Joe Carroll, Tether Applications - Are We Preparing To "Live Beyond Earth, Sustainably And Indefinitely"?

Joe Carroll, Tether Applications - Are We Preparing To "Live Beyond Earth, Sustainably And Indefinitely"?

We'll need to learn how to recycle better, air and water.  We'll also need to grow food in space.  We'll need to learn how to make clothes in space.  It will be a lot of hard work.

We don't know what are the long term health issues are for partial gravity.  We know 1G is OK, but we have seen that micro-gee causes problems.  The Moon has 1/6 gravity.  The Mars have 3/8 gravity.  We really want to get more data on partial gravity.

Another problem we need to worry about is radiation.  Dr Jim Logan of NASA JSC says: "We can visit the Moon and Mars, but we can't live on them: we must live in them, under meters of rock, to limit cosmic ray doses."

Joe's conclusions:

Current national space investments are not based on plans, but on the residual momentum of old programs.

We don't even know what "a plan" might be.  But democracies are reactive; dictatorships make plans.

Special interests will continue to drive most US policies.  The phrase "more sustainable and even indefinite" may allow some leverage with this administration, but probably not with Congress.

Progress towards settlements requires tasks that benefit existing interests, or are painless, or painful to avoid.  Such tasks exist, and are worth pursuing.


The full agenda for Space Access 2013 agenda.