Is our time in outer space finally at-hand?

Last week it was asteroid mining, as Peter Diamandis and his partners showed us their bold new venture, Planetary Resources, aiming eventually to start harvesting trillions of dollars worth of materials that would then no longer have to be ripped out of Mother Earth.

This glimpse of a vigorously bold and can-do future provoked The Daily Show's Jon Stewart to comment, "Do you know how rarely the news in 2012 looks and sounds how you thought news would look and sound like in 2012?"  to fervent approval from his audience. Having worked in this area 30 years ago, I was thrilled to see this forward-looking initiative finally get rolling in my lifetime.  Oh, but also... to see it completed...

Now, for something else that's speculative/inspiring: another bit of space news announced only a few days later.

According to the The Daily Yomiuri (via Gizmodo), construction company Obayashi Corp has announced it will construct a space elevator capable of shuttling passengers 36,000 kilometers above the Earth by 2050.

Obayashi plans to manufacture cables for the elevator from carbon nanontubes, which are twenty times stronger than steel. Those will extend toward a counterweight placed 96,000 kilometers above earth's surface (approximately one-fourth of the distance to the moon.) Passengers will be able to reach the elevator's terminal station at geostationary height (GEO), 36,000 kilometers above Earth's surface, traveling in cars at 200 kilometers per hour, powered by solar energy.

Cool enough for you?  Could it happen in real life?

== An uplifting idea ==

Although there had been scribbled concepts for "towers to space" going back to Tsiolkovsky in the 1890s, it wasn't until 1959 that Russian scientist, Yuri N. Artsutanov  published the counter-weighted space elevator concept known today, with a midway station conveniently located at GEO, and everything held suspended by tension, rather than compression.  Subsequently, amid all the excitement over rockets, most in the west remained ignorant of the concept...

... till it burst upon us in the 1980s, with the simultaneous publication of great space-elevator novels by Charles Sheffield (The Web Between the Worlds) and Arthur C. Clarke (The Fountains of Paradise). Since then, it has been portrayed in many other tales, like Red Mars and Foundation's Triumph.

In fact, in Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson vividly showed that the ideal site for a space elevator system is not Earth, where you need materials right near the edge of what's possible with the carbon bond, with a safety multiplier in single digits... but Mars, where such a device is much simpler to build, due to lighter gravity.  Almost a no-brainer.

That is, till someone sabotages it! At which point (snap!) the part that's beyond geostationary orbit goes hurtling away while the lower third proceeds to impact the surface at hypersonic speeds, laying a visible equator mark, as if for a manufactured toy globe!

Ah, sci fi.  It does warn us to exercise extra care, and get it right.  And watch out for crazies.

== So.... BS?  or not-BS? ==

In fact, this is not the first time we've heard such an announcement and I give it less cred than the initiative from Planetary Resources, by some distance.  Still, the coincidence in timing... plus a number of fascinating technologies that I saw while attending (as an advisor) the recent NASA Innovative and Advanced Concepts workshop ... lead me to wonder.  Is our time of disappointment in space coming to an end?

Consider how different things used to seem.  Until the launch of Voyager 2, every advance in the speed that human beings could travel fit neatly on a logarithmic curve that increased very slowly for centuries, through foot and steed to sailing and then steamship.  Then overland train, automobile, airplane... an acceleration that breached escape velocity from the solar system! Projecting this curve beyond Voyager, it seemed the stars might be in our grasp within a lifetime.

Only then, the seeming irresistible force of a mathematically modeled curve met the immovable object of something called reality. The much-feared "S-curve" that crushes the fantasies of the naive... those whose simple-eager projections fuel doomed asset bubbles!

After Voyager, nothing man-made ever moved that fast again... that is, till the New Horizons mission to Pluto, just a few years ago.

Shall we forgive some dreamers for growing grouchy, during the long wasteland of the Space Shuttle era?

(Indeed, I once started writing a story with a stark premise to explain such an unlikely shift from hopeful progress to stagnation. In it, some nasty aliens negotiate a pact with President Elect Ronald Reagan - similar to the one he worked out with the Iranian Ayatollahs.  The aliens would stop supporting the USSR, propping up that incompetent, thuggish state, allowing it to crumble...

...and in return, America would divert all "space" efforts, veering away from accomplishment and toward wheel-spinning.  Spending lots of money but getting nothing done at all.  The timing works, by the way. Certainly George W. Bush's nonsensical notion of wasting our time by going back to the sterile moon fit that lurid but snarky scenario.)

== A Resumption? ==

So is that it?  Were those early dreams just fantasies? Were the Apollo landings flukes? Or evidence that an earlier generation was better, or more daring, than us?

Well now, here's the thing about sudden tech spurts and long, frustrating plateaus. You may be deluded by the spurts, but you can also get too accustomed to plateaus! In fact, as models of reality they are just as unrealistic.

What's more accurate is to realize that Apollo was way, way premature. Given the technology of the 1960s -- your phone has more computational power than all of NASA had, back then -- it's amazing they didn't blow themselves up every time. It was a perfect example of human determination and ingenuity overcoming all obstacles of technology or common sense.

I have long called Apollo an example of the same phenomenon as Las Vegas -- proof that there is nothing human beings cannot achieve with enough fervid concentration of money, water... and desire.
Ironically, during the long dry period, background technology and abilities have been maturing, till now....

Why did the Planetary Resources consortium of billionaires suddenly announce plans to move ahead in steady steps toward fulfilling the dream of reaping lavish rewards from asteroid mining?  Because space optics and microelectronics and communications and computers and ion drive engines have all matured to a point where dozens of their planned "Arkyd" spacecraft might be built and deployed for mere tens of millions of dollars.  Crowd-sourcing some of the computation to distributed networks of millions of home computers will both reduce costs and get countless citizens involved. (I hope each participant will get a stock share!)

== Can it really happen? ==

So are the the folks at Obayashi Corp just blowing smoke?  Well... almost certainly at some level. Still, that doesn't matter, so long as we are generally moving forward, with confidence and an eager, can-do spirit.

Could it be that Clarke and Sheffield and Artsutanov had a prescient dream that might come true o n my 100th birthday, perhaps soon enough for me to take a comfy orbital elevator car ride, gentle enough for brittle centenarian bones?  You gotta hope and believe that a confluence of technologies may arrive, as part of a "good singularity" wave.

Is humanity ready?  I mean mentally?  Well, not judging from the level of puerile responses in the comments section, under the Gizmodo report...

My optimistic solution to that obstacle?  Brain boosts. Smart pills.  For everybody. (oh, please!)  If we can get those, without major side effects, then maybe... just maybe... those stars.

It's an amazing time. A time for us to resume being amazing. In fact, if you heed the wise advice of Zaphod Beeblebrox, you'll be getting ready to be amazingly amazing.

See more of my speculations about Space: Where are we headed?

From The Brick Moon to Telstar

It's well known that in 1865, Jules Verne published his novel, De la Terre à la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon), which includes the concept of human spaceflight. And yet, Verne never discussed the far more practical notion of of an artificial satellite orbiting Earth.

For that it took an American, Edward Everett Hale (author of The Man Without a Country).  The Brick Moon was published serially in Atlantic Monthly starting in 1869.  And it is absolutely amazing.  Almost every other paragraph you are either chortling over some bit of what we’d now call scientific naiveté... or else staring at the page in disbelief that some folks back then had such clear notions as geo-stationary navigation satellites. 

The entire book is available on Project Gutenberg -- where you can download for free much of our literary heritage.

The Brick Moon, 200 feet in diameter, was a polar-orbiting satellite (built from 12 million bricks) intended to establish a space meridian to assist with navigation—to help ships determine longitude. Hale called it "the blessing of all seamen." And how was it launched? With two massive flywheels:

“Then, before we began even to build the moon, before we even began to make the brick, we would build two gigantic fly-wheels, the diameter of each should be ever so great, the circumference heavy beyond all precedent, and thundering strong, so that no temptation might burst it. They should revolve, their edges nearly touching, in opposite directions, for years, if it were necessary, to accumulate power, driven by some waterfall now wasted to the world. One should be a little heavier than the other. When the Brick Moon was finished, and all was ready, IT should be gently rolled down a gigantic groove provided for it, till it lighted on the edge of both wheels at the same instant. Of course it would not rest there, not the ten-thousandth part of a second. It would be snapped upward, as a drop of water from a grindstone. Upward and upward; but the heavier wheel would have deflected it a little from the vertical. Upward and northward it would rise, therefore, till it had passed the axis of the world. 

It would, of course, feel the world's attraction all the time, which would bend its flight gently, but still it would leave the world more and more behind. Upward still, but now southward, till it had traversed more than one hundred and eighty degrees of a circle. Little resistance, indeed, after it had cleared the forty or fifty miles of visible atmosphere. "Now let it fall," said Q., inspired with the vision. "Let it fall, and the sooner the better! The curve it is now on will forever clear the world; and over the meridian of that lonely waterfall,—if only we have rightly adjusted the gigantic flies,—will forever revolve, in its obedient orbit, the—BRICK MOON, the blessing of all seamen,—as constant in all change as its older sister has been fickle.”

One complication ensues:  the satellite is accidentally launched, with people aboard… and yet more mixtures of hilarity and awed respect proceed to unfold.

In 1945, Arthur C. Clarke published an article, Extra-Terrestrial Relays, in Wireless World magazine envisioning a global communications network, using satellites in geosynchronous orbit. This was twelve years before the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, setting off the Space Race to the moon. A time of enthusiasm and innovation that is sorely lacking today.

Twenty years later, Intelsat I Early Bird, the first commercial geostationary communication satellite was launched. Since then, satellites have become essential to our daily life, as we rely upon them for telecommunications, weather prediction, geolocation and defense imaging.

See this interactive History of Satellites Timeline, ranging from Jules Verne to Telstar to DIRECTV and beyond.

==Miscellaneous Items==

See a collection of my articles: Speculations on Science Fiction. As well as resources for using science fiction in the classroom to teach and illustrate science.

Humans have created a vast population of robotic workers to take on the tasks that they no longer want to carry out themselves, resulting in a disenchanted robot underclass that that takes over the Brixton area of South London. This is the premise of an incredible short film called ‘Robots of Brixton’ by Factory Fifteen, a collective of six animators based in London.

A cool, quasi-classical piece inspired by my characters and stories is available on iTunes.  “Tytlal Wave” has both beauty and whimsey - by Maestro Siderious.

 == Fund science & explore the world with renowned researchers == 

So far, science has been funded by gracious-rich patrons, or by governments or universities... so how about crowd sourcing to help fund science research: Choose your own projects through Petridish: a crowdfunding site, where scientists  can showcase their research to the public. In exchange, you will receive updates, acknowledgement and/or various rewards (photographs, DVD, field samples, journal acknowledgment, or invitations to talks/dinner), plus the satisfaction of assisting scientists trying to understand our world. (Donations are not currently tax deductible.)  Way cool.

A cute and zealously enthusiastic (and much too blithe) essay on the coming singularity.

And a brief - but more broad and cautious - essay of mine (tangentially related to my latest novel, Existence) appeared on the site of the TechCast virtual think tank, tracking the technical revolution: “Is there such a thing as human destiny?”

Causes for optimism (and care) on the frontiers of art, science and the future

Before moving on to science and technology, a quick popular-culture note:

I recently saw the Denzel Washington film “Deja Vu”. It really wasn’t bad, for a time travel story. Yes, some paradox matters were finessed or waved away, but the writers/director really tried hard and there was some good rationalization. What I especially appreciated, though, was how they avoided the “idiot plot” in most ways. That is the phenomenon where, in order to keep the hero in dramatic jeopardy, lazy storytellers usually posit or assume that all of society’s institutions are either incompetent or malignant, or both. And thus, talking to anybody in authority, especially the cops, would be a waste of time. Even Steven Spielberg falls for this trap, now and then, though he does, in general soften it with a deep current of gratitude for getting to live in this civilization. (Note, the extreme way that George Lucas dives into this addiction-reflex; it is one of my chief complaints about the Star Wars Universe.)

Of course, some stories are about malignant or incompetent officials or need them for logical plot development. That is a legitimate topic, and certainly seems relevant to today’s world. And then, some other films don’t need the crutch of incompetent/corrupt authority figures at all, such as when the outside threat is SO huge that jeopardy threatens to overwhelm even a good and smart society, e.g. INDEPENDENCE DAY and DEEP IMPACT and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. (Note, however, that ARMAGEDDON was steeped in this idiot plot mythos, despite not needing it at all! Simply wallowing in a filthy habit.) What is refreshing about DEJA VU is that Denzel’s character was kept in heart-thumping peril, and not a single moment was wasted in demonizing the skilled professionals who were smart enough to recruit him and decent enough to break rules when he asked them to. Refreshing.

==Roofed Worlds?==

When I was a kid, we still dreamed of oases on Mars and whole oceans! under the thick clouds of Venus. Soon, space probes showed us a stark barren planetary system, a daunting image... that seems to be changing rapidly the other way! First, we ruminated hopefully over the blatant likelihood of liquid seas, lurking under the surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, so likely that the recently lamented Arthur Clarke wrote about it in his book, 2010.

Recently, scientists began to suspect similar, if smaller, buried seas on Ganymede and Callisto. Recent observations of water geysers on Saturn’s moon, Enceledus, suggest the same thing is going on there. And now, strong evidence that the big smog-ball itself, Titan, may not only harbor surface oceans of wax and hydrocarbons, but also inner seas of water and ammonia.

Could this sort of thing be the norm, out there? Might roofed oceans be the most common abode of life, in the cosmos? I am only just beginning to be dazzled by the implications. Stay tuned. Keep watching this space.

...and see below for about forty cool items from a world the refuses to give up on adventures of science and progress!…

==On Complexity and the Future==

Scientists have revealed what may well be the first pervasive 'rule' of evolution. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers have found evidence which suggests that evolution drives animals to become increasingly more complex. This may at first seem obvious, but for decades, biologists have preached at us, on TV etc, to remember that the metazoan (plant & animal) branches of the tree of liufe are small offshoots, compared to the vastly larger number of species - and greater biomass - that remained unicellular.

An international team of researchers created an experiment in which a quantum bit of information was transported across a distance of seven meters and briefly stored in memory, the first time that both quantum memory and teleportation have been demonstrated in a single experiment.

The latest great essay on the Singularity, by Jamais Cascio.

The Wall Street Journal attempts (mildly) to do some Thinking About Tomorrow .

Set aside 18 minutes and prepare to be floored. Consensus among TED’sters is that this may be the most memorable and important TED Talk ever.

==== And now the latest misc-tery tech cornucopia! =====

Um who needs men? British scientists discover how to turn women's bone marrow into sperm. Oops, there goes Glory Season…

Freighters helped along by giant kites! (Actually, I mentioned this long ago, in EARTH! One more for the prediction wiki! In fact, I invested money in Walker Wingsail, which seemed to promise a good way to do this. (Lost it all when WW went belly up. Ah well.)

For the predictions registry. My “subvocal” input device - from Earth - is coming closer to reality.

A new sensor system that can detect dangerous airborne agents such as anthrax in as little as three minutes uses living immune-system cells genetically engineered to emit light when exposed to a particular contaminant.

Morphine’s serious side effect as a pain killer – its potential to create dependency – has been almost completely eliminated in research with mice by genetically modifying a single trait on the surface of neurons. The study scientists think a drug can be developed to similarly block dependency.

A seagoing glider that harvests heat from the ocean to propel itself is being used to explore the undersea environment off Puerto Rico. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Webb Corporation team predicts the glider could keep going on its own for another 6 months.

In honor of my late friend and colleague, the great visionary Arthur Clarke, see a series of riffs on Hal 9000.

==Transparency & Politics ==

And from the transparency front: Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA criminal record database if they exhibit behavior indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert. Eeek. The trouble is, you won’t stop this half of it... authorities seeing better. What we still have time to do is strip authorities naked, so they’ll be careful about bothering us over what they see.

See a fascinating article about how the fall of the Soviet Union forced Cuba to do without imports of oil and pesticides/fertilizers, at first cutting the food supply. Till they adapted by privatizing state farms, investing heavily in organic, dry, no-till methods, and establishing urban plots. “Cuba stopped exporting sugar and began to grow its own food again. Within a decade, the Cuban diet rebounded to its former level without food imports or the use of agrochemicals. The Cuban experience shows that agroecology can form a viable basis for agriculture without industrial methods or biotechnology. Unintentionally, the U.S. trade embargo turned Cuba into a nation-scale experiment in alternative agriculture.” It’s not ideal by any means. Coercion is still a staple of Cuban life. Labor intensive aspects are disturbing. Meat and milk remain in short supply, though urban plots supply all of the capital’s vegetables. The solution involved partly a retreat from socialism and partly its veer into a different style.

You’d think the”Globalist” would be pro-Bush? Try this from another article. “When George W. Bush was inaugurated, the euro was trading at 94 cents, and gold cost $266 an ounce. Now they are trading at $1.52 and $985 an ounce. That is a plain vote of no confidence by global models in the Bush–Bernanke economic model.”

Outdoor pursuits, ranging from camping to hunting, have entered a persistent and growing decline since 1987. Their statistical analysis shows that the increase in video games, movie rentals and other indoor pursuits. (My boys are scouts!)


...Just a taste of things to lift your spirit in rough times, as we sit and wait for the enemies of modernity to pull their next stunt -- some new way to distract the masses and order out the tide.

==Brin-teresting==

StarShipSofa carries some nice readings of quality SF stories (like my own). They have posted one that’s up for a BSFA award. If you like audio tales for that commute, give a look.

For those of you who like Japanese-oriented sci fi... like monsters that stomp cities... or just cool mythology, have a look at a small webzine called Daikaijuzine.

A year ago, the Computer Graphics Society ran one of their "Grand Challenges" resulting in marvelous images, animations, and even movie trailers for Greg Bear's wonderful novel, EON.

Now, it's my turn to inspire the next of these challenges! Starting March 19, individual artists and teams have three months to illustrate moments or scenes or trailers based upon my Uplift Universe. Tell your artist friends! The results are likely to be stunning.

Speaking of animation.... See one of the coolest robots yet! And it isn’t even Japanese! RoboDog.

And that cool 360 of me in my office is back up, courtesy of the great Mark Burgess at Sandiego.com!

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