Andrew M. Thorpe
By 2016, the International Space Station will face retirement. What then?
When colonizing space, NASA blazes the trails, but private industry must build the roads. For common citizens to inhabit space, there must be a station in near Earth orbit, only 400 miles high, where dedicated commercial activities can take place. It will be a hub of commerce where industrial scientists can perform chemistry and biology, tourists can have lavish vacations, solar power stations can be built and serviced, and where satellites can be tested and deployed. This is now within the grasp of several businesses that are determined to see this vision through.
The commercialization of low Earth orbit can free NASA, and the other space agencies around the world, to colonize the Moon and Mars. In fact, these agencies will be some of the first customers on an industrial facility in space.
The commercial space station can be the crucible from which a new economy in forged, where better medicines, cleaner energy sources, stronger materials, and wider human experiences can be realized. These space stations are being deployed now. They will do practical, useful things in space for the common good of taxpayers. They will be new tools in the fight to solve medical and environmental problems to come. And they will provide jobs and tax revenue. The 21st century will be an industrial space century where average citizens can participate as entrepreneurs or customers.
Andrew M. Thorpe has spent the last 26 years engineering products and services for private companies. He began his chemistry career developing new polymers and custom blended pharmaceuticals. He then switched to consulting, where he acted as a technical advisor and marketing liaison for the development of microcontamination control solutions for high tech environments. During his years as a consultant, a wide variety of industries were supported including aerospace, biomedicine, semiconductors, optics, and information technology. He then began developing software systems for scientific, financial, legal, and medical management firms to provide better collaboration environments.
As a freelance science writer, he has appeared in Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Omni, and Boy’s Life magazines. His last book, The Commercial Space Age: Conquering Space Through Commerce, was published in 2003.
The commercial space market is evolving toward even higher goals and bigger rewards. As the future of aerospace dawns before us, a commercial habitat in space is on the horizon. In this orbital facility, tourists have a destination, scientists have a test environment, and manufacturers have a pilot factory. While tourists expand their experiences, industrial scientists can create exquisite machine parts, electronic components, and wonder drugs weightless world unto their own. The commercial space station will provide a beachhead for governments, large businesses and entrepreneurs, and a crucible for space application development.
The benefit of a commercial space station is its zero-gravity environment. It will allow liquids to combine evenly, alloys and metals to form perfectly, and circuit boards and semiconductors to reach their extreme levels of speed and reliability. Because of the quiescent environment space provides, antibiotics and antiviral drugs can be perfected for medications and vaccines. A commercial space station will also allow for the inexpensive manufacture of satellites, a storage facility for salvaging old space wreckage, a fuel depot for deep space flights, and a place for tourists to observe the planet Earth and the Universe around us.
