ESA – Terrae Novae: Europe's exploration vision

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Exploration/Terrae_Novae_Europe_s_exploration_vision

by rbanffy • 3 years ago

71 58 3 years ago

esa.int

notum• 3 years ago

Offtopic but I've always found ESA's logo incredibly distracting, brain persists to read it as (E)ESA.

danuker2• 3 years ago

Since you pointed it out, I see it that way also. Argh!

rbanffy3• 3 years ago

At this point, I recognize it as a single glyph meaning ESA.

tokai• 3 years ago

brain persists to read it as (E)ESA

Whats the issue with that?

I think their brand team is aware, as it is explicitly pointed out as wrong to do their logo as (E)SA. See page 10:

https://brand.esa.int/mp-files/esa-brand-manual_logo.pdf/

pixelpoet• 3 years ago

I'm a huge proponent of space flight and exploration and want to see "everything" space related happen, but are we really at the stage where we should put resources behind making space accessible to those with disabilities, when it's already such a difficult environment for the very fittest humans we can send?

Kinrany• 3 years ago

Disability can be temporary and can happen to those very fittest humans.

alexvoda• 3 years ago

Also disability in a different environment may be far less of an issue.

For example, in microgravity a person missing one or both legs would not have issues with mobility.

espadrine• 3 years ago

To concur, there was a fascinating TED talk[0] from Chris Hadfield about having to complete an extra-vehicular operation having gone blind in both eyes, as an unexpected consequence of the anti-fog mixture that was in use.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo62S0ulqhA

mrtksn4• 3 years ago

Why limit this with space exploration? Maybe it's best if we cut off all kind of resources for the less-able people so we can concentrate our limited resources to people who can have larger impact per resource spent.

Do you see the problem here?

closewith2• 3 years ago

However, we do already make this distinction in other areas where people work in austere environments, such as militaries, emergencies services, maritime and flight crews, resource exploration and exploitation, etc.

frederikvs2• 3 years ago

John McFall, the person chosen for the parastronaut study, probably is one of the very fittest humans we can send. Participated in paralympics and all that. He probably runs faster than many of the other astronauts that made the selection.

Additionally, when in weightlessness, a missing leg is not that much of a hindrance.

modo_mario• 3 years ago

Cool. But what's the point of this study? What are we learning from it that one couldn't tell you already?

trompetenaccoun3• 3 years ago

I think the problem isn't with astronauts missing a limb if they're otherwise suitable candidates. They claim the disability isn't a hindrance and the astronaut has to fulfill the same requirements as other astronauts, apart from the physical requirements where they make an an exception for people with limb deficiencies or those who're extremely short.

Ok, but if that works, why not make that part of the regular requirements then? Why discriminate in the first place and then pat themselves on the back for being so progressive as to make exceptions? Calling him a "parastronaut", making big announcements about it and all. Everyone can see this is political, they're sending a token to space.

It's typical for our times, the administrators are almost more concerned with that sort of stuff than the research they're supposed to oversee.

danuker2• 3 years ago

I was wondering why they are researching cholesterol reduction in space. Turns out it was an unexpected benefit from extraterrestrial agriculture.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Ex...

samhuk• 3 years ago

Few of my thoughts:

1. That poster for the benefits of space exploration is quite awful. Side-ways text?

2. It's a shame, because some of the artwork is really nice, especially the one at the bottom.

3. The "what they are doing this decade" section is terribly structured and phrased. The first point is to inspire the next generation of engineers etc. The second point is somewhat DEI agenda (concept of "parastronaut") [0]. The third is...yet again about the next generation of engineers etc. The forth is a vague "we will prepare" statement.

The actually awesome content is buried 5-6 points down, for example regarding the construction of Lunar Gateway modules, the design of Argonaut (worst spacecraft name ever?), etc.

4. Super pumped for Rosalind Franklin

[0] Although I don't view this as inherently bad (since we will eventually need to learn about how disabilities affect space exploration), I just think that there are much more important activities that need to be done right now, all on an already shoe-string budget in a recessive economy. I mean, jeez, they even admitted that it's just a PR stunt..."Demonstrate our commitment".

cletus• 3 years ago

I ultimately see space as humanity's ultimate home. Not in the Star Trek or Star Wars sense (because I don't belive FTL communication or travel is possible) but instead as a Dyson Swarm.

A Dyson Swarm is a collection of orbitals. With current technology and materials we could build O'Neil Cylinders that are 2-3 miles wide and 10-20 miles long that could house millions of people if necessary. Cover the whole thing in solar panels and fly enough of them around the Sun to capture the total solar energy output and you have an unbelievable amount of energy at your disposal and an unfathomably large amount of living area.

It's estimated humanity currently uses 10^11 Watts of power. Using all the sunlight that hits Earth would take that to 10^16 Watts. The orbitals of a Dyson Swarm take that to 10^26.

This can be built incrementally and requires no new physics of theoretical materials. It's just a truly massive engineering problem.

The most important problem we have now is reducing the cost of getting payloads into orbit. The Apollo/Shuttle era had costs of around ~$50,000/kg. Factoring in reuse, Falcon 9 may well be under $1,000/kg now. Starship may ultimately take this down to $100/kg. This needs to keep getting cheaper.

But here's my big problem with the stations we're building like the ISS and what the Europeans want to build here: they're all zero-gravity. What we should be doing is working on spin gravity stations to work out the issues and see how humans cope with that long term.

Yes, zero-gravity is useful for experiments but this isn't an either-or situation. You could have a spinning wheel attached to something not spinning for zero-gravity work environments.

Deukhoofd• 3 years ago

The Lunar Gateway isn't really intended for long time habitation, it's more there as a "petrol stations" for moon and Mars missions. It allows for dropping off supplies and astronauts into space, before sending them on their way to the moon and beyond.

messe2• 3 years ago

it's more there as a "petrol stations

Which makes very little sense from a delta V standpoint. I’ve yet to see a good justification for the gateway, especially after NASA selected Starship (which contains more useable living space than the proposed gateway) as its lander for Artemis.

koheripbal• 3 years ago

It's more likely that ChatGPT will accomplish this before we do.

JumpCrisscross2• 3 years ago

The roadmap [1] is uninspiring. Its goals are to maintain access to LEO, "enable" lunar exploration (not actually explore it) and "prepare the horizon goal of Europe being part of the first human mission to Mars." What?

I'm reminded of Holst's complaints about Arianespace [2]. Because Europe is actually planning cool stuff in space, e.g. the lunar gateway described on this page. But its bureaucracy seems unwilling to focus on a small set of ambitious goals versus sort of doing everything everywhere.

[1] https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/HRE/Terrae_Novae_2030+str...

[2] https://illdefinedspace.substack.com/p/arianespace-the-only-...

darkwater• 3 years ago

From the tl;dr:

to enable the first European to explore the Moon’s surface by 2030

Maybe I'm unambitious but I'm pretty excited to see this.

p1esk• 3 years ago

Does “enable” mean “send”?

908B64B197• 3 years ago

To me that's smoke and mirror.

They'll be paying for a ride on a US mission, flown from US soil on an all-American launch system (no European can even get near its engineering thanks to out of control European immigration policies and ITAR). It's not like Europe could do it on it's own.

Millions of dollar so that bureaucrats can have pictures of an European person on the moon and claim "look, 'we' did it too!". Absolutely no European engineering involved.

Is this the European vision for space?

Rebelgecko• 3 years ago

Does "enabling" even result in anything to see?

etiennebausson• 3 years ago

As a space enthusiast and an European citizen, I can't help but agree.

The lunar gateway is the only mission target that I find appealing. The support for LEO economy is nice, but there is no concrete plan for it, our launchers just cost too much right now for it to develop to an acceptable level.

nordsieck• 3 years ago

The lunar gateway is the only mission target that I find appealing.

What about the lunar gateway is appealing to you?

IMO, it's a complete waste of time and money. Even the overt justification is basically that it'll help to politically stabilize Artemis, not that there's some sort of engineering or scientific reason for its existence.

And if Artemis is even marginally successful, there'll be lunar ground facilities that will quickly supplant the importance of the gateway - making it more of an albatross than an asset.

panick21_8• 3 years ago

Lunar gateway is basically a bone the US threw to its partners so they can pretend to do something that matters. While in effect it being a mostly irrelevant legacy thing with no future.

The only reason it exist it because it allies a bunch of different interest in NASA and its partner, those people who believe electric propulsion for Mars, space station people and the micro-gratify biology mafia.

Everybody know that the Gateway and the SLS/Orion are just political buyoffs for congress, so they can funnel money into an actually innovate and revolutionary solution, Starship.

The goal is to get Starship going and then do an end-run around congress and sell them on more Moon/Mars missions, finally killing all these terrible projects like Orion, SLS and Gateway. Since the development money for those projects will have largely been spent by then, the politically usefulness is mostly gone, so they will let them go in exchange for some bullshit new bullshit contracts.

trompetenaccoun3• 3 years ago

The goal seems to be keeping up more than innovation and inspiring people. It may well be due to the out of control bureaucracy stifling vision in Europe. ESA has done some interesting research in the past (if you're a physics nerd who cares about that kind of stuff), but even that was in cooperation with the Americans in the cases I know of.

It's sad because the EU has a lot of resources and could have a great space program if there were more of a push for it. Also a friendly rivalry between the continents would help speed up progress in general. The EU isn't even trying to be the first to send humans to Mars, while a nation that was completely underdeveloped up till the 80s and relied heavily on technology transfer from Western and Eastern developed countries is now attempting to beat the US to it. Talk about a fighter - vs the old money kid with few ambitions.

JumpCrisscross2• 3 years ago

goal seems to be keeping up more than innovation and inspiring people

Inspiration is sort of like a dim star, isn’t it? If you stare at it head on it vanishes.

panick21_8• 3 years ago

Inspiring people by not doing very much and spending massive money on bureaucracy and a large monopoly. I'm sure people of Europe are inspired.

sofixa• 3 years ago

The EU isn't even trying to be the first to send humans to Mars

I know this is an unpopular opinion around here, but I'm very glad they aren't. It's wildly impractical (humans can't survive on Mars without a lot of external help, and unlike the closest things we have to it, Antarctica and the ISS, emergency help would be months away at best), astronomically expensive, and would serve what goal exactly?

I don't want my tax euros wasted on unrealistic vanity projects. Let Musk('s children) run his dystopian colony there first and we'll see how it goes.

panick21_8• 3 years ago

The gateway is US project and to get there depends on an absurdly expensive delusional dumb rocket that the US is financing. At best Europe will launch a tiny part on it and get a few seas.

But reality is all that SLS/Orion stuff will continually be delayed and eventually canceled.

Setting your hopes on the future on the Gateway project, is a terrible, terrible idea. Gateway was never considered a good idea by most of the people interest in space. Its basically mostly done to give allies of the US something to do, so they can feel good about themselves while SpaceX solves the actual problems.

photochemsyn• 3 years ago

No plans for ballooning around Venus in the upper atmosphere? That's disappointing. Also, exploration of Jupiter's moons should be on the agenda.

panick21_8• 3 years ago

Project of that scale would be major, major flagship missions. ESA could never do them alone. And missions like that would have to be in the Decadal Survey.

There are some Venus mission planned but non with balloons or anything inside of the atmosphere.

panick21_8• 3 years ago

Not a great road map. A nice little science organization hampered by being chained to an delusional monopoly in Arianespace and politicians with no real interest in space beyond propping up its local space industry.

Some of the goals are flat out contradictory.

So in summation here is the strategy:

- Do everything ourselves

- Maybe be a minor partner but still be able to do everything ourselves

- Be a minor partner in all human space flight activities for the next 40 years

- Be a leader of partners.

Now I provide the non marketing translation for those that don't know enough about European space politics:

- HELP! we are forced to pay Arianespace unlimited amount of money so they can maybe figure out how Falcon 9 works and not go bust while doing it.

- We don't have funding to anything ourselves so we just go along with NASA on everything and do some research to convince ourselves that we could do it to if we had the money.

- Pretend we are not totally and utterly reliant on NASA and SpaceX by doing small project with UAE

ESA – Terrae Novae: Europe's exploration vision

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