Sojourner Online

The Newsletter of
The Seattle Area Chapters of
The National Space Society
The Mars Society

NSS Seattle, Mars Society Puget Sound

ØØØØØØØØØØØ February 2000 ×××××××××××

Volume 2, Issue II

Contents:

Pages 2 NSS Seattle Proceedings

Pages 3, 4 Mars Society Proceedings

Pages 4 - 6 Human Space Flight

Pages 6 - 8 Deep Space / JPL Mission News and notes

Pages 8, 9 A Very Busy Dreamer, Article by V.M. Tye

Pages 9 – 12 The Case For Space, Article by Mike Combs

Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Status
Friday, February 11, 2000

Space shuttle Endeavour astronauts have successfully deployed the longest rigid structure ever built in space and continued work to check out the equipment they will use to produce unrivaled three-dimensional images of the Earth's surface using a JPL-developed radar.

Extension of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission's mast began at 3:27 p.m. PST, and after 17 minutes, all 87 cube-shaped bays of the structure were deployed. Total length of the mast is 60.95 meters (just under 200 feet). Space Shuttle Endeavor was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 9:44 a.m. PST (12:44 p.m. EST) today. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.

Continued Page 4

so&journ (sò jûrn ), to stay for a time in a place; live temporarily

NSS SEATTLE Proceedings

The National Space Society is an international membership group dedicated to furthering the exploration and development of space. The Seattle chapter mission is to facilitate Space Activism and all pro-Space activities; and to provide a gathering place for space enthusiasts to meet, exchange information and ideas.

»»»»Chapter Officers«««

President: Christopher Erickson
Aster@wolfenet.com

Vice President: Chris Vancil
CLVANCIL@aol.com

Secretary/Editor: Randy Rumley
rjrumley@juno.com

Treasurer: David Stuart
DSTUART@prodigy.net

Chapter meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the second Sunday of each month, at the Museum of Flight; parking is available in the lot North of the museum. To receive information regarding upcoming events, please send your name and address to: Randy Rumley; 12008 SE 223^rd Drive, Kent, WA 98031

Our Web site is:
http://NSS.ac/wa/seattle

Visit us there and take a look at the links to other space sites.

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President’s Message

There are many opportunities to represent the realities of Space exploration and colonization in the coming months. We are again invited to participate at NorWesCon, and this is a great opportunity to tell people just how close the future is. Our speaker’s series resumes this month, and we hope to bring in additional support with our television broadcasts. We have been invited to collect the Pro-Space groups of the Puget Sound under the NSS Seattle umbrella. A large effort has been made to get displays and brochures - and maybe, people - placed at movie theaters showing films that attract people with interests in Space.

There are a variety of needs in these efforts, but one need is constant: the need for individuals to strengthen the group. NorWesCon needs speakers, listeners, readers, and writers. Those with items suitable for television: backdrops, A/V equipment of professional quality, and connections to organizations that can handle editing and mixing are asked to make themselves known. Schools and groups would love to hear what we have to say, and we have the talent to say things well. We’re all on an adventure, and we want to make sure we don’t leave anyone behind.

Christopher A. Erickson
President, NSS Seattle

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February 13, 2000

Our speaker for the meeting of NSS Seattle is Loren Busch of the Seattle Astronomical Society. He will be discussing "The care and feeding of your telescope" as well as other astronomical viewing information. For more information on the Seattle Astronomical Society, visit www.scn.org/ip/sastro/

This month we will be taping the meeting for viewing on cable access (AT&T 29/77). This show will air on March 12^th at 7:00PM, so set your recorders.

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January 9 Meeting

Last months meeting was an organizational affair. Chris Erickson and the rest of us went over plans for this year, including NorWesCon, speakers, and other events.

Randy J. Rumley

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ISDC

The International Space Development Conference will be held in Tucson this year. The dates are May 25^th – 29^th. There will be several technical space related programs as well as tours of the Kartchner Caverns, Kitt Peak observatory, the Pima Air and Space Museum, Biosphere 2, and others. Registration is $75 for NSS members, $95 for others, children 14 and under are charged only $10. Register online at www.tucson2000.org, or www.nss.org.

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Mars Society Puget Sound Proceedings

»»Chapter Officers««

President Jim Burk jburk@jburk.com

Vice President Dustin Green greend@genieind.com

Secretary V. Mark Tye vmtye@ieee.org

Treasurer David Stuart dstuart@prodigy.net

Editor Randy Rumley rjrumley@juno.com

Please check out our Mars Society Web site: http://www.marssociety.org/pugetsound

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President's Report
February 2000

While our ears shortly perked up again to look for the Polar Lander, apparently the signals received by Stanford in December & January were something else... back to the planning for 2001 I guess.

Our chapter is anxiously awaiting the first Hollywood treatment of a mission sending humans to Mars when Disney's MISSION TO MARS opens on March 10. Our chapter will likely see a special screening on opening night that we're trying to negotiate with some of the area theatres. We'll also have Mars Society information at many area theatres for the movie patrons to read before the show.

Not much else going on right now other than plans for the April NorWesCon convention, as well as the upcoming Ares CD-Rom projects for spring & summer. If you have any ideas of what our chapter can work on let us know at marspuget@egroups.com

Thanks and On to Mars!

Jim Burk
President, Mars Society Puget Sound

Monthly Chapter Meeting Minutes

Saturday January 15, 2000

Location: Bellevue Regional Library, Rm.#4
1111 – 110th Ave NE
Bellevue, WA 98004
(425)450-1765 Time 1400 – 1640

Twelve persons were in attendance including the four Chapter officers.

We welcome three new members: Ed and Tim Bryant and John Cass. We hope each will find a task force or some comfortable niche in which to express their talents. The first order of business was to have a round of introductions and discussion of our backgrounds and areas of interest.

Dean Calahan (Technical Task Force) reported that a new Task Force associated with the M.A.R.S. Task Force (National) had been formed to develop a biological waste management and life support system (see M.A.R.S Life Support Article in this issue). Currently, on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic, all waste must be shipped out by airplane in large barrels. The group, in conjunction with the University of Maryland, will try to develop a system that can be started up and shut down quickly and reduce or eliminate the need to ship waste off site. This sounds like a very worthwhile endeavor.

Dustin Green, Vice President, gave an update on M.A.R.S., the Mars Arctic Research Station for everyone’s benefit.

Jim Burk, President, Gave an report on the RustyCon Science Fiction Convention where our local Chapter gave one presentation this time. Apparently the RustyCon folks were not as well organized this year as they were in the past and we decided that for us to be more effective next year we would have to be involved earlier in their planning stages.

Again, we decided to catalog our growing collection of videotapes but no details were agreed on.

Randy Rumley has a prototype poster for a theatre display but is still working on a cost effective solution.

Again, we all declared a need for a complete inventory of saleable items and the possibility of adding some new items. And again, no details on how this would be accomplished. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it. That’s ok. The tape cataloging and inventory are low priority and can be done several months from now.

We are still looking at the possibility of a regional meeting involving British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. There was considerable discussion about dates and location but nothing finalized.

It looks like there will be an Artemis Society formed in the area. Many people are members of that organization already, at the National level, and also the NSS and the Mars Society. In order to avoid having to attend three monthly meetings it was felt appropriate to have the fledgling group’s meeting just prior to the MS meeting at the same location. Keeping the meetings separate would help prevent philosophical problems later.

D. Calahan pointed out that Dr. Zubrin’s birthday is April 9. We are thinking about some silly celebration, just for a lark. Post your suggestions.

V. M. Tye, Secretary MSPS

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M.A.R.S. Life Support
Red Planet Satellite Report
February 4, 2000

A group lead by David Blersch at the University of Maryland have initiated study regarding design of a modular bioregenerative system for the Hab. This group is comprised of members of the Arctic Base Task Force, but due to potential broad applications to Mars exploration, their work will be conducted under Dr. Steven Braham and the Technical Task Force. In their first meeting/workshop on January 22^nd, they decided to field a test module in 2001.

++ Mars/ Arctic Life Support System group More than a dozen members are forming a Life-Support group, "... around the notion of designing an ecological apparatus similar to a Living Machine. Such a device is a possible solution to waste management problems at the Society's Arctic Research Station, or ultimately at the Society's Mars outpost, ..."

The members include Rudy Behrens, Dave Blersch, Steve Braham, Dean Calahan, Mindy Jacobson, Pat Kangas, and Eric Biermann. A web page is being set up, to include the results of our first workshop, held at the University of Maryland, College Park, but we won't publish the web address just yet, because it is not ready (and to encourage you to contact Dean Calahan rather than just sitting back and expecting things to happen without your help.) If interested in helping, contact Dean at: dean@baloney.com

Forwarded by V.M. Tye, vmtye@ieee.org

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Micro-g Solutions Inc Company Press Release
Wednesday 9 February 2000

IDS Intelligent Detection Systems Inc. announced today that its subsidiary company, Micro-g Solutions Inc, is developing an absolute gravity gradiometer for NASA to use on Mars.

NASA plans to take Migro-g's absolute gravity gradiometer to Mars. Micro-g has been commissioned to design, build and test a prototype space-born gradiometer system for NASA in a joint research project with Malin Space Science Systems. The absolute gravity gradiometer is the only geophysical instrument capable of providing detailed information about the gravity field to remote planets during unmanned exploration applications. Gravity information is crucial to understanding the origin and contents of the subsurface of distant planets. Micro-g's absolute gravity gradiometer was recently included as an integral part of the Mars Airborne Geophysical Explorer (MAGE) payload which seeks to determine the geophysical origins of the Valle Marineris, the Solar System's largest canyon system.

The absolute gravity gradiometer was initially designed for oil production and exploration applications. Micro-g, a division of Scintrex, is currently working on a smaller version of this instrument for NASA's future planetary exploration endeavours. The prototype should be developed by early 2001.

Forwarded by V. M. Tye

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Human Space Flight News

Shuttle Radar Topography… continued

The shuttle was also successfully maneuvered into the proper attitude, or orientation, for mapping. This orientation points the shuttle payload bay -- and its inboard and outboard radar antennas -- at the Earth. Endeavour's tail is leading the way as the shuttle orbits about 240 kilometers (about 150 statute miles) above the surface. The astronaut crew then began a series of jet thruster firings to test the ability of dampers to absorb the force of planned maneuvering jet firings and keep the inboard and outboard antennas properly aligned. This alignment is crucial for scientists who will need to combine the radar images received by the two sets of antennas.

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission will record radar data in both C-band and X-band radar wavelengths. This data eventually will be processed into 3-D maps of the Earth that are 30 times more exact than those currently available. These maps will be important to scientists in many disciplines, ranging from ecology to geology to hydrology, as well as a number of military and commercial applications. Radar mapping operations began Friday evening.

Endeavour is orbiting the Earth in an orbit inclined 57 degrees to either side of the Equator for the radar mapping of a majority of the Earth's surface. The shuttle completes one orbit every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 240 kilometers (150 miles).

The mission is a partership between NASA and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Also collaborating are the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfart) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the project for NASA's Earth Sciences Program in Washington, D.C. JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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Hubble Space Telescope first new pictures

In its first glimpse of the heavens following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a majestic view of a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star. This stellar relic, first spied by William Herschel in 1787, is nicknamed the "Eskimo" Nebula (NGC 2392) because, when viewed through ground-based telescopes, it resembles a face surrounded by a fur parka. In this Hubble telescope image, the "fur parka" is really a disk of material embellished with a ring of comet-shaped objects, with their tails streaming away from the central, dying star. The Eskimo's "face" also contains some fascinating details. Although this bright central region resembles a ball of twine, it is, in reality, a bubble of material being blown into space by the central star's intense "wind" of high-speed material.

Credits: NASA, A. Fruchter and the ERO Team (STScI)

More images are available on the Internet at: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2000/07

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Next Space Station Component To Launch Between July 8-14

Launch of the International Space Station's next component -- the Zvezda service module -- is scheduled to occur between July 8 and 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASA and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency announced today. The Zvezda launch window will be proposed for approval to the International Space Station Partners in accordance with the ISS Control Board process within the next several weeks.

Following joint meetings in Moscow, including a General Designer's Review and a Joint Program Review, Rosaviakosmos has proposed that Zvezda (Russian for "Star") -- the early living quarters for crews aboard the Station -- be launched on a Proton rocket with second and third stage engines modified to increase reliability.

The 42,000 pound Zvezda not only provides the early living quarters for astronauts and cosmonauts, but also the life support system, electrical power distribution, data processing system, flight control system, and propulsion. While many of these systems will be supplemented or replaced by later U.S. Station components, Zvezda always will remain the structural and functional center of the Russian segment of the International Space Station.

Zvezda has a solar-array wingspan of 97.5 feet tip to tip, and is 43 feet long from end to end. The module contains three pressurized compartments and four docking ports.

Following Zvezda's launch and about 15 days of free flight, the ISS will rendezvous and dock with its newest module.

Launch of Zvezda sets the stage for the launch of other ISS components undergoing final testing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

These components include a small truss segment that will serve as the support structure for other Station hardware; the first set of solar arrays; the United States Destiny laboratory; the Canadian-built Space Station robot arm; and several truss segments that will serve as the Station' backbone for external hardware, experiments and solar arrays. Other key Station components are also under development and testing in Europe and Japan.

We all hope this schedule will work out. It has been a long wait.

Ed.

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Deep Space / JPL Mission News

NEAR News – Ready for orbit?

Arizona Scientists Ready To Map Asteroid Eros

Monday February 14 could be more than just a special Valentine’s Day for University of Arizona planetary scientists. It might be the beginning of a yearlong rendezvous with the asteroid Eros.

"This is the first time ever a spacecraft will orbit an asteroid," said William V. Boynton of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson. "There have been flybys and snapshots of asteroids, but not much in the way of quantitative scientific data."

Boynton is a scientist for an experiment on the NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) spacecraft. It is a spacecraft that in December 1998 "almost had been given up for dead" after a problem with an attempted rocket firing aborted the initial try at flying into 433 Eros' orbit.

Launched in 1996, NEAR is to spend almost a year orbiting as close as 15 kilometers above Eros' surface.

The X-Ray/Gamma Ray Spectrometer, or XRGS, is the primary experiment for determining the elemental com- position of both the surface and the layers just beneath. The XRGS will begin taking data several weeks after arrival at Eros, when NEAR descends to within 200 kilometers of the asteroid's surface. The best quality XRGS data will be collected around April 30, as the spacecraft orbits 50 kilometers from the surface, Boynton said. Other NEAR instruments are a multispectral imager, a laser rangefinder, a near-infrared spectrometer, a magnetometer and a radio science package.

XRGS results are basic to solving such mysteries as the source of meteorites and their relationship to asteroids.

"Eros is a very important asteroid because it is a member of a class called 'S' asteroids, which appear to be similar to a rare type of meteorite on Earth called 'stony-irons,' which have 50 percent metal and 50 percent silicate," Boynton said. "Though the S-asteroids are very common in space, they do not seem to match many of the meteorites that fall to Earth," he added.

"The other half of this problem is that the most common meteorites found on Earth, called ordinary chondrites, are very common on Earth but appear to be rare in space. Some people think that ordinary chondrites might come from S-asteroids and that S-asteroids actually might have a lower metal content than ground-based astronomical data suggest. This mission should really answer this question."

It's possible that the composition of Eros might turn out to be different from any of the known meteorites, Boynton said. It's also possible that Eros, a highly irregularly shaped object, is "possibly a chip off some larger, pre-existing asteroid that was smashed up," richer in silicates on one side and richer in metal on another, he said. "This might allow us to learn something about the processes that go on in asteroids."

NEAR was launched Feb. 17, 1996, from Cape Canaveral, Fl., and is the first in NASA's Discovery Program for "faster, better, cheaper" planetary missions. It was launched 9 months under the 36-month schedule and $41.6 million under the $150 million budget.

Forwarded by V. M. Tye

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Stardust Mission Status
January 26, 2000

NASA's Stardust spacecraft has successfully completed a three-part deep space maneuver designed to keep it on target for an Earth gravity assist in January 2001. That gravity assist will propel the spacecraft toward its 2004 rendezvous with the Comet Wild-2.

The maneuver consisted of a trio of propulsion firings performed on January 18, 20 and 22 to achieve velocity changes of 58, 52, and 48 meters per second, respectively (about 130, 116 and 107 miles per hour). Each firing lasted for about 30 minutes. With these three engine burns plus a short firing of 11 meters per second (25 miles per hour) made in late December, the flight team changed the spacecraft velocity by about 171 meters per second (383 miles per hour), and put Stardust on target for next year's swingby of Earth.

Stardust's mission is to collect samples of comet dust from Wild-2 for return to Earth in 2006. While en route, the spacecraft will also attempt to gather samples of interstellar dust particles for study on Earth. Engineers plan to command Stardust to extend its dust collector on February 22 in order to begin collecting interstellar dust from a stream that flows into our solar system.

Stardust was launched on February 7, 1999. The principal investigator for the Stardust mission is Dr. Donald C. Brownlee of the University of Washington. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, built and operates the spacecraft. Its instruments were provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Chicago, and the Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany.

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Mars Polar Lander Mission Status
February 11, 2000

Initial analysis of data taken on Tuesday by radio telescopes in the Netherlands and Italy has shown no obvious signal from Mars Polar Lander, but exhaustive review of the data is continuing with a final report due next week.

Analysis of data taken at Stanford University in California is ongoing with no signal detected so far. A telescope at Jodrell Bank in the United Kingdom was not able to collect any data due to high winds at that facility.

"Our plan for the next week is to temporarily end active efforts to listen for a signal," said Richard Cook, project manager for Mars Polar Lander at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We are evaluating several scenarios for future listening attempts that could take place at the end of this month." Mission managers are also reviewing information about the Mars relay link between Mars Global Surveyor and the lander.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages Mars Polar Lander for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Lockheed Martin Astronautics Inc., Denver, Colo., is the agency's industrial partner for development and operation of the spacecraft.

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New Cassini Images Of Asteroid
February 11, 2000

New images taken by the camera onboard the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft are giving scientists the first size estimates on asteroid 2685 Masursky and preliminary evidence that it may have different material properties than previously believed.

"The Masursky images represent the first time that Cassini has gathered information on a body not extensively studied from Earth," said Carolyn C. Porco, Cassini imaging team leader and associate professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The images, taken on Jan. 23, also marked the first use of Cassini's automated object-targeting capabilities, and they functioned as expected, Porco said. The two new images are available at the following websites: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/cassini and http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu .

Launched October 15, 1997, Cassini flew by Venus and Mars before heading toward a flyby of Jupiter next December. It entered the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a region populated by asteroids, in mid-November of 1999.

Cassini's camera took pictures of the asteroid when the spacecraft was 7 hours and 5-1/2 hours before closest approach, at a distance of 1.6 million kilometers (960,000 miles). Since Masursky is too small to be measured from Earth, scientists hoped Cassini could help them determine its size, as well as its reflectivity, asteroid category, and possibly its rotation period.

"So far, the images reveal that the side of Masursky imaged by Cassini is roughly 15 to 20 kilometers (9 to 12 miles) across," Porco said.

The Cassini spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Saturn in July 2004 to begin a four-year exploration of the ringed planet and its moons. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

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The Sun's Magnetic Field Has A Good Memory
February 1, 2000

By compiling all the solar wind data gathered in the space age, NASA scientists have concluded that even though the solar magnetic field is constantly changing, it always returns to its original shape and position.

"We now know that the Sun's magnetic field has a memory and returns to approximately the same configuration in each 11- year solar cycle," said Dr. Marcia Neugebauer, a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Current theories imply that the field is generated by random, churning motions within the Sun and should have no long-term memory. Despite this expectation, the underlying magnetic structure remains fixed at the same solar longitude."

"It's interesting that the solar magnetic field varies in strength and direction, but not in longitude," said Dr. Edward Smith, senior research scientist at JPL.

The solar wind is composed of charged particles ejected from the Sun that flow continuously through interplanetary space. The solar wind carries part of the Sun's magnetic field into space. Before completing this research, scientists knew that features of the solar wind reaching the Earth tended to repeat about every 27 days, said Neugebauer. The new information pinpoints the repetition interval at 27 days and 43 minutes and shows that the Sun has kept this steady rhythm, much like a metronome, for at least 38 years.

This pattern escaped previous detection because it is a very subtle statistical effect. There are many larger variations in the solar wind that come and go, which largely mask the underlying pattern. This repetitive behavior can't be seen if these data are examined for only a few months or years, but it was revealed in this 38-year database.

"Why the Sun's magnetic field behaves in this way is a puzzle, but the answer must lie deep within the Sun," Smith said.

"We're trying to understand how magnetic fields are generated in the Sun, the planets and the stars," said Neugebauer. "A better understanding of how the Sun generates its magnetic field will help us better understand the solar wind and space weather."

Fluids conducting electricity under the Sun's surface generate the magnetic field, Neugebauer explained, and the field's apparent memory is most likely caused by a structure and process occurring deeper inside the Sun than previously believed. "There may be something asymmetric about the Sun's interior, perhaps a deep-seated lump of old magnetic field," she said.

The findings, published in the February 1 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research, are based on all the solar wind data collected from the dawn of space exploration through 1998, both by Earth-orbiting satellites and interplanetary spacecraft. This includes about 335,000 hours of solar wind speed data and 250,000 hours of magnetic field data. Co-authors of the article, in addition to Neugebauer and Smith, are Drs. Alexander Ruzmaikin, Joan Feynman and Arthur Vaughn, all of JPL.

Additional information is available at:

http://spacephysics.jpl.nasa.gov/pr/longitude.htm

This study was funded under the Supporting Research Program of NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a NASA center managed by the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

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A Very Busy Dreamer

by vmtye@ieee.org

The dreams must come first. The artists and futurists inspire us. Syd Mead has been firing the imaginations of many generations since the early 1960s by providing us with glimpses of the future. But, while he is one of the great visionaries of our time, he also keeps both feet firmly planted in the practical, human engineering aspects of his creations.

Not all of Syd’s creations are just paper dreams. His earliest work was with the Ford Styling group in Detroit, Michigan and in 1983 he designed the interior of a private Boeing 747 for King Fah’d, of the Royal House of Oman. Perhaps more down to earth are designs for a futuristic night club actually built in Tokyo and the Spaceship 2056 pavilion for Dentsu, Osaka on Shikoku Island, Japan.

While he is skilled in industrial design and has provided concept drawings for theme park attractions, such as the Jules Verne time tour for EuroDisney, Syd is best known for his assistance to the movie producers. In 1980 Syd provided concept drawings for Bladerunner and TRON and in 1985 he worked on Aliens, with James Cameron as director.

In about two months we can view history repeating itself as we watch the first of several movies about Mars. Yes, it was Syd Mead who did the pre-production design for Mission to Mars by Walt Disney Pictures. If the recently released stills are any indication, then Syd Mead has again shown the world that he is a master artist, futurist, illustrator, and conceptual designer second to none. You can read more about him and see examples of his work on his web site: www.sydmead.com.

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(Note: printed with permission of the author, previously published in the Fall 1999 issue of Space Front, the magazine for the Space Frontier Society)

The full article can be found at: http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/case_spc.htm

From the very beginnings of both science fiction and serious scientific speculation, most concepts for future colonization beyond the Earth have targeted the planet Mars. The reason why is easy to see. Of all the planets in our solar system, it's the one most like Earth.

But starting in 1969, Princeton University's Professor Gerard O'Neill began looking in a different direction: toward artificial habitats constructed in orbit from materials already in space. He had started by asking the question, "Is the surface of the Earth really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?" Some study seemed to indicate the answer was "No". Calculations revealed that orbital habitats could be surprisingly large and Earth-like, and would have many advantages over any planetary home.

O'Neill's findings made us realize there was an unspoken and unquestioned assumption underlying the logic that pointed toward Mars: In order to create colonies beyond Earth, we must first find a planet on which to build them.

In the years since the initial enthusiasm following the publication of O'Neill's "The High Frontier", interest in the concept of space colonies seems to have abated, while interest in Mars settlement and ultimate terraformation seems to be at a peak. Viewed from the High Frontier perspective, the construction of orbital habitats instead of Mars settlements would still seem to have better returns on shorter time scales, much greater long-term benefits, and numerous other advantages.

Before we begin, it should be noted that many of the benefits cited for Mars colonization (e.g. not keeping all of our eggs in one planetary basket, stimulation to technical advancement, multiplication of human opportunities and potentials for freedom, etc.) are in fact equally good arguments for either settlements on Mars or in orbit, and thus will be outside the scope of this article.

Also, when comparing the relative merits of orbital space versus the surface of Mars for settlement, such comparisons should only be made between proposals with similar returns. Some have compared Dr. Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct strategy with Gerard O'Neill's High Frontier proposals. Mars Direct should only be compared with a program placing an equivalent number of people in High Earth Orbit, along with an equivalent amount of infrastructure geared toward supporting future settlement plans. Other valid comparisons would be: comparing the construction of the first Island One or Stanford Torus habitat with the construction of the first domed community on Mars large enough to independently support a population of 10,000, and comparing the terraformation of Mars with an orbital settlement program resulting in the creation of habitats sufficient to equal the land area of Mars.

Sunlight Available 24x7

The reason we've not been able to convert our Earthly economy over to solar energy is that it's intermittent here on the surface. The sun is blocked every night, and is filtered by clouds. In a sufficiently high orbit, an O'Neill colony will be in sunlight around 99% of the time. This means solar energy can be relied upon not only for life-support and agriculture, but also for electrical utilities and process heating for industrial operations such as the smelting of ore. On Mars, as on any celestial body, solar energy will be unavailable half the time. We don't tend to see this as a disadvantage because it's the present situation here on Earth, and we're used to it. But locating in orbit opens up the possibility of a vast civilization powered by cheap, clean, plentiful, continuous solar power. And given the direct relationship between energy usage and living standard, this space civilization can be expected to exceed both Mars and Earth in this respect.

Nuclear fission reactors are a possibility for Mars, but have become politically unpalatable. Nuclear fusion is presently not possible, and given its history, probably cannot be counted upon in the near term.

Constant access to sunlight means the climate of an O'Neill settlement can be whatever we choose.

It's not presently known which of our food crops (if any) can tolerate 24-hour-a-day sunlight. But if some or all should prove able to take advantage of this, then unceasing sunlight will be an option for the food growing areas of space habitats.

Convenient Access to Zero Gravity

Aside from the obvious entertainment possibilities, zero gravity enables the construction of vast, gossamer-thin space mirrors several miles across. Such mirrors can enable Earth-like conditions inside of orbital habitats, and concentrating mirrors can provide prodigious amounts of heat for ore processing. Such flimsy mirrors would not be practical on the surface of Mars due to the presence of gravity and winds.

By the same token, heat radiators for habitats can have both enormous area and very thin construction. Getting rid of waste heat is admittedly more difficult in space than in a planetary environment, but the superior kind of heat radiators which it will be possible to construct in zero G should provide a solution to this problem.

All Gravitational Options Available

Orbital habitats will simulate gravity by rotation. This means complete control over the gravitational environment. A full one-G can easily be provided if it should happen that nothing less than this will maintain normal muscular physique. If 1/3 G does turn out to be acceptable, we can have that too.

The unfortunate situation with planets is that you have to take the gravity you get, and it's frequently the wrong amount. It's possible children born on Mars may not be able to visit Earth. At best, they certainly couldn't visit Earth without considerable discomfort. Children born in an O'Neill habitat under a full one-G of centrifugal force shouldn't experience any problems in this regard.

Rotating a habitat on the surface of Mars to bring the gravity up to one G is probably not an option due to excessive loading on the bearings, and air drag. But in zero G and vacuum, making a habitat spin and keeping it spinning are much easier to accomplish.

Thus, in terms of both the levels of sunlight and gravity, orbital settlements may provide a much more Earth-like environment than even a completely-terraformed Mars.

Living at the Top of a Well

We here on the Earth are the "gravitationally disadvantaged", living as we are at the bottom of a steep gravity well. It's the reason space flight is so expensive and difficult for us. The gravity well of Mars is less deep than that of Earth, but it's still much deeper than that of the Moon, and enormous compared to that of an asteroid. This is why mining asteroids to bring materials back to Earth is just barely a possibility for the future, whereas Mars mining would probably not be able to compete due to the tariff which gravity imposes.

Settlers living near the top of Earth's gravity well will be ideally positioned for departures to Mars, or any other destination elsewhere in space.

No Weather, Save What We Make for Ourselves

Planets with atmospheres have weather, and we must consider it when designing and building structures. On Mars, there are globe encircling dust storms. Photographs from the Mars Global Surveyor have recently been released showing the shadows of 5-mile-high dust devils.

In orbit, coasting silently in vacuum, there's no weather. On the other hand, inside sufficiently large habitats, it should be possible to create our own natural weather, complete with cloudscapes and rainstorms. But since we'll be making the weather, we'll be in control of it. Thus there's every reason to expect the climate in any man-made habitat to be vastly superior to all but the most desirable climates found on Earth.

Some type of weather control might be possible inside of domed enclosures on Mars. But a thoroughly terraformed Mars will have weather systems beyond human control. Again, we tend not to recognize this as a liability, because it's the situation we're already well used to here on Earth.

Warning! Warning! Meteor Storm!

One widely perceived advantage of Martian settlements over orbital ones is that they'll have the atmosphere of Mars to protect them from meteors. But it turns out the danger of meteor strikes in space is much more modest than "Lost In Space" has led us to believe. O'Neill estimated his Island Three model (biggest cross-sectional area means greatest risk) might expect to get hit by a one ton meteor once every million years. One should expect a meteor the weight of a tennis ball to come along about every three years. Even if it did penetrate the hull, such a puncture would mean a routine, minor repair, not an emergency.

Some express a concern about man-made orbital debris, which is in fact becoming a serious problem for space stations. But most of this debris is in Low Earth Orbit, with some around Geosynchronous Earth Orbit. The nearest O'Neill habitats would orbit far higher; at least halfway to lunar orbit.

Convenient Communication with the Homeworld

The signal delay time due to the speed of light for High Earth Orbit is less than a second. Apollo astronauts were able to communicate (albeit with slight awkwardness) as far away as the Moon. The speed of light delay between Earth and Mars ranges from a bit over 4 minutes to 21 minutes. This obviously makes real-time conversations impossible. Martians would have to settle for "video letters". But much more significantly, this time delay makes the use of telepresence from Earth impossible on Mars. On the other hand, mining operations on the moon, and refining and fabrication operations in High Earth Orbit might get a boost at the onset by extensive teleoperation, reducing the initial manpower requirements. Being able to prime the industrial pump remotely (should advanced telepresence technologies become available) would certainly have significant advantages.

Convenient Travel to the Homeworld

Most NASA estimates for the trip time to Mars place it at about a year. Making various estimates regarding advanced space drives, this can be brought down by several months. For example, Robert Zubrin proposes a nuclear engine-augmented heavy lift launch vehicle which could transport colonists to Mars in seven months. The political acceptability of launching nuclear engines is presently uncertain (whether or not such fears are scientifically justifiable is largely irrelevant).

Space habitats in an orbit roughly halfway to the moon will have travel times from Earth of less than a week even with present chemical rockets. A Closed Ecology Life Support System (CELSS) may be required for journeys to Mars, but should be unnecessary for travel to and from habitats orbiting the Earth.

Making A Living

Although a Martian economy may someday become possible, it seems likely to remain a local economy. There seem to be no marketable products that Martians could sell to Earth which would be worth lifting out of the gravity well of Mars. Martians might sell real estate to Earthlings, provided there was some compelling reason to want to live there, and living conditions on Mars were reasonably pleasant.

The residents of orbital colonies, in addition to building additional colonies for sale to immigrants from Earth, would certainly also be constructing Solar Power Satellites (SPS) for sale to countries in need of additional electrical capacity, and gigantic communication platforms for geosynchronous orbit. Admittedly, one doesn't need large, Earth-like habitats in order to use space resources to create these products, but having a permanent workforce nearby certainly helps. Provided that Earth was still footing the bill for continued space exploration at this point, we could even add manned exploratory ships for travel elsewhere in the Solar System to the list of products which would help balance the sheets.

All of the above would represent returns to the economy of Earth. However dedicated Mars enthusiasts may be to creating a self-sustaining Martian economy, it's difficult to see how the process can get started in the first place without expectations of a return on Earth-originated investments. SPS and advanced communication platforms are products marketable to Earth. By the same token, unlike the natural resources of Mars, the resources of the Moon and Near Earth Objects (NEO's) are sufficiently close by that their usage could have returns to the terrestrial economy.

An earlier argument was made that Mars was the place to go to because, unlike the Moon, it has plentiful supplies of hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. The recent discovery of ice at the lunar poles by the Lunar Prospector probe has blunted this argument somewhat. It's also worth mentioning that all the elements we need are available in most Near Earth Asteroids.

A Staging Post for the Belt?

It's sometimes argued that communities on Mars are necessary to support further expeditions out into the asteroid belt (which is expected to be a treasure trove of needed resources). It may be that this perception comes from the Earth-bound truism that being closer to a place makes it easier to get to. But in space, distance does not count nearly so much as delta V. Inhabitants on Mars would be closer to the Belt than we are, but they'll be at the bottom of a gravity well. In terms of delta V, residents of a habitat in a high enough Earth orbit will already be half-way to the belt, and can use low-thrust, high-efficiency drives the entire way.

Distance can be a significant factor in space travel with regard to travel times, especially in relation to life-support system requirements. In fact, this can legitimately be used to argue that going to Mars is still a more "difficult" journey than returning to the Moon, even if aerobraking and in-situ fuel production combine to make it "easier" to get to Mars from a strictly fuel-oriented standpoint. But one imagines by the time closed-ecology habitats are circling the Earth, a CELSS for a trip to the asteroid belt would be available.

It seems likely that only NEO's will be utilized in the near term, with Main Belt asteroids being used later, as humanity spreads outward from Earth. Even after the NEO's are exhausted, it'll always be possible to build new space habitats in the Belt itself, close to the source of raw materials.

From several standpoints, settlers in orbital space will quite literally be in a better position to exploit asteroids than anyone on a planetary surface.

Room To Grow

A completely terraformed Mars would give us approximately the land area of the Earth. Earth is much bigger, but is mostly covered with oceans. If oceans are desired on Mars (or if they turn out to be necessary to sustain an Earth-like global climate), then deduct accordingly.

We earlier stated that only an orbital settlement construction program which resulted in new land area equal to that offered by Mars should be compared to a Mars terraforming project. Is it really possible to build this many space communities? Can they be built on a time scale competitive with terraforming?

Let's do some simple calculations. The 1975 NASA-Ames study resulted in a space habitat design known as the Stanford Torus. It was designed to provide 670,000 square meters of living space. The surface area of Mars is around 145 million square kilometers. Let's assume no Martian oceans, and ignore the fact that even on a totally Earth-like Mars the Polar Regions would certainly remain inhospitable. In this comparison, Mars roughly equals 216 million Stanford Toruses.

NASA's study indicated that the first independent orbital habitat could be completed 22 years after initiation of the program, and that a habitat could build a duplicate habitat in 2 years. Let's conservatively assume it'll take 50 years to build the first one, and assign 5 years to the doubling time. We'll also ignore the possibility that the more space communities we build, the better (and faster) at it we'll get, as well as the efficiencies which might be later gained by building smaller numbers of larger habitats with greater land area.

By the time we had achieved 28 doublings, we would have begun to exceed the total land area of Mars. By the pessimistic timetable above, this would take 190 years. (Please note it's not being predicted that this will indeed be the actual growth rate seen, merely that this is the maximum rate allowed by technological constraints.) It's the rare terraforming proposal that's optimistic enough to promise a Mars made over in Earth's image in less than two centuries. Another important point is that near the beginning of the O'Neill settlement construction program, the workforce begins enjoying living conditions that may be even more Earth-like than those possible on Mars only at the very end of the terraforming effort.

Note: This article will be concluded in the next issue of Sojourner.
Ed.