The Dawn of a New Space Age by Dr Anthony Freeman
Join us as Dr. Freeman examines what new developments in space program might mean for us, our children and grandchildren.
The Artemis II crew took this “Earthrise” picture on their recent, historic trip around the Moon on an Orion spacecraft. So why is it historic? And haven’t we done all this before in the Apollo era? The answers lie in what comes next as this new Space Age we have entered comes of age. The plan is to go back to the Moon and stay, in Moon bases near the South Pole, where we have discovered (after Apollo) that there are resources (water, minerals, power) that can help sustain a permanent human presence there.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, we have seen an explosion in the number of satellites in orbit, a revolution in re-usable launch vehicles, dramatic miniaturization of spacecraft in the form of CubeSats, advances in AI and robotics, and the development of 3-D printers capable of producing complex objects in space. 5G phone access through satellites is coming, and AI companies are seriously contemplating moving data centers up into space.
Casting our gaze further out, everywhere we look we find the building blocks for life, and we now know there are billions of planets around other stars in our Galaxy. Mars continues to draw us, as the planet in the inner solar system that is most like Earth. There are oceans beneath thick ice sheets to explore on the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and possibly Neptune. We’ve detected, for the first time, interstellar visitors – comet-like objects that we know originate from outside our solar system.
Our central Coast plays a key role in all of this – Vandenberg, reclassified as a Space Force base, is where some of the new rockets launch from, the idea of the CubeSat came out of Cal Poly, as did one of the Artemis II astronauts. Aerospace companies are springing up in and around SLO. It’s quite likely that one or more of your grandchildren will work in an industry that is related to the space business in some way.
Anthony (Tony) Freeman, is a Cambria resident who retired here in 2024 after 38 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA. He is currently a Senior Technical Advisor to UCLA’s Space Institute and to JPL. Born in the UK, he received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Manchester in 1982. He was made a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2000 for his work on Synthetic Aperture Radar observations from space. He was awarded the CBE by the United Kingdom for his work on UK-US cooperation in Space and Earth Science. As a highly creative individual and a systems thinker he is passionate about what’s next in space exploration. In a technical career spanning 43 years, he has authored over 300 original research contributions, and is still active in publishing his ideas.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-freeman-ph-d-f-ieee-cbe-745925153/
