Space Development and Space Science Together, an Historic Opportunity

摘要

The national space programs have an historic opportunity to help solve theglobal-scale economic and environmental problems of Earth while becoming moreeffective at science through the use of space resources. Space programs will bemore cost-effective when they work to establish a supply chain in space, miningand manufacturing then replicating the assets of the supply chain so it growsto larger capacity. This has become achievable because of advances in roboticsand artificial intelligence. It is roughly estimated that developing a lunaroutpost that relies upon and also develops the supply chain will cost about 1/3or less of the existing annual budgets of the national space programs. It willrequire a sustained commitment of several decades to complete, during whichtime science and exploration become increasingly effective. At the end, thisspace industry will capable of addressing global-scale challenges includinglimited resources, clean energy, economic development, and preservation of theenvironment. Other potential solutions, including nuclear fusion andterrestrial renewable energy sources, do not address the root problem of ourlimited globe and there are real questions whether they will be inadequate ortoo late. While industry in space likewise cannot provide perfect assurance, itis uniquely able to solve the root problem, and it gives us an important chancethat we should grasp. What makes this such an historic opportunity is that thespace-based solution is obtainable as a side-benefit of doing space science andexploration within their existing budgets. Thinking pragmatically, it may takesome time for policymakers to agree that setting up a complete supply chain isan achievable goal, so this paper describes a strategy of incremental progress.