orbital space settlements and a solar system wide web

8/9/2019 Orbital Space Settlements and a Solar System Wide Web

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Orbital Space Settlements

and a Solar System WideWeb

Humanity could be life's ticket to the stars

(The dinosaurs werent space-faring)


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http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/photos/sts71/mir-imax/hmg0018.jpg


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People Live Everywhere

Every continent, including Antarctica

Hottest, driest deserts

Coldest, iciest regions

Wettest rain forests

On water

For short periods, in orbit

6,000,000,000 people on Earth


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Life is Everywhere

On nearly all land areas

In nearly all waters

In the rocks under the Earth

In near-boiling water

In ice

On desert rocks

On a spacecraft on the Moon


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Next Target: Orbit

Your lifetime: thousands of peopleliving in orbit

A few centuries: most of humanity in

orbit.

Next millenium:generation shipsto the stars


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Orbital Space Settlement

Who? Ordinary people. What? Artificial ecosystems inside

gigantic rotating, pressurized

spacecraft. Where? In orbit; near Earth at first.

How? With great difficulty.

Wh

y? To grow. When? Decades.

How much will it cost? If youhave toask, you can't afford it.


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Who

Today: highly trained astronauts. $20-40 million tourist trip to Mir

Survivor in Space

Tomorrow: everyone wh

o wants to go. 100 - 10,000,000 people per colony Ultimately, thousands or even millions of

colonies

Sounds unrealistic? A hundred years ago nobody had ever flown in

an airplane.

Today ~ 500 million person/flights per year.


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What

A space settlement is a home in orbit,not just a place to work.

Live on the inside of air-tight,

kilometer scale, rotating spacecraft.


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Where

In orbit, not on a planet or moon.

Moon (1/6g) and Mars (3/8g) gravitytoo low.

Children will not have the bones andmuscles needed to visit Earth.

Orbital colonies rotate for 1g.

Continuous solar energy. Large-scale construction easier.

Much closer: hours not days ormonths.


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How

Materials Moon

Oxygen, silicon, metals, some hydrogen forwater.

Near-Earth Asteroids Wide variety of materials including water,

carbon, metals, and silicon.

Radiation protection

Life support: Biosphere II scientificfailure, engineering success!

Transportation critical and difficult.


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Why

Growth = survival.

Largest asteroid converted to spacesettlements can produce living area

~500 times the surface area of theEarth. 3D object to 2D shells

Uncrowdedhomes for trillions of people. New land.

Nice place to live.


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Real Estate Features

Great views

Low/0-g recreation Human powered flight

Cylindrical swimming pools Dance, gymnastics

Sports: soccer

Environmental independence Custom living

Weather art


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When

A few decades should be sufficient tobuild the first one.

No serious effort now.

Technology requirements: Safer, cheaper launch

Extraterrestrial materials

Large scale orbital construction Closed ecological life support systems

And much more


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How much will it cost?

If youhave to ask, you cant affordit. How much did Silicon Valley cost?

Orbital space settlements will be farmore expensive: all materials imported transportation difficult

build all life support hostile environment new techniques must be developed


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ey ro em: aunc

$/kg $/me(73 kg)

Failure rate

Shuttle 22,000 1,606,000 0.5-1%

Commerciallauncher

2,600-30,000 189,800-2,190,000

6 - 33%

airline 5 365 1/2,000,000

2010 NASA goal 2,200 160,600 1/10,000

2020 NASA goal 220 16,060 1/10,000


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Launch Data Systems

Major opportunities for informationtechnology. SIAT: wiring trend data were very

difficult to develop. Some launch failures caused by

software Sea Launch second flight

Ariane V

The comma ,


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Information Power Grid

IPG: integrated nationwide network of computers,databases, and instruments.

The Network is the Computer

IP

G valu

e help reduce launch costs and failure rates support for automation necessary to exploit solar system

exploration by thousands of spacecraft

Problems: low bandwidths

long latencies

intermittent communications


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Integration TimelineNAS

Single building

A few supercomputers

Many workstations

Mass storage

VisualizationRemote access

IPGNation wide

Many supercomputers

Condor pools

Mass storage

Instruments

This talkSolar system wide

Terrestrial Grid

Satellites

Landers and Rovers

Deep space comm.


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Relevant IPG Research

Reservations insure CPUs available for close encounter

Co-scheduling

insure DS

Nand C

PU reso

urces available Network scheduling

Proxies for firewalls Extend to represent remote spacecraft to hide:

low bandwidth long latency

intermittent communication


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IPG Launc Data SystemVision

Complete database: human and machinereadable

Software agent architecture forcontinuous examination of the database

Large computational capabilities Model based reasoning Wearable computers/augmented reality Multi-user virtual reality optimized for

launch decision support Automated computationally-intensive

software testing


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2020 Tourism

Hotel

Doctors

Maids

Cooks

Recreational directors

Reservation clerks

etc.

These may be the first colonists.


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Low 0-gHandicapped/Elderly Colony

No wheelchairs needed.

No bed sores.

Easy to move body even when weak.

Never fall and break hip.

Grandchildren will love to visit.

Need good medical facilities. Telemedicine

Probably cant return to Earth.


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AsterAnts: A Concept for

Large-Scale Meteoroid Return

Al Globus, MRJ, Inc.

Bryan Biegel, MRJ Inc.

Steve Traugott, Sterling Software, Inc.

NASA Ames Research Center

Deliverextraterrestrial

materials to LEO

Support solarsystem

colonization


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Near art ObjectMaterials

Mining of large NEOs very difficultto automate Mining involves large forces

Materials properties areunknown andvariable

Capture of small NEO may not requirehuman life support

10 million - 1 billion 10m diameterNEOs Far more 1m diameter NEOs


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Solar Sail in Earth Orbit

World Space Foundation


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Znamia 1993

Guy Pignolet

20 meter diameter spinning mirror

deployed from Progress resupply vehicle


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Solar Sailing 1

Net force

Sun Sail

Photons


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Solar Sailing 2

Sun

Orbital velocity

Propulsive force

Outward spiral

Orbital velocity

Propulsive force

Inward spiral

Sail

Sail


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NEO CharacterizationProject


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Solar System Exploration

High launch cost of launch = small numberexploration satellites one-of-a-kind personnel-intensive ground

stations.

Model based autonomy = autonomousspacecraft

Requirement drivers

Autonomous spacecraft use of IPG resources low bandwidths long latencies intermittent communications


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Each Spacecraft

Represented by an on-board softwareobject.

Communicates with terrestrial proxies to

hide communication problems know schedule for co-scheduling and reservations

Data stored in Web-accessible archives

virtu

al solar system Controlled access using IPG security forcomputational editing


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Spacecraft Use of IPG

Autonomous vehicles require occasionallarge-scale processing trajectory analysis

rendezvous plan generation

Proxy negotiates for CPU resources, savesresults for next communication window

Proxy reserves co-scheduled resources fordata analysis during encounters


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Conclusion

The colonization of the solar systemcould be the next great adventurefor humanity. There is nothing butrock and radiation in space, no livingthings, no people. The solar system iswaiting to be brought to life by

humanity's touch. And computerscience can help.


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NEO Composition

Widely varied, includes large amountsof: Water

Carbon Metals, particularly iron

Silicon

Spectral studies dont agree very wellwith meteorite analysis


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Detection o 1-meterdiameter meteoroids

Current Earth-based optical asteroidtelescopes Smallest found < 10m diameter

Maximum 1m detection distance ~ 10

6

km 2,000 to 200,000 within range at any giventime

5-7 hit the Earth each day

Radar required for accurate trajectoryand rotation rate


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Solar sail experience

Solar sailing used by Mariner 10mission to Mercury for attitudecontrol Enabled multiple returns to Mercury by

reducing control gas consumption Ground deployment test by World

Space Foundation

Zero-g deployment test by U3P inaircraft Russian Znamia mirror February, 1993


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Solar sail meteoroid return

Characteristic acceleration of 1 mm/s2produces 1.3 km/s delta-v per month

170-182 meters square sail for 500 kgNEO return at 0.25 mm/s2 characteristicacceleration

Once design is refined, mass production ofAsterAnts spacecraft

?NASA build first one open source, thenpay for meteoroid materials by the ton?


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Summary

Capture ~1 m diameter NEOs (NearEarth Objects)

Return to LEO (Low Earth Orbit)

Solar sails for propulsion Start with one small spacecraft, scaleup with copies

Early returns have scientific value,later materials for construction andresupply


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Conclusion

Benefits small down payment (one small spacecraft)

scales by mass production

missions can probably be automated

no consumables

Challenges 1m NEO detection difficult

solar sails have little flight experience

geosynchronous applications require spacemanufactured sails

orbital space settlements and a solar system wide web

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