Spacefaring America Resource Information
The End of Easy Energy and What to Do About It White Paper
The Vital Need for America to Develop SSP White Paper
With a new presidential administration taking office, the future of America's space enterprise is uncertain. Fortunately, Americans remain strongly interested in space with a vision of becoming a nation of spacefarers.
The growing importance of space to the United States as a great power is recognized in the current U.S. National Space Policy:
For five decades, the United States has led the world in space exploration and use and has developed a solid civil, commercial, and national security space foundation. Space activities have improved life in the United States and around the world, enhancing security, protecting lives and the environment, speeding information flow, serving as an engine for economic growth, and revolutionizing the way people view their place in the world and the cosmos. Space has become a place that is increasingly used by a host of nations, consortia, businesses, and entrepreneurs.
In this new century, those who effectively utilize space will enjoy added prosperity and security and will hold a substantial advantage over those who do not. Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power. In order to increase knowledge, discovery, economic prosperity, and to enhance the national security, the United States must have robust, effective, and efficient space capabilities.
For three decades the United States has stood on the threshold of moving from the first era of the space age, where our first tentative human and robotic steps into the solar system were undertaken, to the next era where Americans have the freedom of action in space needed to reap the economic and national security benefits of increased human and robotic space operations. What has held us back has been the failure to invest in building the integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure needed to have "robust, effective, and efficient space capabilities."
My "Spacefaring America" project focuses on identifying the need for and the technical means now available to being to build the needed spacefaring logistics infrastructure. White papers, technical papers, videos, presentations, and technical fact sheets are available for download on the Spacefaring America Resource Information page.
Recent additions to this page include:
Item 4.a. Presentation: "Energy, SSP, and Jumpstarting America's Spacefaring Future." This presentation, made under the auspices of the Spacefaring Institute LLC, provides an overview of the energy and SSP findings discussed in greater detail in the Item 1.d white paper "The End of Easy Energy and What to Do About It." This presentation was made on May 31, 2009, at the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference in Orlando FL.
Item 4.b. Presentation: "Becoming Spacefaring." This presentation, provided under the auspices of the Spacefaring Institute LLC, argues for the need for America to change direction in its human space enterprises to build the integrated spacefaring logistics infrastructure needed to start a new space industrialization era of the space age.
Item 3.a. White paper "The Vital Need for America to Develop Space Solar Power." This picks up on the conclusions of the white paper "The End of Easy Energy and What to Do About It" to argue that starting the development of commercial space solar power is now vital for the United States.
Item 1.d: 126-page white paper "The End of Easy Energy and What to Do About It" taking a careful look at the United States' and the world's future energy needs and why space solar power is a vital part of the solution to avoiding energy scarcity as affordable oil, coal, and natural gas are exhausted in the coming decades.
Item 3.c: AstroPolitics article on the spacefaring logistics infrastructure.
My commentary on America's space enterprise is located at SpacefaringAmerica.net.
In the 1970's the U.S. Department of Defense adopted two technology sets that have remade American military power: the Global Positioning System or GPS and stealth technologies. Advocacy for both of these "radical" departures from conventional thinking were strongly criticized and opposed. Yet, American technical ingenuity and sustained government support as the invariable technical issues were overcome, have provided the U.S. military with a substantial aerospace superiority on the battlefield. Comparable advancements are now underway with the application of UAVs - another technology set initially strongly criticized and opposed.
The Configurable Air Transport (CAT) is a revolutionary concept for a new class of subsonic aircraft adapted to externally carry large interchangeable modules would provide these new aircraft with a true multi-mission capability. Strategic and theater-CATs would provide a new air fueling capability with the added mission flexibility to perform virtually all air transport, air reconnaissance, command and control, and air power projection mission now undertaken by a mixed fleet of aging aircraft.
Technical articles, presentations, and explanatory videos are available on the Configurable Air Transport Resource Information page.
Recent additions to this page include:
Item 1.c: 188-chart presentation made at the 2006 Airlift and Tanker Association Conference.
Items 2.a and 2.b: YouTube videos explaining the CAT concept.
Copyright © 2009 J. M. Snead, All rights reserved. Permission to link to this site or to quote from this site, with full attribution, is granted. Downloadable information from this site is provided with no warranties or guaranties or implied fitness for any purpose.
Last updated: 20090608
