we shout. …Intentionally signaling other civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy raises concerns from all the people of Earth, about both the message and the consequences of contact.”
• [Editor’s Note] What is more plausible? That Elon Musk travels among the world’s super-elite but has never heard about the multitude of intelligent extraterrestrial beings that have been working with the military industrial complex since the 1950s; or that Musk is a puppet of the deep state and is doing what he is told? Let’s take a closer look. Musk didn’t really say there are ‘no ETs’, just that he’s seen “no evidence” of them. This is the standard lie that the deep state has been propagating since the inception of the CIA right after the Roswell UFO crash and cover-up in 1947. This also gives Musk some wiggle room if he’s ever cornered about lying. He’s covering his bases.
Then Musk arrogantly repeats another standard deep state lie – that there are no good images or video of UFOs. Actually, there is a TON of good images and video of UFOs. (see recent ExoArticle about the 1990 Calvine UFO incident in the Scottish highlands where the photos were so good that the British government has refused to released them until 2070.) But the deep state wants people to think there are no compelling photos.
Another deep state tactic is to keep people afraid of unknown hostile extraterrestrials. The Berkeley SETI Research Center and the University of California, Berkeley are well-known deep state institutions. The deep state created METI, just as they did SETI, and used it to instill fear in the minds of the public. Elon Musk was right in line to sign this SETI statement of hostile aliens, even though he claims not to believe in aliens.
Finally, Musk is at the forefront of alerting/alarming the public about artificial intelligence taking over the planet. These are all fear tactics that the deep state employs to convert the benign extraterrestrial presence into an extraterrestrial enemy, and that the people of Earth can only turn to the deep state to save them from this existential threat. This is simply a new manufactured threat to humanity, replacing the old “Cold War” threat which the deep state concocted in the 1940’s when they labeled the Soviet Union/Russia as the bogeyman.
SPACEX boss Elon Musk has shot down conspiracy theorists and UFO truthers, saying there is no convincing evidence alien extraterrestrials have ever visited our planet.
Elon Musk, 49, is no stranger to controversy and he has been responsible for some bizarre statements over the years. In July this year, he warned artificial intelligence threatens to overtake humanity “in less than five years”. He has also co-signed a document warning of the consequences of recklessly attempting to contact alien civilisations beyond our solar system.
And yet, it appears as though the South African tech mogul behind SpaceX and Tesla draws the line at one thing: reports of UFOs visiting our planet.
In a series of revealing tweets, Mr Musk shared exactly what he thinks about unverified sightings and “fuzzy pics” of supposed alien spacecraft.
His comments were prompted by Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo asking the US President Donald Trump about reports the US Department of Defense has set up a UFO task force.
When asked outright if there are UFOs, President Trump said: “Well I’m gonna have to check on that, I mean I’ve heard that, I heard that two days ago, so I’ll check on that.
“I’ll take a good, strong look at that, but I will tell you this, we now have created a military the likes of which we have never had before.”
Ms Bartiromo then tweeted the President’s response to Mr Musk and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and Blue Origin.
She tweeted: “Thx @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will f/u on this. Humans want to know. Has earth been visited. @elonmusk & @JeffBezos as earth great space explorers, what do U think?
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Article by Sandra Erwin August 20, 2020 (aerospace.csis.org)
• What nations do in space will frame any future international space law, says General Steven Butow, director of the space portfolio at the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a DoD organization in Silicon Valley that works with private commercial vendors developing technologies relevant to national security. Said Butow, “One of the things we don’t want is to let our competitors and adversaries go out and establish the precedent of how things are going to be done in the solar system, starting with the Moon.”
• The Pentagon is concerned about the possibility that China will establish a presence on the Moon and will try to set the international rules of behavior in space. The issue was raised in a “State of the Space Industrial Base Report 2020” published last month by DIU, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the U.S. Space Force. “As space activities expand beyond geosynchronous orbit, the first nation to establish transportation infrastructure and logistics capabilities serving GEO and cislunar space will have superior ability to exercise control of cislunar space and in particular the Lagrange points and the resources of the Moon,” the report said.
• Control of lunar resources such as hydrogen and oxygen for propellant will be key to “enable overall space commercial development.” And “China has a grand strategy for this,” said Butow. China’s space strategy integrates government, industry and academia. So in order to compete, the United States has to figure out how to marshal the resources of the private sector in a free market economy. The DIU intends to leveraging public private partnerships to our strategic advantage.
• Cislunar space development is likely to be a “hybrid” effort funded both by government and industry. DIU has funded about $200 million worth of space projects with commercial companies that resulted in an additional $2.5 billion in private investment poured into those projects. “We can leverage a lot of that private investment without putting a burden on programs of record which can only be done by the government,” said Butow.
• Brent Sherwood of the private aerospace manufacturer Blue Origin, cautioned that the US government will need to be a stable customer to anchor private businesses contributing to industry in space and on the Moon. But as yet, no one has yet come up with a product that could be generated on the Moon that would add enough value into the terrestrial economy to get private investors to bankroll lunar operations, Sherwood said. NASA selected Blue Origin’s “national team”, which includes Draper, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, to receive a $579 million NASA contract to design vehicles to land humans on the Moon in 2024 under NASA’s Artemis program.
• “We need government to explore and develop the fundamentals,” said Sherwood. “Then we can determine what are the commercial drivers that would cause investment in growth.” “[A]t the beginning there are too many unknowns.” But NASA, other government agencies and the private sector will have to start developing the logistics infrastructure to reach cislunar space and establish a human presence there. Lots of new technologies, such as communications and navigation systems, will be needed to operate there.
• The DIU-led report says US participation in a cislunar economy “will require security and a stabilizing military presence.” The responsibility will fall on the US Space Force to provide “surveillance, aids to navigation, and help when required.”
WASHINGTON — The competition for the moon between the Unites States and China is being closely watched by the Defense Department as the military expects to play a role protecting U.S. access to cislunar space.
One concern for the Pentagon is the possibility that China establishes a presence on the moon before the United States and tries to set the international rules of behavior in space, said Brig. Gen. Steven Butow, director of the space portfolio at the Defense Innovation Unit.
DIU is a Defense Department organization based in Silicon Valley that works with commercial vendors developing technologies relevant to national security.
“Competition is a good thing, but hopefully there’ll be opportunities for cooperative uses of space,” Butow said on Wednesday at the Ascend virtual conference hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Laws are set by precedent, said Butow. What nations do in space will frame any future international space law, he added. “One of the things we don’t want is to let our competitors and adversaries go out and establish the precedent of how things are going to be done in the solar system, starting with the moon.”
The issue was raised in a “state of the space industrial base” report published last month by DIU, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S. Space Force.
“As space activities expand beyond geosynchronous orbit, the first nation to establish transportation infrastructure and logistics capabilities serving GEO and cislunar space will have superior ability to exercise control of cislunar space and in particular the Lagrange points and the resources of the moon,” the report said.
Control of lunar resources such as hydrogen and oxygen for propellant, the report said, will be key to “enable overall space commercial development.”
“China has a grand strategy for this,” said Butow.
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Article by John Varge May 16, 2020 (express.co.uk)
• The ‘Artemis Program’ is NASA’s project – supported by other international space programs and private companies – to establish a permanent human settlement on the Moon by 2028, beginning by landing two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024. On May 15th, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords (see here). NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: “Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon. We go, together.”
• NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.” This vision is in accordance with the “peaceful purposes only” principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the founding document of international space law, which has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the US.
• The Accords seek to ensure no “harmful interference” by one nation in the off-Earth affairs of another, and to publicly disclose their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data. Artemis partners pledge to protect historic sites and artefacts on the Moon and other cosmic locales, as well as to help minimize space-junk.
• Private Moon landers will begin to ferry NASA science and technology experiments to the lunar surface next year. The Accords also cover the space mining of resources on the Moon, Mars and asteroids conducted under the auspices of the Outer Space Treaty. Moon landers will be built by commercial companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. SpaceX is currently developing its huge ‘Starship’ vehicle to help colonize Mars. Starship will launch atop a huge rocket called ‘Super Heavy’, but will land on, and launch off of, the Moon and Mars on its own. Other companies awarded contracts, worth a total of $967 million for 10 months of work, are Blue Origin and Dynetics.
• NASA’s Jim Bridenstine said, “This is the first time since the Apollo era that NASA has direct funding for a human landing system, and now we have companies on contract to do the work for the Artemis program.” “America is moving forward with the final step needed to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024,” including the first woman set foot on the lunar surface.
The US Space Agency has always recognised that international cooperation will be vital if its Artemis programme is to succeed. Artemis is the ambitious project to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024, as a precursor to establishing a permanent human lunar settlement by 2028. On Friday, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords, which stress the peaceful nature of its exploration.
In a tweet, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote: “It’s a new dawn for space exploration!
“Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon.
“We go, together.”
In accordance with principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.”
The outer Space Treaty (OST) is the founding document of international space law.
It has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the United States and other leading space powers.
The OTS stipulates that space exploration should be carried out for peaceful purposes only.
Artemis partners will also be required to be completely transparent about their activities, which means publicly disclosing their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data.
The Accords also cover space mining, which NASA sees as key to humanity’s exploration efforts over the long haul.
NASA officials said the ability to extract and use resources on the moon, Mars and even asteroids would be critical “to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development”.
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