What will the impact of space development be on science and
technology? Why? How?

Thanks Jack,
I think this line could be very useful, and I want to encourage it so
here are some suggestions to further encourage discussion. One should
distinguish evolutionary changes from revolutionary changes. It is easier
(but not necessarily easy) to predict how existing industries and services
based on space technology will continue to improve in evolutionary ways with
incremental changes. Such things as weather forecasting, ocean
surveillance, navigation, communications, and so on. Also many sciences
such as astronomy, oceanography, geology, forest managements, high tech
farming (using GPS), and so on will continue to benefit. It is not easy to
make a real list of all of the industries which benefit from current space
technology, but it would be a service to make and distribute such lists.
Many new industries, such as those which now use GPS, will emerge. And the
military certainly has been a stimulus in this and other areas.
Revolutionary changes are much harder to predict, though SSI was founded to
promote some of them.
Sincerely, Jay Huebner

Easy access to zero gravity and hard vacuum will bring to light a huge
number of serendipitous discoveries. I think a perfect example is the
unexpected properties of a water film in zero-g - see
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/25feb_nosoap.htm?list71523
At least a handful of these serendipitous discoveries will be
significant enough to revolutionize industrial processes, scientific
research tools, and will spawn new space-based businesses. But, in the
nature of serendipity, and discovery in general, there's no way to tell
right now what these will be. The important thing is that we have people
in space with the free time and inclination to follow their curiosity.

Jack,

Thanks for your input, Jay. Very helpful and you make some excellent
points.

--- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"
> Easy access to zero gravity and hard vacuum will bring to light a
huge
> number of serendipitous discoveries.

> Jack,
>
> The question while a good starter is a bit too broad.

Hi all

RE: "... access to zero gravity and hard vacuum ..." I agree with the
implications that access to low cost conditions that provide manufacturing
advantages can be beneficial. Micro-g and vacuum are useful but are only
part of the story. There are three others that I know would also be very
useful.
1) High and low temperatures. Focused solar energy can reach 6000 K, and
shade from it can provide perhaps 60 K, depending on the heat flow and the
local environment. The solar energy is also accessible for driving
photochemical reactions, for one example, the natural production of ozone in
Earth's atmosphere. This energy flow can also be used for welding,
distillation, zone refining, etc. Many forms of energy for manufacturing
will be cheap in solar space.
2. Large volumes for manufacturing, for example, reaction vessels to
process organic materials, which on Earth is usually done in condensed phase
(liquid, or gases at 1 atm. or above) could be done in space in volumes of
cubic kilometers and therefore using dilute gas and plasma phases. With
solar flux, new methods of manufacturing pharmaceuticals, fullerenes, etc.
can be investigated. It might be cheaper in space to make amino acids
(which we need in our diet, and normally get from proteins) directly using
sunlight than to grow animals for their flesh.
3. Bulk (low cost) materials from asteroids and comets. A small solid
"M" or metal asteroid such as Amun, probably has a mass of 30 billions
tones, and contains (at current Earth market prices) $ 8,000 billion worth
of iron and nickel, $ 6,000 billion worth of cobalt, and $ 6,000 billion
worth of platinum-group metals. See page 112 of John S. Lewis' Mining the
Sky, Helix Books, 1996. Having access to such materials would assist space
manufacturing.
Another useful market for products made in space would be devices which
can now be built on Earth, like 30 foot diameter glass telescope mirror,
which would be nice to have in space, but they can not be lifted from Earth
on any existing space craft to orbit. They could be manufactured in space.
There are many such devices like this, and once folks started thinking about
others, there will be many more envisioned.
4. An honest presentation must also mention disadvantages of orbital
manufacturing. Labor will be high! And for products destined for Earth
markets, transportation costs for down shipments could be significant.
Perhaps those costs could be lowered by building re-entry vehicles in space
for one way trips down. Or perhaps building these devices which after
making a trip down carrying freight, could be re-manufactured or outfitted
to become full blown space craft for being launched from Earth, sort of an
empty shell of a space shuttle like craft.
Best wishes, Jay Huebner

> What will the impact of space development be on science and
> technology? Why? How?
Imagine first a radio telescope one kilometer in diameter: thrice the diameter of Arecibo and about ten times its sensitivity; it can lock onto a source 24/7 rather than a few minutes per day as Arecibo can, since Arecibo is fixed in a bowl-shaped depression in the ground. Then imagine a number of these, creating an array the size of the Moon's orbit around the Earth.
Expand this to dishes several km in diameter, in orbits out beyond Pluto, cooled down to liquid nitrogen temperatures by the sheer distance from the Sun, and forming an array the size of the solar system.
Then imagine how radio astronomy may benefit from such sensitivity and resolution.
Imagine optical telescopes built on the same principle. Such arrays are already in use on Earth. Imagine an array of mirrors with an effective aperture of hundreds of meters. We could see the sunspots on nearby stars, or map planetary surfaces and monitor weather systems on planets of nearby stars. This would still be difficult and expensive, of course: perhaps kilometer sized arrays of mirrors, the distance between them fixed and known to an accuracy of a fraction of the wavelength of the light being detected.
A single optical telescope on each side of the Sun, at Pluto's distance, would enable us to measure the parallaxes of nearby stars to thirty times the present accuracy, thus determining their distances from us to this accuracy, and stars thirty times as distant as presently may have their distances measured by parallax. Since parallax measurements are the first step in measuring the distance to *any* distant object, this increased accuracy would benefit distance measurements out to the quasars. Or two or three such telescopes could be sent out in interstellar space: each year would bring greater accuracy as they receded from each other.
The gravitational constant could be measured to a very great accuracy by letting two metal balls orbit each other. The product of the gravitational constant and the Earth's mass are known to nine or more digits, but the gravitational constant itself is known to much lesser accuracy. It would certainly be a natural high school science experiment, to verify the gravitational constant to within one or two significant figures.
Of course the above instruments, particularly the optical telescopes, could be launched from the Earth without any industrial infrastructure in space. But it would be much cheaper to do so from space.
Space colonies could be sent into orbit around the various planets, to serve as bases from which to observe the planetary surfaces and send probes down, returning material for analysis at the base. Later, such bases would be excellent for manned landings.