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VARİOUS APPROACH TO SPACE EXPLORATİON
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Space Exploration RIZA GÜNEŞ Electrical Engineering – Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering 040190726 İSHAKHAN YÜKSEL Electrical Engineering – Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering 040180375 ALİ ÇETİN Computer engineering– Faculty of Computer and Informatics Engineering 150190741 Gamze Moran English 201 May 30, 2021
Space Exploration Thesis: There are numerous reasons of space exploration which is becoming more and more popular recently and has enormous effects, but it can be claimed that the two main reasons are space mining and space colonization. I. Colonization of space A. Extinction of human civilization
a. According to “Canadian Space Agency” b. Nasa Economic Impact Study 2020 c. Nasa Economic Impact Report B. Impacts on daily life
Introduction Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technologies to understand, explore and even benefit from space. While the exploration of Space was made with limited tools such as telescopes long ago, today it can be done with robotic spacecraft and manned spacecraft that are the examples of advanced technology of humanity. Historically, physical Space exploration began in the mid-20th century with the invention of the rockets, which are capable of escaping Earth’s gravity (Aerospace, A Brief History of Space Exploration, 2018). It can be easily said that the first periods of physical space exploration took place with the space race between the USA and the Soviet Union. However, companies such as SpaceX and BlueOrigin are successfully and rapidly moving forward with space exploration, which has become the common mission of scientists today. This ever expanding human presence in outer space had significant impacts on humans, and it can be felt all around the world. According to an OECD study, the collective income of the global space economy in 2013 was recorded at USD 256.2 billion(The Space Economy at a Glance in 2014, 2014, p.17). For instance, every time someone uses their mobile phones to access GPS or cellular data, they are benefiting from the byproducts of space exploration. Although improvements on our daily lives like this one are numerous, possibilities of living in a human colony in space, or working at a space mining facility seems closer in the horizon as the reach of humanity also expands further. There are numerous reasons of space exploration, which is becoming more and more popular recently and has enormous effects, but it can be claimed that the two main reasons are space mining and space colonization. Space Colonization-Rıza Space colonization; refers to a multiple community of completely independent, self-sufficient settlements anywhere in space outside our planet Earth. Space colonization is a subject that has much greater technological requirements than the space tourism or space satellites. The reason why human beings have worked so intensely on space colonization for many years is to protect humanity from extinction due to natural or human-induced reasons. With the conclusion of his study, Matheny (2007), Humanity has to do space colonization at once, which is the only condition for its existence forever, because the possibility of survival is much lower than before, due to nuclear and biological weapons. The survival of human can only be possible, if we expand our borders outside to the world ( p.1339). Throughout history, humanity has experienced various pandemics such as plague, Spanish flu, Covid-19(it is still hot-topic). Fortunately, none of them could not destroyed to humanity. But no one can guarantee that a new disease cannot destroy humanity living on a single planet. There are threats not only from a biologic
negatively affects human life (lack of resources, lack of area, etc.). It is not ethical and possible to solve the rapid population growth problem by preventing reproduction. O'Neill and his team from Princeton University designed 32 km long and 6.4 km in diameter cylindrical shape, capable of providing its own clean air, water and food, able to provide the materials for its construction from space mining (one of the most important points to reduce costs), radiation protection and enough grativity, that will provide a comfortable life to around 1 million people. (O’Neill,The Colonization of Space,1974) These structures are thought to be moving in the orbits of the Sun and in outer space rather than the surface of the various planets. In this way, the area problems that we have in the world will be eliminated and there is no obstacle to building thousands of these structures. As the number of these structures increases, billions of people can live in space colonies without any differences from people on the world and the burden of the world will be reduced thanks to each person living in these colonies. Another reason why there is a huge effort about space colonization, fossil fuels which are a source of energy, is one of the most important reason of environmental pollution and climate change. Especially in recent years, although there has been a trend toward renewable energy sources, solar panels cannot be sufficiently efficient due to the Earth's atmosphere. Today, the efficiency of solar panels, which are the most preferred industrially in terms of price performance, varies between 20% and 25%. Susumu Sasaki suggested a program that using solar panels in space to provide energy to Earth. The method is to send the electricity produced in space to the world as a microwave beam and then convert it back to electricity in the world.(It's Always Sunny in Space,2014) In the solar panel colonies, since there is no limit of the atmosphere and the direction of the panels can be directed towards the sun's rays, the solar panels work with almost 100% efficiency and the energy produced will be sent to the world through high frequency antennas. This ratio shows that a solar panel used outside the atmosphere is about 10 times more efficient than a solar panel used in the World and. A solar panel outside the stratosphere will generate 1400 watts of energy per m2; This means that the energy produced by a 8m2 solar panel in one day is enough for the monthly energy consumption of a family of 4 people (according to 2019 TEİAŞ data). At the same time, if solar panel colonies are built in space, there is no need for solar panel fields built on large lands in the world and those lands can be used for agriculture, etc. sectors. By transferring energy from the colonies to areas that are difficult to transport energy from energy power plants, there will be no need to build new electricity generation plants. This project can end fossil fuel consumption for the world's energy needs, greatly reduce environmental pollution and put an end to possible energy wars.Even if we only think about
solving these two problems, we should support institutions such as SpaceX, BlueOrigin, NASA to give importance to space colonization and see the issue of space colonization as the common goal of humanity. Space Mining-İshakhan Second of all, space mining is one of the main topics of why space explorations are important and needed. Space mining is an alternative way of mining targeting to provide highly amount of metal, water and other resources from closer asteroids and the Moon for the beginning. The main reasons why space mining should be preferred are the depletion of Earth resources and the helium 3 molecule for cleaner and safer electricity generation. The world has always been generous about presenting its treasures to living-beings it has, yet it is undeniable situation that the Earth resources which are very necessary and crucial for civilizations' continuity of industry are finite. According to Sivolella, finding and applying new techniques to process terrestrial resources are rational and worth to study on. Nonetheless, these world riches have to be considered regarding their limitations and disadvantages owing to physics and chemistry. These handicaps could be overcome by space mining (2019, p.194). He also emphasized that if people do not benefit from resources that are hiding in space, there is a serious extinction threat for the world's civilization and human race because of the probability that humanity would be trapped on uninviting world(2019, p.199). In the light of all these facts, it is clear that space mining is a very considerable way to provide the resources that are very essential and unfortunately pretty limited in the world. In the future without space mining, world industry and improvements will suffer from lack of needed metals, and this will decrease industrial production. In addition, space mining is also important for clean and sustainable energy production in terrestrial areas. Simko and Gray states that Zero carbon emission, zero or very little radioactive waste and directly convertibility into electricity are the some of the answers of why helium 3 is charming (2014, p.168 ). Taking this into consideration, one can conclude that helium 3 molecule and helium 3 fusion reactors are beneficial way to produce green energy and to reduce carbon footprint. However, collecting helium 3 is possible with neither traditional mining strategies nor mines on Earth. As mentioned by Olson, In contrast to world, the Moon has been bombarded with helium 3 for billions of years on account of the lack of magnetic field protection and atmosphere (2019, p.23). In view of this information, it can be claimed that helium 3, the resource of fusion reactors can be collected only via space mining from the Moon surface. This condition points out that space mining and
space (2015, p.25). Objectively speaking, one cannot deny the fact that as with the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, asteroids are still a major threat to life on Earth. In contrast to million years ago, the world has significant advantages to protect itself from those asteroids. Space mining is one of the best methods to protect the world against to asteroids owing to its huge support to the planetary defense. It is easily claim that in the future, space mining and its techniques will be applied widely not only to collect data and resources but also to destroy or to deflect asteroids. Considering how much the world is open for outer threats, governments, authorities and companies should immediately invest more in space mining and take precautions to asteroids. To sum up, it is easily justified that space mining should be supported because of its contributions to world development and planetary defense system. Effects-Ali The effects of space exploration on human lives are plentiful. These effects can be considered under economic growth, and daily lives. There are numerous studies on space exploration that indicates how outstanding its impacts on economic growth is. These impacts include the formation of new industries as well as innovation and expansion on existing ones. First of all, space exploration opened new horizons for humans to take advantage of. Being able to send vessels to space allowed humans to start completely new industries such as satellite industry. Satellite Industry Association(SIA) releases annual reports on findings on the satellite industry. According to 2020 State of the Satellite Industry Report, global revenues of the satellite industry for 2019 was $271B, including sub categories such as satellite manufacturing, launch industry, satellite services and ground equipment.( 2020, “Figure”) It can be understood from the report that, without the space exploration, neither satellite industry, nor many other industries built upon and around it would not exist to positively influence the economic growth today. Secondly, space exploration also allowed existing industries to expand and use the innovations it brought with it. The innovations conceived by the space industry are often used by other industries. This appropriation of innovations are usually called “spin-off technologies” and they have a substantial economic impacts. According to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) study, Norway, a European Space Agency(ESA) member, after finding out a turnover rate of an extra 4.4 million Norwegian Kroner(NOK) in revenues per NOK 1 million invested in space subsidy programmes, considered these spin-off effects on its economy to be so substantial, it decided to expand its participation on space
exploration.( The Space Economy at a Glance, 2007, p.72) As it can be understood from this study, with the aid of international organizations such as ESA, participation in space exploration is far from being an endeavor that it exclusive only to the larger economies of the world. Furthermore, even a small country might receive significant economic benefits for participating in space exploration. Nevertheless, it is clear that investing in space exploration will bring meaningful profits to many industries as a result. As stated in the National Aeronautics and Space Association’s Economic Impact Study : “ For every FTE job located at a NASA facility, more than 17 additional jobs are supported throughout the U.S. economy. For each million dollars of labor income earned by NASA civil service employees, an additional $7 million of labor income is generated in the U.S. And for each million dollars worth of output produced by NASA, an additional $7.7 million of output—consisting of both intermediary inputs and consumption goods and services— is produced throughout the national economy. These figures are boosted by the large volume of procurement spending administered through NASA.”(2020, p.IV) In view of this information, it can be said that space exploration efforts has brought in a considerable amount of economic improvements in return, alongside with other benefits. Considering all these facts, it can be concluded that investments on space exploration can be impactful on economic growth as it can enhance other industries significantly with technological advancements, as well as giving birth to new industries, and one can expect an increase in such investments the future. From a second view, our daily lives are also affected by space exploration. It has influenced our social lives, and our quality of life. To begin with, humanity’s space exploration endeavors developed a sense of unity amongst people as a result. As stated by Sagan, while we were endangering the world we are living in with the technologies we developed, we came to the understanding that although the justifications behind the assembling of the Apollo program was bogged down in Cold War nationalism and weapons of mass destruction, startlingly, the ultimate outcome of it was how united and vulnerable the Earth was (Pale Blue Dot, 1994, p.143). As it can be derived from this, even when the motives behind a space program were divisive and destructive in nature, seeing the Earth we are living in from far away in the vastness of the space has still managed to reveal how alone and united the humans are as a species. Events like these kept fueling the idea of an international collaboration for space exploration amongst the space enthusiasts all over the
effects. Space explorations, thanks to space mining and colonization, not only provide great opportunities to collect resources and to ensure the development and security of the world but also contribute to preventing the extinction of humanity and to mitigation the burden of world. Also, space explorations have plenty of impacts on world's economy and society. In addition all the information given with this review, it can be claimed that the debates about how to share space resources between nations and companies, and the wars that may break out in space between countries to capture mine sites, asteroids or colonization sites will be extremely serious problems for humanity. Governments and authorized people should take precautions and issue a new space laws to prevent all kind of war, controversy and injustice. In spite of all of the possible troubles, it can be easily said that investments to space exploration will increase all around the world, and humanity will look for the future in space.
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Figure 1. The graph shows the distribution of global revenues of the satellite industry for 2019. Adapted from “2019 top-level satellite industry findings” by Satellite Industry Association.
