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Spaceflight technology's next 50 years
Biggest challenge is to make simpler and safer propulsion system
 NASA This artist's conception shows astronauts supervising a lunar rover equipped with a robotic drill for boring into the surface. Drilling equipment could be used to hunt for frozen water and other useful materials. |
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The Space Age began 50 years ago this week with the launch of Sputnik 1, a small metallic ball carrying only a couple of simple radio transmitters. Since then, spaceflight technologies have grown up. High-performance rocket fuels, miniaturized guidance electronics and ultra-light spacecraft materials, to name a few, make frequent and complex trips to space possible.
During the next half century, however, leaders in spaceflight planning think cost-cutting technological innovations will carry the torch to the moon, Mars and beyond.
"Getting into space is very expensive. If there's a way to really reduce the cost of getting into Earth orbit by a factor of 10, that would be something," said Chris Moore, NASA's program executive for exploration technology at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. "There's a whole bunch of innovative ideas ranging from scramjet propulsion to space elevators, but some of those ... are very far in the future."
Brett Alexander, executive director for space prizes at the X Prize Foundation in Santa Monica, Calif., said new propulsion systems should help pave the way for more technologies.
"The biggest challenge is to make a simpler and safer propulsion system that can be mass-produced," Alexander told SPACE.com. "It's a tipping point not only for spaceflight itself, but also for the technologies that would follow."
While scientists across the globe plug away at the problem of developing discount propulsion systems, Moore explained that NASA is advertising its "wish list" as the Centennial Challenges.
"We offer cash prizes to industry or universities to do low-cost, highly innovative missions and technology demonstrations," Moore said of the program. The proof-of-concept tasks include developing more dexterous and durable astronaut gloves, extracting breathable oxygen from moon dust and creating incredibly strong yet lightweight "tethers" that a space elevator might use to hoist itself into space.
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"These types of competitions have been successful in the past," Moore said, citing Burt Rutan's suborbital flight of a privately funded spacecraft in 2004, which snatched up $10 million in prize money.
Regolith-ready technology
As privately funded teams try getting their cost-effective landers on the moon, NASA is gearing up for humanity's extended stay there around 2020—but getting there will only be half the battle, Moore said.
The lunar surface is powdered with microscopic shards of glassy dust, known as regolith, which threatens both man and machine. Moore said creating a functional base on the lunar surface requires developing "regolith-ready" technology.
"Regolith can degrade spacesuits and pressure seals and other equipment," Moore said. The health danger during long stays is also an issue, he said, mentioning that astronauts returning from the moon complained about breathing problems from dust that was tracked into their tight living space.
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Dust-combating technologies could be as complex as special dust-removing chambers or as simple as spacesuit coveralls, Moore said. He noted that lunar habitats able to recycle air, water and human waste far more efficiently than the International Space Station's systems will also be key.
"Once we're there, we need advanced robotics to deploy the habitat modules and connect them together to form a lunar outpost," he said. "What we'd like to do is take the lunar regolith and extract oxygen from minerals in the soil, so we can use it to breathe or make oxidizer for rocket fuel."
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