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With this representation, Blue Origin shows what the space station “Orbital Reef” should look like
Photo: BLUE ORIGIN / via REUTERS
The richest man in the world has a new project: a space station.
Blue Origin, the space company of the multibillionaire Jeff Bezos, announced on Monday that it would work with several partners to build a commercial station - the "Orbital Reef".
A reef, a flourishing ecosystem that makes life in space possible, from the turbo capitalist Bezos of all people?
Similar to the grandeur of the name are the promises made in the joint communication between Blue Origin and Sierra Space: “The station will open the next chapter in human exploration and development of space by encouraging the growth of a dynamic ecosystem and business model for the future «, it says.
It didn't get much more specific.
So far, Blue Origin and Sierra Space have only submitted a few computer-animated images and a rough division of tasks: Blue Origin wants to guarantee the supply of the station, provide a core module and ensure the transport with reusable heavy-duty rockets.
Sierra Space is to contribute a node module.
Also on board are Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions and Arizona State University.
Hardly anyone doubts that it will be possible to build a commercial space station within the next few years.
Because: Behind Blue Origin is Bezos, a sponsor with almost unlimited financial resources.
In the second half of this decade, the "Orbital Reef" is expected to start operating in orbit.
If you believe the announcements, it should be available to customers from research and industry as well as private individuals.
"Experienced space agencies, high-tech consortia, sovereign nations without space programs, media and travel companies, financed entrepreneurs and sponsored inventors as well as future-oriented investors all have a place in the Orbital Reef," the company continued.
"World-class amenities" would be offered.
Does it have to be that way?
Does humanity really need that? "Basically, I welcome every further pillar of manned space travel," Reinhold Ewald told SPIEGEL on the phone. Ewald is a professor in the field of astronautics and space stations at the Institute for Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart. He worked for Esa for several years and was already in space: in 1997 he spent 18 days on the Russian Mir space station.
The commissioning of a new space station could serve science, he believes - in two areas: "Research that provides us with knowledge for the further course of space travel, and research that provides knowledge for the earth always go hand in hand." a chance to investigate problems that have not yet been solved on earth on a space station and, if possible, to solve them. Ewald gives the example of closed cycles: On the ISS, for example, attempts are being made to recycle water - because you have to bring water with you from the earth and that is time-consuming and expensive. Clean water is obtained from the crew's urine, which is collected and treated, but also from condensed moisture that has been breathed or sweated into the ambient air inside the station. According to NASA, the "total water recovery" is currently 93,5 percent. If this system were further improved, it could undoubtedly benefit from it on earth as well.
Water cycles and the influence of microgravity
Microgravity - the almost weightlessness that prevails on a space station - also offers an attractive research environment for many scientists.
A body in a space station is not really weightless: At the usual height of such a station, around 90 percent of the earth's gravity is still effective.
And otherwise space is not free from gravity: It keeps the moon in its orbit around the earth.
It also ensures that the earth orbits the sun.
The reason why astronauts do not feel gravity and accordingly feel weightless is that there is no air and no air resistance in space. The spacemen are practically in free fall, but everything around them that has a mass falls at the same speed. The space station and crew fall towards and around the earth. This gives the impression that people can float weightlessly in a space station. These special conditions of microgravity have an impact on human health, for example.
So are Bezos' plans a boon to science?
"I have doubts whether there is enough need for experiments on three or more space stations," says Ewald.
It is expensive to prepare an experimental setup so that the experiment can be carried out on board a space station.
Above all, however, it is expensive to send the test material into space.
So it could be that for this reason there are not enough experiments with which one could utilize the various space stations.
However, if more frequent flights into space are carried out, the price for the transport of test material would also decrease.
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This is also relevant for scientists like Tino Schmiel. He is a space engineer and heads the research field satellite systems and space sciences at the Technical University in Dresden. For example, the German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will take off for the ISS on October 31, will test a medical device for the health check that was developed at the TU Dresden - one of more than 100 experiments that Maurer carried out during the mission “Cosmic Kiss «Will perform.
"At the" Orbital Reef "there should be docking facilities for scientific modules and for hotel modules. That sounds great at first because it offers research new experimental platforms, ”says Schmiel. He also spoke to SPIEGEL on the phone about the accessibility of space travel. He describes the work in the ISS as a "prime example" in this regard.
However, it is operated by space agencies, NASA, ESA and the space agencies of Russia, Japan and Canada.
How do these agencies secure access to a privately financed, commercial space station?
"NASA secures access through funding," says Schmiel.
The US agency plans to support private space companies with a sum of 400 million US dollars.
“In Europe, one could consider whether a consortium might come together and dock with its own module” - similar to the Columbus laboratory module on the ISS.
How many outposts does humanity need?
The "Orbital Reef" will not be the only space station whizzing through orbit at the end of the decade. The ISS will then probably have been retired: The current cooperation agreement for its operation will expire in 2024, and continued operation until 2030 is considered technically possible. The space station is getting on in years: crew members keep discovering cracks and leaks in the station In July, a software error caused difficulties docking a module, engines accidentally fired, and contact with the crew was broken off in the meantime.
But a new space station is already being built in space, under the leadership of China.
The »Tiangong« should be completed as early as 2022.
Russia is pursuing similar plans.
And there have also been reports from India that the state space agency wanted to build its own Indian space station.
Europe's role?
Has to be defined
Now private companies are also pushing into orbit.
What are the consequences for international space travel?
"In the future, the low earth orbit will increasingly become part of the earthly economy," said Volker Schmid, who, as head of mission at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), oversees the "Cosmic Kiss" mission, told SPIEGEL.
“There is a lot more dynamic in the system in the USA, a lot more entrepreneurship.
Europe would have to catch up here in order not to lose touch.
However, it is also easier in the USA because they do not have to coordinate with other member states. "
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Didier Schmitt, the strategic director in the Esa directorate for robotic and astronautical exploration, also sees major changes in space travel.
The American authorities have long since chosen their path: “Nasa does not want to build its own space station after the ISS.
And I am very much afraid that we in Europe will not be able to collect the money to build our own, only small space station. "
Esa has by far not the same resources as NASA, says Schmitt: Its budget is less than a tenth of the amount that NASA annually has.
So what will space travel look like in the future?
A state agency will pay the industry as a service provider, predicts Schmitt - for a certain amount of material for experiments and for the transport and catering of a certain number of astronauts.
"We only pay for what we need." Of course, the companies could then also include commercial offers such as space hotel rooms.
"Then that's not our business."
That is why Esa will in future negotiate and cooperate with European private companies and, in the best case scenario, conclude contracts that guarantee the European Space Agency access to a successor to the ISS for a certain period of time.
"We have no other choice," says Schmitt.
And in an interview with SPIEGEL emphasized the force of this change: “Nobody really understood what was going on.
The new space stations are no longer operated by an agency.
Nasa will no longer be the owner.
It's a revolution. "
The new era has already begun
It's nothing more than an announcement Blue Origin made on Monday.
But it is another announcement that a new era has dawned in space travel - an era in which decision-making power in space no longer lies with state space agencies, but with private companies.
In the hands of multibillionaires.
Europe and Germany should deal with the question of how they want to be involved in space travel in the future, says DLR space manager Schmid.
"Think about the moon," he says.
'Are we doing it?
I think that would be the next logical step. "
And that's just one of the questions the world community will have to answer as the number of its outposts grows in the years to come.
The spaceman Reinhold Ewald is confident that she is able to do this: “So far I have had the impression that everyone is trying to do something meaningful.
In the overall balance it is worthwhile for humanity. "