Afterword: Why Space Advocates and Environmentalists Should Work Together Aerospace is not usually considered verdant. Jet aircraft emit tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; some of the companies that make them are defense contrac- tors, and nobody considers weapons of war, necessary or not, to be green. These companies are in business to make money for their shareholders and will only be green if it somehow benefits their bottom line or if law or mandate requires them to be so. This reality, and there are exceptions, also taints those involved in space exploration and development. But painting the entire canvas with the same brush is not only grossly unfair, it is also incorrect. Many people who devote their lives and careers to the exploration of space are not in it for the money. Sure, they need to earn a living like everyone else. But that is not why the authors of this book chose their careers. Greg Matloff is an astronomer and astronomy professor. He lives, breathes, studies, and teaches about the heavens. He does this, in part, because studying the universe tells us something about ourselves. As we have explored the universe around us, we have learned how precious our planet Earth truly is. C Bangs explores archetypes of Earth and depicts cosmological elements from an ecological and feminist perspective. One premise of her work is that we are part of Earth and all the elements of our bodies at one time were within a star. We contain both systems within us. Her art in a wide variety of media is informed by mythology and the hope for human evolution. Space is not only about individual heroics or national pride. Ultimately, it deals with the expansion of consciousness and the survival of the human species and other terrestrial life forms. For example, by studying the climate of Mars, we have something to which we can compare Earth’s climate. This provides us with another data point, and that is vitally important because it is difficult, if not impossible, to explain anything generally with only one example. An analogy would be trying to draw a line using only one point. You are free to draw such a line in any direction within a 360 angle. Making conclusions about any specific line that one draws as being “correct” is therefore impossible. With two points, you may draw a line. It may still not accurately describe the system, but it will likely be closer to correct than any G. Matloff et al., Harvesting Space for a Greener Earth, 205 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9426-3, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 206 Afterword: Why Space Advocates and Environmentalists Should Work Together other of the infinite set of lines that could have otherwise been drawn through a single point. Les Johnson is a NASA physicist and manager. He dreamed of working for NASA since he was a 7-year-old boy in Ashland, Kentucky, and watched on television as Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. He knew then that he wanted to be part of that great adventure and that he had to become a scientist in order to do so. The three of us are not unique, nor are we in the minority among those who work in the field of space exploration and science. Most of our colleagues with whom we have discussed career motivations (“Why did you study science and become an astronomer/physicist/engineer?”) share our fundamental love of knowledge and passion to explore, develop, and use space for the betterment of humankind. And this passion is not limited to scientists and engineers. Businessman Robert Bigelow is using the fortune he earned in business to foster space development. He is the founder and owner of Bigelow Aerospace near Las Vegas, Nevada, which is building what may be the world’s first orbital hotel. Bigelow has already flown subscale prototypes into Earth orbit and has plans to loft full-scale pressurized modules within the near future. Another businessman, Elon Musk, is using his dot.com wealth to develop a new generation of inexpensive rockets to carry machines and eventually people into space at a lower cost than is currently possible. Environmentalists share the vision of protecting and preserving life on Earth. By working together we stand a much better chance of being able to make this vision a reality. As we gaze skyward on a starry night, we are struck by how immense and seemingly lifeless the universe appears to be. If we are not alone among the stars, then we are among a very few civilizations likely separated by an abyss that will be impossible to cross. Hence the imperative that we preserve that which makes us unique. We are part of a living planet. Exploring and developing space will help us make this a better, greener world. Brooklyn, NY, USA Greg Matloff Brooklyn, NY, USA C Bangs Madison, Al, USA Les Johnson Appendix 1: The Current NASA Approach to Human Life Support in Space G. Matloff et al., Harvesting Space for a Greener Earth, 207 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9426-3, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 208 Appendix 1: The Current NASA Approach to Human Life Support in Space Appendix 1: The Current NASA Approach to Human Life Support in Space 209 210 Appendix 1: The Current NASA Approach to Human Life Support in Space Appendix 1: The Current NASA Approach to Human Life Support in Space 211 212 Appendix 1: The Current NASA Approach to Human Life Support in Space Appendix 2: NASA’s Current Plans for Human Exploration Above Low Earth Orbit Include the Multi-Purpose Crewed Vehicle (Orion) and the Huge Space Launch System (SLS) Booster G. Matloff et al., Harvesting Space for a Greener Earth, 213 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9426-3, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 214 Appendix 2: NASA’s Current Plans for Human Exploration... Appendix 2: NASA’s Current Plans for Human Exploration... 215 216 Appendix 2: NASA’s Current Plans for Human Exploration... Appendix 2: NASA’s Current Plans for Human Exploration... 217 Appendix 3: Mitigating Global Warming Using Ground-Based (Terrestrial) Geoengineering Robert G Kennedy III, PE; Kenneth I. Roy, PE; Eric Hughes, David E. Fields, Ph.D. Acronyms CCS Carbon capture and sequestration CDM/CDR/ Carbon dioxide management/removal/avoidance CDA CPI Consumer Price Index EHV Extremely high voltage EJ Exajoule, large SI unit for energy ¼ 1018 J ERO(E)I Energy-return-on-(energy)-invested GHG Greenhouse gas IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change PV Photovoltaic Q “Quad”, large US customary unit for energy ¼ 1015 quadrillion British thermal units SLOC Sea line of communication SRM Solar radiation management WWI/II World Wars I and II Introduction to Appendix 3 Next to escaping pathogen load and the burden of disease, environmental and resource crises have been the greatest strategic motivators for human exploration and migration into unpeopled realms. We cannot qualify this statement with “in human history”, since most of these paleolithic peregrinations in search of epide- miological liberation took place tens of millennia ago, lost in the dustbin of prehistory. Even absent writing, the archaeological record demonstrates well G. Matloff et al., Harvesting Space for a Greener Earth, 219 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9426-3, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 220 Appendix 3: Mitigating Global Warming Using... Fig. A3.1 Drivers and dependencies for anthropogenic climate change, with the spectrum of approaches and points of their application (emphasizing geoengineering) for intervention. Dia- gram by authors (2013), after Caldeira (2013) enough that ancient societies that outgrew their contado (geographic extent of their resource base, typically fuel wood) crashed. So it is today—the climate crisis is upon us. We are still in the early exponential growth phases of it—the worst positive feedback loops (next section) have yet to commence. Wise guys have quipped, “we are venusforming Terra”. It is the mission of this book to show that the climate challenge is in fact pertinent to the development of a spacefaring civilization—and the other way round! As the astronomy community realized after discovering the true cause of the dinosaurs’ demise just 33 years ago, the ability to work in space is not a luxury, but a necessity for long-term survival. It is time for people to find a new contado by looking in a new direction—not to the far horizon, but up. The Climate-Carbon-Water-Energy Nexus Water means life, and we live on a water world. Ultimately, climate change (Fig. A3.1) is about water also: too much water where it is not supposed to be or when; not enough water where or when it is supposed to be; plus drying soils, changing habitats and ocean currents, and rising sea levels over the next century submerging the most historically important, densely occupied, and productive real Appendix 3: Mitigating Global Warming Using... 221 Fig. A3.2 A simple CO2 syllogism: one latent released positive-feedback loop wildfires Temp. rise waiting to take off eco stress tree death estate on Earth. Warm air holds much more water than cool air, and when it is released, weather events tend to be more violent and shift toward the extreme ends of the probability distribution. Agricultural practices and our modest pantry of staple crops (not to mention the wider ecosystem) are adapted to long term averages with predictable error bars. As the old saying goes, climate is the weather one expects, while weather is the precipitation one gets, therefore climate change means getting the unexpected.