How We Cultivate Resilience in Space Exploration

The next space explorers are looking past the Moon and Mars. They want to send submersible robots under alien oceans, convert asteroids into spacecraft, digitally produce spacesuits and build the space economy through optical mining.

This isn't futuristic daydreaming. Visionaries are constructing a new agile space industry that's bold and appears boundless. They already have created reusable rockets, are exploring lunar nuclear reactors and see possibilities where others see preposterousness and folly.

Humans are going back to the Moon, and then to Mars and then farther into space, thanks to an unprecedented combination of public and private investment. NASA, which is a current client of Voyager Space, submitted a 2023 budget request for nearly $26 billion, including about $7.5 billion for deep space exploration. And according to industry sources, private investors have invested over $200 billion over the past ten years.

To build an agile and resilient space exploration industry, leaders must invest in people and technology that actualize the fantastic. An industry that builds systems to last a decade or longer must think at least a decade beyond that.

Many dreamers are already doing so. Let's go for a ride with them.

How NASA Fuels Innovation

NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program has nurtured and funded seemingly outrageous ideas for more than two decades. Each year, NASA awards grants to researchers in public and private sectors who propose high-risk, high-reward concepts and then test their viability.

In 2022, NASA provided $5.1 million in grants to 17 researchers who are "helping us expand the scope of the possible so we can make it reality," NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said. NIAC funds the theoretical, and not every idea proves feasible. But the program germinates early-stage concepts that might become fully fledged systems in 10 or 20 years.

The ideas are thrilling. Here are just a few:

Submersible Robots

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are prototyping swimming robots the size of cell phones that can penetrate a frozen planetary crust to explore the oceans beneath it for life. An ice-melting probe would carry the robots into the liquid space on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to test for possible life.

Asteroid Spacecraft

Project RAMA, which stands for Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata, would enable humans to drive asteroids. Through additive manufacturing and in situ resource utilization, engineers could program asteroids to move, turning them into mission vehicles. Project RAMA intends to create a fleet of programmable asteroids to explore the solar system.

Smart Spacesuits

NASA is funding research on at least three new spacesuit variations for use on Mars and in deep-space travel. One project, the Digital Thread, sounds like something out of Iron Man. The Digital Thread scans an astronaut's body, then designs and manufactures a suit based on their physical characteristics. The process seeks to provide protection and mobility while reducing the instances of shoulder injuries, finger-nail loss and strength reduction caused by other suits.

Deep Sleep to Mars

Movies portray humans placing themselves in suspended animation for deep-space travel, a medical process we haven't yet perfected. But one research team is testing the concept of deep sleep states for Mars travel. The team is designing a "torpor-inducing transfer habitat" and exploring how the body responds to reduced metabolic rates with long-term torpor.

The Promise of Reusable Rockets

Private companies Blue Origin and SpaceX have disrupted space exploration by redesigning it, making rockets that land and are reusable. A resilient space industry will rely on reusable rockets to ferry people and cargo into space, increasing flight capacity, lowering costs and expanding the potential for commercial space travel.

SpaceX, which is a current client of Voyager Space, calls its Falcon 9 rocket, the first "orbital class reusable rocket," which has powered more than 100 reflights. The two-stage, partially reusable rocket has helped power the Dragon cargo ship on 32 missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy craft will be a fully reusable transport system capable of reaching Mars.

At Blue Origin, the New Shepard reusable launch vehicle has flown six crewed suborbital missions since 2021. Blue Origin says 99% of New Shepard is reusable, including its booster and landing gear. Further, Blue Origin says its forthcoming New Glenn will be the largest operationally reusable craft in existence. While reusable rockets make space more accessible, we'll need to generate vast amounts of energy to live there and explore. One viable option is to go nuclear.

Powering Space Exploration Through Fission

A resilient space program will support itself with portable, durable and scalable energy sources. The sun serves us well now, but how will we power missions where sunlight doesn't penetrate? One way is with compact nuclear reactors.

Fission surface power systems could provide abundant and continuous power on the Moon and Mars, regardless of their location or environmental conditions. An FSP system could power a lunar base for at least ten years, providing astronauts with the energy to make oxygen from regolith and operate research and living facilities.

In 2022, NASA and the Department of Energy awarded three contracts to design an FSP system or a lunar demonstration by the decade's end. If the lunar test succeeds, FSP systems could power deep-space exploration.

We will power an agile space industry by encouraging and nurturing these and other innovative ideas. As NASA's Jim Reuter said, "Creativity is key to future space exploration, and fostering revolutionary ideas today that may sound outlandish will prepare us for new missions and fresh exploration approaches in the coming decades."

We're ready for the outlandish. That's what will propel and expand our presence into space.