Daily Archives: January 5, 2021

About a month after the new year has started on Earth, three spacecraft will pull into the vicinity of Mars. These explorers, which launched in July last year, will be heralds of a busy year of space exploration, launches and astronomical occurrences.

What follows is a preview of some of 2021s most notable expected events. Private companies and the worlds space agencies are likely to announce more. The Timess Space and Astronomy Calendar will help you keep up with these dates, and you can subscribe to it here.

While China has landed spacecraft on the moon three times in the last seven years, NASA has not landed there since 1972, the last Apollo mission. That could change in 2021, deepening the commercial transformation of American space efforts.

NASA has in the past decade relied on private companies to build and operate spacecraft that could ferry cargo, and now people, to the International Space Station. It is trying a similar approach with Commercial Lunar Payload Services. The program has contracted with a number of private companies to build robotic lunar landers that will carry cargo from NASA and other customers to the moons surface.

The first company, Pittsburghs Astrobotic, is scheduled to launch its Peregrine lander to the moon in June. It could be followed in October by Nova-C, a spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines of Houston.

NASA also has its eye on returning astronauts to the moon this decade. Its first step will be an uncrewed test flight of the massive Space Launch System built for future American deep space launches. The rocket has faced numerous delays and ballooning costs, but NASA still plans a journey in 2021 known as Artemis-1. It will send Orion, a capsule for astronauts, around the moon and back to Earth. That test is tentatively scheduled for November.

A second mission, Lucy, will launch in October and travel much farther, making flybys through Jupiters orbital path. There it will study the Trojans asteroids that travel in the same orbit as Jupiter but hundreds of millions of miles ahead or behind, trapped there by the giant planets gravity. Scientists think these space rocks could conceal secrets of how the solar systems outer planets were formed.

Human spaceflight was transformed in 2020 as SpaceX successfully launched a pair of crews to the space station. The company is likely to send more astronauts to orbit in 2021, and not all of them may be working for NASA and other government space agencies. Multiple companies are working with SpaceX to launch paying customers on the Crew Dragon capsule. One of them, Axiom Space, could send its first private tourists to the space station late in the year.

When NASA picked SpaceX to build transport for its astronauts, it also hired Boeing to do the same. During an uncrewed test to orbit in December 2019, a series of errors nearly led to the catastrophic loss of Boeings Starliner capsule. To make up for that unsuccessful flight, Boeing will carry out a second test flight as early as March.

Other human journeys to space also beckon this year. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin may send paying customers on short trips to the edge of space and back in 2021. China could also start launching pieces of its next generation space station during the year, setting it on a course to have a regular human presence in low Earth orbit in the years to come.

If 2020 taught people anything, it was to expect the unexpected. While Covid-19 darkened the world as it traveled around the sun, humanity was surprised by views of Comet NEOWISE in the summer months and enthralled with the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn during the winter solstice. Its a big universe, and there is so much of it to be seen from our small part of it.

A lunar eclipse on May 26 will overlap with a period when the moon is closer to Earth than usual, what some call a super blood moon. People in Australia and on Pacific islands as well as in the Western United States will get the best views of the occurrence, and some of the event will be visible in other parts of the Americas as well as East and South Asia.

Most people in North America will have to wait until 2024 to experience the next total solar eclipse like the one in August 2017. But on June 10, some North Americans will get a taste of whats to come in three years when an annular solar eclipse darkens some skies.

Also known as a ring of fire eclipse, it happens when the moon is too far from Earth to fully obstruct the sun, leaving a halo of sunlight around its edges. This unusual eclipse will cross over the North Pole as it travels, and only people in small parts of Canada and Russia will get the full effect. But those willing to wake early enough on parts of the East Coast and wear their safety glasses will get to see a partial eclipse around sunrise that morning.

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Missions to Mars, the Moon and Beyond Await Earth in 2021 - The New York Times

Its no secret that many people worldwide had a strong feeling of good riddance when leaving 2020 behind.

The twin forces of an accelerating pandemic and a decelerating economy predominated in a year that also had plenty of troubles on other fronts, from wildfires to attacks in a number of nations on principles of democracy or human rights.

Yet, as a new year opens, its useful to note that some positive trends also took root or expanded in 2020, and if they continue, they may well brighten the future in far-reaching ways. Here are eight of them:

Space as a business. With all the focus on the pandemic and its fallout, it was easy to forget that 2020 marked the return of America launching people into space. How it launched them is even more historic. Ever since the end of the space shuttle, the U.S. had been relying on the Russian government to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. But in May, astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off from American soil in a spacecraft made not by NASA but by SpaceX the first time a private spacecraft had carried humans into orbit.

Its definitely a year of significant change, says Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. SpaceX isnt the only private-sector player, and low-Earth orbit is not the frontier anymore.

Satellite statistics tell the story: Some 1,200 were launched into orbit this past year, he says, more than double the previous record. Much, but not all of that, is due to Starlink, SpaceXs program to put thousands of satellites into orbit to create near global access to the internet. Experts compare this growing commercialization to the mid-19th century private railroads that tamed the American West.

Other nations have also been busy, reflecting the growing internationalization of space. In December alone, Japans Hayabusa2 brought home asteroid samples, India launched a communications satellite, and Chinas Change 5 orbiter returned to Earth with the first moon rock samples in 44 years.

Story continues

The work-from-home movement. This trend was well underway before the pandemic, but lockdowns in the United States and in other countries forced many firms to allow their employees to work from home. Suddenly, the morning commute was replaced with daily Zoom meetings, conventions and conferences went digital, and travel became so rare for a time that Earth became quiet and scientists could hear natural seismic activity for the first time. And urban birds changed the way they sang.

If the pandemic eases this year and office towers do open up again, many experts believe workers will spend more days working from home than before the pandemic. Our best estimate is that we will see 25-30% of the workforce working at home on a multiple-days-a-week basis by the end of 2021, forecasts Global Workplace Analytics. Having learned to manage remotely, companies will encourage it, because it can save an average $11,000 per year for every employee who works at home half of the time, the research and consulting firm estimates.

And for workers? While working from home can have challenges, an October Pew Research Center poll found that in the U.S., nearly 9 in 10 jobholders who can work at home would like to do so more than rarely or never when the pandemic is over. This trend, coupled with the rise of online shopping, could also reduce traffic congestion.

Decarbonizing the economy. The lockdowns and the work-from-home trend also reduced fossil fuel emissions, and has meant that the world used an estimated 5% less energy in 2020 than in 2019, points out Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. That wont avert climate change by itself. For example, the plunge in traffic worldwide last spring led to only a 17% decline in global daily emissions, a clear signal of how human activity of almost any kind creates emissions, even if its just staying at home browsing the internet.

But Mr. Birol is optimistic in part because political pressure to address warming is growing. Several European Union nations and the United Kingdom, for example, have included emissions-cutting projects in their stimulus and economic recovery programs.

And other nations, including the U.S., will join in, because green energy, particularly solar, is becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, he adds. Solar is the new king of the global electrical markets, he says. In 2020, for the first time, it accounted for half of all the new electrical capacity that was built in the year. In the next decade, renewable energy will account for more than 90% of the worlds new electrical capacity, he adds. I believe the energy world is changing in 2021.

Diversity. The United States elected its first female (as well as Black and South Asian) vice president, Democrat Kamala Harris, and at least 141 women to Congress, a record, mostly achieved because of unprecedented gains in the number of female Republican lawmakers, from 22 to at least 36. U.S. President-elect Joe Biden appointed Rep. Deb Haaland to lead the Interior Department, Americas first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary. Greece elected its first female president. New Zealands prime minister appointed that nations first Indigenous woman foreign minister. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo happily paid a 90,000 ($110,000) fine for having appointed too many women to management positions in city hall, breaking a French gender equity law.

Confronting racism. The killing of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of police set off a wave of protests as far away as Britain, Switzerland, and Brazil. In the United States, his death sparked a national conversation about institutional racism, which prompted governments and companies to take a number of symbolic steps: from removing statues of Confederate generals to retiring food brands and names of sports teams linked to racial stereotypes. Whether the stirring will lead to wider substantive change remains an open question.

Artificial intelligence. Researchers used artificial intelligence techniques to speed up the battle against the coronavirus. Within three months of the identification of COVID-19, humans were testing vaccines an unprecedented speed for vaccine development. In an even bigger potential development, DeepMind, the Google company whose AI program taught itself to beat chess grandmasters within hours, is now reliably predicting how amino-acid sequences of proteins will fold themselves, a huge leap for biology and biomedical research.

Middle East accords. The Trump administration brokered historic agreements in 2020 that led the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco to establish diplomatic ties with Israel in return for a pledge not to annex more of the West Bank, at least for now. The treaties underscore the increasing ties between Israel and conservative Arab states that oppose the rise of Iran. But these agreements came at a diplomatic price to the U.S., and have yet to lend momentum for new negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Anti-recession policy. Typically, governments pass stimulus programs after an economic plunge. But because the pandemic-related lockdowns were self-induced and predictable, several nations passed stimulus programs that amounted to a preemptive strike against recession. In the U.S., lawmakers passed the roughly $2 trillion CARES Act in March just as the pandemic was getting started, and it helped make the recession much less severe than many economists predicted. Will the 2020 experience cause governments to make preemptive moves when the next recession looms?

Most recessions are harder to predict than this one because we dont normally shut down much of the economy at once, writes Harvard economist Jason Furman in an email. But in principle, economic support for active, discretionary fiscal policy is growing. The traditional white knights in downturns central banks have limited firepower when interest rates are so low. But low interest rates also make it cheaper for governments to act instead, he adds.

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From home offices to space exploration, some 2020 trends were positive - Yahoo News

Most of us will remember 2020 primarily as the year of the great pandemic, but let's not forget how space exploration and astronomy had good years considering the circumstances. NASA astronauts blasted into space in May as part of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. New research revealed there might be more water on the moon than previously believed. Scientists debated whether or not Venus is harboring life in its clouds after discovering phosphine. Betelgeuse continued to dim, raising suspicions that it might soon go nova. Researchers noticed an excitingly oddseries of radio signals.

While 2021 won't magically reset our reality, there is a lot to look forward to next year, especially in the realm of space news. Even if you aren't a space enthusiast, it's amazing what experiencing a little wonder and awe can do for your mindset. It helps put into perspective our place in the world and reminds us that we are part of something bigger; learning about our universe is a great way to tap into that. If you're feeling like there's nothing to look forward to next year, consider adding one of these missions to your list.

NASA to launch Q-PACE

Originally planned to be launched earlier this month, the CubeSat Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment (Q-PACE) is now scheduled to take off from the Mojave Air and Space Port on January 15, 2021. Q-PACE is a 3U CubeSat, a type of small, modular spacecraft, designed for studying the collision and aggregation of small particles in a chamber as part of a three-year microgravity experiment. The objective of the mission is to develop a database of small-particle interactions in microgravity at low velocity. This information will help researchers better understand the process of early coagulation which led to planet formations.

"The Q-PACE mission will last up to three years, providing the opportunity to study adhesion and fragmentation events that happen only rarely, such as near-simultaneous collision of three or more particles," NASA explains about the mission. "The mission will proceed over several phases with the introduction of different types of particles into the ETC, beginning with large solid spherical particles, and finishing with aggregates of micron-sized dust and chondrules."

Mars2020 will finally get to work

2021 will be the beginning of a new chapter in the field of Martian discoveries. Over the summer, the mission Mars2020 launched into space. But come February 18, 2021, the Perseverance rover will finally land on Mars' Jezero Crater. Its mission is expected to last 687 Earth days, or one Martian year.

According to NASA, the primary science objectives of Mars 2020 are "to identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life, seeking signs of possible past microbial life, collecting core rock and regolith samples and caching them on the surface for future missions, and testing oxygen production from the martian atmosphere."

One of the most exciting parts of the mission is that the collected samples will be returned to Earth. Sample return missions are extremely uncommondue to their expense; notably, there has never been a sample return mission from another planet.

"Returning samples of Mars to Earth has been a goal of planetary scientists since the early days of the space age, and the successful completion of this MSR [Mars Sample Return] key decision point is an important next step in transforming this goal into reality," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. "MSR is a complex campaign, and it encapsulates the very essence of pioneering space exploration pushing the boundaries of what's capable and, in so doing, furthering our understanding of our place in the universe."

As part of the Mars2020 mission, NASA will also deploy the Ingenuity helicopter from the rover to study the Martian atmosphere. This will help NASAstudy how toproduce oxygen from Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere, an important step for the future of human exploration on Mars.

The Parker Solar Probe will make two more Venus flybys

The car-size probe, which launched in 2018, is scheduled to make its fourth and fifth Venus flybys, in February and October, respectively, in 2021. The two flybys are part of a longer journey to arrive at its closest proximity to the sun in 2025.

As Salon previously explained, these flybys are unique as they are leveraging the gravity of Venus to slow the probe down for its arrival in a close orbit around the sun. The probe will do seven flybys over seven years.

"Though it sounds bizarre, the laws of physics allow for any two objects with mass to exchange their momentum in a manner that speeds one up while slowing the other down," Salon's Keith Spencerexplained previously. "This method that is frequently used to send spacecraft to distant reaches of the solar system without using as much fuel to speed up as they would have otherwise."

James Webb Space Telescope launch

On October 31, 2021, the nearly $9 billion James Webb Space Telescope the successor to the Hubble Telescope will launch from a port near Kourou, French Guiana. Its mission is to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe, in addition to see stars forming planetary systems. According to NASA, it will be the leading observatory of the 2020s and help thousands of astronomers worldwide.

"[James Webb] will study how the first stars were very different from the stars around us today, because there were no metals that make up the stars of today," said Massimo Stiavelli, Mission Head, Space Telescope Science Institute, in an interview with NasaSpaceflight.com."Stars had to make those. [James Webb] is the only telescope designed to study those early epochs."

The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper will map water on the moon

Scientists previously suspected that water existed in the shadowy, cold parts of the moon such as its poles, where it would stay frozen but a pair of studies published in 2020 confirmed that there is a large amount of water on its sunlit regions, too. The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) will further our knowledge of water on the moon by orbiting the moon with the objective of determining the amount of water ice exists in the permanently shadowed lunar polar craters. It will do this by using a miniaturized neutron spectrometer to count epithermal neutrons. The shoebox-sized spacecraft will launch no later than November 2021.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated "687 Earth days, or one Earthyear." 687 Earth days is one Martian year.

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All the space exploration missions to look forward to in 2021 - Salon

Astronaut space walking outside space station.

We have become a planetary species. Evolving from tool-using hominids on the African savanna to the dominant species on the planet, technology has been key to our evolution. The use of technology to drive non-biological solutions to social and environmentalchallenges has affected the scope and direction of our evolution. In fact, it is now driving our expansion beyond the Earth itself.

Much as the Industrial Revolution ignited therise of the United Statesand other advanced economies, so a new generation of disruptive technologies is now shaping an engineering revolution.The combination of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and new space-based industries suggests that we have entered a new era one that more closely mirrors science fiction than the factory-driven, industrial society of the past century.

In this software-driven era, humanitys promethean urge for technological advancement is now propelling our species towards an interplanetary existence. Indeed, it is almost a forgone conclusion that by the end of this century, we Homo sapiens will have expanded beyond the Earth terraforming Mars for human habitation. This instinct for expansion is also driving a planetary consciousness and planetary identity.

The scale of this cultural transformation is mediated by technological advancement and global integration, but it is rooted in an evolving capacity to see the Earth as a whole system. This psychological reframing mirrors the radically enlarged perspective described by astronauts when viewing the earth from space. Indeed, the term for this cognitive shift is the overview effect and it constitutes the basis of an emerging planetary worldview.

Astronaut is looking at Earth through the porthole.

The New Space Race

In the United States, NASA has already begun planning a new habitation platform around the Moon. Moving beyond the International Space Station (ISS), NASA is working to commercialize spaceflight in low Earth orbit (LEO) with the broader purpose of going into deep space. This shift in the nature of space exploration: from a government-directed presence in LEO to a public-private ecosystem is igniting a fully-fledged space economy. According to Merrill Lynch, this space economy will be worth a staggering $3 trillion by 2050.

Together, commercial pioneers like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Orion Span, SpaceX, SNC, OneWeb and Boeing are pouring enormous resources into frontier industries crisscrossing satellite infrastructure, communications, solar energy, reusable rockets, asteroid mining, and space tourism. Indeed, Elon Musks SpaceX has already begun deploying over 12,000 LEO satellites to provide low-latency broadband internet infrastructure on a planetary scale.

While satellite broadband is expected to drive the lions share of wealth creation, near-Earth asteroid mining is forecast to eventually become a multi-trillion dollar industry. Venture interest is growing in mining asteroids for scarce commercial resources including cobalt, iron, and nickel, as well as precious metalsgold, silver, and platinum and even water. Meanwhile, space tourism is expected to generate a sizable $850 billion by 2030.

Little boy in a porthole,spaceship porthole, viewing earth.

Becoming a Planetary Species

Of course, the United States is not the only country with plans on space. Russia, the European Union, India, Japan, and China are all investing in advanced space programs. This includes planned missions to the moon and Mars, and designs on deep space exploration. In fact, Chinas ambitions include a permanentChinese space stationby 2022, and crewed expeditions to theMoon by 2024.

As new mission-driven organizations compete to develop a commercial presence in space, the proliferation of space-based industries will mean a substantially larger global innovation ecosystem. Access to abundant resources and the engineering of space-based technologies could drive frontier industries both on Earth and off-planet.

In the context of energy generation, researchers at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) are exploring the design of a LEO solar power station for 2035. Chinasambitious plans for a 200-tonne space-based solar powerstationwill be designed to capture the Sun'senergy and beam it back to earth as electricity. The solar power station could generate some 2GW of power (more energy output than the Hoover Dam).

The competition between the Unites States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s, inspired the development of revolutionary technologies that shaped the global economy for generations. The internet, telecommunications, advanced transistors, GPS, weather forecasting, and rocket technologies all led to what we now call the digital age.Given the scope of innovation shaping the coming decades, questions about managing a space economy have become unavoidable.

Mars colony. Expedition on alien planet. Life on Mars.

But How to Govern Space?

One of the key questions in managing a space economy is the nature of its governance. Notwithstanding the United Nations-sponsoredOuter Space Treaty of 1967, a legal vacuum in the governance of space remains a substantial challenge in overseeing what could be the next commercial gold rush.

Unfortunately, the key problem in governing space is that laws are rooted to the Earth. And this highlights the cognitive shift at the heart of the overview effect. How exactly do Earth-bound nation-states govern the expanse of space? Given the general lack of clarity over the ownership of space resources and the ambiguity surrounding the laws that govern space, there remains substantial legal and regulatory hurdles to overcome.

Space mining, for example, suggests the need for a much closer symbiosis between the public and private sectors in the governance of space-based industries. Leaving market forces to govern a nascent gold rush in space could be a recipe for tragedy and misadventure. At the same time, moving mining off-planet could help relieve the ongoing destruction of the Earth and its environment.

Responding to the challenge of a space economy will require specialized institutions designed to augment the authority of nation-states in the shared governance of space. This will mean new rules, new protocols, and new laws that govern a complex planetary civilization. What is clear is that we share this fragile planet with some 8 billion fellow humans and another 8 million other species. We will need to advance our capacities to safeguard it.

For the past six decades, astronauts have described the profound experience of seeing the Earth as a planet embedded in a universe of stars. Now even as we enter a new planetary era characterized by both technological advancement and climate crisis, a robust space industry is opening the way to a multi-planetary existence and a new stage in human evolution. We are becoming an interplanetary species.

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Space: The Final Frontier - Forbes

This article was originally published atThe Conversation.The publication contributed the article to Space.com'sExpert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Steven Freeland, Professor of International Law, Western Sydney University

David Kuan-Wei Chen, Executive Director, Centre for Research in Air and Space Law, McGill University

Ram S. Jakhu, Director, Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University

In 2019, US President Donald Trumpdeclaredspace is the new war-fighting domain. This followed the creation of the US Space Force and acommitmentto American dominance in outer space.

Other space-faring nations, and those who fear theacceleration of an arms racein space, were greatly concerned. At the latest meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, statesnoted with alarmthat preventing conflicts in outer space and preserving outer space for peaceful purposes is more necessary than ever.

The election of Joe Biden as the next US president and Kamala Harris as vice-president suggests there is cause for hope. The future of space may look more like the recent launch of NASAs SpaceX Crew-1mission to the International Space Station.

Onboard were US and Japanese astronauts, who joined Russian and US crew already living aboard the ISS. As the Falcon 9 rocket soared into space, the collaborative, cooperative and commercial nature of space was once again clear for all to see.

Read more:The US-Russian Space Station mission is a study in cooperation

The incoming Biden-Harris administration appears more interested in international cooperation, and much more cognisant of thechallenges of climate change, pandemics and other global issues. A carefully calibrated space policy can do much to address terrestrial challenges, while still allowing for many positive space activities.

Since 1967, human activity in space has been guided by the universally accepted principles embedded in theOuter Space Treaty. This has ensured we have had no military conflict in space, and required the exploration and use of space for the benefit and in the interests of all countries.

Any alternative vision of the future of space is dreadful to consider. Rhetoric about theinevitabilityof war in space makes such conflictmore likelyand risks a tragedy of the commons in space.

Read more:The US plan for a Space Force risks escalating a 'space arms race'

Any space war would have no clear winner. In a complex, globally shared arena such as space, it is important that states abide by accepted rules and established practices.

The US has great scientific and technological advantages and a robust and competitive commercial space sector. Instead of seeking dominance, it can better serve the world (and itself) by focusing its leadership on harnessing space for the benefit of all humankind.

In a promising sign, Biden and HarrissNASA review teamis composed of an outstanding group of space scientists as well as a former astronaut.

The current administration re-established the National Space Council, which is chaired by the vice president, and this has reinvigorated American investment andleadership in space exploration. This includes an ambitious plan to return to the Moon under the terms of theArtemis Accords.

To ensure the fragile and shared domain of outer space does not become an arena for conflict, therules that apply to any military uses of spaceneed to be understood, respected and further developed. Failure to do so could lead to devastation, disruption and impact on civilian lives, particularly in the largest and most powerful countries like the US, whose economies and societies are heavily dependent on space infrastructure. Their access to space has given them the greatest competitive advantage, but they are therefore the most vulnerable if that access is compromised.

Space is a congested, contested and competitive area where scientific, commercial and economic interests converge, as well as military and national security concerns. In this sense space is like the radio frequency spectrum, which has been successfully regulated and managed for decades under international rules adopted through theInternational Telecommunication Union.

But space is also much more. As the recent Crew-1 mission demonstrated, there are significant benefits when nations come together and cooperate. Enlightened leadership, guided by commonly agreed laws and practices and a recognition that we share outer space as custodians for future generations, is the only realistic way forward.

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook and Twitter. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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'War in space' would be a catastrophe. A return to rules-based cooperation is the only way to keep space peaceful - Space.com

The National Space Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP has released a new version of its National Strategy For Planetary Protection. The document is about alien invasions, but not the kind we are most accustomed to from science fiction. It outlines various strategies and policy goals that various stakeholder agencies, including NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, can employ to ensure the sustainable exploration of space by appropriately protecting other planetary bodies and the Earth from potentially harmful biological contamination from space exploration activities. A full version of the planetary protection plan, as well as a truncated fact sheet, can be found on the official White House website.

The National Strategy For Planetary Protection comes on the heels of several other significant space policies released by President Donald Trump's Administration, the most significant of which being the creation of the United States Space Force. The world's superpowers have been jockeying for position in the new space race over the last two decades, and questions and concerns over the militarization of space loom large.

NASA

Concept art from NASA's planned Artemis III mission set for 2024

Aside from increasing military presence in space, concerns are also being raised over the commercialization of space as private companies continue to put more and more technologies into orbit and will eventually be sending their own systems to other celestial bodies, like the moon, asteroids, or even the Red Planet. A number of countries are also accelerating their physical exploration of space, both manned and unmanned, including a race to put humans back on the Moon and eventually Mars.

With the prospect of a future in which many spacecraft will be launching to and returning from extraterrestrial bodies, the risk of either forward contaminationbringing Earth-based microbes to other worldsor backward contaminationbringing home possible extraterrestrial biological materialis a chief concern among planetary scientists and homeland security policymakers alike. With that in mind, the White House's National Space Council drafted and published the National Strategy For Planetary Protection to define the need for dealing with these issues and to outline strategies by which contamination of either kind can be minimized or mitigated.

The document does not lay out any specific policies, but continues the work done by NASA and other governmental organizations to develop a more cohesive national effort that balances scientific discovery, human exploration, and commercial activity in space. The report gathered input from a wide variety of agencies that make up the Interagency Working Group on Planetary Protection. In 2019, planetary scientist and former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern told reporters that planetary protection has been a NASA priority for decades. At the time planetary protection was born at the beginning of the Space Age in the 1960s, we knew very little about the planets and their environments and their habitability; their suitability for astrobiology, Stern said during a call with reporters. Now, Stern said, we have a much more nuanced and, for that matter, sophisticated view of them.

The issue of planetary protection dates back to the late 1950s with the formation of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Contamination by Extraterrestrial Exploration (CETEX), an ad hoc group that made the first recommendations about sterilization of spacecraft in order to prevent possible contamination of other bodies. In 1967, the United Nations passed the Outer Space Treaty, formally known as the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. Article IX of that treaty states, in part, that all nations adhering to the treaty "shall pursue studies of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose." Over 100 nations are now party to the treaty.

Just a few years after that treaty was ratified in the United Nations, the Apollo 11 astronauts splashed down on in the Pacific on July 24, 1969. Following their recovery, the three astronauts were quarantined for three weeks in order to prevent any potential contamination.

NASA

Astronauts Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong inside the Mobile Quarantine Facility following splashdown.

Members of the Interagency Working Group on Planetary Protection that drafted the new National Strategy for Planetary Protection include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Council (NSC), and eight of the cabinet-level departments of the executive branch including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice, State, and Transportation. The working group was formed in July 2020, and the report was released on December 30.

White House

The principles and goals of the Planetary Protection Strategy as outlined in the document.

The document outlines three key objectives for the National Strategy for Planetary Protection:

Objective 1: Avoid harmful forward contamination by developing and implementing risk assessment

Objective 2: Avoid backward contamination by developing a Restricted Return Program to protect against adverse effects on the Earth environment due to the potential return of extraterrestrial life

Objective 3: Incorporate the perspective and needs of the private sector by soliciting feedback and developing guidelines regarding private sector activities with potential planetary protection implications

The third objective is becoming increasingly significant as NASA has turned to the private sector for help in launching spacecraft and even retrieving samples from extraterrestrial bodies, such as the moon. Outside the United States, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently retrieved samples from the asteroid Ryugu, while Chinas Chang'e 5 mission retrieved 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of lunar regolith in late 2019. Meanwhile, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is set to deliver samples of the asteroid Bennu back to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023. NASA is already planning to send astronauts back to the moon with its Artemis III mission in 2024, a mission that could see the first woman on the moon.

These objectives are described further in the section of the document headed The Purpose of Planetary Protection:

The practice of planetary protection is grounded in the premise that life may exist beyond the Earths biosphere. Should life exist elsewhere in the universe, measures to avoid the introduction of external contaminants are necessary in order to protect life on Earth and ensure the validity of any scientific study related to such a discovery. In essence, planetary protection refers to the policies and practices related to two aspects of space exploration. First, planetary protection aims to protect future scientific investigations by limiting the forward biological contamination of other celestial bodies by terrestrial lifeforms. Second, planetary protection aims to protect Earths biosphere by preventing the backward biological contamination of Earth by returning spacecraft and their payloads.

For missions that may land on the surface of, or be in proximity to, another planetary body that may harbor life, planetary protection practices are implemented to avoid the harmful biological contamination of that planetary body. For example, if traces of bacteria are discovered on a mission to Mars, researchers would need to determine that the organism was not accidentally brought from Earth. Likewise, if the mission profile includes a return journey to Earth, the prevention of harmful biological contamination of Earth becomes a key consideration. Accordingly, the sampling and return to Earth of material from other planetary bodies must utilize appropriate methods of containment so as to avoid unintended interaction with Earths existing biology, such as the accidental introduction of an extraterrestrial pathogen.

Dr. Scott Pace, Deputy Assistant to the President and Executive Secretary of the National Space Council, issued a statement accompanying the document's release. Current and future missions to Mars and other destinations necessitate a strategy to support a safe, sustainable, and predictable Earth and space environment," Pace said. "By establishing objectives for the implementation of the 2020 National Space Policys direction on planetary protection, this strategy continues American leadership in scientific discovery, human exploration, and private sector space activities.

Immediately after the documents publication, Pace stepped down from the National Space Council in order to return to George Washington University, where he previously served as Director of the Space Policy Institute within the University's Elliott School of International Affairs. In a statement, Pace said the past four years were among the most ambitious and productive years for the United States space enterprise and the work the council has done under his leadership has set a foundation for continued progress and advancement in the civil, commercial, and national space security sectors. It remains unclear if the incoming Biden administration plans to continue the National Space Council, which was created by law under the 1989 NASA Authorization Act. President Donald Trump is the first president to fund and staff the Council since President George H.W. Bush.

White House

An overview of the National Strategy for Planetary Protection.

The new National Strategy For Planetary Protection comes on the heels of several other policy documents released by the White House since 2017, including six new Space Policy Directives and a new National Space Policy released in 2020. One of these, Space Policy Directive 4, released February 19, 2019, covered the aforementioned establishment of the United States Space Force.

As Americas military and civilian policies increasingly turn towards space, we can expect to see many more policy directives coming from the executive branch. An extension of this reach into space means governmental agencies and other stakeholders must be prepared for any eventual discovery of extraterrestrial life, which will likely be microbial. In this time of a global pandemic, it goes without saying that even tiny terrestrial microbes can cause widespread societal disruption and threaten national security, let alone alien ones.

Those matters aside, its exciting to see the White House discussing planetary protection and potential contamination by extraterrestrial microbial life. Mitigating potential contamination is far from just an American issue, as other nations continue to catch up with the United States in terms of space exploration. Hopefully, international cooperation along the lines of the Outer Space Treaty can continue to push the issue forward in meaningful ways, keeping potential space invaders of any size from contaminating Earth and possibly harming our ecosystems.

Contact the author: Brett@thedrive.com

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The White House's Planetary Protection Strategy Is About Space Invaders, But Not The Kind You Think - The Drive

With a fresh new year comes a bold new era of "Star Wars" storytelling as Disney's Lucasfilm unleashes its highly anticipated first wave of "The High Republic" novels, books and comics beginning this month, with its intertwined stories spread across multiple publishing platforms.

Set 200 years prior to "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" during the Jedi Knights' glory years, these heroic new space opera tales unspool while the mystic protectors were the official guardians of peace and justice for the Galactic Republic before the dark times fell.

To pen the lineup of print releases for "Star Wars: The High Republic," Lucasfilm Publishing selected Charles Soule ("Light of the Jedi"), Justina Ireland ("A Test of Courage"), Claudia Gray ("Into the Dark"), Cavan Scott (Marvel's "The High Republic" comic), and Daniel Jos Older (IDW's "Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures" comic) to lead the charge into this expanded universe. Lucasfilm Publishing's creative director Michael Siglain will oversee this project.

Related: Disney announces nine new 'Star Wars' shows plus an 'Alien' series

Space.com chatted with this stellar gathering of writers during December's virtual press junket to learn more about working on the crossover publishing effort, why this golden age of the Jedi appealed to their artistic instincts, the allure of Starlight Beacon space station, and what geeky surprises fans might look forward to starting Tuesday (Jan. 5), when the legendary lightsabers flare.

This panel interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Space.com: What were some of the qualifications or qualities you were searching for in assembling this dream team of storytellers?

Michael Siglain: We were looking for current authors that had a very distinct point of view. Authors who could tell big expansive stories, but also very personal stories and, you know, we also were looking for fan favorite authors. There was a lot that went into the list. And honestly, we struck upon these five immediately and happily they all said "yes" right away.

Space.com: Why is this the perfect time to launch "The High Republic" with its hopeful, optimistic outlook?

Daniel Jos Older: I think something that's really exciting is we get to see sci-fi imagine how terrible things can go so often with dystopias and this is an amazing opportunity for us as writers. Where we start out is a vision of the galaxy that is functioning, that is, good government that is good. The Republic being out in the world and the Jedi especially helping people, being peacekeepers, living their best lives and being part of the world. And it's exciting to think about what that might look like and how that affects the Jedi's mind state and their choices.

Cavan Scott: And we've never seen the elegant age, the more civilized age when you need elegant weapons. We've always seen a galaxy which is tearing each other apart. In the era of "Star Wars" you love, there's largely some pretty dire things going on, and that's not to say "The High Republic" is not going to have its moments. We wanted to see the Jedi in the Republic at a point in time when they are comfortable, because it's always interesting to set these people up and then knock them down and see how they cope. The Jedi have been at their height for hundreds of years and the Republic is pushing out in every direction. Then they come up against an unstoppable force that absolutely knocks them down and changes their view of everything.

Charles Soule: When we started writing these books and coming up with this initiative it was two and half years ago, and it was a very different world than it is today. But the world that "The High Republic" is launching into is a world that could use some books about hope and functioning systems and a world where things are good and if you work together, good things happen.

And that is a happy accident for all of us. I think that on Jan. 5, when these books come into the world, they're going to feel good to a lot of people who read them. I was just reading the last couple chapters when I got my copies of the hardcover the other day and I'm glad this is the book I wrote. I think we all feel pretty much the same.

Space.com: You all have very different backgrounds and storytelling approaches. How did all of that coalesce into a unified vision of "The High Republic"?

Claudia Gray: I like the fact that I feel like each of us is still bringing our individual voice. There wasn't any sense that any of us had to compromise that or change fundamentally who we are as storytellers in order to bring what we were going to bring to the story. The universe of it is still evolving as we keep thinking our way through it and keep telling our story. That's part of the joy of this galaxy that George Lucas created. You knew from "A New Hope" that there are centuries, millennia, of history here and we keep getting to expand and find new corners and new paths.

Justina Ireland: I think one of the reasons that this works is because "Star Wars" has always been big enough for anyone. That's one of the things we tend to forget because we gravitate to the storytelling we like most. But we always hear about it when something is bad. I think in this case we have all the right people in the writers room because we have such different things we want. So, if you decide that you hate the kids books, it's cool because Daniel's writing the next one. You have a chance to have different storytelling opportunities, and that for me is really exciting.

Gray: There are those people that are going to try every single one of the 31 flavors of Baskin Robbins, and then they're going to be the people who are in their 50th year of getting chocolate almond.

Older: Because we're telling so many Jedi stories, we're getting to see different perspectives that different Jedi have on the Force, whether they see it as music or as the river or as a city. That's also true of us as storytellers. We have different ways that we come to [a] story and if specifically "Star Wars" story is the Force, it remains what it is, but we bring our different views to it. Our voices are very much intact. And we've learned so much from each other.

Siglain: You know, it goes back to different viewpoints in terms of what works for particular formats what works for them as storytellers. And that's part of the beauty. It's putting all that into a blender and then adding in hope and optimism, because ultimately "Star Wars" is about hope, right? That's such a strong undercurrent of this.

Scott: I think the one thing I've found is that this is constantly making me up my game, not just because there's a massive responsibility here. We've all been "Star Wars" fans all our lives. I came to "Star Wars," not through the films, but through the comics and the books and then watched the films. So I understand, and we all understand, what this means to people.

I'm also upping my game because I don't want to let any of these guys down as well. We're all putting so much time, so much effort and so much love into this project. I've been doing this for 20 years. I'm now a very different writer than who I was when I started this process a couple years ago. All great characters change when they face a story because that is what a story is.

Space.com: How has "Star Wars" fandom changed over the decades and how does "The High Republic" fit into this new generation of readers?

Older: One thing that's cool is that there are young fans that are really excited about "Star Wars" who come to it fresh and are experiencing certain things for the first time. There's a whole generation whose "Star Wars" is "The Clone Wars," and that's the first thing they saw.

But what I keep thinking about is there's a whole group of people, and especially young people, who are going to find out about "Star Wars" through these books and comics. And they can because we've really designed them to be accessible to folks who don't know a single thing about "Star Wars" and have all the Skywalker saga memorized like we do.

Soule: There are projects here for every kind of "Star Wars" fan and every kind of age level. Whatever your entry point into "Star Wars" has been, there's a project for you and it was very challenging to create. It speaks to Mike's great wisdom in choosing this group of creators because I have never written a middle grade book. So I would be a bad choice to do that.

It feels like we're The Avengers or something like that, to choose another Disney property. Looking back on what we've done, I can't believe we ever thought we could do this. But here we are two weeks out before it's going to be in people's hands and it feels really good.

Ireland: When we first had "Star Wars" novels back in the dark ages before the internet, that was all the "Star Wars" we had. One of the exciting things in the novels, especially in the late '80s and early '90s, is you didn't know what was going to happen because you had no blueprint. And a lot of our novel storytelling in the last 10-15 years has been tied to a film or a TV show or something that already exists in another form of media. What's really exciting about this initiative is nobody knows how this is going to unfold, because we don't have the mild spoilers that've been leaked or even any kind of other storytelling set during this time period.

Space.com: SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and other private aerospace firms are igniting a new renaissance of interest in space exploration with school kids and adults. How did you inject that spirit of innovation and adventure into the storytelling?

Siglain: Internally, we were calling the characters "the Jedi Knights of the Round Table," because there was an element of Camelot to it. We knew that there needed to be some hope and optimism because these are the good times. They're not the dark times. Yes there are events that will change the galaxy. But this was a point where we could say, "Wow, what does a cool new Jedi starfighter look like?" and "what does a cool new Jedi ground transport look like?" To have some of that feeling of 1960s America to say, "Oh, we can do this, we are all a Republic."

Older: I think what's also cool is because we're meeting the Jedi in a time of peace which we basically have never done before, we get to see how people who have the Force use it in different ways that aren't just fighting back. So, we meet a Jedi Knight early on in IDW who uses the Force to heal. He doesn't have special Force powers. And that's his understanding and connection with how to use the Force, so he's not trying to have any fights. He's just out to take care of people and make them better.

Space.com: How did you arrive at Starlight Beacon space station as a narrative focal point and symbolism for "The High Republic?"

Scott: It was partly because of how we wanted to view the Jedi and the Republic together. That this wasn't a story about the Jedi and the Republic being based on Coruscant and directing from that central planet. We wanted to have both of those grand organizations out with the people, out living alongside other people. In a period of expansion, the frontier would be a very scary place, because at that point communications might not be as great as you're used to back home. You might be far away from the nearest planet that has a proper medi-center.

So, why not take part of that home with you? And one of the key elements of the beacon I love is the fact that there's a literal beacon on the space station. Wherever you are on the frontier, you can tune into it and hear it and know that the Jedi and the Republic are there and that you're not alone and not having to do everything by yourself.

Soule: As "Star Wars" locations go it's super cool. It has everything. In my head I call it the Light Star. It's the opposite of the Death Star in every way. It's a place that's designed to bring light and life and hope to the galaxy as opposed to fear and pain and death.

It's got canteens where people can get food. They have chefs from all over the Outer Rim who bring their native cuisines that people can try from all over the galaxy. There are these biological preserves on it that have places where they bring in plants and animals from different planets.

There's even a whole Jedi Temple on it. It's a Swiss Army knife of awesome things. It just was really fun to think of a location that could be so many things and be so meaningful. The designs of it that the concept artists did are out of this world. It's a beacon of light and hope and I think it's one of the cooler things we've made in "The High Republic" for sure.

Scott: From a dramatic point of view, when you put a light in a dark place, there's going to be people who are happy that the light's there. But there's going to be a lot of people who don't want this shown. They don't want what they're doing illuminated. And so it produces the dramatic catalyst for our story. And so, yeah, that in itself brings a lot of tension and crisis.

Space.com: How did you flesh out the intriguing theme of "what scares the Jedi?" in your story sessions?

Siglain: The idea goes back to our early brainstorming sessions at Skywalker Ranch. This was something that we wanted to explore for the initiative. I think there are little glimpses of what scares the Jedi in these debut books and comics. Ultimately, as we go on, you will see what scares the Jedi and it might not be what you think. So, we have to keep some mystery around this one, but this is definitely a question that will be answered as the initiative continues.

Soule: Mike, are they afraid of snakes?

Siglain: That's Indiana Jones.

Space.com: What's been the most rewarding aspect of working with this elite group of writers and creators and what do you hope readers take out of the books and comics?

Soule: Man, I mean working with this elite group of writers!

Siglain: That's the most fun, getting to create new "Star Wars" stories with these five amazing people and with the other artists and editors who have been involved. I can speak for all of us when I say we grew up with "Star Wars." It was always something that was larger than life. I never in a million years thought one day we're gonna create new "Star Wars" stories and new Jedi and new villains and be in a galaxy far, far away and be able to do that with everyone here.

There is such a desire to create something big and epic and hopeful and fun and scary. And I think they've achieved all of that. I think that these books and comics really are a perfect jumping on point. And also if you've lived with "Star Wars" for 40 years. It's new and original and still very much "Star Wars." I hope readers enjoy it and see it as authentically "Star Wars."

Older: You said it perfectly.

Soule: Yeah, you did it Mike! Well done.

Ireland: I was gonna say going to Disneyland. That's much better than your answer.

Scott: That was a good time.

Siglain: We did do that. We all went to Galaxy's Edge and that was pretty phenomenal.

Gray: Yeah, I can't think of people I would rather have been on the Millennium Falcon with, at least not like real people. [Laughs]. If it's Han Solo, you guys are out of luck. I'm sorry.

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