Fifty years after Apollo, space is about to transform our life on Earth beyond recognition
The Apollo 11 space mission caught our imagination in 1969. And it was painfully suggestive to hear the recordings of Michael Collins, who died last week, tell how watching Earth rammed home from space, how precious our planet is.
Last week also marked three other milestones for space. A recording $ 8.7 billion has been raised by venture capitalists over the past year to support companies in space-based commercial opportunities; Eutelsat of France joined the UK as a shareholder in the satellite communications company OneWeb; and China launched the first part of its own space station to house three “taikonauts”. We go beyond the wonder of watching Collins’ colleagues, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walk on the moon to something transformational.
Space is at a turning point, about to merge electricity, the computer, and the railroad as a great general-purpose technology that will transform economies and societies. For those who dare, whose capitalism and governments have the right alchemy of enterprise and public purpose, and who have the pure chutzpah to see the possibilities, great prizes will fall. Britain could be one of them.
Power plant spaceships with huge solar mirrors can catch the sun’s rays 24/7 … send them to solar panels on Earth
Concerned about the impact of nearly 10 billion people by 2050 burning fossil fuels that would raise the Earth’s temperature unsustainably? Relax. There is space available. By then, power plant spaceships are in permanent orbit with huge solar mirrors will capture the sun’s rays 24/7, turn them into microwaves and send them to solar panels on Earth.
Sci-fi romance? It is already possible – and is one of the goals of the Chinese space station, with China pledging to provide space power as soon as 2030. It also informs the thinking behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Its reusable rockets can transport material into space at a fraction of the current cost to build such power plants.
Musk is the man behind Tesla. The global automotive industry dismissed its vision of battery-powered cars as fanciful. Now Tesla is the coolest car range out there, of which stock market value is worth it more than the rest of the automotive industry combined. Getting material into space cheaply – satellites, spacecraft power plants, and factories – is one of the technologies that accelerate the opening up of the territory. I would support his vision a second time.
Factories? The only way to manufacture flawless fiber optic cables, print exact copies of body parts such as hearts and lungs, make ultra-light metal alloys from materials such as magnesium that can be used in our bodies, and – more imaginatively – an exact simulation of flesh is to make it do where there is no gravity. Within a generation, there may be space factories producing all of this and more. Back to Earth, we will be transported in autonomous, satellite-controlled vehicles powered by satellite-generated electricity and eating meat produced in space.
GPS navigation systems already work with satellites, and that’s just the beginning. Space images are getting clearer and more accurate; satellite images identified the massive concentration camps that China used for its enforced “rectification” programs for Uyghurs. It is also possible to see from space who is fishing and mining illegally; which factories use child labor; which infrastructure is reaching the end of its life; identify which rock formations may contain vital precious metals; anticipating droughts and floods; mock movements of troops and military equipment. Companies declare that they are committed to the UN’s sustainability goals, but cannot and cannot fully control more than a fraction of their global supply chains. The answer is simple: do it from space.
Communication is transformed. Air traffic control systems for monitoring the whereabouts and guidance of aircraft and drones will become completely dependent on satellites. Universal 5G is best delivered by including constellations of low Earth orbit satellites – such as those to be delivered later this year by OneWeb, the controversial space company bought from the bankruptcy trustees last year by the UK government, which has a gold stake in the company.
This was Dominic Cummings’ best hour – even as he tried to justify it as a new freedom granted by Brexit. So how come France can also buy a stake to join Japan and, it is expected, Saudi Arabia? But without Cummings’ passionate belief that Britain needed a presence in space communications, a reluctant Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy would have killed the initiative.
The framework that worked so well to make Britain a center for vaccine production should also be applied in space
Next month, the government will publish its space strategy. It must be informed by the same audacity that drove the OneWeb purchase. Great Britain is not China or the US, and leaving the EU has narrowed the chances of playing in the big league. But nevertheless, Great Britain has trumps. In addition to OneWeb, companies specialize in niches – fabrication of nanosatellites and antennas, and air quality monitoring. Leicester and its university is one of Europe’s leading centers for space exploration and fabrication Harwell in Oxford, and plans are underway to create Fawley, Aylesbury, the Northeast and Glasgow space innovation sites.
The Catapult for satellite applications (explanation: I am a non-executive director) is committed to promoting space-based commercial activities, exploring opportunities and forging alliances. For example, it has formed a consortium aimed at promoting space-generated solar energy, and is collaborating with Oxford University to create a center to use satellite-collected data not only to inform a green funding initiative, but also to create the AI for planet earth. Institute, sort of a budding Jenner Institute – not for borderline vaccines, but to promote sustainability.
The public-private framework that worked so well to make Britain an international center for vaccine production in just 18 months should be applied to the space as well. Britain needs to identify two or three areas in which it wants to be number one worldwide: solar energy in space, earth observation to mitigate climate change, and nanosatellite manufacturing. Then we have to achieve these goals with muscle strength and energy. We cannot let this moment pass.
