Dear readers,
Welcome to Quartz’s newsletter on the economic possibilities of the extraterrestrial sphere. Please forward widely, and let me know what you think. This week: Invading the red planet, planning a space mission and a new CEO at Virgin Galactic.
🛰🛰🛰
About every 26 months, the Earth finds itself between the sun and Mars, the ideal position to launch spacecraft to explore the red planet.
We’re entering that season now, and it won’t be a wasted opportunity. The US, China, and the United Arab Emirates are all planning to launch ambitious missions to search for life on Mars—and demonstrate national puissance.
The robotic invasion fleet consists of Perseverance, a large American rover that includes its own helicopter drone; China’s Tianwen-1, a name that means “Heavenly Questions” in English, a lander/rover/orbiter combo; and the UAE’s Amal, Arabic for “hope,” a spacecraft that will orbit Mars and study its atmosphere. A fourth mission, a rover designed in European Union/Russian Federation collaboration, was postponed after test delays.
The United States is the only country to successfully operate a robot on the surface of Mars, and only after a variety of failures. Dropping a functioning piece of electronics on the right target 300 million miles away is no simple feat. And unlike the Moon, which has no atmosphere to complicate arrival, getting to the surface of Mars requires far more complex preparations.
Mars is of great scientific interest because it is the most like Earth of the other planets in the solar system, and could contain clues as to how our planet evolved. Some advocates of human space exploration say Mars is the best candidate for future human settlement in the solar system. But that’s a long way away. What do these missions mean for Earthlings today?
🌏 Governments see Mars as a unique target. Even if the Moon promises more economic potential and is easier to access, Mars remains novel. “Chinese space policymakers are clear that their long-term space ambition is to continuously develop capacity for a cislunar presence (in space between Earth and the Moon), they keenly realize that for global prestige and reputation purposes, a Mars landing is a coveted prize to capture,” Namrata Goswami explains. It’s not just true of governments: Elon Musk’s SpaceX is famously Mars-obsessed.
🌏 They also see a space program as a proxy for technology development. The UAE’s mission is not really about Mars, according to Omran Sharaf, who is managing the project. It’s about inspiring a new generation of young people in the oil-dependent country to take on basic challenges of energy and food production as the world shifts away from petroleum. Whether that’s more effective than actually investing in “moonshot” tech programs to solve those problems directly isn’t entirely clear. But as space tech gets cheaper and economies continue to develop, we can expect other nascent space programs to make similar decisions.
🌏 It’s easier than sending people. At one point, American planners thought they might put astronauts on Mars by the late 1980s, but the cost and danger of such a mission quickly made it prohibitive. Instead, a parade of cheaper orbiters, landers, and rovers have made their way to Mars, generating useful data and new questions about the universe. The debate over robotic versus human exploration won’t be settled any time soon, but watching Mars InSight struggle to dig into the Martian surface certainly makes one wish for an astronaut with a shovel. Perseverance will test spacesuit materials and attempt to manufacture oxygen from the Martian atmosphere in an effort to make future human visits feasible.
All these trends may seem somewhat divorced from private companies that are doing new business in low-earth orbit and the Moon. But a key factor motivating those efforts was the confirmation of water on the Moon in 2009. A surprising discovery on Mars—not so much aliens as volatile chemicals—could upend everyone’s priors again.
🌘 🌘 🌘
Imagery Interlude
It’s a NASA rover sandwich—on top, the “cruise stage” containing the equipment necessary to fly to Mars; in the middle, the shell containing the Perseverance rover; and on the bottom, a heat shield to protect the rover as it descends through the Martian atmosphere. This stack was assembled in June. The next time it separates will be in Feb. 2021, some 6 miles (9 kilometers) above Mars’ Jezero Crater.
👀 Read this 👀
Like the space industry, countless organizations are newly engaging with the question of how to have meaningful conversations about race. But for Cord Jefferson, a TV writer on HBO’s critically-acclaimed superhero series Watchmen, lengthy discussions about topics like police brutality and the history of Black Wall Street were all in a day’s work.
Jefferson says that diversity makes any conversation better. “From a place of quality and wanting to put out the best product, it’s always better when you have a roomful of different voices.”
For our latest field guide on how to build an anti-racist company, Jefferson shared tips from the writers’ room of HBO’s “Watchmen” on how to build a more inclusive culture, including:
- Don’t shoot down ideas, build on them
- Know your blind spots—and hire people who can see what you can’t
- Remember that Blackness is not a monolith
- Give center stage to people who aren’t big stars—yet
🚀🚀🚀
SPACE DEBRIS
CEO shake-up at Virgin Galactic. The publicly-traded space tourism company brought in a veteran Disney executive, Michael Colglazier, as its new chief executive officer, with incumbent George Whitesides moving into the role of chief space officer and stepping down from the company’s board. As the company moves toward regular tourist flights, it make sense to bring in Colglazier, who most recently ran Disney’s international theme parks. Still, Virgin Galactic’s board now has just one member with first-hand experience in space, Wanda Austin, the former leader of the Aerospace Corporation.
How to plan a space mission. A successful exploration mission requires the right combination of scientific goals, technological feasibility and…compelling Hollywood narrative? This behind-the-scenes look at how the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory designs its projects gets at just how difficult it is to gain knowledge beyond our own planet.
This rocket has shelf life. The National Reconnaissance Office launched classified spy satellites this week on top of thirty-year-old rocket engines. The Minotaur 4 rocket, built by Northrop Grumman, uses engines from decommissioned nuclear missiles that were assembled in the late 1980s and on alert for 15 years in a midwestern silo.
Hop in, loser, we’re launching satellites. Spaceflight, the small-satellite launch broker, said it would debut a new “orbital transfer vehicle” called Sherpa-FX on a SpaceX launch later this year. The vehicle builds on the “frankenstack” Spaceflight built in 2018 to carry 64 satellites into orbit. Of particular importance to satellite operators, the new vehicle carries sensors that will make it easier to ID spacecraft after they’ve been deployed into orbit, helping to clear up confusion caused by many small spacecraft being released in close proximity.
Your pal,
Tim
This was issue 57 of our newsletter. Hope your week is out of this world! Please send your hopes for future Mars missions, ideal theme park analogies for Virgin Galatic, tips, and informed opinions to tim@qz.com.