Aggie Kobrin

TEXT AMANDA ROBERTS 

VISUAL SCOTT LISTFIELD

 

Twenty years ago, any space enthusiast who suggested that humans would soon be capable of mining asteroids, colonizing Mars, or offering commercialized space travel would have been the laughing stock of the space industry. However, The National Space Society, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting and distributing information on space exploration and colonization, proposed such ideas as not just achievable, but as realities of the near future.

It looks as though they were right. In 2005, Japan’s national space program JAXA launched their HYABUSA mission, an unmanned craft that landed on an asteroid named Itokawa and returned to Earth with small amounts of asteroid dust. Elon Musk, CEO of the aerospace company SpaceX, proposed a manned mission to Mars in 2024, and in 2012, their spacecraft Crew Dragon became the first commercial space vehicle to bring cargo to the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon was also designed to carry passengers, and the company insists this will soon be a reality. Their website features photos of the craft’s interior and promises passengers “views of Earth, the Moon, and the wider Solar System right from their seats.”

It should come as no surprise that the optimism of the National Space Society was actually the harbinger of future space exploration. Founded in 1974, this organization is made up of some of the most reputable individuals in astrophysics and engineering, including cosmonauts and NASA flight controllers.

To learn more about recent developments in space technology, we sat down with Aggie Kobrin, Managing Editor of Ad Astra, the long-running magazine of the National Space Society. Our conversation touched on some of the most important and controversial trends in space exploration, including asteroid mining.

Why mine asteroids? Because they carry significant amounts of valuable metals, including gold, numerous variants of platinum, tungsten, iron and titanium. Companies want to bring the precious metals back to Earth for profit, as well as to replenish our rapidly exhausting reserves. NASA has achieved two successful asteroid landings. In 2001, during the NEAR Shoemaker mission, an orbital spacecraft landed gracefully on the Eros asteroid and transmitted information for an impressive sixteen days. Japan followed suit in 2005, with the first mission to retrieve debris from outer space and in 2014, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission was able to transmit data from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko before losing power.

Like many major endeavors, money is the biggest obstacle blocking the success of most space mining missions. It is extraordinarily expensive to build and launch crafts sophisticated enough to harvest resources and return them to Earth, making it difficult to draw a profit. While NASA does have a team dedicated to asteroid mining, it is more likely that private companies will achieve the mission first. These companies — including Deep Space Industries, Kepler Energy and Space Engineering, and Planetary Resources — have significantly more capital than government agencies. Planetary Resources promises to deploy multiple craft in 2020, just two short years from now.

There are many obstacles that face missions into space. For instance, cost has hamstrung space colonization, another radical idea of our time. Aggie Kobrin cites the damaging effects of space on the human body and the difficulties of growing food and transporting or creating tools and materials as the primary obstacles to creating permanent and reliable extraterrestrial settlements. Realistically, this type of colonization will not happen for many years. Even if SpaceX achieves its manned mission to Mars in 2024, this achievement will only address a small part of the the complex challenges of habitation.

Even the proponents of planetary settlement are aware of its moral quandaries. The Earth’s biosphere is rapidly degrading and settlement may help human civilization survive. But who will be allowed to survive? Will the rich and powerful have a clear advantage in being selected to continue the human race on another planet? It seems likely that this will be so. There is also the question of ownership. It is possible, even likely, that companies will attempt to own portions of the moon, Mars, and asteroids. Should this be allowed, and if not, who will stop them? Where will “space law” come from? Or should space exploration be left to government-based organizations?

Another important question to be considered when colonization and mining in space become a reality, is who’s responsible for dealing with “space junk?” The more spacecraft we send to space, the more debris we create. Space may seem endlessly vast, but this junk is not inconsequential. NASA, one of only two organizations tracking orbital debris, published an article in 2013 addressing the subject. “More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or ‘space junk,’ are tracked as they orbit the Earth,” NASA reports, adding that the junk travels at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for even a small piece to damage a satellite or spacecraft and endanger the crew on-board.

A handful of companies are attempting to tackle this problem by developing what will essentially be a space garbage truck. They face this challenge and many of the other practical and moral dilemmas of space exploration with the help of some of the most creative young thinkers in the country. The National Space Society hosts an annual conference where five hundred students present their ideas to important figures in space exploration, including Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin), Elon Musk (SpaceX), and Buzz Aldrin (NASA).

Kobrin recognizes that the privatization of exploration and colonization is one of the most important issues facing the space industry, but she makes it clear that Ad Astra aims to take a nonpartisan stance. The magazine publishes articles on both sides of the issue. For reference, you can read Rod Pyle’s article, Privatizing the Moon, in the most recent print version of Ad Astra. Kobrin describes how cooperation is key to making it work. “Private industry is really leading the way,” she says. “SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic…if it were the government doing this, we would be many, many years behind where we are now. NASA realizes this too, and they are more than willing to cooperate… Everybody knows that if we work together, we achieve more. It is a matter of learning to walk beside each other.”

At the end of our conversation, we asked Kobrin why it is important to keep informed on developments in the space industry. Her response was enthusiastic and succinct. “This is one of the most exciting things in the world right now. People, by nature, are explorers. We’ve known every point in the world now, so we are going to other worlds.”