2100.org

REPORT

on the UNISPACE III 99 Forum

Space Activity in the 21st Century

Chair

Karl H. Doetsch

Rapporteur

Olga Zhdanovich

Sponsored by

International Space University

International Astronautical Federation

Prospective 2100

March 2000

Abstract

During the 21st Century, space activity will have a profound influence on life on Earth and on the development of society. Space activity will touch ever more firmly on the provision of the necessities and qualities of life and will accelerate the movement of nations towards the concept of the global village. A study by Prospective 2100, a group identifying major global trends for the next century, ranked space activity as one of the twelve most important factors for shaping the next century, alongside such items as education, ocean cities, the planetary garden, caring and sharing. The International Space University, ISU, the International Astronautical Federation, IAF, and Prospective 2100 joined forces to study in detail how this influence of space activity would be manifested in the next century. The one-day forum at UNISPACE III was one of a number of international, intercultural and interdisciplinary fora held during the past year to consider what would be the most appropriate space activity for the next century to meet the needs of humanity. The findings and recommendations of the forum are presented in this report.

Abstract

Introduction

Space Activity and the World in the 21st Century

General Findings

General Recommendations

Finding for Living on Planet Earth

Recommendations for Living on Planet Earth

Finding for Leaving Planet Earth

Recommendations for Leaving Planet Earth

Appendix 1: Keynote Speakers and Workshop Leaders

Appendix 2: Summaries of Integrating Sessions

Introduction

Living on Planet Earth and Leaving Planet Earth. These were the themes presented to some 115 experts from all over the world, as their focus for a one-day forum at UNISPACE III. Through their keynote addresses, Karl Doetsch, Mark Craig and John Mankins set the stage at the opening plenary session, and Graham Gibbs provided a possible framework for space activity in the next century. The participants then split into workshops to address complementary themes, ranging through managing Earth's resources, health, education, ethics, energy, security, exploration, policy and economics. The participants later reassembled to present and discuss their recommendations on space activity in the next century, not just for the next 10 or so years but for the next 50 to 100 years. The day was a thought-provoking and important exchange of views that the organizers, ISU, IAF and Prospective 2100 will use to enunciate the key role that space will play in enhancing the quality of life in the next century.

This report identifies the key findings and recommendations of the Forum. It attempts to address "Why Space?" and makes recommendations on how to make such activity more effective. It is also being published simultaneously as IAA-99-IAA 13.1.04. The keynote addresses and other collected considerations will be published separately.

Space Activity and the World in the 21st Century.

Space activity has moved from its initial position at the leading edge of the exploration of science and technology to being central to addressing the most fundamental social questions and motivations. Hence the choice of two themes, Living on Planet Earth and Leaving Planet Earth.

The information age is having a profound influence on the world. It is an age of gathering, creating and sharing knowledge about the world and its environment on an unprecedented scale. It is raising expectations, changing social habits, changing population growth rates and demographics and making all people acutely aware of the limitations of Earth's ability to support unchecked human demands. It is changing the quality of human and other forms of life. Space activity is an essential component of this information age, enabling the global gathering, distribution and use of data and information.

Today, human necessities include food, water, shelter, education, health care, energy, resources, communications, transportation, security and adventure. Quality is added through the social aspects of ethics, justice, motivation, and economic wellbeing. It is astonishing how much, in its short existence, human space activity has already touched each of these essential aspects of life and how it will, in future, enable many of them to be accommodated within the restrictions of a sustainable world.

The Forum workshop on "Living on Planet Earth" specifically addressed the linkages between space activity and meeting the needs and achieving quality in life on Earth in the next century.

The workshop on "Leaving Planet Earth" addressed the linkages between space activity and human expansion beyond Earth in order to make recommendations on the most effective ways of proceeding with this great chapter of human evolution.

Beyond Earth, space activity is opening horizons that, previously, could only be imagined on the basis of limited observation from the surface of the Earth. Space activity enables unprecedented exploration of the environment around Earth and is extending this exploration ever deeper into our universe and its origins.

During the coming century, humanity has the opportunity to achieve truly profound strategic goals in space exploration, utilization and development. We can make possible the permanent extension of human presence beyond the bounds of Earth and enable historic improvements in our understanding of our Solar System and the Universe - and in the quality of life here on Earth. We begin with a firm foundation: strong international space launch capabilities, highly capable and exciting space and Earth science missions, the International Space Station, extensive space communications and navigation systems and excellent ground infrastructures and laboratories.

Humans will continue to explore the Solar System. Pioneering human outposts and settlements will be established, which will pave the way for a permanent human presence off Earth. Initially this will be in the inner Solar System, between Venus and Mars, including comets and near-Earth asteroids. Meanwhile, advanced robotic exploration to the outer areas of the Solar System and beyond will be undertaken.

Current plans for exploration of the Moon and Mars propose initial use of robotic missions followed by a gradual introduction of manned missions, leading to a permanent human presence on these bodies. Lunar and Martian exploration will advance space science through a better understanding of a number of important scientific areas, including: solar system formation/evolution, the existence and origin of life, and the adaptation of humans to space and other planetary environments. The development of new biospheres on the Moon and Mars will have a profound impact on the capability of humans to migrate beyond Earth.

Colonization of Moon and Mars will stimulate the development of the infrastructures necessary to support them: commercial space ports, new launch and in-space transportation, use of extraterrestrial resources and energy. All these will lead to the eventual "industrialization" of near-earth space over the next 50-70 years.

As a result of these developments, leaving Planet Earth, whether robotically or humanly, will be considerably facilitated. This will enable new scientific missions to the Outer Planets and Outer Solar System, with potentially large impacts on space science and astronomy.

Meanwhile, the great observatories stationed in space will add continually to our knowledge of the entire electromagnetic spectrum of our Universe.

General Findings for Living on Planet Earth and Leaving Planet Earth

… During the next century, attention will shift from considering only living on Planet Earth, to considering both living on Planet Earth and leaving Planet Earth. Such a shift demands a reconsideration of space activity and its increasing role in human development.

… Using Earth and solar energy, life was developed and, finally, a small number of humans was accommodated in Earth's biosphere. Humankind is now positioned both to have a marked influence on Earth's biosphere and to migrate away.

… In the next century, space activity will be central to monitoring and controlling such human influence on Earth's biosphere and to human migration to other biospheres.

General Recommendations

… Strategies for enhancing international cooperation in space should be explored and implemented, starting from the earliest phases of strategic planning.

… Space exploration should be widely used to provide motivating educational processes and materials.

… All people should be engaged in space activities by educating them about our position in the cosmos and its implications on humanity.

… All people should be involved in the adventure and discovery of space exploration and the search for life elsewhere, and should be involved in formulating the goals and implementation of space activities.

Findings for Living on Planet Earth in the 21st Century:

… Human activities on Earth will be increasingly dependent on space assets.

… Space activity will support the sustainability of life on Earth:

- As the world population increases, space activity enables or facilitates the continuing provision of the necessities of life, such as food, water, protection of shelter, the health of the life support environment, education, the benign use of earth's resources, energy, communications, transportation guidance and safety, and security against natural and hostile human interventions.

- Space activity helps define our place in the cosmos and generates adventure. It further adds to the quality of life by generating economic value, by being a positive human motivational force and by providing the tools leading to a just and equitable society.

Recommendations

Space activity should be pursued in such a manner as to maximize the benefits to society-at-large living on Earth by:

… Continuing development of space assets to observe, measure, communicate, warn and increase knowledge about Earth and its environment

… Measuring the capacity and limitations of Earth's resources to support life

… Developing and applying space activity to enable or facilitate the provision of the necessities of life (food, water, protection of shelter, the health of the life support environment, education, the benign use of earth's resources, energy, communications, transportation guidance and safety, and security against natural and hostile human interventions)

… Developing new skills and space assets to decouple humankind from complete dependence on the biosphere

… Developing effective, reliable, safe, clean and low-cost space transportation systems for space activity on a much larger scale than at present.

Finding for Leaving Planet Earth in the 21st Century

… Humans have developed a limited capacity to explore the depths of the Solar System and of the Universe through robotic devices. Humans have also developed the capacity to support life outside the biosphere in a very limited way. Humankind is ready to fully develop these two capacities, allowing it to explore, understand, prospect and settle away from Earth.

Recommendations

Humans should prepare to follow their inexorable drive to explore and gain knowledge and understanding beyond Earth by:

… Developing integrated scenarios and strategies for space exploration, utilization, development and settlement

… Investigating the synergy between, and integration of, robotic and human space exploration

… Continuing to develop space assets to observe, measure, warn, communicate, and increase knowledge about the elements of the Universe

… Developing effective, reliable, safe, clean and low-cost space power and transportation systems for space exploration on a much larger scale than at present

… Developing space-based energy sources, including in-situ fuels, for use in Space or transfer to Earth

… Developing, adapting and applying tools already developed for use on Earth on extra-terrestrial bodies, particularly the Moon

… Determining the resources required for long-term migration beyond Earth

… Defining roles for the protection and preservation of the planetary and space environment and establishing a framework for implementation

… Investigating the medical, psychological, social, ethical and legal frameworks for the development of communities in Space

… Establishing biospheres beyond Earth and establishing pilot space settlements, thereby learning to live away from the Earth's biosphere

… Encouraging the development of space tourism

Keynote speakers:

Workshops on specific themes

Managing Earth's resources and Energy

Policy and Economics, Infrastructure and Security

Health and Education

Exploration

Integrating Sessions

Living on Planet Earth

Leaving Planet Earth

The recommendations of the individual workshops were integrated in two sessions before being presented to the final plenary. These integrating sessions considered findings and recommendations of the preceding workshops in greater of detail than those considered in the final plenary session. The recommendations are reproduced below to provide the reader with more of the background that led to the final set of findings and recommendations.

Integrating Session 1

Living on Planet Earth

Workshop 1 &endash; Managing Earth's Resources and Energy

Four major themes were identified: food and water, energy, data for planetary monitoring, and assistance to developing countries.

Recommendations:

… Food and water: develop and use space technologies and data to enhance food production (including water location, minerals, top-soil quality)

… Energy: provide, through space technologies or with the support of technologies developed within space programs, clean, low-cost and abundant energy

… Data for planetary monitoring: provide continuous, non-disputable, globally disseminated, timely space data for planetary monitoring; this data will have to be integrated with data from other sources such as ground or airborne

… Assistance: secure technical and financial assistance from developed countries for developing countries to provide optimal resource management, and to give developing countries access to the relevant space data for food availability, disaster mitigation and other global uses.

Workshop 2 &endash; Policy, Economics, Infrastructure and Security

The workshop addressed questions of national sovereignty, autonomy and competition, the mechanisms for dealing with policy, economic and security concerns and the involvement of industry in the strategic planning process.

Findings:

… International cooperation in space is increasing, both at the governmental level and through the globalization of space industry

… This trend needs to be maintained and increased, particularly for large-scale initiatives such as a manned mission to Mars

… It is recognized that different initiatives require different cooperative structures

… Industry globalization is increasing

… This globalization presents both opportunities and challenges: wider distribution of benefits but also dilution of national economic benefits.

Recommendations:

… Structures for international cooperation should be inclusive as much as possible;

… International planning for space cooperation must be improved through:

- Increased dialogue in strategic planning (e.g. by exchange of personnel, etc.) inside and outside space world

- Lessons learnt from other organizations outside space, such as NATO

- Increased participation by industry in the process of strategic planning

- Capitalizing on industrial globalization.

Workshop 3 &endash; Health and Education

Recommendations:

… Assure satellite access to clearing houses on global health and medical knowledge

… Explore developing and broadly distributing a simple user-friendly scanner to send patient data to a distant computer tomography center &endash; to improve telemedicine in remote areas. The scanner could be derived from a similar device for ISS

… Continue to develop public health monitor system to detect and warn of public health hazards, such as malaria, with open access

… Make available to ALL university degree programmes information about space-relevant topics in order to increase awareness about space technology applications

… Provide vastly enhanced satellite access to new knowledge and developments, in particular in the medical field; knock down intellectual property barriers; assure open sharing

… UN to provide resources for increased developing nations' attendance in ISU programmes

… Share experience of space flights (mission access and design, spacecraft design, crew access, use of space, etc)

Integrating Session 2

Leaving Planet Earth

Workshop 4 &endash; Exploration

It was recommended that mankind prepare to follow its drive to explore and gain knowledge and understanding beyond planet Earth by:

… Developing advanced space power and propulsion systems

… Developing techniques to mitigate effects on life of long-term exposure to space

… Defining rules for preservation of planetary and space environments

… Developing integrated scenarios for space exploration, utilization and settlement

… Investigating synergy between robotics and manned exploration

… Involving all peoples in formulating goals and implementation of space activities.

… Engaging all peoples by educating them about Earth and its position and implication for mankind;

… Investigating medical, psychological, social and ethical developments of communities in space.