May 1st, 2023 |
We have liftoff! What an exciting moment - the SpaceX Starship vehicle clearing its launch tower with twice the thrust of the Apollo Saturn V rocket. Its “rapid unscheduled disassembly” aside, Starship’s launch last week was another sign that we’re truly entering a new era in spaceflight. I could not be more excited.
But… not to take anything away from this achievement, I can’t shake a feeling of high anxiety. It’s worth taking a moment to talk soberly about the complexity and uncertainty of what SpaceX is attempting.
There have been many reports about the mind-boggling complexity of Starship, a massive vehicle with many points of failure. For it to perform as intended, so many things must work together in ways that have never been attempted before. I can only imagine how many heart-stopping moments the SpaceX team has had throughout the development of this improbable vehicle.
We are all collectively holding our breath until Starship completes its development and test phases and takes its place as the largest operational heavy lift vehicle the world has ever known.
But this same feeling of “holding our breath” can be applied to many other areas of the emerging space sector.
For example, I just wrote an opinion piece for Space News (to be published soon, they tell me) about why the success of NASA’s Commercial LEO Destination (CLD) program is critically important. As I said in our Beyond Earth webinar in March, “the success of the CLD program and, more broadly, commercial space stations, cannot be allowed to fail. It's important because they represent the underpinning of all that will come after that in terms of human expansion to the cislunar environment and beyond.”
We are at a moment on so many fronts in the space arena where the future we want to see is so palpably close, while at the same time, there remains a high degree of uncertainty that we will make the transition.
In some areas, we can claim success. Earth-facing small satellites and space-based Internet are early success stories.
But there is far less certainty with CLD, Starship, and the many other big space infrastructure projects.
We can add to the list NASA’s lunar Artemis program, including the envisioned Lunar Base Camp and eventually a Humans to Mars mission.
Then there is NASA’s just announced Consortium for Space Mobility and ISAM Capabilities (COSMIC), a nationwide coalition that will “invigorate a domestic in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM) capability.” The Department of Commerce is preparing to take on the Space Situation Awareness mission. And the newly minted U.S. Space Force has its hand in all of it. Even space-based solar power is being pursued, especially in Europe.
Clearly, government and industry must be applauded for forging ahead with big plans for space.
Yet, I can’t shake the anxiety about the massive expectations that depend on so many technical and funding factors to work in concert. The obvious crack in all the optimism was the recent report that private investment in space ventures has dwindled in recent months.
Of course, please tell me my worries are unfounded if you disagree.
It’s like the feeling I had when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, Zoe. I didn’t want anything to go wrong, but, at the same time, I had little control over the outcome.
What happens when things do go wrong, as they probably will? Can we all put on our ‘Elon Musk face’ and power through the setbacks?
Perhaps we’ve crossed some threshold into a new era, and there is no turning back now. We as a community are ready and able to see the myriad of requirements through to the other side no matter what.
But that assumption, even if true, would be naïve to accept as a working principle.
Let’s remain clear-eyed about the budget and technical battles ahead and do our best to prepare for them at every level.
Because come what may, we indeed must make it to the other side.
And I can’t wait for the next Starship test flight, should it end in rapidly planned disassembly or not!
Ad Astra,
Steve Wolfe, President and co-founder, Beyond Earth Institute
