You’re
a creative scientist. Your job is to stimulate industry;
Think
of reasons why the government will give large chunks of money
To
build something.
Manager, Aerospace Company
Approx. 5700
words
Jan. 15, 1992
Copyright 1992 David
Stephenson
A Submission to the Task Force considering Canada's Long
Term Space Plan
Disclaimer:
This submission
represents the author's personal views, and has
no connection
with his employment by the Department of Energy
Mines and Resources.
The Next Small Step
by
David G. Stephenson
Introduction:
This paper addresses vision, that aspect of strategy which
is as recognizable
as it indefinable; and without which the
finest creations
degenerate into the petty minded, trivial and
irrelevant.
It would be inappropriate in a presentation devoted
to a vision
of the future to propose specific missions or courses
of action; for
once a vision or strategic goal has been accepted,
mission plans
would naturally follow from consultations with
interested and
respected professionals. But, in a democracy,
national efforts
must speak to the general public, and the Cana-
dian public
is alarmingly ill informed about the ways of science
and technology.
Except in so far as it impinges on their daily
lives, ordinary
people may not be expected to be interested in
complex technology,
and perhaps a quarter of the population
responds to
the popular aspects of science. And yet, everyone
will instinctively
respond to a vision that exceeds the bounds of
everyday existence,
for humankind are curious animals and can not
resist the lure
of the possible. This century's visions have been
of power: science
and technology harnessed to the benefit and the
destruction
of humanity. Arguably our most compelling visions
came from the
heroic decade of space activity that was born under
the sign of
Apollo. For the first time the Earth was seen from
space as a fragile,
beautiful oasis set in a darkness that was
pregnant with
discovery. Visions, if they are to be more than
passing dreams,
must whisper of things beyond our grasp; and if
shared, are
able, in perhaps hidden ways, to enrich the mundane
existences of
all. Money is merely a medium of exchange which
renders liquid,
and inadequately reflects, that which we value
and need. A
vision that enriches must therefore eventually lead,
in part, to
financially accountable gains.
During the past forty years both the United States and
Canada have
invested heavily in their space programs and yet
thanks to a
poverty of vision both are suffering from a lack of
enthusiastic
public support. The space programs of the U.S. and
Canada developed
technology for immediate practical and political
ends, and in
so doing lost the consistency and excitement result-
ing from a long
term sense of purpose. Twenty five years after
being dedicated
almost entirely to obviously practical ends, the
Canadian program
risks becoming a formation of isolated, jealous-
ly managed exercises
in assembling large and expensive pieces of
advanced technology
in order to stimulate the aerospace industry,
with insufficient
consideration given to science, research and
even potential
customers. Although individual missions may be
worthy and economically
valuable exercises, without an overall
strategic goal
there can be no standard to define success, and
hence no trial
for the temper of the nation's cutting edge.
The Way Ahead:
As we prepare to enter the 21 st. century it is not hyper-
bole to say
that the human race has two generations to avoid
catastrophe.
Canadians merely have to look at their own ghost
towns to see
in miniature the effects of an expanding population
too long enjoying
an industrial market economy based on too
limited a resource
base. Like almost every seminal academic
document, the
famous "The Limits to Growth" report of the Club of
Rome of 1972
(1) turned out to be simplistic in its analysis, and
its prescription
for the future was afterwards repudiated; but,
as the United
Nation's report "Our Common Future" by the Brundt-
land Commission
(2) confirmed over a decade later, its insight
into our predicament
was true. In the mean time innovative re-
sponses should
have developed from the cultural vitality of the
industrialized
world, but the leading, English speaking, peoples
had chosen to
sacrifice their scholarship and science in favor of
immediate technical
developments in the hope of short term fiscal
advantage. And
today, twenty years on, the loudest voices heard
in response
to the evidence of an immanent ecosystem crisis can
only echo the
cries that railed against the high technology and
space programs
of the 1960's. Ironically so, for technology is
the study of
tools; and the finest tools, the highest technolo-
gies, must be
honed to perfection under the tension of urgent
demand or insistent
necessity. For a beleaguered human race
dependent on
a small, and very degradable planet the only demand
of consequence
is the necessity to stabilize and then restore the
Earth's life
support systems. We have traveled far into space and
looked back
at our planet and recognized it for the first time:-
the flame that
powers our economy and the environmental rose are
one!
The magnitude of the task facing the human race at the end
of the twentieth
century dwarfs the achievements of earlier
civilizations.
If modern civilization is to continue to flourish
its sectors
in which science and technology, thanks to the pres-
sures of war,
reached their highest achievements during the
1940's and 60's
must become focused on a common purpose. The most
advanced nations
of the world must cooperate in mutual self-
interest for
the benefit, indeed the long term survival, of all
the members
of the United Nations of the Earth. The goal would be
to have a major
segment of the this planet's polluting, and
unavoidably
hazardous, industrial infrastructure moving into
space, or at
least having its energy needs supplied from space by
the middle of
the next century. Only if this is achieved, will
the pressures
generated by the demands of a planetary population
of up to 14
billions be sustained.
The past two centuries of unprecedented worldwide economic
growth were
powered by the massive burning of carboniferous
fossil fuels;
and today the long deferred cost is coming due as a
seriously threatened
global environment. An exploding world
population now
has an almost insatiable demand for the material
benefits of
an urban, industrialized market economy, and, for all
but a few, no
bridges remain to lead back to the questionable
advantages of
a bucolic way of life. Conservation, i.e. the more
efficient use
of the world's resources and, in particular, its
current sources
of energy, can only serve to buy time for a
determined and
unflinching effort aimed at offering a realistic
and acceptable
future for all the human race. Daunting though
that task may
seem in an era of financial and social uncertainty,
the alternative
is, at best, to consign a large proportion of
future generations
to what, even in this cynical age, would seem
unbelievable
poverty, degradation and squalor; and at worse to
face a breakdown
in the political, economic and ecosystem struc-
tures of the
planet that have blessed Canadians with a life style
that is the
envy of the world. This vision of a prosperous,
densely populated,
but uncorrupted planet with a rich economy,
sustained in
part from space, marries the development and deploy-
ment of the
finest and most powerful technologies to the insight,
sensitivity,
and precision of a master craftsman. The heart of
that effort
must be a search for new large scale, but non-pollut-
ing sources
of industrialized power to supplement and then super-
sede our present
primitive dependence on carboniferous fossil
fuels. This
search must inevitably lead to the industrialization
of space.
As oil is consumed the world's remaining high grade reserves
will become
relatively more concentrated in the politically
unstable region
around the Gulf. The immediate cost of the recent
Gulf War is
estimated to have been in the neighborhood of $50
Billion, and
that figure does not include estimates for the
extended collateral
damage. The costs of securing the world's oil
supplies can
only rise as alternatives become more limited. Major
improvements
in energy efficiency in the industrialized world
have not stanched
the demand for oil, and it has become only too
obvious that
the production and transcontinental shipment of
large volumes
of oil inevitably leads to accidents that threaten
both human life
and the local ecosystem. Global energy consump-
tion doubles
approximately every 30 years and reached 13,500 GW.
of industrial
power of all types in 1988. Of this over 75% is the
result of the
burning of fossil hydrocarbon fuels (3). If tradi-
tional fuels
such as wood and dung are excluded, the fossil fuel
component rises
to 88% (4). An optimistic scenario published in
the issue of
Scientific American devoted to 'Energy for Planet
Earth' in 1990
projects that by the year 2050 the industrialized
world will have
been able to reduce its per capita energy use by
approximately
70%, but at the same time the industrializing world
will have had
to have increased its per capita energy use by a
similar amount,
presumably to offer an acceptable urban life to
its rapidly
increasing population. In which case the world's
total energy
use will rise to 27,500 GW. An increase of this
magnitude could
not be fulfilled by burning fossil fuels without
severe risk to the
planetary ecosystem. There seems little sign
that conservation
will do more than reduce the rate at which the
demand for cheap,
reliable electrical power is increasing. As the
World Bank recently
recognized, the future of the World lies in
its cities,
in particular the expanding cities of the developing
world. Without
viable alternatives being offered by the industri-
alized countries,
India and China are burning ever increasing
amounts of soft
coal. A well publicized, long term space indus-
trialization
program, aimed at supplying non-polluting energy to
the world, that
however, makes no unjustified promises and does
not underestimate
the difficulty of its task, may demonstrate to
industrializing
countries that their aspirations are considered
seriously by
the industrialized nations. Modern electrical gener-
ating stations
have a working life of thirty years and can take
over a decade
to design and build. Clearly there is a great deal
to do and very
little time in which to do it.
Programs to increase energy efficiency, reduce pollution and
to develop alternative,
conventional energy sources both large
and small will
be vital in the coming decades, but of themselves
they will not
be enough. If it is not to face an unprecedented
crisis before
the middle of the next century the world must by
then be drawing
on one or more of only three candidate sources of
industrial energy:
1. Efficient
Nuclear Fission
2. Large Scale
direct Solar Power
3. Nuclear Fusion
1.
The once bright promise of 'electricity too cheap to meter'
is now gravely
tarnished by the problems of nuclear waste dispos-
al, mine site pollution,
licensing and de-commissioning costs and
the public fear
of catastrophic failure. The failure of the Three
Mile Island
light water reactor and the explosion and fire of the
graphite moderated
reactor at Chernobyl have cast a heavy pall
over the world's
nuclear power industries. The clearest illustra-
tions of the
multi-faceted energy paradox facing mankind are the
completed nuclear
power stations which have been converted to
burn fossil
fuels in response to political and regulatory pres-
sure. Parochial
fears of radioactivity can halt the construction
of nuclear power
stations, but the alternative increases the
emission of
the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmos-
phere. Current
reactor designs release less than 1 per cent of
the potential
of natural uranium and research into more efficient
fast neutron
reactors has so far not been encouraging. A vastly
expanded fission
power industry supplying most of the world's
additional energy
needs would seem to be the outcome of an act of
final desperation
in the face of no alternative.
2.
If current trends continue very large scale solar power
farms could
become competitive with conventional energy sources
sometime early
in the next century. A diffuse power source that
shuts off at
night and in cloudy weather is hardly compatible
with the needs
of a modern urban economy or our present utility
grids. Tropical
deserts support some of the planet's most fragile
ecosystems,
and perhaps several millions of square kilometers
would have to
be sacrificed to supply the distant needs of the
industrialized
world. Certainly terrestrial solar power has a
primary role
to play in tropical and semitropical regions, and a
secondary role
elsewhere. Industrial solar power for the temper-
ate zones would
have to be imported, possibly as hydrogen, or via
microwave beams
from space. Vast solar arrays hovering in the
geostationary
orbit could come on stream sometime in the next
fifty years,
but like terrestrial solar farms their receiving
stations would
large and difficult to site near urban areas in
Europe and Japan.
Although far less polluting and in many ways
more attractive
than fission reactors, power satellites will only
be feasible
after the development of an infrastructure that could
support major
industrial developments in the geostationary orbit.
This will be
a major endeavor for, perhaps surprisingly, orbital
dynamics makes
the geostationary orbit more expensive to reach
than the Moon,
and high radiation levels associated with the
nearby Van Allen
radiation belts will severely limit human activ-
ities.
3.
In October 1991 the Joint European Torus (JET) in England
generated 1.7
MW. of heat from the fusing of isotopes of hydrogen
contained in
its high temperature plasma trapped in a powerful
magnetic field.
A proposed international reactor is intended to
create more
fusion energy than the energy needed to heat and
control its
several hundred million degree plasma. After a thirty
year effort
by researchers around the world the long sought after
goal of industrially
harnessing the power that heats the Sun,
may, at long
last, be coming into sight.
Progress toward a practical fusion reactor has concentrated
on igniting
the reaction between the hydrogen isotopes deuterium
(the heavy hydrogen
in heavy water) and tritium (the temporally
radio active
heavy hydrogen produced when deuterium is bombarded
by neutrons).
Deuterium is readily available, and tritium is
produced when
lithium or deuterium is exposed to neutrons in a
nuclear reactor.
Small masses of tritium are produced in Candu
reactors. The
D-T reaction is very energetic, and is the easiest
fusion reaction
to ignite, but most of that energy is carried by
fast neutrons
that would reduce any reactor vessel to brittle,
highly radioactive
scrap within a couple of years. Recent
progress has
also included research into the reaction between
deuterium and
helium 3, an isotope of the inert gas helium that
does not occur
naturally on Earth, but is created when tritium
decays. (In
one year 5% of a tritium stockpile becomes helium 3).
Although it
is much more difficult to ignite, the helium 3 reac-
tion is even
more energetic than the tritium reaction, and pro-
duces no neutrons
and hence no radioactivity. All its energy is
carried away
by charged particles from which electrical energy
may be extracted
directly at up to double the efficiency of a
conventional
thermal power station. Reactions between the deute-
rium atoms will
generate a small neutron flux and trace masses of
tritium, and
it is estimated that after 30 years a reactor vessel
would have become
a medium level radiation hazard for a period of
decades (not
centuries). Unlike radioactive tritium which will
readily enter
the food chain to pose a potential health hazard,
helium 3 is
completely chemically inert and nonradioactive.
The fuel demands of a fusion powered economy would be re-
markably small.
Twenty five tonnes of helium 3 and a smaller mass
of deuterium
could power the whole of the U.S. electrical power
grid for a year.
Unfortunately there is no source of helium 3 on
this planet
able to supply even a small fraction of a tonne per
annum, and the
only accessible natural source is the surface
layer of the
Moon. Traces of helium 3 blown out from the Sun in
the solar wind
have been adsorbed onto the surface dust and
rocks, and when
lunar samples are roasted at up to 1000 deg.
Celsius this
gas is released. A NASA task force in 1989 (5)
concluded that, if
helium 3 reactors were used to provide for the
world's growing
energy needs lunar helium 3 could be profitably
exported and
compete with conventional fuels at a price of about
1.5 $M per kg.,
and the U.S. White House Synthesis Group report
"America
at the Threshold" (6) included research into helium 3
mining as part
of one of its recommended architectures. But, to
extract one
tonne of helium 3 over 100 sq. kms. of lunar surface
would have to
be mined to a depth of a meter.
If helium 3 reactors could be built on Earth, the same tech-
nology could
be used to construct vast, but light weight reactors
on the Moon.
In these pure deuterium would be fused into helium 3
and tritium.
If it is not consumed in the reactor the latter
could be separated
and allowed to decay into helium 3 before
shipment. These
reactions are difficult to ignite and produce a
considerable
neutron flux, and it may not be physically feasible,
and certainly would
not be desirable to construct a deuterium
reactor on Earth.
If there is no atmosphere pressing in from all
sides, a reactor
vessel can be a thin unstressed membrane that
will withstand
the neutron flux. Radioactive stockpiles and
wastes will
not threaten the Moon's ecosystem, because there
isn't one, and
indeed the Moon's surface is frequently bathed by
powerful bursts
of radiation from the Sun that could injure or
even kill an
unshielded human being.
If all the world's present industrial energy were generated
by the fusion
of extraterrestrial helium 3, the result would be
an annual trade
of just over a thousand tonnes of nonradioactive,
nontoxic materials.
There would be far less thermal and chemical
pollution on
Earth, with a minimal production of medium level
radioactive
wastes. It seems likely that helium 3 power stations
could be constructed
close to urban areas without posing an undue
health risk.
Current research indicates that a commercial fusion
reactor would
have about the same size and output as the Darling-
ton nuclear
power station; but a helium 3 reactor would not have
a large, intensely
radioactive inventory, and could not 'melt-
down' even if
its cooling failed. When it was finally dismantled
it is estimated
that its reactor vessel could be handled like the
components of
a de-commissioned medical sterilizer, as medium
level waste.
Space Industrialization:
Modern industrial activities consume one third of the
world's energy
supplies, and are a major source of pollution.
solar power
satellites, or fusion fuel production on the Moon
will only be
possible with a large industrial infrastructure in
space. When
they look to the future in space, Canadians are
uniquely able
to call upon their history for guidance. The Cana-
dian frontier
was opened up by small teams of professionals
moving from
factory to factory surveying the frontier before
building the
trade that brought the wealth of the mysterious and
unforgiving
hinterland back to the trading centers of Europe.
Rupert's Land
was only colonized after the Canadian Pacific
Railway could
offer anyone reliable access to the Prairies. A
manned lunar
base will have much in common with today's frontier
oil drilling
platforms, and in its initial stages would have to
be dedicated
to research into lunar construction and industrial
activities. Unfortunately,
during and following the Apollo
project the
concept of space industrialization became interwoven
with American
myths of rapidly opening the 'last frontier' to
amateur homesteaders.
On Earth the hazardous environments over
the North Sea
and the Arctic Slope of Alaska oil fields are the
domain of highly
trained professionals working in rotation for
extended periods
under less than ideal conditions. Saturation He-
Ox divers repairing
North Sea oil rigs can spend up to a month in
pressurized
bells on the sea bed. Returning to the surface can
take a diver
considerably longer than a return flight from the
Moon to the
Earth. There is no place for the amateur in the
wilderness.
Nature is not mocked by untried technology and will
kill the unprepared.
Without an atmosphere, with temperatures
ranging from
200 C in the Sun to -200 C in shadow, and under
constant cosmic
ray bombardment and occasional solar radiation
storms the surface
of the Moon is as inhospitable to human life
as the bed of
the North Sea, but arguably not more so.
An industrial lunar base will be a major endeavor, and will
only be successful
following a program of research into lunar
building techniques,
the mineral structures of the Moon, and
advanced space
technology. Clearly such a venture will only be
possible if
many of the leading scientific and spacefaring na-
tions cooperate.
Like the divers working at the bottom of the
North Sea, workers
on the Moon will need safe, pressurized living
accommodation
and workshops. The initial installations will have
to be assembled
from large prefabricated sections shipped from
Earth, and a
heavy lift launch vehicle with the performance of a
Saturn 5 or
the Energia will be essential. Once assembled, the
lunar habitation
modules will be covered with lunar dust to
insulate the
inhabitants from Solar heat and cosmic radiation.
A prime objective will be to develop the civil engineering
systems needed
to construct permanent large scale industrial
facilities on
the Moon using local materials. Shimizu currently
favors the construction
of lunar modules on the surface from
lunar dust and
water shipped from Earth. Sub-surface accommoda-
tion has much
to recommend it, and well established terrestrial
mining techniques,
such as locked out mine workings under pres-
sure, might
be translated to the Moon. Surface mining for trace
amounts of volatiles
and helium 3 will be a severe challenge, and
Bechtel has
a research program to design lunar mining systems
that would have
to operate reliably in the dusty high vacuum and
extreme temperature
cycles of the lunar surface.
A permanent base will, over time, have to reduce its depend-
ence on materials
shipped at great expense from the Earth. The
Moon's surface
is rich in non-volatile, moderate atomic weight
elements such
sulfur, aluminum and silicon. Over 40% of the
Moon's surface
material is oxygen, which could be extracted to
supply both
life support systems and as a rocket oxidant. Several
heavier metals
are also found in the Moon rocks brought back to
Earth by the
Apollo astronauts and the Soviet Luna probes. Howev-
er, the Moon
totally lacks concentrations of the volatile ele-
ments: carbon,
hydrogen and nitrogen. These will be needed in
considerable
quantities not only for life support, but also to
make the plastics,
solvents, chemical fuels, and industrial
reagent and
cooling fluids, which will inevitably be lost from
even the most
efficient regenerative systems. At first these
vital elements
will have to be shipped from Earth or scavenged
from wastes and fuel
ulages. It has been postulated that vola-
tiles from meteorites
might have become trapped as very low
temperature
ices in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar
poles. A modest
lunar polar orbiter carrying existing instruments
could confirm
their existence.
Approximately 1000 small asteroids have orbits that come
close to the
Earth, of which about 150 have been identified so
far. Very occasionally
one will impact the Earth with devastating
consequences,
and a continuing asteroid watch has been backed by
the Vice President
of the U.S.A. as an exercise in commendable
prudence. Infra
red spectroscopy indicates that 60% of these
asteroids are
similar to the surface of the Moon, but rather less
than a quarter
contain considerable masses of native nickel iron
alloy, which
are probably rich in valuable heavy metals, and the
remainder are
related to the small moons of Mars and perhaps the
comets and are
thought to be rich in the volatile elements miss-
ing on the Moon.
It would be much safer and cheaper to supply a
well developed
space based industrial infrastructure from these
asteroids than
by launching raw materials at great risk and cost
from the Earth.
Canadians know well that surveying the wilderness
for minerals
is a costly and, above all, time consuming business.
Therefore a
manned lunar program would have to be complemented by
a research program
to catalog the detailed mineralogical poten-
tial of the
Moon and the Earth approaching asteroids, and while
robots will
be needed to carry out wide ranging surveys for
potentially
useful minerals on the Moon, on the Earth high alti-
tude, ground
based, infrared observatories are already conducting
surveys for
Earth approaching asteroids. When sufficient aster-
oids have been
cataloged, a series of small, standardized deep
space probes
would be needed to examine the most promising ore
bodies at close quarters.
Finally a limited number of asteroid
landers and
penetrators, similar to the Soviet Phobos probes and
the Japanese
lunar penetrators, would make a thorough assay,
before launching
possible robot mining or manned expeditions. The
White House
Synthesis Group under Lt. Gen. Stafford titled its
report "America
at the Threshold" (6) and not surprisingly was
almost entirely
concerned with the U.S. space effort, but within
the envelope
of space industrialization aimed at supporting the
economy of this
planet there will be ample scope for the inven-
tive genius
of all participating nations. A secretariat will have
to be established
in one of the major space powers to prevent
unnecessary
duplication, while encouraging the scientists and
engineers of
every nation in the joint effort. The experience
gained by the
members of the secretariat may form the basis of a
future licensing
authority, that will have the task of taxing
'for the benefit
of all Mankind' commercial operations that wish
to use the 'heritage
of Mankind' for profit.
Like the massive interdisciplinary research programs of the
second and cold
wars, a program to industrialize space would
stimulate the
creation of a wide variety useful technologies.
Hydroponics,
total recycling systems, the manufacture of advanced
alloys and the
construction of large scale lunar and deep space
structures are
obvious examples. If the fusion of helium 3 and
deuterium does
not turn out to be economically viable, the effort
will have created
the technologies and infrastructure that will
make solar power
satellites possible, and would lead eventually
to the space
based mining and manufacturing complexes that,
during the latter
half of the next century, could finally free
this planet
from the burden of industrial pollution.
The end of the cold war and the rise of transnational trad-
ing blocks is
being marked by the decline of narrow national
interests. The
future will be dominated by global concerns. The
space programs
of the G-7 countries were started more than a
quarter of a
century ago as demonstrations of national pride,
technical ability
and strategic necessity. Almost every major
civilian space
mission is now an international co-operative
effort, and
in August 1992 the Earth's space scientists and engi-
neers will gather
in Washington D.C. for the first World Space
Congress. That
there is an urgent need for a unifying goal that
will focus these
efforts for the benefit of all mankind will have
been highlighted
during the previous June when the United Nations
convenes the
Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio. It is already appar-
ent that by
the middle of the coming century this planet's re-
sources may
not be sufficient to sustain its human population.
Fusion scientists
from the U.S., Japan and the Commonwealth
republics recently
issued a joint communique calling for an
international
research program aimed at harnessing helium 3
fusion, and
endorsing the establishment of a lunar base (7). The
clear implication
is that the space programs of the G-7 nations
and the republics
of the former Soviet Union must clearly and
publicly be
dedicated to harnessing the resources of the inner
Solar System.
Future international space programs will have to be
planned and
sustained with these longer term global objectives in
mind if scarce
human, financial and technical resources are not
to be squandered
by an uncoordinated series of narrowly targeted
national missions.
Canada and the
Future:
Canada is well placed to participate in a wide ranging
program to develop
the resources that human civilization will
need by the
middle of the next century. This country developed
the only entirely
civilian nuclear reactor program, and continues
to develop the
world's first domestic, geostationary communica-
tions satellite
program. Canada's very successful space program
grew from the
need in the nineteen fifties to understand and
overcome the
problems of radio communication under the auroral
zone surrounding
the Earth's magnetic north pole. Today, over
thirty years
later, we have developed a sophisticated understand-
ing of the Earth's
magnetosphere, and how it interacts with the
atmospheres
of the Sun and the Earth; and have become world
leaders in the
deployment and use of communications satellites.
The coming generation
of scientists and research engineers will
need a new goal
to stimulate and focus their efforts.
Lunar and space research with the ultimate goal of large
scale space
industrialization will be an exciting vision for the
scientists of
a country whose population is increasingly aware of
the degradation
of the global environment, and the relative
decline of the
national economy. The common historical experience
that binds and
defines Canadians of every background is that of
coming to terms
with an uncompromisingly demanding, lethally
harsh, yet fragile,
and exquisitely beautiful wilderness. To
those who have
been able to accept and fulfill that challenge,
Canada has been
truly bountiful; yet, as we are only now begin-
ning to realize,
human beings have exacted a terrible price from
this land. While
resource extraction industries continue to be
backbone of
its economy, Canada now takes a major role in the
world's efforts
to minimize the effects of global pollution. The
mining industry
is familiar with the advantages of using the
latest remote
sensing systems to locate new mineral deposits, and
to minimize
pollution from existing developments. Increasing
numbers of these
are located in remote areas, and have mineral
deposits that
could not be unlocked without research into, and
the development
of, innovative mining and separation techniques.
This fund of
corporate and technical experience could be a unique
contribution to the
establishment of a lunar infrastructure. That
infrastructure
will not function without the latest telecommuni-
cations using
microwaves and lasers both on the Moon and between
deep space and
the Earth. Over twenty years ago Canada's telecom-
munications
industry rose to the challenge of space and so prof-
ited from the
process that transformed the world into today's
global village.
No doubt, preventing that village from becoming a
planetary slum
will be equally stimulating and profitable.
Canadian submarines operate in the North Sea under condi-
tions that are
in their way more severe than those found in
space. An armored
diving suit designed in Canada was used as a
model for a
future NASA space suit, which was later canceled for
budgetary reasons.
Spar aerospace is constructing an advanced
robot manipulator
for the U.S Freedom Space Station. INCO and
Falconbridge
have been mining and refining asteroidal material
from the Sudbury
basin for decades, and Canada's space scientists
have supplied
instruments for many successful international
scientific satellites.
This country's technical skills are world
class, but alas,
as the threadbare state of much of its space
science shows,
somehow vision and will seem sadly lacking. And
although vision
and will can not be bought and sold in the mar-
ketplace and
have no place in a ledger, without them all technol-
ogy is moot.
There is surely no finer vision for Canada than that
of a world that,
having reached into space to tap the power that
lights the Sun,
is thereby restored, sustained and enriched. As a
member of the
group of 7, the Commonwealth, La Francophonie, the
OAS and a respected
member of the United Nations this country
should bend
its skill to presenting this vision to the nations of
the world both
large and small, and to be prepared to support an
international
effort to make that vision real with its own not
inconsiderable
human, technical and financial resources.
In 1993 the Canadian Space Agency will move into its new
Headquarters
in St-Hubert. Two hundred years ago the voyageurs
and explorers
of the Northwest Company set forth up the Saint
Lawrence River
to open a harsh, demanding continent to science
and trade, and
in doing so created the country of Canada we know
today. Today
the challenges of space are no less than those that
faced Mackenzie,
Thompson and Fraser, whose names are indelibly
stamped on the
landscape of the West. If there are to be future
Canadians who
can look to us as we now look back to those who
made the North
West passage to sea, there is work to do!
Conclusions:
Last year the Duke of Edinburgh, as president of the World
Wild Life fund,
pointed out that a hectare of fine arable land
without additional
industrial input can sustain 5 people. Cur-
rently each
arable hectare is supporting 3 people. Like all
twentieth century
industries modern agriculture has increased its
yields by drawing
upon fossil hydrocarbons. The human population
is expected
to double by the middle of the next century, and the
economic pressures
caused by this increase may not be borne for
much longer.
The Brundtland Commission prescribed a course of
sustainable
economic development for this planet. Only this, they
claimed, will
cease to degrade, and indeed will begin to restore
this planet.
But this will only be possible in the unlikely event
that the human
population soon stabilizes and then declines a
level where
this planet's resources can sustain it indefinitely.
The alternatives
are to face a catastrophic failure of the infra-
structures that support
much of the human race, or to begin
immediately
the urgent task of harnessing those resources that
lie just beyond
our present horizons on the Moon and in near
Earth space.
Over the centuries Canada has drawn its children
from many lands
and taught them that only the best trained and
equipped are
fitted to answer the challenge of the wilderness.
For those who
rise to that call, the wilderness offers the en-
richment that
comes from the quest to bring new, and distant
wealth home
to astonish those who can but count the present and
cling fearfully
to its ephemeral comforts.
THE END
References:
1:
D.H. Meadows, D.L. Meadows, J. Randers & W.W. Behrens.
The Limits to Growth, Pub. in paperback, Signet Books
1972.
2:
The World Commission on Environment and Development. Our
Common Future, Oxford University Press 1987.
3:
J.P. Holdren. Energy in Transition, Scientific American
September 1990, p. 157
4:
R. B. Erb. Power from Space for the Next Century
I.A.F. Congress, preprint 00231, Montreal 1991
5:
Report of the NASA Lunar Energy Enterprise Case Study Task
Force. NASA Technical Memorandum 101652, July 1989
6:
America at the Threshold. Report of the Presidential
Synthesis Group on America's Space Exploration
Initiative U.S. Govt. Printing Office, June 1991
7:
Statement from the "Workshop on D-He3 Based Reactor Studies"
2 October 1991, Kurchatov IAE, Moscow, USSR
*******
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end
of all our exploring
Will be to arrive
where we started
And know the
place for the first time.
Through the
unknown, remembered gate
When the last
of Earth left to discover
Is that which
was the beginning;
At the source
of the longest river
The voice of
the hidden waterfall
And the children
in the apple-tree
Not known, because
not looked for
But heard, half
heard, in the stillness
Between two
waves of the sea.
. . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
And all shall
be well and
All manner of
thing shall be well
When the tongues
of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned
knot of fire
And the fire
and the rose are one.
T.S. Eliot:
Little Gidding (Four Quartets)
The
role of the scientist today is to keep his
cupped
hands over the flickering flame of research
while
politicians, bureaucrats and project managers
piddle
on it.
(said in Australian
‘strine)