Editorial – Is the future of aviation in space? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Air Space in Relation to Outer Space
Air Space in Relation to Outer Space, 2018
A sovereign territory has a three-dimensional volumetric space that encompasses the land, maritime and air spaces of a state. 1 Air space is generally understood as the whole atmosphere surrounding the planet reaching from the ground up to the vacuum of the space. 2 Each state has a monopoly of power within its own air space and that monopoly of power has literally horizontal and vertical aspects. Even though horizontal aspect of the air space is somehow specified, the questions about the vertical aspect of the air space in relation to the outer space left unanswered in the legal framework. 3 Accordingly, this paper will firstly examine the concept of the "air space" by briefly explaining the legal framework of sovereignty over air space both from historical and current account and then will proceed with the debate on the demarcation boundary between air space and outer space.
Atmosphere: Context, Detachment, and the View From Above Earth
American Ethnologist, 2016
Since the 1950s, views of Earth from above have been critiqued for provoking detachment from and decontextualization of human, terrestrial concerns. These critiques thus establish Earth’s enveloping atmosphere as the ultimate context for meaningful and grounded accounts of humanness, and outer space as a site for abstract, generalizable knowledge. But in outer space, the explanatory work done by “context” is put in question, because spacefaring humans must attend to basic and constantly shifting conditions for life that lie beyond “context” on Earth, including breathing. Attention to humans in real and speculative space environments reveals context as a naturalizing device that establishes universal nature/culture distinctions through recourse to grounding terrestrial ontologies. [objectivity, comparison, relativism, outer space, verticality, horizontality, exploration]
IAC 2021 - 72nd Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, 2021
Civilization expansion into space is 50 years late. The advent of reusable rockets, by Space X since 2015, gave us hope, after a long wait for space tourism to become a reality. This paper briefly summarizes the causes of the delay. However, for the real start of the geo-lunar space industrialization, reusable rockets and low cost launch vehicles are just the first essential step. A realistic business plan shall be drafted, addressing the most profitable industrial development strategies, such as, e.g., satellites assembly and maintenance in orbit, low gravity products, space debris and wreckages recovering and reusing in orbital workshops, by 3D printing and other technologies. Envisioning industries in space, it is clear that space travellers and workers will not be only professional astronauts. In other terms, space settlement will begin when it will be possible to move civilian people to space and accommodate them for long periods, eventually as resident space citizens. Just as airline passengers don’t need to be pilots, nor hostesses, nor stewards, space travellers shouldn’t be astronauts. It is clear that civilian space travellers have mission requirements different from military astronauts. Civilian passengers and settlers need softer traveling conditions and protection against the austerities of living in space, such as low gravity and cosmic radiations, they need green environments in the habitats, not to mention legal warranties, as any airline company knows well. Astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year on the ISS, exposed to microgravity and radiation, which had detrimental effects on his health, as documented in his book, "Endurance". Microgravity can be solved by providing rotational gravity. Radiation can be solved by shielding. If we want the average person, without astronautic training, to travel in space, we also need vehicles as comfortable as normal airliners, with horizontal take-off and landing, low acceleration, and safe re-entry into the atmosphere. For the sake of our physical and mental health, we also need green environments in space habitats: vegetables and animals with us. Passenger Transportation Systems and Space Habitats requirements are briefly captured and assessed, considering few evolving levels, from classical astronautic space exploration to space settlement, as to duration, distance from Earth, diffe-rent vulnerability to radiations, low gravity, hard psychological and logistic conditions: - Terrestrial analogue campaigns training for habitats and research (such as ILEWG EuroMoonMars and MMAARS) - Sub-orbital tourism - Sub-orbital transportation - Orbital tourism - Lunar tourism - Space exploration: short missions, lunar missions, Mars missions long distance missions - Working and living in space
The struggle for space: Past and future of the space race
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2012
This article is geared toward shedding some more light on what may be the next space race and its contours. Space flight is undoubtedly a human achievement of the second half of the 20th century, and probably the most audacious one of the past century. The space race started suddenly in the 1950s and has grown explosively during the following two decades, but decreased steadily after the 1970s. After the 1990s, however, we have seen a shy rebirth of space-related activities, when many other actors (states) entered the stage, adding up to the agonizing role of the two-actor piece that we have witnessed during the so-called Cold War. The opening years of the 21st century provided a more complex narrative for space exploration. At the start of the new millennium a new technosphere [1] emerged, dominated by what is used to be called as the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), with the Internet playing the leading role among the bandwagon of technological novelties that appeared during the twilight of space activities. In despite of the fact that artificial satellites represent the very backbone of the global communications system, space activities seem to play a secondary role amidst the apparently accelerated rate of change concerning the technological systems of the present technosphere. But, as it is demonstrated in this paper, things are changing, and very probably a renewed space race will unfold in the coming decades. A question may be placed: what happened? Why the Earth stood still with regard to the race toward the cosmos? Answer: futurists, even prestigious ones like Herman Kahn and Arthur Clarke, did not consider the existence of socioeconomic long waves (Kondratieff waves, or K-waves for short) with their two decades long economic downturn, which has contributed to the deceleration of space-related activities. Analyzing the worldwide evolving scenario of space-related activities during the last eighty years under the framework of the succeeding K-waves and applying some technological forecasting tools, namely the logistic analysis, technological surveillance and intensive data mining, scrutinizing more than 7500 events occurred in the period 1930-2010 related with space activities, it is demonstrated that the space race like the one that we have witnessed until now is a natural growth process that has saturated at the dawn of this century. The same analysis demonstrates that a new growth process in this field might be nowadays under way with contours very different from that imagined by futurists and science fiction writers sixty years ago. Also the main trends in the usage of launching vehicles and satellites are framed and discussed in this paper.
Santini memorial lecture: Space Challenges and Opportunities for Human Benefit
Acta Astronautica, 2012
Since the beginning of the Space Age the public was fascinated by the great challenges that needed to be overcome, but also inspired by the potential benefits that might arise from the utilization of space systems. This lecture examines the major technological breakthroughs that were necessary for many of the key space programs to succeed, and postulates the immediate and future benefits to humanity that became evident as a result of these advances. A dozen programs ranging from Sputnik and Apollo to the Global Navigation Satellite System are reviewed in view of the technical challenges in elements such as propulsion, power, structures, computing, guidance and control, spectrum management and payloads. Challenges in the cost of space launch, large structures, debris mitigation, humans in space and commercial promise are discussed and opportunities for improvements in the future are postulated.
2017
S OF PAPERS, 87th Annual Meeting of the Virginia Academy of Science, May 27-29, 2009, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA Aeronautical and Aerospace Sciences FROM THE EARTH TO SPACE WITH NACA/NASA. M. Leroy Spearman. NASALangley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681 & Heidi Owens, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849. Leonardo da Vinci envisioned man-flight in the 15 century and th designed a practical airplane concept in 1490. Many other pioneers proposed various types of flying machines over the next 400 years but it was not until December 17, 1903 that the Wright Brothers, at Kitty Hawk, NC, were credited with achieving the first manned-powered flight. Over the next 100 years, several factors have influenced advances in aviation. The use of aircraft by European nations in World War I resulted in concern that the U.S. was lagging in aviation developments. This lead to an act of the U.S. Congress in 1915 that established the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) ...
An Urgent Need to Explore Space
2016
In spite of recent successes (such as the Hubble telescope, the Planck satellite, the Mars rover Curiosity, the Hayabusa, Rosetta and Dawn missions, etc.), space exploration appears to be slowing down. Yet exploration is both an ability and a necessary part of human existence. It requires tapping into the imaginary and resisting dogmatic temptations, and it requires perpetual evolution and even revolution of humans, their cultures and societies.