Some meditations

The Space Age. Predictions till 2101

B.Ye.Chertok

S.P.Korolev RKK "Energia"

For more than a century, the possibility of flight into space and to other planets was the stuff of dreams, fairy tales, science fiction novels and theoretical studies. However, the era of the actual space flight began on October 4, 1957, the day when the USSR launched the world's first artificial satellite of Earth. During these 51 years, and this is shorter than the life of one generation of humans, a breakthrough into a new sphere of activities was achieved.љ A totally new branch of science, technology, industry and culture was created.

љAll the "firsts" in space flight date back to the second half of the 20^th century.љ All that is happening in space now, in the first decade of the 21^st century, has, until now, been based on discoveries and achievements of the 20^th century science and technology.

љThe 20^th century gave to the mankind relativity theory, quantum mechanics, nuclear power, access to space, amazing progress in aviation technology, information technologies, automotive industry and genetic engineering, among many other things.

The future evolution of science and technology can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy for the period of the next 10-15 years. But making predictions for the period extending till the end of the 21^st century is extremely difficult. Any prediction is, to a certain degree, biased and subjective. Including predictions about space.

To get into space from Earth, the mankind uses rockets, and has not yet come up with any other means of getting there. Space programs are deeply intertwined with science, economics, and politics of nations, with the offensive and defensive weapons strategy.

The evolution of spaceflight technology in the 21^st century will be determined not only by its own previous scientific and technological developments, but also by the progress in many other areas of science, technology, economics and international politics. Predictions of its evolution must lie in the realm of futurology, which provides a concept of the future of human civilization.љ Research on long-term predictions for a scientist and a man with an engineering turn of mind is an irresponsible pursuit. The authors of erroneous predictions are almost never held responsible for their mistakes. Not only amateurs are forgiven for their mistaken predictions, but also great scientists, outstanding engineers, sociologists and politicians. Scientific predictions are determined by the experience and personal intuition of their author.

Let me cite a few mistaken predictions about the future of science and technology made by famous scientists.

Lord Kelvin, the famous British mathematician and physicist, President of the British Royal Society, just 15 years before the Wright brothers' flight made the following statement:"Heavier-than-air aircraft are impossible"; and, moreover: "it will be proven that X-rays are a fiction".

In 1926, professor Lee de Forest, the inventor of the first vacuum tube that revolutionized radio technology, was a great authority for all radio specialists and wireless enthusiasts. There were proposals floating around among scientists about interplanetary communications. I was a wireless fan myself and my dream was to receive signals from Mars. At the time, Lee de Forest said: "Only a dreamer like Jules Verne may say that it is possible to put a man in a multistage rocket, launch him into the gravitational field of the Moon, and then return him to Earth. Such a manned flight is impossible, regardless of any future scientific achievements."

Ernest Rutherford was the first scientist who succeeded in splitting the atomic nucleus. Just 15 years before the explosion of the first A-bomb, he said: "The amount of energy resulting from nuclear decay is so negligible, that anyone who expects to find an additional power source in nuclear reaction is building castles in the air." Virtually the same position was also taken by the great Einstein, the author of the equation E=mc².

Equations by Tsiolkovsky V=Wln(M₁/M₂) and Einstein E=mc², first published in 1903 and 1905, would materialize in 50 years' time as the first rocket carrying an A-bomb.

In 1965, after triumphal missions of Vostok and Voskhod spacecraft, S.P.Korolev remained a great, level-headed chief designer. But to the end of his life he also remained a romantic and an enthusiast. He was not joking when he said that in ten or twenty years' time trade unions would be rewarding their workers with tours into space for outstanding work.

In the same year of 1965, the famous rocket designer Werner von Braun in an interview for the press said that in a not too distant future a ticket to the Moon would cost $5000.

Not only the great chief designers, but also fairly level-headed American captains of industry, who got together at a 1966 symposium dedicated to the future of space flight, discussed papers, which argued that by the end of the century a permanent outpost will be established on the Moon, construction of a permanent base would begin on Mars, a manned mission to Venus would have been accomplished and a mining operation would have begun to extract precious minerals from Mercury. The power system that was to support interplanetary travel was expected to use controlled thermonuclear fusion.

Academician Igor Kurchatov in 1956 believed that controlled thermonuclear reaction would be mastered within 10 to 15 years.

If in 1955 the US or USSR ministers of defense had been asked when it would be possible to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads from submerged nuclear submarines, they would have both answered that for the moment that was just science fiction not worth wasting time on. And in just 30 years, in 1980s, the Soviet Union and the USA were already armed with hundreds of nuclear submarines, each of which carried 16 (in USSR) or 20 (in USA) intercontinental ballistic missiles. A salvo fired from just one of the submarines, assuming that all the missiles hit their targets, is capable of virtually destroying a country as big as England. And it took only 30 years from the day the first missile was launched from a diesel-powered submarine to turn this fiction into reality.

None of the scientists challenged the prediction made by Tsiolkovsky at the turn of the 20^th century that the humanity would not stay forever in its cradle on Earth, but would spread throughout the solar system.

In 1966, in the USA, at the above mentioned symposium of the American Astronautic Society, the US scientists and specialists presented papers containing predictions for the evolution of space technology. Of the greatest interest is the paper by one of the former theoreticians of the German rocket center in Peenemünde K.A.Erike "Missions to the Planets of the Solar System". K.A.Erike contemplated the events of the next 35 years and pictured achievements of space technology by 2001 that would be realistic from the standpoint of American scientists.

"By the end of the year 2000 interplanetary flights on the routes from Mercury to Saturn are carried out by comfortable manned spacecraft. When carrying out all this missions to distant planets, both manned and unmanned spacecraft have their motion continuously controlled and conditions on-board adjusted, using a wide network of facilities established on the Moon.љ In addition to this, a network of unmanned rocket satellites in near-Earth and circumlunar space has been established, virtually transforming the entire region between the Earth and the Moon into a giant antenna system capable of controlling the motion of spacecraft in the solar system and even beyond. Our helionauts have visited a variety of places in the solar system from Sun-scorched shores of Mercury to icy rocks of Titan, satellite of Saturn. It's been three years since mining and processing of metal ore on Mercury was established. On Mars the work has just begun on a long-term program of introducing crops adapted to Martian conditions to the north and south polar regions".

And he continues with many most interesting predictions and proposals that remain relevant 42 years later, but are still very far from being implemented. (The abridged quote is taken from the book "Space Age. Predictions for the Year 2001". Translated from English by the Mir publishing house. Moscow, 1970. Materials from symposium. Collection of selected papers delivered at the 4^th symposium of the American Society of Astronautics).

In the early 1970s the development of the reusable transportation system Space Shuttle was fully under way. Scientists and economists believed that putting to use the aviation experience would make it possible to solve the problem of spacecraft reusability and reduce the cost of space flight. It is worth noting here that at the time of the ruinous criminal reforms of 1990s our Russian politicians spared no expense paying for consultations with "omnipotent" and "omniscient" American economists. Who eventually turned out to be ignorant crooks. But at the time Moscow was in the grip of the Great Market-Economy Euphoria!

So, it were those "highly experienced" US economists, who, having been assigned the task of proving the advantages of the space system reusability, calculated that putting into space 1 kg of payload on-board Space Shuttle would at first cost $5000, then $1000, and, eventually, with more than 100 missions per year, the cost would drop to $100.

In reality, the Americans are now planning to retire Space Shuttles by 2010. The actual cost for different missions ranges from $15 thousand to $20 thousand per 1kg of payload delivered on Shuttles to the ISS. The ticket to travel, not to the Moon, but rather only to the International Space Station on-board the Russian transportation spacecraft Soyuz, instead of the $5000 promised by von Braun for the trip to the Moon, actually costs $30 million. If a design engineer or a computer programmer are off the mark by a factor of two in determining parameters and estimating performance of the complex objects that they develop, the are sure to be disciplined or even fired. And the economists were off the mark by a factor of 100 and more! This can only be the result of complete incompetence or of pandering to corrupt officials and politicians.

For the space flight in the early 21^st century, the cost of putting 1 kg of payload into orbit (under unmanned programs) is $20-$25, and $30-$50 in case of the geostationary orbit. I cannot predict any significant reductions in cost of payload delivery to orbit within the next 50 years.

What is known as "common sense" only permits us to say that Tsiolkovsky's prediction about humanity spreading through the Solar System will just begin to materialize in the 21^st century in the form of a lunar outpost.

Over the last 30 years, modern unmanned spacecraft equipped with telescopes, remote sensing instruments and data transmission systems have enriched the humanity's knowledge with a larger number of discoveries in the fields of planetology and the Universe origin and structure, than in the all previous millennia. Dozens of modern nations that have joined the "space club" believe it necessary to have their own cosmonaut, their own communication satellites, and, if at all possible, their own launch vehicles and launch sites. Unfortunately, as this takes place, the names of the scientists who use spaceflight achievements for studying and discovering the universe remain largely unknown. The media of scientifically advanced countries (including US and Russia) extol the missions of cosmonauts and astronauts to ISS, but very rarely mention sensational discoveries of scientists processing the data from the Hubble space telescope, Cassini unmanned spacecraft and many others.

љModern science and technology have advanced in the 21^st to a frontier, crossing which will change quite a lot of things in the living conditions of the entire humanity. Beyond this frontier lies the technology to directly manipulate the structure of matter at the level of individual atoms and molecules.

Who conceived, invented, and developed the software to make atoms and molecules to interact in such a manner as to create life is still a mystery. Romantics and space fans still have not given up hope that extraterrestrial intelligence will help us. It is highly unlikely that we shall discover it before the 21^st century is over.

In the 21^st century the humanity must become aware of the uniqueness of planet Earth in the entire observable Universe in order for all the leading nations to join their efforts with the aim of preserving it. Homo Sapiens is an exceptional one-of-a-kind phenomenon, completely beyond the picture of the Universe revealed through spacecraft observations. This Homo Sapiens - "Man the Wise" - must use the power of his reason to safely protect the planet against unwise behavior of the "wise" man.

Nations and space flight

The future of the space flight can be predicted in conjunction with the analysis of the national social and political strategy.

Notwithstanding all their internal problems, until 2030s the Unites States will remain the most powerful nation in the world militarily, and the most advanced one scientifically and technologically. NATO is a reliable instrument that permits the USA to use not only their, but also Europe's scientific and technological potential. The space strategy for the next 20-30 years will include giving priority to a wide spectrum of programs.

ISS operation will be kept up through the use of transportation systems provided by Russia and Europe. ISS in itself is no longer of any special interest to the Unites States. In 10-15 years, having surpassed the 15 years record of MIR, ISS will be deorbited. Russia, Europe and Japan are not yet capable of maintaining ISS operation without economic support from the Unites States.

For Russia, future new-technology programs in the rocket and space industry present problems that are not only scientific and technological in nature.

As a result of liberalistic market reforms, the Russian defense industry lost many thousands of highly-skilled workers and engineers. On the other hand, we enriched the USA and Europe by providing them with skilled personnel. "Dictatorship of Proletariat"-type regime is no longer possible in Russia - there is just no one who could carry it out.

Clever fingers of highly skilled workers and fine brains of enthusiastic engineers are in short supply, and for the coming years this is going to be the one problem for Russia, which does not exist in the US.

Programs for the next 10 years have been approved both in Russia and in the USA, in China and in India. Adjusted for the global crisis, they will be carried out.

љThe famous Hubble observatory, which, without maintenance using Space Shuttles, will exist for five more years, will eventually be replaced with a new in-orbit observatory for studying the Universe. New robotic spacecraft will continue the research and will enrich science with a broad spectrum of new discoveries on the planets of the solar system, and, first of all, on the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. The powerful scientific apparatus of NASA develops not only the technology, but also the strategy for the future of space flight.

Round-the-clock data from Earth remote sensing satellites will make it possible to provide reliable weather forecasts, emergency situation warnings, monitoring of man-made disasters, environmental problems, etc.љ High-resolution monitoring of strategically important areas will be provided by secret military surveillance satellites. Optoelectronic digital systems provide up to one centimeter resolution with real-time processing. The United States will be the first to develop systems that combine data from Newstar-GPS navigation satellites with those from low-orbit spy satellites and satellite communications-and-control systems. Joint processing of data from satellites of three levels: low-Earth orbit, navigation and GEO satellites, will make it possible to provide real-time control for all types of transportation: on land, in air, and at sea.

The US governmental agency, NASA, is vested with considerable authority. All federal space expenses, with the exception of purely military ones, are made either through or under supervision of NASA. Annual NASA budget in 2008 exceeds the Russian space budget by almost a factor of 10. With such starting conditions, there is no doubt that in the next 10-15 years the US will build a new super-heavy launch vehicle and manned spacecraft for missions to the Moon, lunar landing modules, and a system for delivering cargoes to the lunar base.

For the next 20-25 years China will be investing vast sums of money in trying to catch up and overtake US and Russia in space. Communist China is constructing a socialist society with a specific Chinese character. Chinese communists have managed, in a short space of time, to turn a backward agricultural country with semi-literate population of almost a billion and a half into a nation that has mastered all kinds of modern technologies and mass production of competitive goods ranging from state-of-the-art computers to running shoes. The latest strategic objective of China is to construct a society based on the economics of knowledge. In the last 15 years China has been meeting economic and technological challenges on a scale and on schedules that are impossible for other countries - China will become the second nation capable of achieving a real "dominance in space". One of the decisive factors that guarantee China's phenomenal successes is her ideological and political unity, and a true, rather than rhetorical, enthusiasm for mastering new knowledge and high technologies.

Step into any electronics shop in today's Russia. You'll see a wide range of products that suit all tastes and budgets. But you won't find there any electronic device made in Russia, not even a simplest one; 90% are made in China. Chinese strategy aimed at developing advanced technologies is a reliable basis for achieving future dominance in space.

Russia still has not got a development strategy that would unite the society. During the 15 years of criminal reforms that proclaimed the omnipotence of the free market, Russia's defense industry, engineering industry and agriculture were destroyed, her army disorganized. Her economic life is now based on selling her natural resources - first of all oil, natural gas and timber. High revenues from the sale of raw materials created a new elite, the class of the super-rich and the blatantly corrupt officialdom. Of what use is spaceflight to this new elite?

In order for Russia to place at least within the top five space nations in the future, drastic social and political reforms are needed. And not only for the sake of spaceflight.

These grim thoughts led me to the conclusion that until 2030 Russia must focus on programs that assure her security from space (satellites for all kinds of communications, surveillance, anti-missile systems, GLONASS navigation system, weather satellites).

Space programs aimed at assuring safety and high defense capacity of the country must have a single general manager, who would be responsible not only for the spacecraft development and data, but also for the entire system, including immediate reporting to the nation's top military and political leaders about actual results of using space surveillance data.љ

The current technology makes possible continuous real-time space surveillance of the tanks, artillery, armored troop carriers and other military hardware that had been amassing for several days prior to the incursion into South Ossetia. Where were our vaunted optoelectronic, all-weather and round-the-clock surveillance systems?

The responsibility for the system efficiency in cases like this must be born not by the space sector developer, but rather by the head of the system as a whole : if any such person exists.љ And if not, this is the personal fault of the minister of defense and the chief of general staff.

Spaceflight and rocket technology are closely linked through common manufacturing organizations, test procedures, launch sites. Future space programs of Russia will be, to a large extent, determined by development schedules for a new heavy-lift launch vehicle which will replace Proton and will be just as reliable. This will take about ten years. In USA the heavy- and super-heavy-lift launch vehicles will be developed within the next 8-10 years.

Geostationary orbit (GEO)

21^st century will be the time of vehement economic and political strife for communication satellite positions in geostationary orbit. A spacecraft launched into geostationary has orbital period that is equal to the Earth rotation period, and its orbital plane virtually coincides with the Earth's equatorial plane. The subsatellite point is located at a certain geographic longitude - its working point, and at zero latitude.

First spacecraft were put into geostationary orbit in 1960s. Since then, about 800 spacecraft have been put into the geostationary orbit, and each year adds on average 20 new ones. As of 2008, there were 1150 objects in the geostationary orbit. Out of which about 240 were controllable spacecraft, while the rest were spent upper stages and other objects.

On average, the payload mass delivered by launch vehicles to low-Earth orbits is 3-4% of the initial launch vehicle mass. For geostationary orbits the spacecraft mass is just 0.3-0.5% of the initial mass of the launch vehicle and the upper stage.

Spacecraft insertion into geostationary orbit is usually performed by three-stage rockets, with subsequent use of upper stages.

The geostationary orbit, as the best location for satellite communication systems, will be filled to capacity within the next 20 years.

Fierce international competition is inevitable. One of the possible solutions might be to put heavy multipurpose platforms in the geostationary orbit. With almost 1/3 of the planet surface in its field of view, such multipurpose platform will be capable of replacing dozens of today's communications satellites. The platform will have a powerful solar power system. Its power will amount to hundreds or even thousands of kilowatts.

Large parabolic antennas or active phased arrays are capable of generating at the Earth surface any specified EIRP (effective isotropic radiated power) levels, and receive information from ground users operating devices that are no bigger than the best today's mobile phones. The ability of the heavy geostationary platforms to accommodate many dozens, and, may be, hundreds of repeaters operating in different wavebands, will make it possible for the owners of such platforms to sell transponders for any purpose and for any region on Earth.

Heavy multipurpose platforms will be commercially viable and will serve to bring peoples closer together through exchange of information on a global scale. The mankind will need to develop and construct such geostationary systems not in the distant future, but within the next 25-30 years.

The problem of developing and operating heavy geostationary platforms can be quickly solved through cooperation of Russian and European space technology. However, space stations in geostationary orbit can also be efficiently used for military purposes, to suppress aggressors in local conflicts and in situations of the "star wars"-type. More about this below.

Regretfully, it must be noted that in the early 1990s Russia already developed a unique but realistic concept of the world's first heavy multipurpose platform in geostationary orbit. The mass of the proposed platform was 20 tons. It was to be delivered into orbit by launch vehicle Energia that had already successfully passed flight tests. In 1989-1990, RSC Energia, with support from the military and industrial commission of the USSR Council of Ministers, made proposals to Germany, France, European Space Agency about cooperation and joint work on developing a multipurpose heavy space platform in geostationary orbit. In those years only Russia, having a unique launch vehicle Energia at her disposal, could carry out this task. A fairly high level of detail in the design studies on the platform and on the launching technique has awakened considerable interest among leading German and French companies. The joint work was started. However, liberalistic market reforms of the 1990s disorganized and left without any government support the Energia launch vehicle production. Continuing the work on the heavy space platform without the launch vehicle no longer made any sense. In view of Russia's geographic position, the use of the geostationary orbit that does not provide coverage over arctic regions must be supplemented with a constellation of 3 satellites in geosyn-chronous elliptical orbits of Molniya or Tundra type, which would provide a 100% coverage of the Russian territory, including Arctic regions, with satellite elevations of 35º-90º.

Russia's experience in science and technology enables her to provide a multifunctional space communications system for any spot within the country. One of the unresolved problems would be the schedule for developing a new launch vehicle and transportation system, even if Russia did decide to establish a multipurpose platform in GEO.

"Star Wars"

During the Cold War, in the second half of the 20^th century, the US dominance-in-space propaganda introduced the term "star wars". This concept had nothing to do with real stars. Mass media attached the name "star wars" to antiballistic missile programs, military spacecraft countermeasures, and any other activities using space for military purposes. Both open and top secret "star wars" programs were limited to low-Earth space, and in the long term they included establishment of military bases on the Moon.

The basic capability for achieving military superiority in space and destroying the adversary's nuclear missile potential was supposed to use weapons based on new physical principles.љ The achievements of the 20^th century physics lend support to the claim that "The Garin Death Ray" (from the outstanding sci-fi novel of the same name by Aleksey Tolstoy) can actually become a real-life weapon of the "star wars".

It took almost 100 years to turn an enthralling fantasy into reality.

Another efficient means of blinding and defeating ground anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile systems and various radio and electronic systems for troops management will be the use of powerful super-wideband emitters.

Powerful generators of electromagnetic beams can be installed on geostationary space platforms, and it is possible that in the future they'll be installed on a lunar military base.

Virtually all the types of the present-day weapons, traffic control systems for aircraft, sea-going ships, ground military vehicles, and data transmission and processing facilities use microelectronic equipment. Well into the late 21^st century electronics will still be based on semiconductor devices that operate on low-level voltages and currents. As microminiaturization progresses, voltage and current levels will reach extremely low values. With the application of nanotechnologies to information technologies, the levels of currents and voltages will only be growing smaller.

Exposure to super-wideband electromagnetic pulses results in induced currents with relatively high voltages in all electronic devices and makes them virtually inoperative.

It is known that powerful electromagnetic pulses are generated during explosions of thermonuclear. Therefore, electrical lines of control, communications and all kinds of electronics in the modern missile launching silos have proper protection to guard against a counterstrike. Powerful electromagnetic blows can be delivered from space without the use of nuclear weapons. It is virtually impossible to protect from them the entire mass of communications and control electronics.

Used as another weapon of the "star wars" can be artificially generated radiation belts around Earth.

In late 1950s and early 1960s, USA and USSR conducted nuclear test explosions in near-Earth space (at altitudes ranging from 100 to 400 km).

Studies conducted in the USA and the Soviet Union demonstrated that one nuclear charge of about 10 kilotons exploded at an altitude of 125 to 300 km is sufficient to completely black out any kinds of radio communications in all wavebands for thousands of kilometers from the explosion.

The nuclear explosion in near-Earth space creates plasma in such high concentrations that any kinds of radio location and radio communications are precluded for several hours.

Judging from the 20^th century experience, it is fair to say that the 21^st century will see such new types of space weapons as we cannot even imagine today, just as nobody could imagine in the early 20^th century a system similar to GPS or GLONAS.

The Moon

In 1986, the US Congress and President set up a national commission for the development of long-term space program for the next 50 years. The main recommendation of this commission was a call for establishing a permanent (manned) outpost on the Moon in the first decade of the 21^st century.

The first decade of the 21^st century is already drawing to a close, and the Americans have not yet started on the construction of the lunar outpost.љ For the time being, it is announced that the spacecraft for the lunar outpost will be developed by 2020. By my estimates, if the USA choose to construct the outpost by themselves (and they are capable of doing this), they may realistically start as early as 2015. Establishing a permanently manned lunar outpost with a crew of 8 to 12 would require 8 to 10 years.

In the last century, Russia was making plans for constructing a lunar outpost which was jokingly referred to as "Barmingrad" after the name of its chief designer Barmin. Construction on the Moon will not require any new scientific discoveries. Present-day technologies are quite capable of achieving lunar colonization. But there are socio-political, economic and international problems any nation that wants to have a lunar base will have to deal with.

In this connection, it can be predicted that within the next 20 years Russia by herself will not be able to establish her own outpost. Construction of the lunar outpost is only possible if it is a national program of many years far exceeding in its scope the transformation of the town of Sochi into the venue of the winter Olympic Games and a resort on par with Cote d'Azure. It is possible that China will be about 5 years ahead of Russia in establishing her lunar outpost. The fourth colonizer of the Moon will be India. It is unlikely, but theoretically possible that Russia and Europe will pool their technological and economic resources for construction of an international lunar base. An example of such pooling of technological and economic resources is the ISS.

Lunar outposts, as opposed to ISS, may perform three functions: scientific, industrial-technological and military-strategic.

A single lunar base for the entire Earth can only be created after the division of the world into military and political alliances is overcome.

Taking into account the possibility of strategic use of the Moon, it is not inconceivable that the NATO countries will join their forces. Combining the efforts of the leading European nations with the US lunar programs may shorten the schedules by 3 to 5 years.

The Moon is the territory belonging to planet Earth. The Moon is the planet upon which people can live off the local lunar resources. It is accessible to the humankind using modern technology.

3 or 4 billion years ago the Moon got linked up with Earth through the laws of celestial mechanics. In the 21^st century, the Moon for the first time is to be linked up with Earth through a reliable transportation system for logistic support and a continuously operating two-way manned transportation system.

In the first half of the 21^st century NATO will still be around, and new military and political alliances will have been formed. From the standpoint of "domination in space", it is an alluring prospect for every such alliance to have a base constructed on the near side of the Moon in case of "star wars", which would be equipped with powerful beam and super-wideband pulsed weapons. Future optoelectronic and radar systems will make it possible to continuously monitor everything that occurs on Earth on land, at sea, in the air and in the near-Earth space. During military conflicts, lunar bases can be used to carry out local strikes to anticipate the use of nuclear weapons.

For the world astronomy and astrophysics, it will be very attractive to establish observatories on the far side of the Moon. The Moon will serve as a screen shielding the observatory equipment against noises that reduce the resolution of present-day ground observatories. Radio observatories on the far side of the Moon will have super-large parabolic antennas and phased array-type antennas. Enthusiasts searching for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence will move their research to the Moon.

Mars

Current mass media, and sometimes even renowned scientists and politicians make statements about future manned missions that are to come within the next few decades. Manned missions to Mars are proclaimed by the Mars enthusiasts and ambitious government officials to be almost the only major prospect for space flight in the 21^st century. It must be admitted that from the technological standpoint manned missions to Mars can indeed be carried out in the 21^st century. However, it is very difficult to justify the inclusion of manned missions to Mars in the future programs for the 21^st century. Indeed, why spend no less than $300-500 billion paying for the work of many thousands workers, engineers and scientists, when all the answers that the earthlings are interested in can already be answered by Martian robots remotely controlled by scientists staying on Earth?љ Robotic spacecraft - Martian satellites and rovers traveling on the planetary surface - have convincingly proven that there is no life on the Martian surface. By the end of the 21^st century, no less than 8 to 10 more Mars rovers will have landed on Mars. They will make unhurried and detailed studies of the planet atmosphere, climate dynamics and soil. The new information will be obtained without the huge risk to the lives of the crew. Cosmonauts of the Martian mission will have to spend almost a year in zero gravity on the way to their destination. Immediately after landing on Mars, they will be getting ready for the even riskier return flight. (In contrast to orbital stations, the Earth will not be able to provide any assistance). It is my firm conviction that manned missions to Mars in the 21^st century will be technically feasible, but unnecessary. The ambitious aim does not justify huge expenses and risk. Nevertheless, there are projects that make a case for sending to Mars not a crew of 6 or 12, but rather thousands of men and women. What for?

Because of the inevitable disasters and catastrophes (climate change, nuclear war, huge meteorite impact) civilization on Earth may rapidly degrade, or become altogether extinct, just as dinosaurs did. The mankind would be destroyed. And it is against such eventuality, that the Chinese scientists propose this salvatory idea.

Chinese civilization must be preserved in the form of a reservation on Mars. Before a possible demise of the entire mankind, China would have enough time to establish on Mars a settlement of no less than 1000 persons. They would bring with themselves the technologies and resources that would be necessary for their eventual return to Earth.

Planet Mars is not suitable for long stay of humans there. But there is nothing that would be more suitable within our solar system. One would have to make do and wait.

After restoration of livable conditions on Earth, the Martian Chinese would begin to return to Earth. The Chinese reservation is needed in order to return Chinese Martians back to Earth in the period that lies way beyond the 21^st-22^nd centuries. The Earth will be repopulated. But the entire planet and the new civilization will be Chinese.

These plans for saving the mankind were published by fairly competent Chinese scientists.

Compared with this Chinese project, American, Russian and other Mars mission projects look like amateurish dabbling. But when will the settlement of this Chinese reservation on Mars begin? I believe that this will happen no earlier than in the late 23^rd century.

Revolutionary discoveries

New breakthrough space programs, in terms of their schedules, scales and contributions to the common heritage of mankind, will be, to a large extent, driven by breakthrough discoveries in other areas of science and technology.

In the second half of the 21^st century one can, with a high level of probability, expect discoveries which will enable:

- Controlled thermonuclear reactions. Thermonuclear reactor-based power sources of all power ratings will make it possible to completely electrify all types of transportation.

Consumption of hydrocarbon fuels (oil and natural gas) will go down by hundreds of times. Accordingly, it will be the age when a widest range of reliable, inexpensive and affordable thermonuclear power sources will be developed and produced;

- Medieval alchemists were trying to create gold by mixing mercury with copper filings. The 21^st century physicists and chemists will create materials that will be superconductive at high temperatures. This will be the greatest revolution in electrical engineering. At the same time, new magnetic materials will be developed. Electrical catapults will replace solid and liquid propulsion for launches from the Earth and the moon. High-thrust electrical propulsion using thermonuclear power sources will replace chemical propulsion in many space applications;

- Revolutionary achievements in developing the structure of photoconverters that convert solar energy into electrical power will raise their efficiency from 10% to 50-60%. This will permit, in case of difficulties with the use of thermonuclear power, to create powerful solar-power plants on the ground. The electrical power generated per unit area of solar array on spacecraft will increase by a factor of 3 to 5.

- Late 20^th - early 21^st century saw a revolution in information technology. As late as the mid-20^th century, most of the scientists did not believe that it would ever be possible for everyone to have in one's pocket a device capable of storing all the information from the Lenin Library, the Library of the British Museum, and the US Library of Congress. Modern electronic devices make it possible for anyone who wishes to do so to read and even record the contents of books of the major libraries of the world without leaving one's own home. For the beginning of the 20^th century that was pure science fiction.

Fantastic prediction

An implausibly optimistic forecast for the development of space flight in the second half of the 21^st century is based not on science, but rather on a political fantasy.

Advanced nations will pool their scientific and technological achievements and economic resources. The joint world space agency will be established. The primary mission of this agency will be to manage activities aimed at saving Earth from catastrophic warming. To save civilization, climate control space systems are to be developed. This work will require intellectual and technological cooperation between scientists and industry from dozens of countries. One of the possible options is to build a solar-sail spaceship and then a whole fleet of space sailing ships. They are to be brought to an area close to a librations point in the gravitational field of the Sun-Earth system. Keeping its station in space and controlling its attitude with respect to the light flux or changing the surface area of its sails, the solar-sail ship is capable of adjusting solar radiation flux incident on the Earth. The mankind will use the Moon to support through many years the construction of such a shield thus preserving civilization for future centuries.

A powerful industrial base on the Moon will start building solar-sail spaceships, and in the 22^nd century the mankind will have effective capability to control Earth climate from space.

Development of spaceflight in the 20^th century was supported by fundamental achievements in mechanics, automation, radio electronics and computing. These fields of science and technology were in close interaction with each other. The challenges of space flight were an engine of technological development. By synthesizing achievements in different areas of technology, many problems were solved on the brink of the impossible. In the early 20^th century many of the things that are no longer any wonder to us were in the realm of science fiction.

The pace of development in the field of advanced global information and navigation technologies using space systems allows us to say that within the next 15 years they'll be able to provide video communications between every individual all over the world. Global navigation systems that determine the position of a man, a car, a plane, a ship to within centimeters will become just as affordable and indispensable as a wristwatch was in the 20^th century.

Modern achievements of information technologies, even without new scientific discoveries, will allow us in the 21^st century, if such be the will of the united humanity, to create a fantastic information and navigation space. Each newly born, instead of a certificate of birth will be assigned a code in the information database. The global monitoring will make it possible to keep track of health and location of each of the 10 billion people that will constitute the Earth population by the end of the 21^st century!

Space systems for global communications and navigation can only become commercially profitable when ground-based devices are mass-produced. Russia lacks this modern, rather than future, industry. In the 21^st century it must be built, otherwise Russia will not be a great independent power.

The fact that Russia has recently established a research council for nanotechnologies is a demonstration of wishes rather than of the actual strengths. Huge amounts of money and a strong political will are needed for us to catch up in this strategic area of technology in the 21^st century.

All-band optical and radio monitoring of land, oceans and airspace, when combined with communication and navigation systems, change the tactics and the strategy of the possible warfare. The success of combat operations in the 21^st century, if they turn out to be necessary, will be determined by the art of controlling space and ground systems integrated into a common information space. The speed of making decisions and choices, the pace of the operations themselves will be determined by the 24-hour all-weather real-time space reconnaissance tracking the situation on land, on sea, and in the air.

The Russian space flight needs to have a strategic perspective. However, before that, the Russian body politic must develop an overarching strategy, a national idea, which would bring people together into a spiritual communion.

Nanotechnologies, by enriching gene engineering biology, will achieve extension of human life. And some of the future veterans of space science may have a chance of verifying these predictions of 2009 during Korolev Lectures to be held in January 2101.