Spacefaring Institute™ LLC

Two years ago, I wrote an online Space Review article that those that are interested/concerned about U.S. and world clean energy policies may wish to read. Here is the abstract: "In his January 1941 State of the Union address, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt defined middle-class prosperity as having achieved “freedom from want”. With this pronouncement, he made achieving freedom from want a rightful aspiration for all peoples everywhere. As a consequence, all moral governments have an obligation to enable freedom from want to become a reality when technological progress so enables. Industrial freedom from want requires abundant supplies of energy. For all free peoples of the world to achieve and remain free of want, they must also have abundant supplies of middle-class affordable energy. However, the past century has demonstrated that this aspiration cannot be globally achieved using predominantly non-sustainable fossil carbon fuels. This article explains why America now has a moral obligation to lead the free nations of the world in developing space solar power-supplied astroelectricity to enable freedom from want to be finally achieved." The greatest threat to world security is the threat of the collapse of our energy-intensive industrial culture as fossil carbon fuels begin to become unaffordable simply due to diminishing technically recoverable supplies. Terrestrial solutions, including nuclear fission power, will not be able to replace fossil fuels, especially oil and gas, such that our nations remain prosperous. I am hopeful that early engagement with the incoming Trump administration will help to align America's clean energy policies with the moral need for America to lead in developing space solar power-supplied astroelectricity. The paper is also accessible on ResearchGate. Mike Snead, PE #spacesolarpower #cleanenergy #space

Two years ago, I wrote an online Space Review article that those that are interested/concerned about U.S. and world clean energy policies may wish to read. Here is the abstract: "In his January 1941 State of the Union address, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt defined middle-class prosperity as having achieved “freedom from want”. With this pronouncement, he made achieving freedom from want a rightful aspiration for all peoples everywhere. As a consequence, all moral governments have an obligation to enable freedom from want to become a reality when technological progress so enables. Industrial freedom from want requires abundant supplies of energy. For all free peoples of the world to achieve and remain free of want, they must also have abundant supplies of middle-class affordable energy. However, the past century has demonstrated that this aspiration cannot be globally achieved using predominantly non-sustainable fossil carbon fuels. This article explains why America now has a moral obligation to lead the free nations of the world in developing space solar power-supplied astroelectricity to enable freedom from want to be finally achieved." The greatest threat to world security is the threat of the collapse of our energy-intensive industrial culture as fossil carbon fuels begin to become unaffordable simply due to diminishing technically recoverable supplies. Terrestrial solutions, including nuclear fission power, will not be able to replace fossil fuels, especially oil and gas, such that our nations remain prosperous. I am hopeful that early engagement with the incoming Trump administration will help to align America's clean energy policies with the moral need for America to lead in developing space solar power-supplied astroelectricity. The paper is also accessible on ResearchGate. Mike Snead, PE #spacesolarpower #cleanenergy #space

Will Elon Musk try to use his rising political leverage to get the Space Launch System cancelled, handing the mission to SpaceX's still unproven Starship? “It’s absolutely in Elon Musk’s interest to convince the government to cancel SLS,” says Laura Forczyk from the US space consulting firm Astralytical. “However, it’s not up to him.” Billionaire Michael Bloomberg called the SLS a "colossal waste of taxpayer money". Is it really? The SLS has successfully flown. Starship is still floundering. Apparently, mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos—using his Blue Origin to build his own mega-rocket—is also apparently questioning the need for the SLS. Was Bezos' last minute quelling of anti-Trump rhetoric at his newspaper, The Washington Post, a signal that he wants to enter a post-SLS competition that could be worth tens of billions? Are these calls to cancel the SLS wise for America's long-term interests in space? Is America to have a spacefaring enterprise built on the whims of the mega-rich? Or is America's spacefaring enterprise—particularly its human spacefaring enterprise—in need of a course correction to put America on a practicable path to becoming a true human spacefaring nation enabling routine, robust, and acceptably safe human operations throughout the Earth-moon system and into the central solar system? The Spacefaring Institute will be engaging in such vital spacefaring policy public debates through its forthcoming LinkedIn newsletter, Spaceward. If America being successful in becoming a true human spacefaring nation is important to you, particularly with the rising threat of Communist China becoming preeminent in space, please follow the Spacefaring Institute. This will help in getting the Spaceward newsletter started next year. Mike Snead, PE #spacelaunchsystem #sls #elonmusk #jeffbezos #NASA #moon #space #USSF #USAF #trump #DOGE

Topic: National space-based missile defense and national space policy A key part of America's spacefaring enterprise is the ability to undertake key national security space missions effectively. President Ronald Reagan initiated development of a national ballistic missile defense capability in the 1980s. Often derided by critics as "Star Wars", the recent threats by Russian dictator Putin to use nuclear-armed ballistic missiles against Ukraine and, by inference, against the United States/NATO highlights how misguided such criticism has been for decades. Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman on the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence—and one of the eight members of Congress with full access to classified matters—wrote an opinion article in the New York Times on 9 September 2024—just two months ago—on the substantial vulnerability America STILL HAS to space-based and space-transiting threats. As was determined in the 1980s, only a space-based ballistic missile capability can provide the United States and its allies/friends with the ability to effectively defend against ballistic missile attacks short of all-out nuclear war. These are attacks such as were made against Israel, against shipping near Yemen, and against Ukraine, and potential limited nuclear attacks by rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea against the United States. It is clear that the United States MUST BECOME a true national spacefaring nation—both human and robotic—to meet national security, national energy security, and national economic development needs. Currently, as Congressman Turner emphasizes, the United States remains extremely vulnerable to space threats. The U.S. Space Command must have the military space warfare forces needed to deter and, if needed, defeat such attacks. To do this, the United States must build a robust national astrologistics infrastructure to support space-deployed military forces (human and robotic) as well as advance America's overall scientific, technology development, exploration, commercialization, and permanent settlement interests in space. Please follow the Spacefaring Institute to remain informed as it addresses such important issues during what will certainly be robust public debates on the future of America's spacefaring enterprise. Mike Snead, PE #dod #spaceforce #russia #icbm #nationalsecurity #missiledefense #usspacecom

One point that I emphasize is the need for the equivalent of independent airworthiness safety certification for human spaceflight systems. Unfortunately, the meaning of airworthiness is abstract to those outside the aviation industry, especially many of those in the pro-space community. This 4-minute video of a commercial airliner landing at night in dense fog under automatic control very plainly illustrates what the term "airworthiness" means—being able to fly carrying passengers, even under difficult conditions, with independently verified acceptable safety. To make our American human spacefaring future successful, this level of design and operational safety must be achieved in these spaceflight systems. However, as everyone in the aviation industry knows very well, success in becoming certified as being airworthy starts at the very beginning of the development process and proceeds in an orderly fashion throughout the design, engineering, testing, manufacturing, and operations of the system until retirement. It is not achieved, as many in the vocal pro-space community wrongly believe, by happenstance with someone simply declaring everything is "good to go" as is now being practiced by NASA and several commercial companies flying "spaceflight participants". The bottom line is no real progress towards making America a successful human spacefaring nation is now underway. I find this troubling and see the need to adjust U.S. national space policies to rectify this situation. Please remember to follow the Spacefaring Institute. Mike Snead, PE

The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 29) has just concluded. Central to the justification for the conference is the "scientific consensus", advanced by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that human activity is now predominately responsible for the threat of "global warming" caused "climate change". This consensus rests on conclusions drawn from models of global warming due to the anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. In the IPCC reported scientific investigations, any possibility of natural causes of climate changes bringing warmer temperatures are deeply buried if not ignored. This Public Broadcasting System (PBS) video from last year discusses how scientists have found 2 million-yead-old animal and plant DNA in the soil of northern Greenland—an area that today, in this period of interglacial warming, is an arctic desert that looks like Mars. Fragments of DNA have remained preserved in the soil. Literally, they scooped up soil samples and found the DNA. By comparing the fragments to known DNA, they found that two million years ago, that area of Greenland was a forested temperate climate with a wide range of plant, animal, insect, and marine life. This implies that the global average temperature was higher—likely during an earlier interglacial period—than it is today. (Antarctica ice core data shows that naturally warmer temperatures likely also happened 140,000 years ago during the last interglacial period.) These results show that the "scientific consensus" underwriting the purpose of the UN COP is without true scientific merit. Otherwise, their climate models would be able to predict such past instances of warmer interglacial temperatures while including forcing functions in models of future changes. The United States and the world need a scientifically sound approach to transitioning to clean energy to enable us to make the transition orderly. Climate alarmism, built on unproven consensus and not true science, is not the way to achieve this goal. Why does the Spacefaring Institute find this topic to be important? The only practicable path to abundant global clean energy is to develop space solar power. For this to get underway, America needs national space policies and true human spacefaring capabilities that will enable the development of astroelectricity. False climate alarmism diverts attention away from developing space solar power. Please remember to follow the Spacefaring Institute. Mike Snead, PE #globalwarming #cop29 #UN #climatechange

I have long admired Newt Gingrich for his bold political leadership in the 1990s and his general "pro space" support expressed in his 1984 book, "Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future." It has now been 40 years—four decades—since that book was written. Mr. Gingrich had a lengthy period as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and has remained as an influential voice in national affairs ever since. It is likely that his memo Peter Garretson shows helped to encourage President Trump to call for the formation of the U.S. Space Force. Why now, 40 years after Gingrich's book during President Reagan's time and nearly six years after the U.S. Space Force was formed from the space side of the Air Force, is America still in a declining state of national true human spacefaring capabilities? Why has Gingrich's political approach failed to guide America in opening what he called the "Greatest Frontier" in his book? Why has the space side of the Air Force—now the Space Force—failed to keep the U.S. militarily dominant in space? Why has NASA, now 60 years after it was formed, lost America's lead in human spacefaring operations to the Chinese? Why is America finding itself in a position of having to "hang its spacefaring hat" on the stumbling space activities of SpaceX and its Starship? Yes, stumbling. The Starship just completed its 6th launch. On its 6th launch, the Saturn V mission was landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. On the Space Shuttle's 6th mission, four "checkout" flights were completed, and it was completing its second operational mission. Yet, everyone from President-elect Trump and the Space Force's Gen. Saltzman to the national media and, most likely, most members of Congress are mesmerized with awe and wonder of SpaceX and Starship. Why? America needs sound, coherent, operationally focused improvements to its core national space policies to guide America out of its spacefaring rut. We have the opportunity to achieve this with (hopefully) a properly restructured National Space Council. However, this will require vigorous public debate and scrutiny. I am working to create a new LinkedIn newsletter, "Spaceward", to focus on how to improve our national space policies and how best to undertake implementing the new policies. Mike Snead, PE

I have long admired Newt Gingrich for his bold political leadership in the 1990s and his general "pro space" support expressed in his 1984 book, "Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future." It has now been 40 years—four decades—since that book was written. Mr. Gingrich had a lengthy period as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and has remained as an influential voice in national affairs ever since. It is likely that his memo Peter Garretson shows helped to encourage President Trump to call for the formation of the U.S. Space Force. Why now, 40 years after Gingrich's book during President Reagan's time and nearly six years after the U.S. Space Force was formed from the space side of the Air Force, is America still in a declining state of national true human spacefaring capabilities? Why has Gingrich's political approach failed to guide America in opening what he called the "Greatest Frontier" in his book? Why has the space side of the Air Force—now the Space Force—failed to keep the U.S. militarily dominant in space? Why has NASA, now 60 years after it was formed, lost America's lead in human spacefaring operations to the Chinese? Why is America finding itself in a position of having to "hang its spacefaring hat" on the stumbling space activities of SpaceX and its Starship? Yes, stumbling. The Starship just completed its 6th launch. On its 6th launch, the Saturn V mission was landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. On the Space Shuttle's 6th mission, four "checkout" flights were completed, and it was completing its second operational mission. Yet, everyone from President-elect Trump and the Space Force's Gen. Saltzman to the national media and, most likely, most members of Congress are mesmerized with awe and wonder of SpaceX and Starship. Why? America needs sound, coherent, operationally focused improvements to its core national space policies to guide America out of its spacefaring rut. We have the opportunity to achieve this with (hopefully) a properly restructured National Space Council. However, this will require vigorous public debate and scrutiny. I am working to create a new LinkedIn newsletter, "Spaceward", to focus on how to improve our national space policies and how best to undertake implementing the new policies. Please follow the Spacefaring Institute page to help achieve this goal. Mike Snead, PE

Last month, a major communications satellite in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) suffered some form of "anomaly" causing the destructive failure of the satellite itself. This was due to an internal satellite system failure, the impact of space debris of some type, or even a hostile act. The cause has not yet been announced, if it is known. The consequence is that a substantial amount of space debris has been introduced into GEO that is used by a myriad of communication, surveillance (e.g., ICBM attack warning), weather warning, and other important space missions. This just released video helps to explain why the threat posed by space debris is VERY SERIOUS and requires immediate and effective actions by Congress and the U.S. Government to lead worldwide actions to mitigate this threat. The threat posed by space debris is essentially one of numbers. The increasing deployments of satellites, without removing old satellites from space, increases the probability of debris impacts that in turn create more debris and increase the probability of more future impacts. At some point, this chain becomes a rapidly escalating "chain reaction" of debris impacts, rendering space around the Earth a cloud of debris and unusable. In part, this has happened because the United States has failed to pursue a sustainable space policy, due to a continued use of expendable launch vehicles, space debris-creating satellite deployment and mission methods, leaving old satellites in orbit, and the increasing use of large constellations of satellites. The United States and the world will need to build a substantial GEO space solar power clean energy infrastructure to enable an orderly, practicable, and peaceful transition from fossil carbon fuels to clean energy. There are no suitable terrestrial alternatives. The threat posed by space debris threatens this clean energy future and the future sustainable energy security of the United States. #space #NASA #spacedebris #DOD #ELV

Trump's new National Energy Council will open the door for the Spacefaring Institute to advocate for space solar power and the enabling astrologistics capabilities. To "go clean" in terms of transitioning to affordable, robust, plentiful, and acceptably safe sustainable energy, the first step is to return America to assured supplies of affordable fossil carbon fuels. This is what President-elect Trump intends to do with his plan to create a National Energy Council that will likely develop a national energy security strategy to guide the development of all forms of energy. First, returning America to robust supplies of affordable fossil carbon fuels is essential to enable America to plan and begin an orderly transition to practicable clean energy. With the new National Energy Council's emphasis to be on advancing all forms of energy, the Spacefaring Institute aims to: 1. Explain why terrestrial sources of renewable energy alone are unable to provide America and the world with the abundant clean energy needed to achieve and maintain global economic prosperity free of the use of fossil carbon fuels. 2. Explain why a substantial expansion of nuclear fission power is an unwise choice to "go clean". 3. Explain how space(-based) solar power can provide America and the world with the abundant clean astroelectricity needed to transition, this century, to clean energy. 4. Define what investments in the enabling astrologistics capabilities America now needs to make to "jump start" American private investment in realistic approaches to undertaking space solar power. 5. Identify how President Trump can use space solar power-supplied astroelectricity to enable the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved and while also fulfilling President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 pledge for America to help the world achieve "Freedom from Want". Such a proposal would replace the Paris Climate Agreement with an orderly strategy to achieve global prosperity without divisive recriminations and harmful regulations. The included chart shows the total land area estimated to be needed for the ground receiving plants (astroelectric plants) required to supply a world of ten billion people with the total energy needed to sustain, as a minimum, a European Union middle-class standard of living. This is what will be needed to achieve global "Freedom from Want" and make the transition from fossil carbon fuels peaceful. The Spacefaring Institute is preparing to begin a LinkedIn newsletter, "Spaceward", to engage in discussions and advocacy of these four points. Please click the link to follow the Spacefaring Institute to help achieve these goals. #cleanenergy #fossilfuels #trump #spacesolarpower #ssp #astroelectricity #astrologistics #renewableenergy