• The Space X Starship 24 prototype is going through the preliminary test campaign, in view of the first launch to orbit, that should take place within the month of June. FAA recently gave 13 June as the date to release its clearance to the launch of the first fully reusable space vehicle from the Boca Chica Starbase. Rumors say this could be the right time, after so many delays, since 2021, when Elon Musk said Starship was ready to fly to orbit. However, even if the launch from Boca Chica would be cleared, as we hope, Space X is moving to develop a launch site at Cape Canaveral, where the environmental issues are not that critical. We have to care about environmental impact, however the consolidation of the first 100% reusable orbital vehicle is paramount important for overall costs reduction and for the kicking off of Civilian Space Development. Therefore we very much hope that this first crucial test will be possible from the Starbase, where it is ready to go. Crossing fingers!

• The 4 of June, Blue Origin successfully completed its fifth human spaceflight and the 21st flight for the New Shepard program. The astronaut crew included: Evan Dick, Katya Echazarreta, Hamish Harding, Victor Correa Hespanha, Jaison Robinson, and Victor Vescovo. Blue Origin is walking briskly on the road of space tourism. Carrying civilians to space is a key challenge. The Bezos’s company already demonstrated to be able to transport elder people to suborbital altitude without damages to their health. It means that acceleration is smooth enough, and the ergonomic conditions onboard are suitable for people who didn’t go through a hard astronautic training. We’re eager to see the next steps, also by the other dealers, Virgin Galactic and Space X.
• May 31, Sierra Space announced a strategic partnership with aerospace manufacturer Spirit AeroSystems for production of cargo modules for its Dream Chaser vehicles. The companies said they signed a letter of intent under which Spirit will assist in the development and production of Shooting Star, the cargo module attached to the aft end of the Dream Chaser lifting body vehicle. That module will support future cargo missions to the International Space Station under Sierra Space’s contract with NASA, and for other applications. Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane is a multi-mission space utility vehicle designed to transport crew and cargo to low Earth orbit (LEO) destinations such as the International Space Station. Dream Chaser was selected by NASA to provide cargo delivery, return and disposal service for the space station under the Commercial Resupply Service 2 (CRS-2) contract. The Dream Chaser Tenacity™ spaceplane will be the first vehicle in our Dream Chaser fleet of orbital vehicles. Dream Chaser will provide a minimum of six cargo missions to and from the space station carrying critical supplies like food, water, and science experiments, returning to Earth with a gentle runway landing.
• About one week ago, Stratolaunch revealed its first hypersonic design for high-altitude flights. The Talon-A test vehicle will eventually drop from the biggest airplane ever built, known as the Roc, that already has made 5 flights. The Mojave, California-based company announced that it has structurally completed the Talon-A test vehicle, known as TA-0. A future flight of Roc will release TA-0, which is unpowered, to assess Roc’s systems. “After completing TA-0 separation testing, the company will transition to flying its first hypersonic test vehicle, TA-1,” Stratolaunch stated. “The team has also started fabrication of a third vehicle, TA-2, the first fully reusable hypersonic test vehicle,” Stratolaunch representatives added.
• NASA selects Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to build next-generation spacesuits for Artemis moon program and other ISS mission. The next-generation spacesuits these spacesuits will be also worn by crew members on the ISS. Notably, Axiom Space had also organized commercial flights to the ISS. NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission will be the agency’s first big step toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface.  Formerly known as Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1), Artemis 1 will be the first test flight of the agency’s new Space Launch System megarocket and the Orion crew capsule. The SLS rocket will launch the uncrewed Orion spacecraft on an approximately 26-day mission, during which it will spend six days orbiting the moon before returning to Earth. After some reparations to SLS required by the first tests, Artemis 1 is now scheduled to launch in August 2022.

Space Renaissance & Partners, Events and Activities

• The Space Renaissance Art & Science Festival will be held in Berlin, from 7 to 9 of July 2022. The 3 days conference will host several artists and experts of space matters and programs from Europe, US and other Countries. And, of course, a large representation of the German space community. The program includes both English language and German language Panels. Some speakers will be physically present, while others will present virtually. The location is the historic Archenhold Observatory of Berlin, generously offering the rooms and the systems for the development of the Festival. On the SRI website it is possible to see the whole programme and to register for free.
• The Space Renaissance Academy has kicked-off the SRI Ambassadors High Level Training Course. The Calendar of the lectures in 2022 is now published on the SR Academy website spacerenaissance.space, where it is also possible to register to attend the lectures. Registration is free for SRI members, while we ask for a free donation by non members. The first lecture, to be given June 26^th, is “Utopian thinkers and Space Philosophy”.
• SRI has kicked-off its internship programme. Already 3 conventions were signed with universities, to allow our interns to get credits by this activity. They are already helping in the frame of the SR Academy, to build our lectures, and to search world-wide literature for adding references to our works (papers, presentations, projects). The Statement of Work for the available internship roles is published on the SRI website, where it is also possible to apply for the open positions.
• Nancy Wolfson gave a speech to ISDC 2022, May 28^th, representing our President Prof. Bernard Foing, who was invited by Michell Hanlon, the actual President of NSS.
• SRI and ACES World Wide are working to organize a special workshop at UN session of September 2022, on the theme of space safety and space science & exploration sustainability. More info to come.
• SRI president B. Foing attended IAF GLEC conference on space emerging countries in Quito Ecuador 1–20 May, as panelist about Exploration ecosystem, and as moderator of panel on Latino american culture in space. Prof. Foing organised and co-chaired sessions at EGU European Geoscience Union Vienna four sessions co-sponsored by EMM/ILEWG on 25-27 May: Analogue research, open session on planetary instrumentation, Lunar science and exploration, open session on Earth Atmosphere, land and ocean.
• Foing also reports about EuroMoonMars, holding a EuroMoonMars Results Open Virtual Workshop on Monday 6 June 15-18h CEST
• SRI president B Foing attended a SGAC Space Generation event at ISU Strasbourg on 4 June with 200 attendees, where he discussed collaborative opportunities with SRI and EuroMoonMars.
• SRI president B Foing is also attending a top level event “Objectif Lune” organised by CNES:ANRT at Paris Musée d’Histoire Naturelle on 7 June evening

06 June 2022

Bernard Foing, SRI, President

Adriano V. Autino, SRI Founder, SRI Ambassador

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As we are progressing towards the end 2021, let’s summarize what we did and where we are for Space Renaissance International. It was a quite intense and fruitful year.

A first Key Performance Indicator is membership: we have grown more than 110% in membership since November 2020, but we need more registrations, and partnerships!

Since November 2020 to June 2021 we held 6 webinars in preparation of SRIC3, the 3^rd SRI World Congress, with many panelists, top experts of space themes, e.g., among others: Patrick Collins, Sam Coniglio, Andreas Bergweiler, Al Globus, Rino Russo, Tommaso Sgobba, Jonathan Tate, Luigina Feretti, Stefano Antonetti, Joe Pelton, Michelle Hanlon, Rick Tumlinson, Bernard Foing, Thomas Matula, Shaun Moss, Jerry Stone, Susan Jewell, Dan Cottita, Bruce MacKenzie, Isaac Arthur, Howard Bloom, Bart Womack, Giorgia Pontetti, Enrico Feoli, Alessandro Sciaraffa, Emanuele Pensavalle, The Cometan, Giulio Prisco, Alberto Cavallo, Tsvi Bisk, Steven Wolfe, Paul Ziolo.

On 18-19 March 2021, SRI was main partner in organizing GALIX Inaugural congress  to EuroMoonMars Earth Space Innovation EMMESI Leiden/Hybrid workshop. SRI will be partner in GALIX 2022/EMMESI workshop planned on 14-17 March 2022.

End of June we held the 3^rd SRI World Congress “The Civilian Space Development”, 5 days of intense discussion, 70 papers presented, a final resolution and two theses documents discussed and voted. The Congress elected the new President, Prof. Bernard Foing, and the new Board of Directors, that will lead our association during next five years, towards 2025.

The Congress was a great success, with 10 keynote speakers and more than 1000 attendees over the 5 days. Among the keynote speakers we had: Jan Wörner, Rick Tumlinson, Michelle Hanlon, Bob Zubrin, Gary Barnhard, Susan Ip-Jewell.

More than 6500 space enthusiasts and participants from over 110 countries attended the 72nd International Astronautical Congress in Dubai, from 25 to 29 October, under the theme “Inspire, Innovate & Discover for the Benefit of Mankind”. It was the first time ever of an IAC to be celebrated in a Middle East Country. The IAC Exhibition guested over 90 exhibitors from around the world, with 46 entities participating for the very first time.Some exciting announcements came up during the Congress: Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Space and other partners announced the plan to build a commercial space station called Orbital Reef, to be located at LEO, scheduled to be up and running by the late 2020s. Lockheed Martin and Nanoracks had also announced their intent to build a space station called “Starlab”.The Congress programme included 183 technical sessions with 1,442 registered speakers (included your truly 😊 and SRI members), 18 special sessions, 12 symposium keynotes and over 150 interactive presentations. Our SRI Board Member, Julio Rezende, was active in several sessions, dealing with food production in space, habitats for Mars, psychology and human life safety in space. Our SRI president was organizing the A3 Space Exploration Symposium, chaired several sessions and participated to various panels.

My general impression of this Congress, in a random list. The IAC Congress organized by IAF, taking place each year, reflects well the space community activities, projects, and also climate, mood and feelings. New Space is now a consolidated industrial and social process, well routed on its way. Nobody can anymore deny the relevance of reusable rockets, and the large majority of the speakers I have listened to are basing their hypothesis and projects on the meaningful downsizing of cost to orbit, brought by reusability: many space designers are now allowed to aim higher. Maybe not yet higher as they could and should, but work is finally in progress.

Three weeks ago, Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, blasted billionaires for joyriding “to space while millions go hungry on Earth.”His spokesman reaffirmed that complaint October 13th after William Shatner’s flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket from Van Horn, Texas, to the edge of space 65.8 miles high.

Guterres’ complaint was dead wrong. What the rich do today, you and I will do in 20 years.

In 1983 only rich people could afford a portable phone. A Motorola DynaTAC 8000X cost the equivalent of $11,000, weighed two pounds, and only had enough battery life for half an hour of talk. Today even the homeless people in my neighborhood in Brooklyn have portable phones with ten hours of battery life. And those phones have an additional feature that only mega-corporations could afford in the 1960s. Computers. Computers millions of times more powerful than the computers NASA used to send humans to the moon in 1969.

Again, what the rich do first, the rest of us will do in 20 years. And when the rich pay outlandish sums for something new, they subsidize the manufacturing process that brings that new thing down to you and me. The rich bought the first Hamilton digital watches in 1981 for the equivalent of over $12,000. They subsidized the supply chain that gives you or me a smart watch for $40 today.

Switching from gadgets to the depths of soul, Bill Shatner’s experience during his three minutes on the lower fringes of space hit him with an emotional power he never expected. When he came out of the New Shephard space craft, he hugged Jeff Bezos who was waiting outside the hatch to greet him. And at one point Shatner broke out in tears. The former Star Trek captain said his three minutes in space were the kind of experience that changes your life. Here are some of his quotes after he returned to earth, ‘Everybody in the world needs to do this,” said Shatner, “To see the blue color whip by and now you’re staring into blackness…. The covering of blue, this sheath, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around, we say, ‘Oh, that’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it all, and you’re looking into blackness, into black ugliness.”

Continued the former Captain Kirk, “As you look down, there’s your blue down there with the black up there. There is Mother Earth and comfort and there is — is there death? I don’t know. Is that the way death is?’ Concluded Shatner, “This air, which is keeping us alive. It’s so thin. It’s thinner than your skin. It’s a sliver. It’s immeasurably small when you think in terms of the universe. What we’re looking down upon is Mother Earth and it needs protecting”. Shatner explained to Bezos: ‘I’m so filled with emotion with what just happened. I hope I never recover from this.”

But Shatner’s most important words were these. “You’re looking down on the earth and looking up into space but you’re also looking up at the future and looking down at the past.” Space, Shatner implied, is your future. And there’s a reason for the space future that Shatner never said. Space can save the earth.

If you harvest solar power in space and transmit it to earth, you can almost completely eliminate greenhouse gases emitted by energy production. You can end most of the man-made contribution to global warming. If you mine the asteroid Psyche 16, you can produce resources worth more than the entire global economy. And you can end the need to blast away mountain tops to dig for metals, minerals, and even the rare earth elements we need to manufacture green cars, windmills, and a green economy.

The bottom line is that a nation that look up goes up. A nation that looks down goes down. The space billionaires and passengers like William Shatner are helping us look up.