Category Archives: Space Exploration

What is Space Mining?

Space mining also known as asteroid mining is a process that is involved in exploitation of raw materials from asteroids and other minor planets, as well as near-Earth objects. Minerals are extracted from a spent comet or asteroid, then taken back to Earth or utilized in space for construction materials.

The reports cover keymarket developments in theSpace Mining as organic and inorganic growth strategies.Various companies focus on organic growth strategies such as product launches, product approvals and others such as patents and events.The inorganic growth strategy activities observed in the market were acquisitions, partnerships and collaborations.These activities paved the way for an expansion of the businesses and customers of the market players.Themarketpayersof theSpace Mining are destined for lucrative growth opportunities in the future with the increasing demand formarket Space Mining in the world market.

The key factors propelling the growth of space mining are increasing government initiatives and investments to frame regulations for asteroid mining and impending and ongoing space mining missions. Further, government initiatives resulting in rising number of start-ups and adoption of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) practice in space exploration are anticipated to provide growth opportunities over the next few years. However, high costs allied with asteroid mining and huge environmental risks due to mining activities are some of the restraints that are hindering the market to grow.

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Thereport on the area ofSpace Mining by Insight Partners includes extensive primary research and detailed analysis of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of various industry experts, key opinion leaders, to better understand theperformance of theSpace Mining Market.

The report also includes the profiles of key Space Mining companies along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. In addition, the report focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, components and services offered, financial information of the last three years, key developments in the past five years.

Here we have listed the top Space Mining Market companies in the world

Market Analysis ofGlobal Space MiningMarket 2027 is an in-depth and in-depth study of the technology, media and telecommunications sector, with particular attention to market trend analysis world.The report aims to provide an overview of theSpace Mining marketwith detailed segmentation of the market by component, type of deployment, industry and region.The globalSpace Mining market isexpected to experience strong growth over the forecast period.The report provides key statistics on the state of the main marketSpace Mining market playersand presents key market trends and opportunities.

The report presents the current market analysis scenario, future and future opportunities, revenue growth, prices and profitability.The proprietary data in this report is collected by The Insight Partners dedicated research and analysis team of experienced professionals with advanced statistical expertise and various customization options in the existing study.

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Space Mining Market Analysis Research Report: Growing Demand in Market Growth by 2027 - Cole of Duty

In the space race, Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) is a contender, but recent lethargy suggests the company is more of a pretender. SPCE stock is down 1.73% over the past month, a period in which broader benchmarks and smaller companies a relevant mention because of Virgins $3.12 billion market capitalization are soaring.

Source: Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com

A year-to-date return of nearly 33% is nothing to scoff at. However, Virgin Galactic traded above $42 in February. It closed just over $15 on June 16. Those are the type of declines that foster jitters among investors, particularly when the company in question operates in a nascent, niche industry where the payoff could be years away.

An obvious near-term headwind for Virgin Galactic is the recent success of SpaceX getting into space. SpaceX comes with the cache of being Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) founder Elon Musks baby.

With SpaceX not yet public, Virgin Galactic has the allure of being perhaps the only publicly traded pure space play, but theres a brewing rivalry between these two firms investors need to be cognizant of.

Another recent hurdle on Virgin Galactic, though that one will dissipate, Sir Richard Bransons Virgin Group recently giving up majority control of the space exploration company because the bigger Virgin needs cash to keep more established business afloat. In this case, its just bad optics Branson is a billionaire and held in high esteem for his business acumen.

An interesting factor to consider with Virgin Galactic is that the aforementioned selloff the stock endured during the Covid-19 swoon one where the peak-to-trough decline was roughly 75% was probably over-exaggerated.

Perhaps it sounds trite, but this company has barely anything in the way of sales. It has no leverage to areas of the economy that are most vulnerable to the novel coronavirus pandemic, such as airlines, casinos, cruise lines or retail sales. Heck, Virgin Galactic hasnt even taken anyone to space yet, though its gotten crew members close.

What this boils down to is that the company is a reservations story. As in it books revenue based on reservations would-be space travelers make in anticipation of eventually going to the final frontier. In the first quarter, Virgin Galactic posted revenue of $238,000. Sounds tiny, but thats mostly reservation deposit accruals and when it comes to sales, there could be more on the way.

In the first three months of this year, the company launched an initiative for tourist-astronauts to reserve a place in Galactics flight queue, attracting commitments for up to $100 million in sales, reports Barrons.

CEO George Whitesides offered some encouraging comments on the reservations situation.

This response to our [initiative] demonstrates the appetite for our product and complements the strength and ongoing support of our existing customer base of 600 future astronauts who already have reservations on our spaceflights, he said.

Another part of the Virgin Galactic story thats not getting much attention because the investment community views this as a space stock is hypersonic air travel.

Yes, the idea of fast flights was around years with the Concord jet, but the price points never appealed to ordinary travelers. However, air travel, like so many old guard industries, is ripe for disruption.

Undoubtedly, theres plenty of tech on a traditional carrier jet, but tangible advances havent been made in terms of flight times. Today, a non-stop flight from New York to Los Angeles takes almost six hours, roughly the same amount of time it took 40 years ago.

Virgin Galactic could disrupt the old airline if it can do so on a cost-effective basis. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas estimates hypersonic air travel could be worth $10 a share alone to SPCE stock and its unlikely that opportunity is priced in at current levels.

Todd Shriber has been an InvestorPlace contributor since 2014.As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

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With All Its Technology, Virgin Galactic Stock Isn't Just a Space Play - InvestorPlace

For many years, Martin Fone was convinced that the moon was inextricably linked with the night. Having realised his error, he ponders why it's so rate to see or at any rate to notice the moon in the daytime sky.

Life seemed so much simpler when I was a child, full of black and white with nary a shade of grey interposing itself to confuse or perplex me. Night was a time of darkness with the moon in the ascendancy whilst the sun reigned in all its splendour during the day. The heavy banks of cloud and the temperamental British weather often meant that I had to take their presence as a given, but that was good enough for me.

With the dichotomy between day and night being so extreme and the sun and moon the largest spheres visible in the sky, it is not surprising that many ancient peoples were drawn to worship them. So ingrained was the practice that the Old Testament went out of its way to condemn this form of perceived idolatry. In the book of Deuteronomy, for example, the reader is warned, not to lift your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord, your God, has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. (4:19).

Perhaps it was because I did not lift my eyes to heaven that, for many years, I was convinced that the moon was inextricably linked with the night and missed the fact that on occasions it was perfectly visible during daylight, becoming a sort of celestial interloper into the settled universal order of my childhood. How did that happen and, if I followed the right astronomical advice at the right time, could I even see the sun during the night?

Of course, the moon has nothing to do with the division between daylight and night-time. The Earth rotates around not only the sun but also its own axis. This means that for a certain part of a 24-hour period roughly half of the world is facing the sun and receives natural illumination in the form of direct sunlight. The actual period of sunlight is determined by the precise tilt of the Earth. At the same time, the remainder of the planet is facing away from the sun and as its rays cannot reach it, darkness prevails. So, no, I could not see the sun at night.

It is also a misconception that the moon rises just as the sun is setting and sets when it is rising. The only time in a lunar month that this happens is at the full moon when the moon is directly opposite, or 180 degrees away from, the sun. It is also the point when the moon appears at its brightest.

On the other hand, it is invisible to the naked eye when it moves directly between the Earth and the sun, the phase we call the new moon, when the suns light shines fully on to the side of the moon facing away from us. For the rest of the time it makes a stately progress along a semicircle, positioned somewhere between 0 and 180 degrees from the sun. The timing of its rise and setting is most out of synchrony with the setting and rise of the sun when it is approaching the point where it is almost 90 degrees away from the sun, in other words when it is reaching its first and last quarters. It is at these points in its orbit that we are most likely to see the moon in daylight.

That said, it should be possible to see the moon in daylight at any time other than at the new and moon phases. Earths axial rotation means that in any 24-hour period, the moon will be above the horizon at any one point for roughly twelve hours. Whilst that twelve-hour period will not coincide with a full stretch of daylight, there will be several hours when the moons position above the horizon occurs during a period of light.

What also helps us to see the moon as clearly as we do, whether at night or during daylight, is its proximity to our planet. At its nearest point, at what the astronomers call its Perigee, it is 104 times closer to Earth and at its Apogee, when it is furthest away, 644 times nearer than the next adjacent heavenly object, Venus. The fact that the moon dwarfs anything else in the sky simply reflects the fact that it is nearer to us, a reason why it was selected as the go-to destination for space exploration and continues to be so to this day. I will watch with interest how the first tentative steps into providing commercial trips to the moon take off.

Despite a theory espoused by a proverb that gained popularity during the 16th and 17th centuries, the moon is not made of green cheese, another childhood illusion sadly shattered by science. Despite the absence of cheese, green or otherwise, lunar soil enhances its visibility. Look at most stars, including the sun, through a telescope and you will see that they are brighter at their centre and duller towards the outer edges. This is a phenomenon which astronomers call limb darkening. With the moon, though, its soil reflects more light back directly towards the sun than in other directions, with the result that its edges appear to be just as bright as its centre.

With all of these factors in its favour, why is still relatively uncommon sight to see the moon during daylight in Britain?

The answer, in part, is down to the good old British weather. Any form of cloud covering in the relevant spot will prevent us from glimpsing the moon. Then there is the horizon to consider. Anyone who has travelled to the Prairies in North America will be familiar with the big skies to be found there, where the sky seems to dominate your sightline, providing an enormous canvas in which to spot the moon during daylight. In comparison, the British skies in most of the country are much smaller, filled with obstructions, some natural, others man-made, the skyline more crowded, forcing you to look to the upper reaches of the sky and, consequently, reducing your chances of seeing the moon make its appearance in broad daylight.

When I do see the moon in daylight, the fine spell of weather in late May this year coinciding with the optimal lunar phase made it a regular spectacle, I find it a source of wonder, delighted that it is unwilling to be constrained by the boundaries of the night. No wonder the ancient Babylonian astrologers considered the moon to be the most important of the celestial spheres.

It's a phrase which gets bandied around all the time, but what does a 'Blue Moon' actually consist of? And

Carla Carlisle recalls her memories of the moon landings 40 years on.

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Curious Question: Why can we see the moon during the day? - Country Life

On May 30, human space travel entered a new era when a private company, for the first time, launched two astronauts into orbit. The Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon capsule that carried them were built and operated by SpaceX, a company founded by the billionaire Elon Musk. The launch, the first on US soil since 2011, was not only a reminder of Americas supremacy in technology, but also a prelude to how things might work in the sector in the future.

Space missions are expensive, and they are mostly done using taxpayers money. The participation of private players not only takes some burden off the public exchequer, but also gives an opportunity for entrepreneurs. This is exactly why India wants increased private participation in the space ecosystem.

Private companies currently play a minuscule role in Indias growing space business. The Space Activities Bill, on which comments have been sought, promotes commercial activities in space and suggests a regulatory mechanism for them. Interestingly, all this is proposed to be done through the Indian Space Research Organisation. As ISRO itself is a service provider for commercial launches through its subsidiary, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), many people see a conflict of interest.

ISRO has been set up for space research, and is not a regulatory body, with scientists, project managers and engineers, said Raju Prasad, chief of business development at Satellize, Indias first private company in space technology. It has done a good job of designing and launching satellites and developing launch vehicles. But that makes good resources in one field a wasted choice for another. Regulators need to be more market savvy and have legal minds that are able to throw open industry with least regulation. Intellectual Property (IP) generated shall be deemed to be the property of the central government. So this seems to be largely about private sub contractors willing to handover whatever IP they develop to the government, rather than any real companies out there developing their own IP and keeping it.

Private players are not comfortable with ISROs opaque nature, either. This leaves limited avenues for private-public partnership, and even the open sectors are limited to contractors acting as outsourced manufacturing units.

While the biggest challenge for private companies in the space segment in India remains getting spectrum allocation and launch permission, there are plenty of other problems as well. Currently, there are a myriad of problems for satellite builders such as GST, security clearances, orbital slotting, and liability and insurance. Similarly, for downstream companies, there are problems pertaining to data acquisition (you can buy only from or through the National Remote Sensing Centre, even if the satellite is a foreign-owned private asset), making the whole process slow, opaque and expensive, said Divyanshu Poddar, co-founder of the space startup Rocketeers. India needs a better map policy and needs to liberalise access to and use of satellite data for private players. In the US, there is a single window clearance for all things and satellite data is freely traded by players like any other commodity. There are no government controls except with data pertaining to national security.

Encouraging private players to invest in original IP creation can go a long way in improving private participation in the sector. This will help them create their own products and IP, and become independent from ISROs supply chain. This will equip these firms to compete in global markets. There is a lot of uncertainty on what is allowed for private sector and what is not, said Yashas Karanam, director of Bellatrix Aerospace, a company which works with ISRO. Since any object sent to space by a nation is governed by International Outer Space Treaty, the liability of a space object would fall on the country that permitted its launch. Hence, there was uncertainty on whether private companies can launch their own satellites and rocket. Now, the space industry hopes to have a predictive policy that would allow companies to operate out of India. With fingers crossed, we are hoping for a business-friendly policy that could ease foreign customers to work with Indian companies.

Unlike India, most space faring countries have clearly defined space laws, and private companies are encouraged to build their capabilities. They get contracts from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) for technology development (both industrial and R&D). Private companies in the US and Europe have access to NASA and ESA test facilities, patents and research grants. In the US, the Commercial Space Launch Act facilitated the private enterprise of the commercialisation of space and space technology in 1984 itself. In other countries like China, Japan, Australia and the UK, the sector was opened up only in the past few years. Though we are late, it is good to see the government take this initiative, said Pawan Kumar Chandana, co-founder and CEO, Skyroot Aerospace Limited.

Private players have all welcomed the Space Activities Bill. The governments initiative is laudable and in the right direction, said Narayan Prasad, chief operations officer at Satsearch, a marketplace for the space industry. However, the mechanics of it are still unclear and needs to be spelt out. There is enough room to review the procurement process and change the base of it to incentivise the industry to invest and create products and services of its own. The emerging startups are looking in this direction and getting established industry players to move in this direction will help these companies service both the local economy and get a global market share.

Such a system will help private players move up the supply chain to become system integrators. It would also help ISRO become more agile and competitive, especially in the international market. By offloading all the routine satellite making and rocket building activities to the private players, ISRO can focus on developing cutting edge space technology such as optical communication for satellites, robotic space exploration and removal of space debris, said Rachana Reddy, a former ISRO space engineer who is now based in Germany. It would also be able to focus more of its resources on the Gaganyaan mission and engage with other R&D institutions in the country on various aspects of the human space flight.

Indian space industry is still in the nascent stage, and capital remains a major challenge. Developing a new product in space industry requires significant investment on test equipment and other infrastructure, which many private players cannot afford, said Karanam. [Sharing] ISROs facilities will definitely open doors for the rise of Indias name in space, both with ISRO and its private ecosystem.

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Pie in the sky - THE WEEK

Although the possibility of exploring space has long excited people in many walks of life, for most of the latter 20th century and into the early 21st century, only national governments could afford the very high costs of launching people and machines into space. This reality meant that space exploration had to serve very broad interests, and it indeed has done so in a variety of ways. Government space programs have increased knowledge, served as indicators of national prestige and power, enhanced national security and military strength, and provided significant benefits to the general public. In areas where the private sector could profit from activities in space, most notably the use of satellites as telecommunication relays, commercial space activity has flourished without government funding. In the early 21st century, entrepreneurs believed that there were several other areas of commercial potential in space, most notably privately funded space travel.

In the years after World War II, governments assumed a leading role in the support of research that increased fundamental knowledge about nature, a role that earlier had been played by universities, private foundations, and other nongovernmental supporters. This change came for two reasons. First, the need for complex equipment to carry out many scientific experiments and for the large teams of researchers to use that equipment led to costs that only governments could afford. Second, governments were willing to take on this responsibility because of the belief that fundamental research would produce new knowledge essential to the health, the security, and the quality of life of their citizens. Thus, when scientists sought government support for early space experiments, it was forthcoming. Since the start of space efforts in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe, national governments have given high priority to the support of science done in and from space. From modest beginnings, space science has expanded under government support to include multibillion-dollar exploratory missions in the solar system. Examples of such efforts include the development of the Curiosity Mars rover, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons, and the development of major space-based astronomical observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1957 used the fact that his country had been first to launch a satellite as evidence of the technological power of the Soviet Union and of the superiority of communism. He repeated these claims after Yuri Gagarins orbital flight in 1961. Although U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower had decided not to compete for prestige with the Soviet Union in a space race, his successor, John F. Kennedy, had a different view. On April 20, 1961, in the aftermath of the Gagarin flight, he asked his advisers to identify a space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win. The response came in a May 8, 1961, memorandum recommending that the United States commit to sending people to the Moon, because dramatic achievements in spacesymbolize the technological power and organizing capacity of a nation and because the ensuing prestige would be part of the battle along the fluid front of the cold war. From 1961 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was a major influence on the pace and content of their space programs. Other countries also viewed having a successful space program as an important indicator of national strength.

Even before the first satellite was launched, U.S. leaders recognized that the ability to observe military activities around the world from space would be an asset to national security. Following on the success of its photoreconnaissance satellites, which began operation in 1960, the United States built increasingly complex observation and electronic-intercept intelligence satellites. The Soviet Union also quickly developed an array of intelligence satellites, and later a few other countries instituted their own satellite observation programs. Intelligence-gathering satellites have been used to verify arms-control agreements, provide warnings of military threats, and identify targets during military operations, among other uses.

In addition to providing security benefits, satellites offered military forces the potential for improved communications, weather observation, navigation, timing, and position location. This led to significant government funding for military space programs in the United States and the Soviet Union. Although the advantages and disadvantages of stationing force-delivery weapons in space have been debated, as of the early 21st century, such weapons had not been deployed, nor had space-based antisatellite systemsthat is, systems that can attack or interfere with orbiting satellites. The stationing of weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies is prohibited by international law.

Governments realized early on that the ability to observe Earth from space could provide significant benefits to the general public apart from security and military uses. The first application to be pursued was the development of satellites for assisting in weather forecasting. A second application involved remote observation of land and sea surfaces to gather imagery and other data of value in crop forecasting, resource management, environmental monitoring, and other applications. The U.S., the Soviet Union, Europe, and China also developed their own satellite-based global positioning systems, originally for military purposes, that could pinpoint a users exact location, help in navigating from one point to another, and provide very precise time signals. These satellites quickly found numerous civilian uses in such areas as personal navigation, surveying and cartography, geology, air-traffic control, and the operation of information-transfer networks. They illustrate a reality that has remained constant for a half centuryas space capabilities are developed, they often can be used for both military and civilian purposes.

Another space application that began under government sponsorship but quickly moved into the private sector is the relay of voice, video, and data via orbiting satellites. Satellite telecommunications has developed into a multibillion-dollar business and is the one clearly successful area of commercial space activity. A related, but economically much smaller, commercial space business is the provision of launches for private and government satellites. In 2004 a privately financed venture sent a piloted spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, to the lower edge of space for three brief suborbital flights. Although it was technically a much less challenging achievement than carrying humans into orbit, its success was seen as an important step toward opening up space to commercial travel and eventually to tourism. More than 15 years after SpaceShipOne reached space, several firms were poised to carry out such suborbital flights. Companies have arisen that also use satellite imagery to provide data for business about economic trends. Suggestions have been made that in the future other areas of space activity, including using resources found on the Moon and near-Earth asteroids and the capture of solar energy to provide electric power on Earth, could become successful businesses.

Most space activities have been pursued because they serve some utilitarian purpose, whether increasing knowledge, adding to national power, or making a profit. Nevertheless, there remains a powerful underlying sense that it is important for humans to explore space for its own sake, to see what is there. Although the only voyages that humans have made away from the near vicinity of Earththe Apollo flights to the Moonwere motivated by Cold War competition, there have been recurrent calls for humans to return to the Moon, travel to Mars, and visit other locations in the solar system and beyond. Until humans resume such journeys of exploration, robotic spacecraft will continue to serve in their stead to explore the solar system and probe the mysteries of the universe.

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space exploration | History, Definition, & Facts | Britannica

The first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. The first human to go into space, Yuri Gagarin, was launched, again by the Soviet Union, for a one-orbit journey around Earth on April 12, 1961. Within 10 years of that first human flight, American astronauts walked on the surface of the Moon. Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin made the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969. A total of 12 Americans on six separate Apollo missions set foot on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972. Since then, no humans have left Earth orbit, but more than 500 men and women have spent as many as 438 consecutive days in space. Starting in the early 1970s, a series of Soviet (Russian from December 1991) space stations, the U.S. Skylab station, and numerous space shuttle flights provided Earth-orbiting bases for varying periods of human occupancy and activity. From November 2, 2000, when its first crew took up residence, to its completion in 2011, the International Space Station (ISS) served as a base for humans living and working in space on a permanent basis. It will continue to be used in this way until at least 2024.

Since 1957 Earth-orbiting satellites and robotic spacecraft journeying away from Earth have gathered valuable data about the Sun, Earth, other bodies in the solar system, and the universe beyond. Robotic spacecraft have landed on the Moon, Venus, Mars, Titan, a comet, and three asteroids, have visited all the major planets, and have flown by Kuiper belt objects and by the nuclei of comets, including Halleys Comet, traveling in the inner solar system. Scientists have used space-derived data to deepen human understanding of the origin and evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, and other cosmological phenomena.

Orbiting satellites also have provided, and continue to provide, important services to the everyday life of many people on Earth. Meteorologic satellites deliver information on short- and long-term weather patterns and their underlying causes. Other Earth-observation satellites remotely sense land and ocean areas, gathering data that improve management of Earths resources and that help in understanding global climate change. Telecommunications satellites allow essentially instantaneous transfer of voice, images, and data on a global basis. Satellites operated by the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, and Europe give precision navigation, positioning, and timing information that has become essential to many terrestrial users. Earth-observation satellites have also become extremely useful to the military authorities of several countries as complements to their land, sea, and air forces and have provided important security-related information to national leaders.

As the many benefits of space activity have become evident, other countries have joined the Soviet Union and the United States in developing their own space programs. They include a number of western European countries operating both individually and, after 1975, cooperatively through the European Space Agency, as well as China, Japan, Canada, India, Israel, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, and Brazil. By the second decade of the 21st century, more than 50 countries had space agencies or other government bodies carrying out space activities.

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Space exploration - Major milestones | Britannica

Why explore space? Its an expensive arena to play in, between the fuel costs and the technological challenge of operating in a hostile environment. For humans, a small mistake can quickly become fatal something that we have seen several times in space history. And for NASAs budget, there are projects that come in late and over budget, drawing the ire of Congress and the public.

These are some of the drawbacks. But for the rest of this article, we will focus on some of the benefits of going where few humans have gone before.

Spinoffs

Perhaps the most direct benefit comes from technologies used on Earth that were first pioneered in space exploration. This is something that all agencies talk about, but well focus on the NASA Spinoff program as an example. (NASA will be used as the prime example for most of this article, but many of these cited benefits are also quoted by other space agencies.)

The program arose from NASAs desire to showcase spinoffs at congressional budget hearings, according to its website. This began with a Technology Utilization Program Report in 1973, which began as a black-and-white circular and progressed to color in 1976 following public interest. Since that year, NASA has published more than 1,800 reports on spinoffs.

The agency has several goals in doing this. Dispelling the myth of wasted taxpayer dollars is one NASA cites, along with encouraging the public to follow space exploration and showing how American ingenuity can work in space.

There are many commercialized advances the program says it contributed to, including memory foam (first used for airline crash protection), magnetic resonance imaging and smoke detection. In many cases, NASA did not invent the technology itself, but just pushed it along, the agency says.

But as counterpoint to NASAs arguments, some critics argue the technology would have been developed anyway without space exploration, or that the money spent on exploration itself does not justify the spinoff.

Job creation

Another popularly cited benefit of space exploration is job creation, or the fact that a space agency and its network of contractors, universities and other entities help people stay employed. From time to time, NASA puts out figures concerning how many associated jobs a particular project generates, or the economic impact.

Heres an example: in 2012, NASA administrator Charles Bolden published a blog post about the Curiosity Mars rover landing, which was picked up by the White House website. Its also important to remember that the $2.5 billion investment made in this project was not spent on Mars, but right here on Earth, supporting more than 7,000 jobs in at least 31 states, he wrote.

But the benefit can cut in a negative way, too. NASAs budget is allocated by Congress, which means that the amount of money it has available for employment fluctuates. There are also some programs that are highly dependent on grants, which can make stable jobs challenging in those fields. Finally, as the priorities of Congress/NASA change, jobs can evaporate with it. One example was the space shuttles retirement, which prompted a job loss so massive that NASA had a transition strategy for its employees and contractors.

Its also unclear what constitutes a job under NASA parlance. Some universities have researchers working on multiple projects NASA-related or not. Employment can also be full-time, part-time or occasional. So while job creation is cited as a benefit, more details about those jobs are needed to make an informed decision about how much good it does.

Education

Teaching has a high priority for NASA, so much so that it has flown astronaut educators in space. (The first one, Christa McAuliffe, died aboard the space shuttle Challenger during launch in 1986. Her backup, Barbara Morgan, was selected as an educator/mission specialist in 1998 and flew aboard STS-118 in 2007.) And to this day, astronauts regularly do in-flight conferences with students from space, ostensibly to inspire them to pursue careers in the field.

NASAs education office has three goals: making the workforce stronger, encouraging students to pursue STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), and engaging Americans in NASAs mission. Other space agencies also have education components to assist with requirements in their own countries. Its also fair to say the public affairs office for NASA and other agencies play roles in education, although they also talk about topics such as missions in progress.

But its hard to figure out how well the education efforts translate into inspiring students, according to a National Research Council report on NASAs primary and secondary education program in 2008. Among other criticisms, the program was cited as unstable (as it needs to change with political priorities) and there was little rigorous evaluation of its effectiveness. But NASAs emphasis on science and discovery was also praised.

Anecdotally, however, many astronauts and people within NASA have spoken about being inspired by watching missions such as Apollo take place. And the same is true of people who are peripherally involved in the field, too. (A personal example: this author first became interested in space in the mid-1990s through the movie Apollo 13, which led to her watching the space shuttle program more closely.)

Intangible benefits

Added to this host of business-like benefits, of course, are the intangibles. What sort of value can you place on better understanding the universe? Think of finding methane on Mars, or discovering an exoplanet, or constructing the International Space Station to do long-term exploration studies. Each has a cost associated with it, but with each also comes a smidgeon of knowledge we can add to the encyclopedia of the human race.

Space can also inspire art, which is something seen heavily in 2014 following the arrival of the European Space Agency Rosetta mission at Comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko. It inspired songs, short videos and many other works of art. NASAs missions, particularly those early space explorers of the 1950s and 1960s, inspired creations from people as famous as Norman Rockwell.

There also are benefits that maybe we cannot anticipate ahead of time. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a network that advocates looking for life around the universe, likely because communicating with beings outside of Earth could bring us some benefit. And perhaps there is another space-related discovery just around the corner that will change our lives drastically.

For more information, here is a Universe Today article about how we really watched television from the moon. We also collected some spin-offs from the Hubble Space Telescope. You can also listen to Astronomy Cast. Episode 144 Space Elevators.

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What Are The Benefits Of Space Exploration? - Universe Today

I never look at the Moon without being reminded of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and of the day, July 20, 1969, when they left their first footprints on its dusty surface. The exploit seems even more heroic in retrospect, when we realise how primitive the technology was: Nasas entire suite of computers was less powerful than a single smartphone today.

Apollo 11 was only 12 years after the USSRs first Sputnik satellite launched into orbit around the Earth. Had the pace of missions been sustained in the subsequent half-century, there would surely have been footprints on Mars long before today.

But this has not happened.

The reason, of course, is that Apollo was motivated by the US strategic imperative to beat the Russians; it consumed up to four per cent of the US federal budget. Once US primacy was achieved, continuing gargantuan levels of funding was not justifiable, and the Apollo Programme ended in 1972 with the safe return of Apollo 17.

Hundreds more people have ventured into space in the ensuing decades, but anti-climactically they have done no more than circle the Earth in low orbit, mostly in the International Space Station.

Space technology has nonetheless burgeoned. There is participation from more than 70 nations, as well as the commercial sector. We routinely depend on orbiting satellites for communication, navigation, environmental monitoring, surveillance and weather forecasting. And space technology offers a huge boost to astronomers, lifting telescopes into orbits far above the blurring and absorptive effects of Earths atmosphere.

The sector has been energised by private companies, such as Elon Musks SpaceX and Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin. These ventures bring a can-do Silicon Valley culture into a domain long dominated by Nasa and a few aerospace conglomerates. They have developed the techniques to recover and reuse the main launch rocket, presaging real cost savings.

Machine learning is advancing quickly, as is sensor technology. In coming decades, the entire solar system planets, moons, and asteroids will be explored by fleets of tiny, automated probes interacting with one another like a flock of birds.

Giant robotic fabricators will construct, in space, solar energy collectors, telescopes and other giant structures. Indeed, much industrial production could eventually happen away from Earth.

Ever more capable instruments have been sent to Mars to orbit around the red planet or land on its surface. They will be joined next year by the UAEs Hope spacecraft to study the Martian climate hopefully a pathfinder for other projects, both inspirational and practical, from the Middle East.

But the extra cost of sending humans and returning them safely remains significant. So will humans once again venture into what we call deep space, rather than simply orbiting the Earth?

Nasa astronauts Doug Hurley, foreground, and Bob Behnken call down to mission controllers for a report on their second flight day onboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on Nasa's SpaceX Demo-2 mission approaching to dock to the International Space Station (ISS). Nasa TV / EPA

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft approaches to dock to ISS. Nasa TV / EPA

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft approaches to dock to ISS. Nasa TV / EPA

SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft approaches to dock to ISS. Nasa TV / EPA

The SpaceX Dragon crew capsule, with Nasa astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken aboard, docks with the International Space Station. Nasa TV / AP

The SpaceX Dragon crew capsule, with Nasa astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken aboard, docks with the International Space Station. Nasa TV / AP

The SpaceX Dragon crew capsule, with Nasa astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken aboard, docks with the International Space Station. Nasa TV / AP

SpaceX Crew Dragon is seen from the International Space Station during the spacecraft's approach to the orbiting laboratory. Nasa TV / EPA

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft launched from Launch Complex 39A on Nasas SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with Nasa astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard, at Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Nasa / AFP

To todays young people, the Apollo programme is ancient history. It was all over long before they were ever born. Of the 12 men who walked on the moon, only three are still living. We could be nearing a time when no human has a first-hand memory of standing on another world.

Along with millions of others, I would be saddened if human exploration of deep space faded into history.

Mars is a more alluring target than the Moon, albeit more remote. I hope that some people alive today will walk on the red planets surface as an adventure, and as a step towards the stars.

Nasas Space Shuttle, when it was operational, was launched more than 130 times. Its two crashes were national traumas because it had been promoted unwisely as a safe vehicle for civilians (and because a schoolteacher, Christa McAuliffe, was one of the casualties). Test pilots and adventurers would readily accept much more risk than the two per cent implicit in the experience of the Space Shuttle programme.

China has the resources, the dirigisme and maybe even the willingness to undertake an Apollo-style programme. It already achieved a first by landing on the far side of the Moon, and will surely follow this up with a manned Lunar base. But a clearer-cut great leap forward in Chinese space exploration would involve footprints on Mars, not just on the Moon.

Looking further ahead, the UAE envisages that, by 2117, there could be a real "city" on Mars, and it is welcome to have this inspirational goal to inspire interest among the next generation and inspire innovation in the region.

I think the future of manned spaceflight also lies with privately funded adventurers who are prepared to participate in a cut-price programme far riskier than the kind Nasa has been able to impose upon its astronauts thus far.

The phrase space tourism should be avoided. It lulls people into believing that such ventures are genuinely safe. And if that is the perception, the inevitable accidents will be as traumatic as those of the Shuttle. These exploits must be sold, so to speak, as dangerous sports, or intrepid exploration.

So I hope that adventurers and thrill-seekers later this century might establish a fragile base on Mars. But do not ever expect mass emigration from Earth. And here I disagree with Mr Musk and with my late Cambridge colleague Stephen Hawking, who enthuse about a rapid build-up of large-scale Martian communities.

Space does not offer an escape from all of Earths problems. We have got to solve these here. Coping with climate change may seem daunting, but it is simple compared to terraforming Mars. No place in our solar system offers an environment as clement as even the Antarctic, or the top of Everest. There is no Planet B for ordinary, risk-averse people. We must cherish our Earthly home and our global heritage but continue to seek inspiration from the stars.

Martin Rees is the UKs Astronomer Royal and the author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity

Updated: June 6, 2020 10:46 AM

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Space exploration is about adventure, but also responsibility - The National

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Opinion columnist Published 11:32 a.m. ET June 3, 2020

This is huge, but in a sense nothing new: We were launching people into orbit over 50 years ago, after all. But SpaceX is doing it for much less, and thats revolutionary.

Though the news is filled with stories of riots and a pandemic, the most transformative things going on at present are in a totally different sphere.One of those things is pretty obvious, the other less so.

The obvious transformation involves SpaceXs successful launch of a human crew into orbit, the first such launch involving an American spacecraft in nearly a decade, and the first such launch everby a commercial spacecraft.

At the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 30, 2020.(Photo: Craig Bailey/FLORIDA TODAY)

This is huge, but in a sense, nothing new:We were launching people into orbit over 50 years ago, after all. SpaceXs Crew Dragoncapsule is bigger and fancier than a Gemini, but the mission profile is not all that different.And of course, our last mission to orbit, on board a space shuttle, was basically old hat itself.

But SpaceX is doing it for much less, and thats revolutionary.To get a kilogram into orbit on the space shuttle costs $54,500. To do the same thing with SpaceXs newest rocket, the Falcon 9, costs $2,720. Thats basically a twenty-fold reduction in cost.

Lots of things that are too expensive to do at $54,500 become doable at $2,720.And SpaceX isnt standing still.Its Starship reusable rocket, under development now, is to cost a mere $2 million per launch, and Elon Musk says its cost per kilogram to orbit will be at least 10 times lower than the Falcon 9.There are a lot more things that become doable at $272 per kilogram.At those prices, things like space tourism, space hotels, lunar minesand asteroid mining become feasible.

As Robert Heinlein once said, once you get to Earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system.

Editorial Board: SpaceX, launching to space station, rockets to new age of entrepreneurial orbital flight

Which brings me to the second, less obvious transformation of this spring: President Donald Trumps opening outer space for business. "The executive order, Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources, is meant to createa new industry: the extraction and processing of resources from the moon and asteroids toward thesettlement of the solar system," as I wrote in April.

Theres a lot of wealth in spaceas I wrote back in 2013, "A 79-foot-wide M-type (metallic) asteroid could hold 33,000 tons of extractable metals, including $50 million in platinum alone. A 23-foot-diameter C-type (carbonaceous) asteroid can hold 24,000 gallons of water, useful for generating fuel and oxygen.Larger asteroids could be worth as much as the GDP of a superpower. Asteroid 1986 DA is a metallic asteroid made up of iron, nickel, gold and platinum. Estimates of its value range between $6 and $7 trillion. Something that size won't be retrieved anytime soon, but the figure gives some idea of just how much wealth is out there."

People have been talking about asteroid mining for awhileand even started companies with that in mind, but theyve been slowed down by two problems:The expense of getting into outer space, and the legal uncertainties around extracting lunar and asteroid resources.Musk is addressing the expense; Trump is addressing the legal uncertainty.

The executive order makes clear that Americarejects the failed 1979 Moon Treaty which the United Statesnever joined, and which banned private property rights in space and that it will recognize and defend the rights of its citizens in developing space resources.

Martha McSally: The COVID-19 pandemic is misery, but we'll come out stronger in the end

In doing so, its pretty bipartisan:In 2015, President Barck Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which provides that a U.S. citizen engaged in the commercial recovery of an asteroidresource or a space resource ...shall be entitled to ...possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States.

Trumps order ensures that international obligations will be supportive and not destructive of such efforts.

Rather than the Moon Treaty, the administration is working on a new set of agreements with other spacefaring nations, known as the Artemis Accords, in which participants will agree to respect each others rights in outer space. Theres already interest from other nations, though the Russians, whose space-launch business has collapsed in the face of competition from SpaceX, arent happy.

At any rate, it may well be that future historians will remember 2020 much more for being the second beginning of a wave of human expansion into space, than for the grubby earthbound problems that occupy the news on a daily basis. I certainly hope so.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of "The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself," is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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A new era: The Space Age is making a comeback, but it's cheaper this time with SpaceX. - USA TODAY

With most of us cooped up at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, we've rounded up some educational courses from MasterClass and The Great Courses to dive in-depth into space topics. We hope this will provide some distraction in between the activities you need to do to stay safe.

MasterClass was co-founded by David Rogier and Aaron Rasmussen in 2014, and released publicly the following year. On the website, dozens of well-known celebrities offer information on their field of expertise, ranging from cooking to creative arts. The streaming service offers a few ways of viewing content. If you want a full buffet experience, you can get unlimited access for U.S. $15 a month or $180 a year (pricing will vary by country). Or if you prefer to hold on to one class forever, that will cost $90. Here are some of its classes about space and space-related topics:

American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City, offers a new course on scientific thinking and communication. Topics included are how to think skeptically, elements of scientific literacy, understanding data, and overcoming bias to seek objective truth. Additionally, deGrasse Tyson offers tips for communicating your ideas to different audiences.

Canadian retired astronaut Chris Hadfield, who is now an independent consultant and public speaker, has a course on space exploration. This not only covers the usual topics such as rockets, the International Space Station, spacewalking and training, but also a segment on leadership that allows you to learn how to think like an astronaut. Space.com previously covered the class in detail, with the top 15 lessons learned.

Acclaimed science fiction author Neil Gaiman explores the art of storytelling, which he has deployed in numerous space books such as his Interworld trilogy or "Stardust" (HarperCollins Publishers, 1997) His course goes in-depth into developing characters, finding an author's voice, developing the study, and seeking the truth in fictional works. He also deals with the usual writers' worries, including the editing process and overcoming writer's block.

Malcolm Gladwell, whose numerous bestsellers explore the intersection between science and culture, offers an in-depth course on storytelling in journalism. The author of "Blink" (Back Bay Books, 2007) and "The Tipping Point" (Little, Brown and Company, 2000) explores topics ranging from interviewing, to structuring language, to dealing with technical matters such as jargon, case studies and tone. He also goes through the writing process, including how to make the most of drafts and revisions.

"Rolling Stone" photographer Annie Leibovitz, who has tackled space subjects (such as this portrait of astronaut Eileen Collins) and famous cultural icons such as the Beatles' John Lennon over the decades, has a course on portrait photography. Her perspectives include making the best use of light, deciding between studio or location shots, ways of interacting with people, and her photographic influences.

Ron Howard, director of space film "Apollo 13" (1995, Universal Pictures) and co-producer of HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon" miniseries (1998), discusses the art of direction. This walks you step-by-step through how to get a movie from concept to screen, including choosing a story, readying a script, the importance of choosing collaborators, doing your research and finessing the result with editing.

Jodie Foster, who starred in the 1997 movie "Contact" about seeking out alien civilizations, shows her work from behind the camera in a series of classes about filmmaking. This will explore the process all the way from storyboarding, to casting, to ways to deploy your cameras. The series also features a few short films by Foster.

The Great Courses, which was founded by The Teaching Company in 1990, features short university-style lectures from award-winning professors. Course lengths range from miniseries to many dozens of lectures. There are two separate websites to access The Great Courses content, with different selections on each site.

You can access the back catalog online at TheGreatCourses.com, buying individual courses. The price varies considerably, but some courses are advertised on the front page as being below $75; others will be much more in price. If you prefer unlimited streaming, a selection of content is available at TheGreatCoursesPlus.com. While the content on the "Plus" site is more limited, there is plenty of stuff to keep you entertained. You can view as many courses as you want within that selection, for prices as low as U.S. $14.99 monthly if you buy a year at at time. Prices will vary by country.

Here's a look at some fun courses to satisfy your thirst for space.

Taught by Alex Filippenko, astronomy professor and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, this massive, 96-lecture course will keep you occupied with nearly 50 hours of content going through the science step by step. Starting with a grand tour of the cosmos, students will learn about the basics of the night sky, then quickly move to more advanced topics such as eclipses, astronomy history, the planets, alien life, stars, and even the structure of the universe.

Taught by Bradley E. Schaefer, Distinguished Professor and Alumni Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University, this course begins with one of the most famous sites of ancient astronomy (Stonehenge, in the United Kingdom) and moves through the worldviews and viewing sites of many cultures whether it be New Mexico, Egypt, China and the Middle East. You will also learn the roots of many aspects of modern astronomy, including timekeeping, eclipse-tracking and figuring out planet positions.

This course is taught by David M. Meyer, professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University, where he is also Director of the Dearborn Observatory. The 12-lecture course highlights the scientific contributions of the Hubble Space Telescope, including why it was launched, its spectacular observations of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's collision with Jupiter, and famous targets such as the Crab Nebula or the Cat's Eye Nebula.

This course, also taught by Meyer, brings viewers across the solar system and the universe to show more about the cosmos. This visually illustrated 18-lecture series looks at topics such as how auroras are formed, the search for water on Mars, the significance of icy moons such as Europa and Enceladus, and the search for other Earths.

The 25-lecture course, taught by Felix J. Lockman, the Green Bank Telescope principal scientist at the Green Bank Observatory. Here, viewers will learn how astronomers find planets, how radio astronomy started as a science, how radio telescopes work, and common observation topics such as pulsars, galaxies and stars.

This course is taught by David K. Johnson, associate professor of Philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Several space movies and series are covered in this content, including "Contact" (1997), "Arrival" (2015), "Interstellar" (2014) and the popular franchises "Doctor Who" and "Star Trek." The 24-lecture series promises an "intellectual journey" through time and space.

This course is taught by Sabine Stanley, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. The 24-lecture course takes an in-depth look at each of the solar system's planets, starting with searing Mercury and then moving out to the solar system to Neptune. The lecture also discusses the little worlds at the edge of the solar system Pluto, Kuiper Belt objects, comets and more. Exoplanets, planetary research and human exploration are also discussed.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Explore awesome space and physics courses from MasterClass and The Great Courses - Space.com