Mission to Mars (18 page)

Most certainly, there are legal matters to be resolved, and before too much is assumed. It’s my personal sense that the
United Nations is not the body that should be determining the future legalities of space prospecting and mining. Rather, I see something like an International Orbital Development Authority, an International Lunar Development Authority, and an International Outer Orbit Authority handling these issues.

In the case of setting up the U.S. flag on the moon on Apollo 11, there wasn’t a “one small step … it’s mine” declaration. We set a precedent. We also noted the plaque mounted on the
Eagle
lander that read:
“Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind
”—words used to convey that our mission was one of exploration and not conquest.

How sorting out the adjudication of resource-rich celestial objects will play out remains open for dialogue and, quite literally, there is need to dig into these issues deeper.

The outlook for mining asteroids was boosted in 2012 by the intentions of a new private U.S. company, Planetary Resources, Inc., based in Seattle. This team of entrepreneurs announced the venture aimed at mining the solar system, a plan that is billionaire-backed and enthusiastically supported by such people as filmmaker James Cameron, an adviser to the group.

Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer of Planetary Resources, has scripted a multipronged program to access resources from near-Earth asteroids. He makes it clear that developing space resources and creating a market for the volatile mineral and metallic resources of asteroids would be a slice of a larger undertaking. Mining the moon, establishing space-based solar power, and growing a space tourism market are examples of taking the economic sphere of influence on Earth and moving it beyond the belt of moneymaking geostationary satellites, where it now abruptly stops.

Planetary Resources design for capture of near-Earth asteroid for mining

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Illustration Credit 5.12
)

Planetary Resources has outlined a plan to launch a line of low-cost robotic spacecraft. In essence, they have a business plan that calls for the detection, inspection, and interception of asteroids. A first step is to explore for and chart resource-rich asteroids within reach. After intensive study of selected asteroids, the group’s intent is to then develop the most efficient capabilities to deliver asteroid resources directly to both space-based and terrestrial customers. What can be extracted from near-Earth asteroids?

Asteroids are floating troves of materials like iron, nickel, and water, as well as of rare platinum group metals—often in
significantly higher concentration than found on Earth—such as ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum.

These space rocks vary widely in composition. They can contain water, metals, and carbonaceous materials in various amounts. Some asteroids are loaded with large quantities of water, while other asteroids hold concentrated metals rare on Earth. Water from asteroids is a key resource in space, not only as sustenance for human space travelers but also as rocket propellant.

Certainly not last on the benefit list is furthering American preeminence in space by conducting deep space missions that are practice runs for getting our feet firmly on Mars.

So in summary, prior to conducting either robotic or human missions, securing the target asteroid’s orbit and what it’s like is critical. For instance, how fast is the asteroid’s rotation period; how easy will it be to station-keep alongside the object or “dock” and anchor to the space rock’s surface? Surface activities at an asteroid include robotic sample collection and deployment of probes (radar, acoustic, seismometer, et cetera), experiments, and planetary defense devices.

What about the long-duration human interplanetary space mission itself and the unique challenges for the crew, spacecraft systems, and the mission control team back on Earth? Like in the reach for Mars, the drive outward to NEOs needs to utilize the International Space Station to assist in the development of technologies and operational approaches.

Needing emphasis here is that a human mission to an asteroid is a “short-stay” Mars moons mission. It demonstrates, among a list of purposes, linkage to future Mars missions in terms of exercising the transportation system, surveying planetary bodies,
furthering deep space operations by crews, and performing teleoperations from a piloted spacecraft to the object being studied.

However the future unfolds, what’s needed is a series of steps that convert the NEO natural hazard into natural stepping-stones to support our jump deeper into space. Doing so fills the bill of my Unified Space Vision rules of the road, of exploration, science, development, commerce, and security—and keeps us solidly on the road ahead.

Buzz Aldrin shows a model of Phobos, one of Mars’s moons, to President Obama
.

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Illustration Credit 5.13
)

I was an attentive listener when U.S. President Barack Obama declared on April 15, 2010, at the Kennedy Space Center: “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth.”

To fulfill the President’s promissory note to the future, I believe that the human reach for the red planet involves a stepping-stone approach, first to Phobos, one of two Martian moons. To be sure, our trips with crews to asteroids prepare us for this rung of the ladder to Mars, as Phobos is like a big asteroid.

Phobos is a way station, a perfect perch that becomes the first sustainable habitat on another world. From that mini-world, crews on Phobos can run robotic vehicles on Mars more directly, in a much shorter communication delay time than commands
sent from faraway Earth. Robotic stand-ins for astronauts will ready the habitats and other hardware on the Martian surface, in preparation for the first human crew to arrive on Mars. That’s my judgment. My theory right now is that somebody piecing together hardware on Mars through telerobotics on Phobos is the right person to later lead the first landing mission on the red planet.

My approach may well be a contested way to get to Mars, as I’m rubbing up against some unrelenting NASA space planners—but that’s not new for me.

Phobos and Deimos are, in a sense, offshore islands of Mars, discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. They were tagged with names from Greek mythology: Phobos means “fear,” Deimos, “terror.” In the future these Martian moons are likely to symbolize just the opposite: courage and security.

Both moons are tidally locked to Mars, as our own moon is relative to Earth: Phobos and Deimos present the same side to Mars all the time.

Phobos is the innermost moon of Mars, only 16.7 miles (26.9 kilometers) in diameter but the larger of the two moons. Diminutive Deimos is a little over 7 miles (11 kilometers) in breadth. Scientifically, both Martian moons are oddballs. There is continual dispute as to where they came from. Just how did they get there? Conjecture about them being captured asteroids or cogenerated with Mars is debatable. These two objects are a cosmic detective story, and we need more clues to sort out their true nature.

Years ago I stirred up a little more than Phobos dust by calling attention to a strange feature spotted on that moon. I termed this oddity a monolith, a very unusual structure. While there are those who view it as a large, rectangular boulder, visiting Phobos can categorize this curious creation, put there by the universe, or God if you prefer.

Phobos and Deimos, two moons, orbit Mars
.

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Illustration Credit 6.1
)

The good news here is that Phobos orbits Mars at just 5,827 miles (9,377 kilometers) from the planet’s surface. It circles Mars in about eight hours. It is nearer to its parent planet than any other known moon in our solar system. Phobos hurtles around Mars faster than the planet rotates, so future Mars-walkers could see this moon rise and set twice a day. Anyone on Phobos would see how the moon is bathed in reflected light off of the red planet. This “Mars-shine” is akin to earthshine, when sunlight reflects off our planet and illuminates the moon’s night side.

There is, conversely, long-term bad news for Phobos. Due to its short orbital period around Mars, 50 million years hence it will crash into the red planet, or bust into pieces due to gravitational forces.

Phobos is a heavily cratered, irregular body with no atmosphere. The gravity field is very weak—less than one-thousandth the gravity on Earth—making it easier for spacecraft to land and take off. Escape velocity from this moon is just 25 miles an hour. This moon’s most eye-catching feature is Stickney, a six-mile-wide crater. When the object that formed this crater hit Phobos, its impact fashioned streak patterns across the moon’s surface. The day and night sides of the moon have been gauged, showing extreme temperature variations; the sunlit side of Phobos is like a pleasant winter day in Chicago, while only a few miles away, on the dark side of the moon, the temperature is more ruthless than a night in Antarctica.

Taking all these factors and others into account, I feel that Phobos may well be the ideal location from which to support a “nonhuman, hands-off Mars” program—at least initially. From Phobos a crew can control rovers and other machines to survey Mars and orchestrate the pre-positioning of habitation modules. A Phobos station can draw upon our accumulated know-how in constructing the modular International Space Station. A laboratory bound for Phobos can be certified for duty at the space station prior to send-off to the Martian moon. The regolith of
Phobos can be used to envelop the lab, a way to help protect crews from radiation.

I’m not alone in valuing the Martian moons as fundamental to opening up Mars to human visitation.

Similar in thought is S. Fred Singer, an emeritus professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia. He was the founding director of the National Weather Bureau’s Satellite Service Center back in 1962 and has a long pedigree of building and flying space instruments. Moreover, he has advocated his PH-D project for decades, PH-D standing for Phobos-Deimos.