I For One Welcome Our New Arsenic-Loving Microbial Overlords

The big news going around scientific circles is the GFAJ-1 strain of bacteria discovered at Mono Lake in California. It was artificially manipulated into accepting arsenic as a substitute for phosphorus. A much more detailed write-up on the development can be found IN THIS DISCOVERY MAGAZINE BLOG.

While the discovery is not as world-shaking as some sources have hyped it, it is still huge. This strain of bacteria is doing something no other lifeform has ever been seen doing: using am element besides phosphorus for its driving energy. It hints at just how life can evolve and adapt to extreme conditions beyond anything we previously thought possible. As many others have pointed out, this indicates that extraterrestrial life, if ever found, could take radically different forms than we've previously assumed (outside of science fiction, of course.)

Anyway, I'll be following developments of this story with interest; its easily the biggest discovery at the frontiers of biology since the extremophiles found at volcanic vents at the ocean floor.

Space Travel Feasibility Round-Up

In gathering articles for the main ORBITAL VECTOR site, I try to stay clear of favoritism for any particular idea. I DO try to make clear a particular technology's real-world feasibility, whether its hard science or soft science, how advanced society likely needs to be to produce it, etc.

However, that doesn't mean I think that all technologies I write about are equally probable. There are other factors besides just purely technological to overcome. Economics, politics, circumstance, location, culture, are as likely to determine if a technology becomes widely used or if it just sits on the shelves of history as a curiosity. The Segway is a perfect example. As a technology, it exceeded expectations, and fulfills its utility niche almost perfectly. However, it was cultural and economic factors--basically the fear of lawsuits--that killed its wide-spread use.

With all that in mind, I thought I'd give my own personal views of the likelihood of various Space Travel technologies I've written about so far on the main site. Just keep in mind these represent my own personal views of what will likely be developed or not based on political, economic, cultural, and other factors in the real world. Believe me, I would love to see a huge flowering of advanced space technology within the next decade, but I try to be as realistically constrained with the predictions as I could, while still assuming the world community in general continues to slowly develop space capabilities. Also, the needs and attitudes of various space-faring nations/companies/groups may change over time, so what seems likely now may also change in the future.

Each technology discussed is linked to an article explaining how it works.

CHEMICAL ROCKETS: Will probably remain the main means of obtaining orbit and maneuvering in space for at least the next half-century, if not longer. Its just too reliable and well proven a technology, and with so much infrastructure already in place to manufacture rocket components they will likely remain the cheapest option for some time to come. In the second half of the century I think they'll start slowly being replaced by other technology, but even so they will still linger for many decades.

SPACE PLANES: Also a well-proven technology, from the old X-series rocket planes to Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipOne. As Virgin Galactic gears up and actually begins running tourist flights, imitators will likely blossom from every corner, and I think the rocket/space plane will have a serious renaissance in the 2020s and beyond.

ION DRIVES: Now a proven technology, ion drives are very fuel efficient and will likely begin to slowly supplant chemical rockets as the main thrusters on deep space robes. Will likely be a routine technology by mid-century, used mostly for unmanned scientific and (hopefully) industrial payloads.

PLASMA ROCKETS: I do think old-style chemical rockets will begin turning over to these within a few decades, starting in the 2030s or 2040s; they have many of the same characteristics s chemical rockets but with much greater power. By the end of the century they will likely be the dominant space propulsion technology.

FISSION ROCKETS: Toxic radioactive exhaust will make sure this technology is never seriously used, despite its near-term feasibility and other advantages.

NUCLEAR PULSE DRIVES: Despite being actually much more dangerous than fission rockets, nuclear pulse drives have much more support among the space and scientific communities. Plus they also deliver phenomenal amounts of thrust compared to most other drives to compensate. Will likely be used for large deep-space missions in the second half of the century and beyond, perhaps even for the first interstellar probes.

SOLAR BOILER ROCKETS: Nominally a very cheap form of deep space rocket, these only become economically feasible if enough infrastructure in space exists to easily refuel them with water, which probably won't happen until the next century. But when that does happen, they will likely become the cheap transport workhorses of any emerging space culture.

SOLAR/MAGNETIC SAILS: A little too far out-there as a concept to gain a lot of real popular or political support, plus in order to turn them into decent-performance vehicles, you need to build powerful laser or particle beam facilities that could too easily be interpreted as weapons, making them a political sticking point. I foresee them being used only occasionally for certain scientific missions into the foreseeable future.

FUSION ROCKETS: Fusion has always one of the big "ifs" of science. They've been promising the big breakthrough for cheap, sustainable fusion power for half a century now, but if that will actually happen anytime soon is up for speculation. IF it comes within the next few decades, fusion rocket spacecraft may begin plying deep space sometime in the last half of the century, I'd guess. However, like with fission rockets, its radioactive exhaust will make its use infrequent at first, but as humanity moves further out into the solar system its superior power will become a premium. That likely won't happen until well into the next century, however.

ANTIMATTER DRIVES: The ultimate rockets, but the problems, technical and economic (and probably political, as antimatter can easily be turned into a weapon), involved in producing and storing antimatter means these probably won' be used in any significant way until well into the next century.

LAUNCH TOWERS: Feasible, but would probably only be seriously pursued if a space elevator proves definitively unobtainable. Even so they probably wouldn't be constructed until late in the century, after any space elevator projects fail.

SPACE ELEVATORS: With the development of carbon nanotubes, these seem definitively feasible, and there is currently a large populist push within the space and scientific community to develop one. It still unfortunately remains a little too far-out-there as an idea to get any significant funding politically, which probably won't really change for at least few decades yet. However, by the 2030s or 2040s I can see space elevator technology being seriously pursued, and the first commercial one may open in the second half of the century.

I'd love to hear other peoples' opinions. I may do another feasibility round-up of space technology (focusing on space stations and planetary exploration and such) some time in the future.

Moon, Mars, Space Stations, Warp Drives, Whatever...Just Pick One

THIS linked article from ABC News illustrates why our manned space program isn't much farther along than it is.

Every four or eight years, either we elect a new president and/or a new political party takes power, and the space program undergoes yet another overhaul. Programs that have been moving forward for years are often suddenly disrupted, delayed, or canceled altogether. The history of NASA is literally littered with the epitaphs of otherwise promising projects like the SSTO or X-33/Venturestar.

Unfortunately, space has proven too difficult an environment in which to do anything quickly or easily. Apollo with its breakneck pace of historic accomplishments turned out to be the exception, not the rule. We need long term commitment to a single vision of space exploration/exploitation in order to really accomplish any major worthwhile goals.

Though I doubt we'll ever see one any time soon, what we should have is a national referendum on space. The public should weigh in on exactly what we should try to accomplish in space, and whatever administration is in power should follow that as a guideline, instead of just canceling or downgrading projects out of spite against the previous administration, something both political parties have been guilty of for decades now.

But which general plan would the public back? Actually the best way we can decide this is educating people on the general directions the space program could take.

As an example, four feasible general strategies are outlined below. It should be noted that none of these are mutually exclusive; one can eventually lead into one or more of the others very easily.

Return to the Moon: This is the strategy outlined by the Bush administration in 2004, which NASA had been working toward since. I should note that I was not a fan of many of the previous administration's science policies, but I do think its 'refocusing' of the manned space program was spot on, especially since the retirement of the shuttle fleet was inevitable. The Constellation vehicle system under development was specifically geared for this mission.

The purpose of this strategy was not only to send more Apollo-style manned missions to the Moon, but to establish a permanent manned presence there in the form of a moonbase. The advantage of a Moon goal is that it has been underway for half a decade now and is already fairly well developed. As a result it could probably be achieved sooner than the other strategies outlined here. Also, the experience of building and maintaining the ISS would come in very handy in creating a slowly expanding moonbase. For long term benefits, the Moon offers vast resources, particularly the potential fusion fuel helium-3, that could produce a potential windfall for any country that gain a significant lead in developing them.

Mars: The second most talked-about path, many Americans want to forge directly ahead to the Red Planet on one or more grand voyages of human discovery. It is perhaps the most romanticized of the strategies, very appealing to generations of Americans who grew up on the space exploration adventures of various scifi heroes.

The advantage of this plan would be mostly in the technology that would developed in order to make it viable; namely long-term space habitat systems and true interplanetary manned spacecraft. The human exploration of another whole planet would also be very valuable, conducting observations and experiments that current robotic probes aren't easily capable of. But more, a human being stepping onto the surface of another planet would be a monumental historical event that would resonate for generations.

Going to Mars would be the longest-range goal discussed here because of the immense distances and logistics involved, and could actually incorporate a return to the Moon and/or a manned asteroid rendezvous as an intermediate step.

Orbital Infrastructure: Instead of manned exploration, NASA concentrates much more on building up potentially useful and profitable structures in Earth orbit. This is not necessarily a stay-at-home strategy. Post-Apollo, NASA had a 'Grand Architecture' vision for space, focusing on building up a 'step ladder' of stations leading out into the solar system. The shuttle and the ISS as they were originally envisioned were just the first two major projects of this architecture.

In this vision, NASA maintains the ISS as long as possible and follows up with bigger, more advanced stations, as well as other useful orbital structures, such as solar power satellites, orbital hot labs, zero-g factories, or perhaps even a launch tower or space elevator. The idea would be concentrate as much as possible on making space much more of a money making venture than it is now, and use the built-up infrastructure to eventually build the interplanetary craft needed to carry humans further into the solar system.

Asteroids: Somewhat of an underdog compared to the others, its still mentioned occasionally in various sources. Instead of concentrating on 'major' bodies such as the Moon and Mars, emphasis for this strategy is placed on the manned exploration and exploitation of near-Earth asteroids. Technical difficulty would be somewhere between returning to the Moon and sending expeditions to Mars. And with thousands of potential destinations, NASA could be constructively busy for decades.

This strategy has two major potential pluses over the others. First, Asteroids taken in their thousands represent an immense treasure trove of mineral wealth; an estimate of single typical nickel-iron asteroid from a few years ago put the worth of the asteroid's minerals and metals at over $12 trillion.

Second, asteroids can be made mobile using even today's technology. It would be a very slow and gradual process, but valuable asteroids can be 'herded' closer to Earth, inserted either into an L4 or L5 Lagrange point or into Lunar orbit, where they can be much more easily studied and harvested. Hollowed asteroids also offer ready-made armor against radiation and impact hazards in space, and small, properly hollowed and modified asteroids could serve as the chasis fo interplanetary craft.

Which strategy would be best? That would depend on the goals people wanted to accomplish. All have advantages that could benefit not juts the US, but the world beyond as well. However, if we want to see any of these objectives succeed in our lifetimes, we have to pick one and stick with it.

Our Near Space Future

(Image courtesy NASA)

Many people today will be pontificating about the fortieth anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, as is only right. But I'd like to take the opportunity not to talk about the last forty years of space travel, but the forty years that's immediately ahead of us.

In my last blog entry, I talked about how people have trouble intuitively grasping just how vast the scale of space is. Which is partly why I think that for the next few generations, despite the current push outward for exploration to the Moon and Mars, I think the aspect of space travel that will have the most impact on normal people will be the opening up and exploitation of so-called 'Near Space.' Near Space extends from the upper reaches of the atmosphere up to about 500 miles altitude, or the inner edge of the Van Allen radiation belts. That's a scale well within most peoples' understanding, and still is on the shore of this exciting new frontier.

We're already seeing a number of exciting developments along these lines recently. The successful SpaceX launch, the construction of the Virgin Galactic "spaceport", the US Military's tentative plan for a near space 'stratostation' that could permanently occupy suborbital space. Combined with the enlarging community of space-capable nations (particularly China) and renewed interest by private companies just chomping at the bit to market space, it seems that we're poised for a renewed flowering of space travel and exploration. But this time, instead of just being limited to two competing nations, it seems the whole of the industrialized world will take part.

After the world more fully recovers from the recent economic chaos--which admittedly might not be for a full decade yet--I think space tourism will begin to fully take off, with Virgin Galactic and its inevitable competitors offering first suborbital flights, then full orbital excursions. Bigelow Aerospace is already hard at work designing and constructing the first 'space hotels', which would be no more than small, modular, inflatable space stations in which tourists and small crews could stay for up to a few days. And in their footsteps will follow other companies eager to cash in.

Even now, many countries see the ability to at least launch their own satellites as a matter of pride, and a number of them are beginning to launch their own space exploration probes as well, as exemplified by the recent lunar probes launched by India and Japan. How long before they begin launching their own manned space craft, and building their own space stations?

So by 2050 or so, I'm hazarding an educated guess about what we'll see: many different nations and probably at least half a dozen private companies involved heavily in human space exploitation. Those that don't already have a manned presence there will be planning on it. There will be at least a dozen space hotels, most small, but perhaps a few as large as the old Mir station. Companies will start ofering point-to-point suborbital flights. Russia, always a major proponent of space stations, may have an ISS-like large station, and will probably have plans for something even larger, like a ring station. China may still be playing-catch up, hoping to industrialize Near Earth Orbit, and close on its heels will be alliances and nations like the ESA, Japan, India, Brazil, and others.

But where will the US space program fit into all of this?

For some reason, the slow but deliberate process of constructing orbital infrastructure does not seem to sit well with the American public. This seems to go beyond just its high price tag and the old manned vs robotic exploration debate. I think it goes back to why the Apollo program is such a jewel in the eye of the American public, and why space efforts since, despite their on-paper practicality, haven't been as popular.

I think there's a very deep need in the American psyche to explore. Most of the population in the US is descended from people who left their homelands and set off toward someplace unknown in the hopes of something better, and I think that tendency is pretty much embedded in our national DNA. We love building things and making money, but even more fundamental than all that is that we, as a people, want to go.

Apollo spoke to that very deeply. Man landing on the Moon was an amazing technical achievement, but I think to many around the world, especially Americans, it felt right. Like it was what we were destined to do all along.

But many at NASA, in that era and since, realized that sending humans beyond the Moon would need an extensive orbital infrastructure to be practical. You need someplace to construct the giant vehicles necessary, you need workhorse vehicles to haul all the material to orbit, as well as a place to test out long-term habitation and industrial techniques. Thus the need for a shuttle and the space station, and the other plans NASA had its old 'grand architecture.' This goes back to what I talked about last time--just how vast the scale of space is. We're microbes trying to cross an ocean on specks of dust. With our current level of technology, there really is no other way to go about sending humans out into the solar system without this infrastructure.

In the coming era, I think space agencies and companies may begin to specialize--instead of being a catch-all for all space efforts the way many agencies have been, they may begin specializing according to what they do best. For example, the private companies will be all about tourism, the fledgling countries will want to compete for launch services, Russia I'm sure would love to be at the forefront of space stations and colonies in orbit, Japan seems determined to create solar power satellites, and so on.

And Americans I think will work very hard, as they have historically, to be humanity's great explorers of space, to always push the envelope of where humanity goes and what we go out in the Great Dark. The next great age of American manned exploration may not start until the other countries catch up and build the infrastructure that the US needs to explore but still seems very reluctant to participate in. I'm sure that there will be American stations and moonbases and what not, but the US will not fully wake from its current ennui about space until we once again can finally start taking great leaps for all mankind.

So Where The Heck Have I Been?

If you've been wondering why there haven't been any updates to this blog or to the main Orbital Vector site the past few months, the short and simplified answer is, I've been very sick. I had a virus that lingered for months, that caused headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, fevers, chest pains and sciatica in my right leg. Plus in the middle of all this I also got tendonitis in my right foot stepping of an x-ray machine, so I couldn't even walk that much for three weeks straight.

Anyway, that's hopefully behind me. I feel fully recovered (more or less) though I'm still contending with the bills from the hospital and doctors. So if you've been thinking about donating to help out Orbital Vector stay afloat, now would certainly be a god time. Just use the donate button on OV's main page.

Just keep in mind that Orbital Vector and this blog are a one-man operation, which I do in my spare time, more or less. I'd love to do this stuff full time, but unless the ad revenue from the site increases a thousand fold, that's not very likely. So until then, its all just a labor of love (of futuristic technology.)

I do have plans, though. I have a bunch of OV articles that are in the works. An article on Ansibles (FTL radios) just went up, and future articles will address tech like Rocket Guns, Spacesuits, Advanced Ammunition, Underwater Habitats, Planet-scale Structure, Pocket Universes, and more. For this blog, besides linking to neat science and other stuff I find online, I may start serializing one or more of my novels here. One, The Shattered Sky is fully complete and the other, Escape From Zeroville is in first draft. I'll see how thing go, though.

Coke Bottle Plasma Rocket

Mini Helicon Plasma Thruster

Researchers at MIT have produced an advanced miniature plasma thruster, using the same principles as the VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) plasma rocket that NASA has been developing for deep-space applications a number of years now. The mini helicon notably uses nitrogen, instead of hydrogen that VASIMR uses, and the neon and xenon of other ionic thrusters currently in use.

The most interesting part of this research is that students built a thruster out of an old glass coke bottle and an aluminum can, to prove just how simple and hardy the system is. A short video is in the link above, complete with the characteristic sky-blu glow of the nitrogen exhaust.

Video Tour Of The International Space Station

ISS VIDEO TOUR PART 1

Just follow the link above for the first part, and then check out the links to the right of the YouTube page to continue the tour in this multi-part video. Some very cool stuff, definitely worth watching. Learn the reality of life on the final frontier.

Beanstalk Disaster Animation

Broken Beanstalk Animation

What happens if a Space Elevator snaps?

Though still science fiction, more an more enthusiasts and experts are pushing for serious research into the technology. Reaching right from the surface of Earth to over 22,300 miles into space, a Space Elevator could provide a railroad track right into orbit and beyond for pennies a pound.

But being such a huge structure, the inevitable question pops up of what would happen if something went disastrously wrong and its snapped somewhere along its length. The animation in the link above demonstrates a number of possibilities--the elevator cable snapping at its base, at its orbital counterweight, and several points in between.

There are a couple of surprises, as Blaise Gessend, the creator of the animation points out in the accompanying article, primarily that as the earth-anchored end falls back toward the planet, the free end of the cable experiences such tremendous sheer forces as it whips around the curve of Earth parts of it are likely to tear off and going flying back out into space.

Beanstalks collapsing have been used in science fiction before, particularly in the novel Mercury by Ben Bova, and I have myself contemplated the idea to drive an as yet tenuous story, so this is very interesting indeed to me. It certainly opens one's eyes to the astonishing physics such a megastructure could entail.

Hooray For The Little Guy!

Orbital travel start-up SpaceX just picked up a major NASA contract worth a potential 3.1 billion, beating out Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. You can read their press release here:

SpaceX Press Release

Good for them, nice to see NASA shrugging of some of its old boys network and giving some of the new guys on the block a chance. If only I had money to invest in SpaceX right now...

Suborbital Flight Article Up On ORBITAL VECTOR

Just posted an article on Suborbital Passenger Flight on OV. here's the link:

Suborbital Passenger Travel

Found out a bunch of interesting things when researching this article, including the existence of the antipodal bomber, something I had no idea that both Nazi Germany and the Cold War Era US had actively researched. i always look at those innovations that were actively pursued back then, and how different our world would be if even a fraction of them had been followed trhough on.

The Coolest Resurrected City You'll Ever See

http://gizmodo.com/5079790/a-city-thats-built-at-the-bottom-of-a-lake

So far its just in the planning stages, but is as cool a concept as Dubai's artificial Palm islands, and I hope Bulgaria goes through with it. It will involve the construction of a 65-ft high circular dyke over a mile in circumference in order to expose the ancient city of Seuthopolis, which was flooded over when a dam was built nearby in 1954.There are of course a great deal of technical hurdles to overcome, but when complete it will be a tourist destination unlike any other. Not only do I want to visit when its done, but the idea sounds like a very cool location to use for a story or some artwork...

There are of course a great deal of technical hurdles to overcome, but when complete it will be a tourist destination unlike any other. Not only do I want to visit when its done, but the idea sounds like a very cool location to use for a story or some artwork...

Orbitalvector.com Reaches 10,000 Unique Hits

I know its been ages since I updated this blog, but I created it mere days before a medical problem hit unexpectantly. That's still ongoing, but things have settled out a bit and I cna get back to business.

Anyway, I had created this blog as a supplement to my Orbital Vector site ( www.orbitalvector.com ), which focuses on speculative and science fiction technology. The big news is that it passed the 10,000 hits mark this past week. I do consider this an accomplishment, considering that its a niche website with limited mainstream appeal.

The newest article is on Force Fields, those weird, ubiquitous devices that have almost no connection to real life science. While there are some technologies being researched that are kind of similar (like elecrtomagnetic defense fields and plasma shields) force fields like you see in science fiction are as much fantasy as Harry Potter's wand.

Upcoming is an article on suborbital flight, plus some other fun stuff.

Happy 50th Birthday, NASA

Fifty years ago as of this writing, NASA officially came into existence.

To most people today, NASA is a background concern, for some a source of pride and wonder, for others a waste of time and resources. It is almost always a nexus for controversy, in one way or another.

But I also think the NASA will turn out to be one of the real legacies that we leave today for world history. A hundred years or more from now, a lot of what's happening now--the Iraq War, the various 9and apparently endless) government scandals, the housing bubble bursting, etc--will be at most just notes in a history book.

But NASA, and what it accomplished, will still be pretty well remembered. The 'NASA Era" of the past 5 decades (and hopefully at least a few more to come) will be looked upon fondly, and perhaps even with a grumble of envy, much like the pioneer days of the Old West has been idolized all through the 20th century. This is not to say that the people who ran and worked for NASA were perfect--hardly. There have been a LOT of missteps, scandals, controversies, mistakes, and even outright bumbling. Lives have been lost, billions of dollars wasted, careers ruined at times.

But...

NASA has done legendary things. They have expanded the scope of human endeavor and knowledge far further than any other single group in human history ever has before. Thanks to NASA, Earth Orbit, the Moon and Mars are no longer abstractions in the sky, but real, tangible places that either we or our machines have actually touched and investigated. Under NASA's watch, man made objects have visited alien worlds billions of miles beyond our warm, protective biosphere, and have crossed into interstellar space. The first human being to ever step foot on another world did so wearing a NASA logo. Seven of our solar system's planets were first seen close-up by NASA probes. The first craft to enter the interstellar void did so as a child of NASA.

These are not accomplishments that will be easily shaken from the collective human psyche. They will endure long after I will.

And so, hopefully, will the agency that was responsible for them. Happy 50th Birthday, NASA