We (humanity) have now explored the
entire Solar System with robotic probes, and we are maintaining the
ISS as an occupied outpost. Soon, hopefully, we will be building the
Gateway station near the Moon. Here is a proposed outline of
ownership and building-out of space facilities.
Firstly, while we complete the
Gateway station, and begin occupying it, this will probably be a
multi-national effort, involving governments. The US can use its SLS
and Falcon Heavy rockets to assemble a core, in conjunction with
Russian help. Then, hopefully the Europeans will join in with a
module or two. Meanwhile, the ISS, getting long in the tooth, will
be increasingly turned over to commercial interests. This will
eventually become a tourist destination, perhaps with additional
(Bigelow?) hotel modules and so forth. Commercial companies can
contract with NASA etc to keep the station's life support and life
necessities (recycling especially) functioning. The main focus of
NASA/ESA/Roscosmos will shift to Gateway Station, and eventually the
surface of the Moon.
NASA/ESA/Roscosmos etc should then
establish a permanent Lunar base staffed by 4 to 6 astronauts. These
can be rotated in and out every six months or so, since they will
have some gravity to prevent bodily stresses and bone degradation.
They could be ferried up to the Gateway, and then ferried home, with
no necessary stopover on ISS (unless they want to.)
By the time NASA/ESA/Roscosmos
completes the Lunar station and commences regular missions there, the
ISS should be a 90 percent commercial operation, with government
involvement only as consulting in keeping life support functional.
The Gateway station should be shifting over to commercial ventures as
well, like tourism.
The next step might be a station
orbiting the Sun, halfway between the Moon and Mars (the orbital
path). Perhaps mini-shuttlecraft would travel between the Moon and
this platform. Once a small crew is occupying this platform, they
would do long-term studies of issues like radiation and
weightlessness, and transfer of material between the Moon and Mars.
Some materials would concurrently be shipped to Martian orbit, to
begin construction of a large, orbiting Mars station.
As the focus shifts to the
mid-point platform and the Mars orbital station, operations on the
Moon would be more and more commercialized, paying more of their own
way, so governments can shift their focus further and further out.
Casinos, care centers for the elderly, mining and adventure tourism
would settle in. In this way, as each succeeding station or outpost
is built further out, the preceding ones become more commercialized
and self-sustaining.
Until such point is reached that,
one day, we are all the way out beyond the orbit of Saturn. By this
time, the Moon should be almost an economic backwater, occupied
mostly by automated mining and observation stations, and Mars should
be a buzzing hive of economic activity, with several colonies on the
surface and underground. Commercial can follow governmental
exploration, as humanity learns to live and thrive in a variety of
new space environments. We will show our ever-changing adaptability
and cleverness as we ultimately conquer our entire Solar System. By
this time we should be so good at harvesting asteroidal materials,
that shortages of material things should be relegated to a dim, harsh
past, only remembered by our great-grandparents in their care centers
on the Moon.
- end
