I want to run through the particulars on the upcoming 2010 Advanced Space Propulsion Workshop at the University of Colorado in a moment, as the deadline for abstracts is still three weeks away for those who are thinking of submitting papers. But looking through the presentations at conferences like this one — it’s sponsored by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the US Air Force Research Laboratory and Glenn Research Center’s In-Space Propulsion Technology Project — I always think about where we stand in terms of long-term goals. And something Caleb Scharf said in a recent post on Life, Unbounded resonated in those terms.
Scharf (Columbia University) had been discussing the list of Mars launches, going all the way back to 1960 with the failed Soviet Marsnik 1, subsequent Sputnik 22, Zond and Cosmos launches, various Mariner attempts, and, of course, the eventual Viking Landers. It’s a list of failures interspersed with triumphs like the current rovers and orbital vehicles like Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The failures stung but they also taught, and sheer persistence wins the day, leading Scharf to ponder the meaning of what we do when we send such probes:
Each of these launches, each chunk of alloy and package of electronics, was made to reach across interplanetary space. There was nothing glum about this. Bottles cast into the currents full of tentative human optimism and love and care. All the hallmarks of a space faring species negotiating its first steps. All for a minuscule fraction of resources across the years compared to wars, financial crises, pharmaceuticals, and political shenanigans. To my mind we are already a space faring species, we just haven’t quite realized it yet.
Image: Mariner 4, which flew by Mars in July of 1965. Credit: NASA/JPL.
It’s Scharf’s last line that resonates: We are already a space faring species, we just haven’t quite realized it yet. And it’s also clear that we’ll continue to be so long as we’re intent on studying planets around other stars, for getting up above the atmosphere to build the kind of interferometric technologies and occulters we’ll need to directly visualize small, rocky worlds will require an ever deepening expertise at working in space. Sometimes, then, it’s good to get the context. We’re not always talking about the far future when we talk about space as destiny.
But back to the 2010 Advanced Space Propulsion Workshop (ASPW2010), which describes its goals on its Web site:
We are soliciting presentations in both Mission Analyses and Technologies. For example, we are interested in presentations describing mission applications that can be enabled by the use of advanced propulsion and power, and in particular the technology performance requirements (e.g., Isp, mass, power, specific mass, efficiency, lifetime, etc.) identified by the mission analyses that must be met by the technologies to enable these missions. The second area is in presentations that describe the various advanced propulsion technologies in terms of their current development status and projected performance. For example, we are interested in discussions of technologies suitable for near-term mission applications, as well as those suitable for more aggressive far-term missions. Also, technologies capable of being scaled over a large size range, such as from the relatively modest mass and powers associated with unmanned robotic missions, to the higher mass and powers of human piloted missions, are of interest.
For those with a deep space interest, there is plenty of room here for papers on solar, laser and plasma sails, beamed energy propulsion, advanced electric propulsion and nuclear options from fission to fusion to antimatter possibilities. Given the sponsorship, I need to note that this is to be an open meeting with attendance not only by US government personnel but also academics, business people and other interested scientists. Electronic copies of abstracts should be submitted by November 1 to Ioannis G. Mikellides at JPL and Andrew Ketsdever at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs — addresses for both men are found on the Web site, as are the full particulars of submission formats and presentation requirements.
Most Centauri Dreams readers are probably aware of the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale, which runs from 1 to 9, with 1 defined as ‘basic scientific/engineering principles observed and reported’ and 9 being ‘operational use of actual system tested, and benefits proven.’ The numbers in between tell the whole story of going from a back of the envelope idea all the way to a successful launch. ASPW2010 focuses on low TRL (i.e., TRL from 1 to 3) concepts, meaning relatively far-term propulsion and power concepts for ambitious missions later in the century.
Those of who you follow Centauri Dreams through the actual Web site rather than through RSS subscription can see the ‘What I Am Reading’ plugin and know that I’m currently making my way through Stephen Pyne’s Voyager (Viking, 2010), a rousing story of the Voyager missions as placed in the context of earlier ages of discovery. Stepping back for context is always useful. Is Scharf right that we are already a space-faring civilization? History may well judge him so as even now we tune up the technologies for more intensive study of the planets we can reach, and contemplate the possibilities for pushing farther and deeper than we ever have before.