“I’m on the surface, and, as I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come – but we believe not too long into the future – I’d like to just [say] what I believe history will record. That America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. And as we leave the moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.”
THOSE words, , aren’t nearly as famous as Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind”. But as we gear up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing this July, they have a certain pathos. The last words spoken on the moon came just three-and-a-bit years after the first. Since they were uttered, humanity hasn’t ventured beyond near-Earth orbit. Our aspiration to reach for the stars – or at least the nearer bits of outer space – was over almost as soon as it began.
Advertisement
Just lately, however, space is looking a little crowded again. National space agencies and private companies in the US, China, Japan, India, Israel and elsewhere are vying to send uncrewed missions to the moon, Mars and beyond. In the US, one of the two original space powers, the stated aim is to send humans back to the moon by 2024. Other countries are making serious noises about permanent space bases, too. So why this space boom, and why now? And crucially – are we ready for it?
The original space race was simple to fathom: it was a straight fight between the two main parties to the cold war, fought largely for propaganda purposes. “The Soviet Union was suffering from poverty and corruption and it still cemented itself as a huge power by what it could accomplish in space,” says Laura Forczyk of the space consultancy firm in Atlanta, Georgia. The Soviets made the early running, too, launching the first artificial satellite in 1957 and putting the first man, and woman, into space in the early 1960s.
That stung the US into action. Its Apollo programme ensured that it pulled off the ultimate coup of that one small step onto the moon on 20 July 1969. But after that, the increasing cost and decreasing propaganda value of crewed space flight meant dreams of moon bases or settling on Mars remained just that – dreams.
Discover more about NASA’s missions: Explore four NASA space centres on a Â鶹´«Ă˝ Discovery Tour
We never gave up entirely on space, of course. Earth’s immediate environment has become increasingly packed with satellites surveying the planet and beaming messages around it, plus a whole load of associated junk. Then there is the International Space Station (ISS), a symbol of a new era of post-cold war space cooperation since its first component blasted into orbit in 1998. It is jointly operated by NASA, the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency. Since Cernan’s return, its orbit 400 kilometres up is the furthest humans have strayed from Earth.
“China has established itself as a space superpower, with capabilities like the original two”
The times they are a’changing, however. Most notably, China has rapidly established itself as a third space superpower, with capabilities approaching those of the original two. The China National Space Administration sent its first “t˛ąľ±°ě´Ç˛Ô˛ąłÜłŮ” into space in 2003, and has now landed uncrewed craft on the moon twice, including Chang’e 4, which made the first controlled landing on the far side of the moon in January. After short-lived successes, it plans to have its own permanent space station up and running by the early 2020s. In total, 13 nations plus an additional 22 that collaborate in ESA have rocket launch capabilities, and there are 72 separate national space agencies.
Former NASA deputy administrator explains this boom with science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson’s sentiment that the only motivations that drive big things are fear, greed and glory. “Apollo was a combination of fear and glory,” she says. “I think this renaissance is about greed, and I’m fine with that.” That is true at least of some commercial interests, who want to get in early on what they see as an industry that will one day boom. With smaller nations, glory is still in play. “For the new countries in space flight, they haven’t gotten their glory yet,” says Garver.
As for the “why now?”, the basic story is simple. “When there’s sort of a sea change, it’s usually because there’s tonnes going on underneath the surface,” says Mary Lynne Dittmar of the , a space-industry advocacy group based in Washington DC. The jump may seem sudden, but humanity has been slowly building towards this for decades.
Take the “new” space power, India: it has been launching satellites with its own rockets since 1980. An Indian Space Research Organisation probe that entered orbit around Mars in September 2014 brought it into the spotlight as the fourth space agency to get there after NASA, Roscosmos and the ESA.
Similarly, Japan launched Hayabusa, the first mission to bring back samples of dust from an asteroid, as far back as 2003. Its successor, Hayabusa 2, blasted a cannonball at another asteroid to take samples last month. The Hayabusa missions are part of a conscious softly-softly approach on Japan’s part. “Frequent small missions would be the path for us to pursue, and this should allow new players to participate in our missions,” says Masaki Fujimoto, deputy director of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
That illustrates a key factor in the new space race: the willingness of smaller nations to work with industry. Nowhere was that more apparent than with the Beresheet mission that, after successfully reaching orbit around the moon, crash-landed on its surface on 11 April. It was run by , an Israeli company founded to participate in the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered $20 million to the first privately funded venture to land on the moon. Although mostly backed by private donors, it got some funding from the Israeli government and displayed an Israeli flag.
Despite the ultimate failure to touch down, owing to an engine problem in the final stages of landing, “Beresheet is a great testament to show that you don’t have to be a superpower to land on the moon”, says John Thornton, CEO of US space robotics company . “That same thing can be repeated all around the world.” The Mexican Space Agency, which was only founded in 2010, is planning to send a scientific instrument to the moon aboard an Astrobotic lander sometime this year.
Ready-made rockets
Dig deeper, and you find the developments reflect different strands of progress coming together to give us more ways to play in space. Decades of miniaturising electronics and other components, plus advances in 3D printing and robotics, means that spacecraft parts are cheaper and easier than ever to make. “Back in the Apollo era, they were inventing technology for the first time and using the very first of everything,” says Thornton. “Now you can just go buy the parts you need and it’s making it possible to build spacecraft very, very quickly.”
Space technology companies are springing up to fill a multitude of niches, so would-be space adventurers don’t have to go through years of research and development on their own as larger companies did in the early 2000s. “They’re able to get start-up cash, do development and get their product to market in a very short amount of time, and I think that’s where the renaissance is coming from,” says Eric Stallmer of the in Washington DC.
Underpinning all of this is a revolution in the launch market. Getting the NASA space shuttle into orbit cost about $1.5 billion per trip by the time it was retired in 2011. A launch with ESA’s Ariane 5 rocket today will set you back around $200 million. But , the company founded by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, has been launching large rockets into orbit since 2010. One of its Falcon 9 rockets can now get your mission there for $62 million.
If you are willing to ride-share – to launch your spacecraft in a bundle with other satellites aboard the same rocket – the costs get even lower. If you have a satellite that is under 100 kilograms, one of US company smaller Electron rockets could launch it from its New Zealand facility for just $5 million. In 2018, there were 114 rocket launches using 25 different types of rocket. “There’s this cycle of goodness: the more they can launch, the more the cost is reduced, therefore the more people come up with things to launch because they can afford to,” says Garver.
The true new space race may be more between the large private launch providers than between nations. SpaceX, the and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s are all working on new heavy-lift rockets to take cargo into deep space, although SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is the only one that has flown as yet.
So far, so non-human. But along with the big rocket companies, smaller firms are working on the tech for human space flight, from budget lunar landers to habitats that inflate or that are 3D printed from Martian dust.
For now, the customers for commercial firms big and small are mainly governments, particularly the US government, through NASA. More than half of SpaceX’s launches have carried payloads from US government agencies. “NASA is providing a backbone,” says Dittmar. “I see it as a natural evolution: money flowing from government into business ventures, ventures furthering this technology and government eventually moving on.”
The US government is certainly not moving on yet. In March, vice president Mike Pence announced that the president would direct NASA to send astronauts to the moon by 2024 “by any means necessary”. That is a tall order: ideally, NASA would use its own Space Launch System rocket, but it has been mired in schedule and budget overruns since the agency contracted Boeing to start building it in 2012. NASA could use a rocket from SpaceX or Blue Origin, but it would require an overhaul of how payloads are put on those rockets, .
Such an ambitious deadline will require additional funding. If NASA gets it, that could be a game changer for the wider space-flight industry. “If that’s an enduring statement, that’s going to push everybody hard and really be the deliverance on this renaissance,” says Andrew Rush, the CEO of in-space manufacturing company .
NASA’s plans, which include a , are far from the only ones – after all, the moon is an obvious first step in our second attempt to reach for space. “I think of the moon as our practice ground as a species,” says Thornton. “If you can learn to really live off the land and use the resources of another planetary body, that’s when we can become true explorers of our solar system.”
“The new jump into space may seem sudden, but humanity has been building to this for decades”
In 2017, Musk announced that SpaceX would aim to enable the creation of a lunar base. Last week, Bezos announced Blue Origin’s plans for developing a crewed lander to go to the moon’s south pole by Pence’s 2024 deadline. That would be a prelude to setting up a permanent settlement there, eventually moving industry from Earth into space. Nine other companies, including Astrobotic, have been awarded NASA contracts to work on moon landers.
Meanwhile, in the wake of its successful moon landings, China is turning its sights towards crewed missions and eventually a lunar research station. ESA has ambitious plans for many robotic missions and crewed flights to Mars in the 2030s, and has developed a concept for a . Roscosmos has announced plans to establish a lunar settlement by 2040, although experts have questioned its ability to do so, given that Russia has done no planetary exploration since the Soviet Union was dissolved.
Not everyone is entirely at ease with the direction of space travel. ESA director-general is worried about a return of the “space race” framing, seeing it as counter to the collaboration that has been fruitful in projects like the ISS. “I hope that we are not back into the race,” he says. “If we do this together beyond Earthly borders, beyond Earthly politics, beyond any Earthly crisis, then we do a service for all humankind.”
ESA’s own moon base concept follows this collaborative principle, says Wörner. “The Moon Village is a multi-partner open concept. ESA’s role is something like a broker to bring together the different players,” he says.
Rules of the road
If we don’t do it together, we might not be able to do it at all, says Wörner. In March, India tested its new anti-satellite missile system, the fourth country to do so, blasting one of its satellites into pieces. “India registered its name as a space power,” said Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in a statement after the test. That registration came with a cost: hundreds of bits of fast-moving debris, putting other satellites and even the ISS in danger.
“Especially in light of this anti-satellite test, it’s clear that there need to be rules of the road,” says Stallmer. The more satellites and other spacecraft we send up, the more difficult it is to keep an eye on everything. Tracking capabilities and international laws need to catch up with the boom in commercial space flight. “You can’t just expand the space industry by orders of magnitude and manage it as business as usual,” says Laura Grego of the in Massachusetts.
But get it right, and we can all benefit. Having more satellites has given us better internet and communications, and more accurate weather forecasting and GPS. Testing on the ISS has led to the development of water purification systems that are more compact and efficient than ever before. Building spacecraft has enabled innumerable advances in material science. “Space is a team sport,” says Rush. “The more folks that are thinking about utilisation in space to help their populations or their customers or their industry, the better it is for everyone.”
So what is behind the new space race? Glory – certainly. Greed – undoubtedly. But it is also about dreaming, and a genuine desire to push the boundaries of science and technology in space once more. “All of the people who are coming to the table right now, they’re being drawn to the big idea – the big idea that we’re going out and exploring again,” says Dittmar. Fifty years after the culmination of the first space race, we are listening out again for those next words from the moon.
