Down-to-Earth Benefits of Space Exploration

“What does NASA do for me?” Countless people have asked me that question as the NASA administrator. It’s one I can answer easily – and one of the most important reasons is NASA spinoffs.

Finding homes for NASA technology beyond the space agency is part of our culture – it’s in our DNA. We have been transferring our technology to commercial companies since the very beginning of the agency. We also partner with industry, lending our expertise to help bring their innovations to market. These spinoffs result in products that improve and even save lives every day.

I feel confident saying you’re not too far from a NASA spinoff right now. Are you reading this on your phone? NASA helped develop the tiny, highly efficient video cameras in your device. It’s probably our single most ubiquitous spinoff technology, enabling high-definition video on the go and social media as we know it. But that’s not the only spinoff around you, or even in your phone. Every time your GPS app finds your location before offering you directions, it’s using software first developed at NASA.

We have countless spinoff examples of how investments in NASA pay dividends in the economy. The Apollo missions were expensive and challenging, but we’re still reaping the rewards here on Earth. Our new Spinoff 2021 publication tells more than 40 new stories of how NASA technologies have found uses beyond space. Each page represents at least one product for sale today. You – the public – benefit from not only those products but also the new ideas, companies, and jobs that come with them.

Spinoff 2021 highlights NASA innovations benefiting everyone from students to airplane passengers to assembly line workers and more. Here are a few highlights that stood out to me:

    • In this age of remote learning, a guided tour of Mars is more appealing than ever. We collaborated with Google to create a virtual reality tool, based on decades of Mars research, that allows students to follow in the path of the Curiosity rover, right from their computer, tablet, or smartphone.
    • The challenge of managing the organized chaos of airport ground operations, from fuel trucks to luggage handlers, has only grown as air travel has increased exponentially over the last few decades. Airport communication systems, however, were stuck in the past. We’re helping launch these systems into the digital age to help keep passengers safer and their flights on time.
    • In space, robots can’t rely on gravity to keep their footing. We turned back to Earth for inspiration and developed robot-gripping technology based on how geckos scale ceilings. Now that technology grabs circuit boards, solar panels, and other smooth parts on an assembly line.
    • PCBs (or polychlorinated biphenyls) were commonplace before the world realized they were toxic. But even decades after they were banned, the pollutant has proven hard to eliminate from the ecosystem – and the food chain. A NASA inventor drew inspiration from a drinking straw, inventing a tool that leaches PCBs from groundwater and the soil around it.

These spinoff success stories are only one piece of an ongoing process led by our Space Technology Mission Directorate. Our technology portfolio today has more than a thousand exciting innovations ready for enterprising companies or entrepreneurs to license and develop them into commercial products. As we gear up for 21st century exploration missions – NASA’s Artemis program, a sustainable presence on the Moon, and eventually landing humans on Mars – NASA will invent new technologies. They will become our spinoffs of tomorrow, leading to more wide-ranging benefits for everyone on Earth.

The redesigned 2021 NASA Spinoff publication features dozens of NASA innovations improving life on Earth.
The redesigned 2021 NASA Spinoff publication features dozens of NASA innovations improving life on Earth. Credit: NASA

 

NASA’s International Partnerships, Artemis Team to Shape Lunar Exploration

Today we announced the first in a series of upcoming commitments from our international partners to support our Artemis plans. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed an agreement committing our space agencies to building the Gateway together. As our outpost in lunar orbit, the Gateway is critical for sustainable exploration of the Moon as well as testing systems and operations for future missions to Mars.

With this Memorandum of Understanding, ESA will provide an additional habitation element, enhanced lunar communications, and a refueling capability to the Gateway later this decade. They will also provide two more European service modules for future Orion spacecraft.

We are honored by this agreement with ESA and, again, it is one of several to come with our international partners. Exploration requires more than hardware though – and that is why this commitment with ESA includes opportunities for European astronauts to fly with NASA astronauts on future Artemis missions to the Gateway.

In regard to the NASA astronauts who may travel to the Moon on Artemis missions, we plan to use a similar approach to what we did with the Commercial Crew Program. NASA will announce an initial group of astronauts eligible for early lunar missions known as the Artemis Team. Closer to launch, usually within about two years, we will announce specific flight assignments for crew as well as their backups. We will add more members to this team throughout the Artemis program.

While additional details about crew assignments are expected later, we will launch four crew members on Artemis III for a multi-week mission. This team will include the first American woman and next American man to walk on the Moon in 2024.

After the Space Launch System rocket launches from Earth, it will deploy the Orion spacecraft, and the European service module, attached to Orion, will help provide the propulsion necessary to put the spacecraft on a path to the Moon. Crew will travel for several days to lunar orbit. From there, two crew members will travel to the lunar surface aboard a new human landing system while two astronauts will remain in orbit. Following a historic week on the lunar surface, those two astronauts will return to orbit and transfer back to the Orion spacecraft with their crewmates. That group of four astronauts will all return safely home aboard Orion, splashing down in the Pacific ocean. The first elements of Gateway, produced by commercial partners, will be in orbit around the Moon and available to support this mission if necessary.

As our nation moves forward to the Moon with our 21st century lunar exploration program, we’re excited to do so with our international partners. NASA is working hard to ensure the Artemis program is the broadest and most diverse international human space exploration coalition in history. Seven other nations have already committed to this coalition with the United States through the Artemis Accords, and we look forward to more joining us soon.

We look forward to continuing discussions with our international partners on opportunities for their astronauts to explore more of the Moon than ever before with us. In short order, we will move human spaceflight from beyond low-Earth orbit to the Moon for the first time since 1972. From there, we will prepare for humanity’s next giant leap – human exploration of Mars.

lunar Gateway
Illustration of Gateway in lunar orbit with contributions from international partners. Credit: NASA

Human Exploration of Mars is on the Horizon

During an event today with the Space Foundation, I was excited to be part of a discussion on how our upcoming Mars 2020 Perseverance launch and the Artemis program are critical to opening the door to smarter, safer human missions to Mars.

Throughout our history, people have always explored the world around them to discover the unknown, find new resources, expand their presence, and improve their existence. This primordial urge continues within us today, driving humanity to overcome what we once thought impossible. It is pushing our limits beyond terrestrial borders and farther into the universe.

We have a big agenda to return to the Moon by 2024, and to do so sustainably by the end of the decade. Our sights remain set on sending humans to Mars and the Artemis program will give us the experience living on another world closer to home. Artemis missions on and around the Moon will help us make our next giant leap while robots like the Perseverance rover pave the way for our first human explorers to Mars.

Among the investigations onboard, the rover will carry two that will support future crewed missions to the fourth planet – one to produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere and another to aid in development of weather forecasting. The mission will also use new terrain navigation and landing technologies as well as study how a potential spacesuit material is affected by the Martian environment.

It’s crazy to think this, but we know more about Mars today than we did about the Moon when we sent the first humans to the lunar surface. The Perseverance rover as well as future Mars Sample Return and Mars Ice Mapper missions will teach us even more about the Martian environment and water resources before we send astronauts on the most challenging human exploration mission in our history.

An investment in the Moon is an investment in Mars

We’re going to the Moon with the purpose of getting to Mars – I absolutely believe this is the right approach technically and politically. What do I mean by that? It means we’re prioritizing investments today in lunar exploration that support successful human exploration of Mars in the future. Both destinations are hard, but possible with our current approach.

Our plans for the Artemis program will ultimately lead us to a better understanding of the deep space environment, allow us to design and test common Moon-Mars systems and mature specific technologies needed for the Mars journey. The first woman and next man will land on the Moon by 2024 and help us take our next steps toward greater exploration than ever before.

Just as we’re doing at the Moon, we will build up our capabilities at Mars over time, and we anticipate sending humans to the fourth planet as early as the 2030s. What seems like science fiction – getting a crew to Mars, landing them on the surface to explore and conduct experiments, and bringing them safely home – is on the horizon!

We’re planning for our first round-trip voyage to Mars to take about two years using advanced propulsion systems to enable a faster journey while limiting radiation exposure for our astronauts and other mission risks. Our preferred launch window will give the crew about 30 days on the Martian surface, which is ample time to search for life on another world. Other options could require crew to be on the surface for more than a year and away from Earth for as long as three years, but it will be a long time before we have the funding, technology, supplies, and capabilities to sustain such a mission.

In our new video below, we highlight just six of the technologies NASA is developing right now to push human missions farther in the solar system: advanced propulsion, inflatable entry and landing systems, high-tech spacesuits, a Martian home and lab on wheels, an uninterrupted power source, and laser communications.

While we’re continuing to refine our overall Mars architecture, I encourage you to read our new document, How Investing in the Moon is Preparing NASA for Mars.

Finally, don’t forget to tune in to NASA TV for our upcoming launch! Perseverance is heading for the Red Planet at 7:50 a.m. EDT, July 30 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Go Perseverance! Go Artemis!

Space Exploration Transcends All Terrestrial Borders

International collaboration in space exploration serves as an unparalleled and inspiring example of what humanity can do when it comes together to achieve a common goal for the common good. Our partnerships with the Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Roscosmos aboard the International Space Station have led to an unprecedented continuous human presence in space for nearly 20 years. None of us could have done that alone.

Space exploration unites the world in a way no other activity can. With more and more emerging space agencies – there’s now 72 – this unity is a necessity in exploration as we learn from each other’s successes as well as failures. A prime example is this week’s United Arab Emirates ‘Hope’ Mars mission. Developed by the UAE, which is relatively young in its space program, the probe will be launched from Japan, bringing these nations together in exploration. This launch is the latest in a long-line of Mars attempts only a few nations can claim, and only two weeks ahead of our next Mars mission, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

Like Hope, NASA’s Artemis program is bringing nations closer together. We have our sights set on sustainable human exploration of the Moon, but we are not doing it alone. We are pleased and humbled by the overwhelming support Artemis has received from the international community. Our lunar program has fostered international cooperation through shared values that will benefit people around the globe as we prepare to send humans forward to the Moon and ultimately to Mars.

Just last week I executed the Joint Exploration Declaration of Intent with our friends in Japan, which describes their planned participation in Artemis. Last month, Canada announced its contract for the development of a robotic arm for the Gateway – a lunar outpost built by commercial and international partners. The Gateway will orbit the Moon and support missions to the lunar surface and beyond. ESA has received unprecedented levels of funding for its participation in the Artemis program, and we’re grateful for the strong support of these 22 European nations. They are contributing the European Service Module for our Orion spacecraft for Artemis missions and the ESA Council recently took action allowing for progress to continue on Europe’s contribution of the International Habitat and ESPRIT refueling module for the Gateway.

We are excited to continue working with our traditional international partners and we are equally eager to engage with as many emerging space agencies as possible. For example, the Australian Space Agency is already dedicating $150 million for its researchers and businesses to support the Artemis program.

The scope and nature of the Artemis program will build on our partnerships in low-Earth orbit and result in NASA leading the largest and most diverse international space effort in history to the Moon. I’m incredibly proud to work with innovative partners from the private sector and around the world to transform the dream of sustainable lunar exploration into reality.

Gateway concept
NASA’s concept image of the Gateway in orbit around the Moon with international contributions.