The Next Big Thing: The Moon and Canada

Around a decade ago, Canada was a leader in space mining—technically known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU)—through its participation with NASA in the Resource Prospector mission to the Moon. Resource Prospector comprised a Canadian rover carrying a Canadian drill and an American payload of experiments to demonstrate mining and processing of lunar soil into useful stuff such as water. Canada, after all, is a leader in both mining and robotics, so it seemed serendipitous to deploy our strengths on Earth to pioneer commercial possibilities on the Moon. We may regard the Moon as virgin territory, much like the Americas in the 15th century, but fortunately with no prior occupiers.

Canada Withdraws, Others Surge Ahead

Following several years of successful investment, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) decided to pull out of Resource Prospector for administrative reasons. As a direct result, without Canada’s rover and drill, Resource Prospector collapsed as a viable project in 2018. At that moment, Canada’s involvement in ISRU ceased and has not revived in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, the US and Europe have been increasingly active in ISRU—Europe, in particular, has been energized by private sector investment from Luxembourg. Both view ISRU as a growth area, ripe for investment, offering unprecedented commercial opportunities. Following the erosion of Canada’s early lead by our own hand, we are fast being left behind.

While official Canadian ISRU activity languishes in the doldrums, the Canadian research community is blazing a trail in ISRU, often along paths untravelled by the US or Europe. We do not need to hang onto the coat-tails of others—we have the confidence in ourselves to follow our own vision. But our efforts, in a repeat of earlier history, will wither on the vine without leadership and financial support from CSA—there are already signs of our vigour flagging without the nurture we need.

The Need for Real Leadership

What is to be done? We need leadership—not the micro-management type that is so typical of Canadian research—but leadership that has confidence in our own academic research community. For example, the flagship academic research programme of the past few years has been the NFRF (New Frontiers in Research Fund) Transformation Fund (TF) directed at Canadian universities, each grant offering $24M over six years. After a decade of strangulation of academic research in Canada, this was a most welcome tonic.

The TF purports to encourage new “transformational” projects that are interdisciplinary—transformational implies potentially revolutionary effects within at least one segment of Canadian society. But specifically excluded from the TF grant is new technological development—the transformation must come from re-capitulation of existing technology. Why does a “transformational” government research grant specifically stifle Canadian technological leadership?

Canada’s Confidence Gap

When I first came to Canada from the UK almost 20 years ago, I had a conversation with a relatively senior person at CSA in which, on presenting an exploratory idea, I was informed that if the Americans hadn’t done it already, it probably wasn’t worth doing. I was stricken speechless. This was such an alien stance to someone who had worked at Surrey Space Centre in the UK, which had pioneered low-cost small satellites for developing countries.

Although the shock has subsequently subsided over the years, the force of the message has not diminished as I am constantly reminded of it. This is a tragedy. We, as Canadians, do not have confidence in ourselves and our own capacities. The challenge is to build our self-confidence and self-belief in our own destiny. The Americans have this in spades, possibly even overconfidence, and we Canadians have been followers. As recent events have dictated, the time for that is passed.

Unlocking Canadian Potential

We need to encourage and foster new ideas, including technological ideas to be explored. We need to create Canadian technological solutions for Canadian issues and to expand our footprint in the world. As the US recedes from engagement with the rest of the world, Canadian influence can grow as a force for good in the world. We need to expand our thinking and our ambition. Our research programmes are highly prescriptive—climate change technology research is channelled in specific directions with no scope for new approaches. We do not encourage new ideas in technology, yet it is technology that is the engine of economic growth and, indeed, is the engine of soft political power.

Building an Environment for Innovation

We need leadership from the top down that allows the flourishing of new ideas. In Canada, there is no mechanism for nurturing new ideas. We have excelled in erecting barriers to collaborative research ventures. We need government-funded research programmes that fund new technological ideas as an investment in both education and pioneering research. We need to impart adaptability in government research labs and encourage academic-government collaboration. This is hindered by the requirement for government research labs to impose financial costs on such collaboration.

In my field, ISRU is a new pasture, but it will be challenging to nurture. Market forces cannot work alone, and they are only effective when there is competition. Commercial revenue is hampered by two obstacles—the barrier to entry due to the cost of space flight, though that is dropping thanks to US entrepreneurial investment, and the time required for technological development. The latter requires government investment—it is well known that the discounted net present value (NPV) of a technology increases massively if there is initial government investment. The internet was born of both US defence and European high-energy physics programmes. SpaceX still feeds on NASA government contracts, though it now has commercial revenue from Starlink.

We need to provide a nurturing environment for risky entrepreneurial ventures—again, this requires government support programmes. The primary limitation is the cost of access to low-cost manufacturing facilities to test new entrepreneurial ideas and to accept risk. The development of ISRU for the Moon has a direct spin-in to this capacity in Canada. ISRU will require investment and engagement of our space, robotics, mining, chemical processing and manufacturing industries. Concomitantly, this will feed into building Canadian industrial capacity in Canada.

The Case for Long-Term Vision

We can argue that Canada’s economic situation is not conducive to such investment. But then, it never is—even in times of plenty! The reason why our economic situation is precarious is precisely because we have been reliant on the US and have not invested in our own technological foundations. We need the self-belief, the will and the vision for long-term prosperity using joined-up thinking.

It requires all of us—government, business and academic communities to work together and exercise our capabilities without being fettered. But it begins with government, the institution that is charged with providing an environment in which Canadians can flourish. We must invest in technological research as a priority to ensure our economic future.