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2018 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. Interplanetary Settlement and In Situ Exploration

Author : Stella Tkatchova

Published in: Emerging Space Markets

Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

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Abstract

Since the last Apollo 17 mission in 1972, interplanetary human spaceflight has been on hold due to various political and budgetary reasons. Even at the time of Apollo, it was a struggle to justify the direct financial return on investment, and politicians were unable to sustain the lunar exploration missions. Nevertheless, the global impact of the Apollo missions has never been forgotten. Many questions are asked today in this connection: Why has humanity not returned to the Moon? Why has a permanent human outpost not been constructed on the Moon? How can NewSpace companies contribute to taking humans to the Moon? Why has humanity waited for so long to exploit resources on the Moon and on asteroids or other near-Earth objects (NEO)? More questions sprang up in connection with Mars research: Is a future human spaceflight to Mars feasible? How can private initiatives and existing commercial space transportation vehicles contribute to Moon and Mars settlement bases? What are the economic benefits from exploiting in situ space-based resources?

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previous chapter Commercialization Lessons

next chapter Commercial Space Station Activities

ISRU operations will include activities like resources assessment, resources acquisition, resource processing, in situ manufacturing, in situ construction and in situ energy.

On December 12, 2016, Mars One announced that it secured an investment of 6 million euros from a Hong Kong investment fund and is trading publicly its stocks at the Frankfurt stock exchange (MarsOne, Mars One now trades publicly and closes 6 million euros funding 2016b).

Russia is planning to rebuild the Russian Lunar lander robotic capability and perform five lunar missions in which four lunar landers are included. The Russians are planning to launch the Luna-26 orbiter and Luna-27 rover to the lunar surface and in 2024 launch Luna-25 Lander.

Japan is planning to launch by 2019 the SLIM mission and by 2022 the Selene-2 mission with an orbiter, lander and rover on landing on the surface of the Moon.

The Chinese are working on a first robotic Moon lander that is supposed to be a precursor to a manned lunar module that would carry Chinese astronauts to the Moon around 2030. Certain authors report that the six Chang landers are being designed and built—two landers each with rovers, and as many as four other landers to complete two missions that would each bring back to Earth 2 kg of lunar rock and regolith (Covault, November 2013).

India is planning to launch the Chandrayaan-2 mission with an orbiter, lander and rover.

Lunokhod-1 landed on the Moon in 1970 and Lunokhod-2 in 1973.

NASA NextStep programme is a programme considered by NASA as a public-private partnership for partnering with industry in the commercial development of deep space exploration capabilities to support more extensive human spaceflight missions in the proving ground around and beyond cislunar space—the space near Earth that extends just beyond the moon (NASA, Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) BAA Synopsis 2016d).

Foreign companies could be eligible partners under US-led consortium but must comply with the Guidelines for Foreign Participation which will require no exchange of funding.

It has been reported that Roscosmos will spend 7.5 million $ on this study (Writers 2016).

The programme will operate in a similar way as the NASA COTS programme.

3D printing may be difficult on the Moon gravity.

Data from LRO, LCROSS and Chandrayaan probes have demonstrated the availability of huge deposits of ice in the cold trap craters of the lunar poles.

A zero-G printer was launched into orbit in 2014 and was a result of a joined partnership between NASA MSFC and the company Made in Space (Space 2015).

The company became famous for its Kick starting campaign of “selfies” into space using their Arkyd telescopes, as part of their Ceres programme for the launch of ten Earth observation microsatellites with the objective to provide EO services in agriculture, fire and pollution monitoring. Sadly due to low interest from the business community, the Arkyd Kick starting campaign was cancelled, and the company will return the funding to the public.

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Title: Interplanetary Settlement and In Situ Exploration
Author: Stella Tkatchova
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Book: Emerging Space Markets
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-55667-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-662-55669-6

Copyright Year: 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-55669-6_4

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