The Retardation of Space Travel

...and its Consequences

In the light of mankind’s seemingly natural escalation of exploration and technological progress, the last forty years marks the non-appearance of giant white elephant which few seem to acknowledge or comment on much: How has it come about that Mankind’s thirst for new frontiers has come to a screeching halt?

Consider the time-line comparison below:

1909 - 1949 Forty years of accelerated expansion In 1909, Luis Bleriot crosses the English Channel in his monoplane. 1919, manned non-stop flight from New York to California 1929, first round the World flight is achieved. 1939, first successful manned flight of a jet plane. 1949, first manned non-stop flight around the World. Summary: From the ground hopping to non-stop circumnavigation of our planet in 40 years.

1969 - 2009 Forty years with no significant expansion In 1969, manned space craft lands on the moon. 1979 the manned Space Shuttle nears completion. 1989, unmanned launch of the Galileo spacecraft. 1999, Manned Space Station, 200 miles above the Earth. 2009 sees the beginning phase-out of the Space Shuttle. There is no replacement. Summary: Regressing from the Moon to orbiting a scant 200 miles above the Earth.

In the first seven decades of the last century, our ability to rapidly cover large distances went from barely getting off the ground to flying non-stop around the World. This breath-taking pace of technological advancement culminated in placing a man on the Moon, 76 years after the first tenuous leaps into the air at Kitty Hawk.
The next forty years, from 1969 to 2009 one could best describe manned expansion into space as exceedingly retarded. Forty years after Mankind landed on the moon, all we have achieved is a tenuous foothold in space, the barely funded Space Station, orbiting a scant 200 miles above the Earth. Even more disturbing, the Space Shuttle, which was America’s only versatile space-going vehicle, is about to be scrapped, with no foreseeable replacement.
In 1967, the imagery in Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001 Space Odyssey” movie did not seem far-fetched. Man was due to land on the moon in a couple of years, and extrapolating from the past meteoric rise of aeronautics, moon bases 30 years hence seemed so predictable that the concept was almost humdrum.

The real surprise was that this amazing technological expansion and advancement has come to a screeching halt.
It is an ominous sign, for it suggests that a major shift in our species modern social behaviour has occurred.
Apologists will state several reasons for this shift away from manned spaced exploration, chiefly amongst the arguments is that long-term resource output does not justify short-term gains, visualized as a profit incentive. The essence of other objections can be boiled down to the gradual stripping away of financial resources, these being increasingly reallocated towards the escalating proxy wars in Third World countries as competing nation-states bicker over diminishing global resources.
The less than enthusiastic move to send men to Mars is a concept visualized to happen so far into the future that it allows politicians to complete their tenure with no real commitment, passing the project along to the next generation who would be likely to inherit the unsubstantial drive of their predecessors. The whole affair is reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch in which a chartered accountant wishing to become a lion-tamer, advised by his job guidance councilor to approach his job-change by gradual degrees “via, banking.”

The retarding trend is disturbing, because manned expansion and settlement of the solar system would alleviate dangerous nation-state competition brought about by expanding populations and an increasing need for diminishing energy and raw materials.
Expansion into space is also the ultimate species insurance, in that we are less likely to be wiped out by any number of conceivable planetary catastrophes.

It may be quite possible that the only real hope for a future in which Mankind emigrates into space will once again to boil down to the military might of nation-states jostling for tactical high ground. After all, a strong argument could be made that the only reason Man made it to the Moon was due to the Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and the United States. It is perhaps no coincidence that the decline of outward expansion is directly related to the lack of competition. One can draw a direct parallel between the collapse of the Soviet Union and America’s flagging interest in manned space projects, in which case the emergence of new, powerful nation-states will topple the placid World Order of the last twenty years, in which the US was indisputably dominant.
Sad indeed, having to entertain the notion that, in order to accelerate space exploration we must tolerate the military competition of nation-states as they vie for high ground. This is a dangerous path, fraught with the possible seeds of our own self-destruction.
Sadder still would be the continuing strangulation of space expansion which will ultimately herald an inevitable self-destruction as diminishing nation-states, trapped like competing molds in a petri dish, slowly strangle each other for lack of resources.

If this ‘cold war aggression’ is what it takes to re-awaken the expansion outwards, then it is with some trepidation that I welcome the coming competition between the USA and the emerging super-states, whilst praying that we succeed in gaining a foothold in space before we run out of resources and self-destruct.
Our insatiably increasing need for ever more resources is rapidly driving us down a one-way corridor towards an inescapable dead end. From this corridor there is but one avenue of escape: We must continue to expand outward into the Solar System if for no other reason that to feed the material appetite of our voracious species.
To this end, we desperately need to develop our technologies in order to build space elevators so that inexpensive payloads can be brought out of Earth’s gravity well, and do the research necessary to understand how sealed biospheres can function.

Mankind is rapidly out-growing Mother Earth and the bio-mass of our species is becoming too large for her insular womb. The time is rapidly approaching when we have to emerge from the planet Earth and cut the umbilical cord - or perish.

Space Elevator - The Strategic Argument

"General Sickles, this is in some respects higher ground than that to the rear, but there is still higher in front of you, and if you keep on advancing you will find constantly higher ground all the way to the mountains."
-Major General George Meade, Commanding the Army of the Potomac, July 2, 1863

"Space elevator" ...since Google Alert became available, I have been informed whenever someone comments on this topic, providing they publish it on the web. In all that time I have never come across the obvious, darker side as to why the space elevator will be an imperative to powerful nations that are continually seeking a strategic advantage over their perceived adversaries.

When the Soviets launched Sputnik in the late 50's, the the United States was aghast, realizing only then that a perceived enemy was on their way to taking the strategic and military high ground.
Although it seems obvious to many individuals, perhaps I ought to elucidate: "High ground" in a military sense in very advantageous, because your opponent has to climb out of the gravity well in order to engage you, whereas you have the advantage of utilizing the gravity well against your opponent. In other words, it's easier to chuck a spear down hill, rather than uphill. The more resources you have available on the high ground, the greater are your chances of success.

Of course, the outcome of the Sputnik story is history. The US was galvanized out of its strategic torpor and beat the Soviets by putting a man on the moon before they did. As the space age progressed, both sides realized something significant: It would take a ruinous amount of resources to place and maintain orbital nuclear weapons outside Earth's gravity well. Both sides resolved the issue by banning weapons in space, included in the Partial Test Ban Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Besides, ballistic missiles lobbed in sub-orbital fashion was - and remains - an effective nuclear deterrent, minimizing the need for 'higher ground'.

Welcome to the dawning age of the space elevator.
Conceived in 1895, a Russian scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris to consider a tower that reached all the way into space. He noted that a mass significant enough in size orbiting Earth in a geostationary manner, attached to the Earth at the equator in some fashion would make it possible to literally hoist people and material up and down, out of Earth's gravity well and into space - a modern-day Jacob's Ladder.

Fast-forward to present day, and we find ourselves on the cusp of realizing the space elevator may soon be a reality. Technological advances in carbon fiber research allow for strands as hard as diamond, making possible the magic 'rope' needed to affix satellite to Earth.

Since I started monitoring "space elevator" comments on the web, there has been marked increase in the chatter on the subject. The topic is slowly becoming part of common shared consciousness, making it ever more probable that it is an issue that will come to the forefront in the foreseeable future.

Were a single nation-state to take upon itself the task of building a space elevator, competing states ought to sit up and pay close attention: The 'higher ground' paradigm will be reborn, because it takes significantly less resources to hoist men and materials out of the gravity well than the present practice of putting objects and men aloft in chemical rockets. The implications ought to be obvious. Unlimited quantities of resources placed outside the Earth's gravity will afford a huge strategic and military advantage to the nation-state that builds the space elevator.

Perhaps the only sane approach would be an international effort, securing the means of lift out of Earth's gravity well for all nations. It ought to be easy to place under monitoring restraint, affording everyone access to space.

Of course there is the caveat that, once a given nation state has enough resources in space, who knows what they'll do with it?

Nauru and the coming of the Space Elevator Complex

Open Letter to the Government and President of Nauru:

Dear Friends,

It may not have come to your attention yet, but the Republic of Nauru is about to become the most valuable real estate on our planet, because it is one of the very few locations where a space elevator can be realized.

For physical reasons, the space elevator can only be constructed on or near the equator. Your country is ideally suited because Nauru has harbor installations, asphalt roads and a landing facilities capable of handling large aircraft. Most importantly, it is an island surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean. Hence, security will not be an issue.

If you look at a globe and circumvent the World at the equator, you will see that most of the equatorial landfall is on countries that are politically unstable and where security would be a real issue. The other few islands that exist on the equator have no infrastructure to speak of. These factors make your nation a very attractive site for the space elevator complex.

Because of these factors, it would behoove your government to give close consideration to this issue and take a pro-active stance. It would be nice to see Nauru gain a long term benefit from this resource, rather than have it become an exploited Panama, or as in your not so distant past, a wholesale rape of your island by mining speculators.

Could the unproductive land in the island interior be nationalized? If that were possible, it could be leased to the highest bidder without the conflict that would inevitably occur if it were left to real estate speculators.


When you have your ducks in order, it would be prudent to start making NASA, the European Space Agency and the Chinese Space agency aware of your real estate. As far as the media goes, this will be a very "sexy" issue, and your nation is sure to gain a lot of coverage, long before the space elevator is actually realized.


Respectfully yours,

The Space Elevator and the Old Testament

"...He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun
had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his
head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there
was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven;
and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And
behold, the LORD stood above it [or "beside him"] and said, "I am the
LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on
which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your
descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread
abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south;
and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth
bless themselves..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob's_Ladder_(Bible)

Ideal Space Elevator location

Where does one place a Space Elevator?
Nauru, a small island in the Pacific, an optimum place for a Space Elevator.

I took a virtual trip, circumnavigating the World at the equator to see what places were realistically feasible for placing a space elevator using the following three points as a guide:

• The location must be near the equator.
• Easy access for transportation.
• Road infrastructure.
  
• Securable.

There is surprisingly little land on the equator, and much of that is subject to unstable governments and/or too easily accessible to terrorist attack. One of the few locations that almost fit the above parameters is in the Galapagos islands, but unfortunately it is on an active volcanic island.
When all was said and done, I was really only left with a small island called Nauru

Nauru can accommodate Commercial aircraft and has port facilities

• The island is a scant 40 miles from the equator.
• It has a full-size runway that can take commercial aircraft.
• There are port facilities.
• The population is small and inclined to Western ideals.
• Because of the vast expanse of ocean surrounding it, access to the island can easily be monitored, thus enhancing security.

At a glance, it is surprising that such a small island with a proportionate population would be in possession of such over-sized transportation facilities, until you learn that this is because of it's main - and dwindling - export.
Guano - essentially bird-poop, layer upon layer created century upon century, creating a commercially viable quantity of rich phosphates, suitable for fertilizer and other commodities. These were ruthlessly mined to exhaustion in the last century. With some of the proceeds, Nauru was able to build a hard-cover road that rings the island. They also had a first-rate runway constructed, capable of receiving commercial aircraft.
To remove the guano, a deep port facility was created which now sits largely unused.
English is widely spoken and literacy is at %97. The country desperately needs some kind of economical infusion, and an invitation to host a Space Elevator would probably be very favorably received.