Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure A Cost Saving Approach to Human Spaceflight within a 15-year Constrained NASA Budget White Paper Submitted at the Open Invitation of the National Research Council 2013 Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure In Response to the National Research Council’s Study on the Benefits, Challenges and Ramifications of America’s Human Spaceflight Program. LiftPort Group presents a Cost-Effective Approach to Human Spaceflight within a 15-year Constrained NASA Budget. | MICHAEL LAINE – PRESIDENT, LIFTPORT GROUP | CHARLES RADLEY MSC., – ADVISOR, LIFTPORT GROUP | MARSHALL EUBANKS MSC., – ADVISOR, LIFTPORT GROUP | JEROME PEARSON MSC., – ADVISOR, LIFTPORT GROUP | PETER SWAN PHD., – ADVISOR, LIFTPORT GROUP | LEE GRAHAM (NASA – HIS VIEWS DO NOT REFLECT HIS EMPLOYER) | | 8 JULY 2013 | LIFTPORT GROUP | 1307 Dogwood Hill RD SW, Port Orchard, WA, 98366 | www.liftport.com | (862) 438-5383 | [email protected] LiftPort’s Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure: Affordable Response to Human Spaceflight What are the important benefits provided to the United States and other countries by human spaceflight endeavors? The ability to place humans in space is exciting to the public, and demonstrates the technological maturity and stature of each spacefaring nation. Such a visible and peaceful demonstration of cutting edge technology fosters foreign policy by showing Page | 1 strength without engaging in conflicti. Human spaceflight sparks the imagination and serves an instinctive need to explore. Astronauts are ambassadors for all of humanity in a very personal way. Men and women in space suits inspire people – of all cultures and demographics – to achieve excellence, to believe in a common cause and to pursue a noble goal. Furthermore, humans in space have unique abilities and attributes (eyes, fingers, and onsite reasoning) to pursue scientific research and commercial development that cannot be achieved by robotic means. American leadership, as demonstrated by the continuous success of human spaceflight, has led the world into an exciting 21st century. Boot prints on the Moon over 40 years ago, and more than a continuous decade aboard the International Space Station (ISS) provide inarguable proof of this. What are the greatest challenges to sustaining a U.S. government program in human spaceflight? Human spaceflight is very expensive. The general public does not appreciate how small the NASA budgetii is today compared to the Apollo era. Nor do they know how little can be achieved in the current budgetary climate versus their high expectations of flights to the ISS, the Moon, Mars and beyond. Yet there are potential cost-effective solutions if NASA leadership can boldly think outside the box, dare greatly, and embrace radical new ideas. A “business as usual” philosophy is no longer viable; yet NASA remains persistently conservative. NASA’s conservatism stems from the complex layers of its stakeholders – Congressional districts, NASA Center-dependent jobs, public expectations and international political considerations – paired with its own risk-averse “failure is not an option” cultureiii. LiftPort Group is proud to submit innovative ideas that challenge current thinking and allow NASA to continue leading by breaking the logjam and leaping forward. What are the ramifications and what would the nation and world lose if the United States terminated NASA's human spaceflight program? The United States is a global superpower, and the American human spaceflight program is a potent symbol of our nation’s status on the world stage. Termination of US human spaceflight would weaken superpower standing, disappoint friends and allies, embolden rivals and adversaries, and make our citizens lose confidence in our government and its global leadership. We’ve already seen this with the recent advances in the Chinese and Russian programs. Vitally more important, however, is that the US position in the global arena depends on our technical innovation. The US economy continues to be fueled by the capital investments NASA made 50 years ago. Cutting the human spaceflight program ensures that our biosciences, materials, robotics, computing, energy, and communications industries will be weakened. The research, development, and commercialization of advanced technologies derived from human spaceflight has ripple effects on our standard of living, our financial independence, and our political “soft power” throughout the world. We cannot let this “termination” occur! LiftPort Group | 1307 Dogwood Hill RD SW, Port Orchard, WA 98366 www.liftport.com | (862) 438-5383 | [email protected] LiftPort’s Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure: Affordable Response to Human Spaceflight The budgetary challenge The primary challenge of human spaceflight is to achieve spectacular advances in human expansion into space – within significant budgetary constraints and fiscal realities. The dramatic achievements of Apollo came during a unique period of US history: the cold war – where money was no object to demonstrate technological superiority. The price tag was 4% of the federal budget sustained over several years. This level of funding rapidly dwindled, (currently about .05%)iv and there is no Page | 2 possibility this heyday will return. The people of America, and the world, still look to NASA to lead; yet no human has travelled beyond Earth orbit in over 40 years. Humanity confined to Low Earth Orbit does not, and will not, inspire. This future will not drive the disruptive advances in technology that the US has historically produced. A lack of ongoing achievement and a lack of exciting goals results in declining public interest – which drives further funding reductions. This is a vicious cycle. Drastic changes to current thinking are needed to overcome these challenges, or the outlook for human spaceflight, and the United States, is bleak. The way forward is the articulation of an American goal consistent with our historic spaceflight leadership. Where shall humans go next? The current debate The public yearns for NASA to send humans to Mars, but this is far beyond budget realities for many decades. Interim milestones are needed, but there is no consensus on what those should be. There is a debate primarily revolving around 3 options, 1) either sending humans to a Near Earth Asteroid (NEA), 2) return to the Moon, or 3) develop space stations with an expanded ISS and habitats at the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrange location (EML2). The public interest (and Congressional support) in an asteroid mission or EML2 is in doubtv. However, there is a clear consensus and popular appeal for developing a major permanent presence on the Moonvi. But even there, budget realities limit our options. With current technologies (i.e. using chemical rockets) missions to the Moon are prohibitively expensive. This caused the Constellation Program’s projected costs ($97Bvii) to far outstrip the NASA budget projections, resulting in cancellation. On the other hand, a mission to an NEA, or EML2 is more affordable, but much less inspiring to the public. It is also less likely to realize significant commercial benefits. Game Changing Cost Reduction using the Affordable Lunar Elevator LiftPort Group encourages attention to available and innovative technologies to dramatically reduce the cost of access to the lunar surface. Specifically, we advocate a Lunar Elevator as an affordable and game changing infrastructure element. LiftPort’s Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure (LSEI) will reduce the cost of lunar missions by fourfold. The Lunar Elevator has been studied in detail by Jerome Pearson et al. under NASA’s Institute for Advanced Conceptsviii. Since then, LiftPort Group has established that the Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure is 1) technically feasible using current state-of-the-art technology 2) adopts many commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, and is 3) constructible within a single launch packageix. The concept is inherently simple: a long tether attached at one end to the surface of the Moon (at Sinus Medii facing Earth) and extends from there towards Earth through the Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange location (EML1), to a counterweight potentially as far as 250,000 kilometers from the lunar surface. This assembly is in gravitational equilibrium, and stationary relative to the Moon as it orbits around the Earth. In recent years, a new generation of COTS materials have entered industrial production with ample strength-to-mass ratio to sustain this extended structure in space. LiftPort analysis indicates that a first-generation prototype Lunar Elevator can be built and deployed in seven to ten years for as little as $800 Million (including launch vehicle costs). This first robotic-only version will weigh ~11 tons with a payload ~100 kg. It can deliver and retrieve an unlimited number of such payloads to the lunar surface. Sample returns can be lifted to the EML1 station or transported to the tip of the Elevator and dropped to Earth or Earth orbits. Placement of this Elevator infrastructure needs only a single launch via commercial heavy lift capability (e.g. Falcon Heavy, Atlas V, ATK Liberty, Stratolaunch and Delta-IV). There is an important alternative, however, with NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). A larger (~30 ton) version of LiftPort Group | 1307 Dogwood Hill RD SW, Port Orchard, WA 98366 www.liftport.com | (862) 438-5383 | [email protected] LiftPort’s Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure: Affordable Response to Human Spaceflight the Lunar Space Elevator could be deployed with ~250 kg payload