If Man Should Invade Space!

Thanks to reddit, I ran across the above, a great illustration/inforgraphic from a children's encyclopeida ('Our Wonder World') in 1918.  Just click the image for a larger view.

'A race for sun, moon, and planets at the terrific speed of two miles a minute!'

My Favorite blurb: 'Mercury: 54 years.  News of Lincoln's Death due there soon.'

These kinds of pics are great fun, but I think they also serve two important purposes:

1) It reminds us that what may seem impossible today may not seem so insurmountable in the future.   In 1918, any mechanical vehicle traveling at two miles a minute (120 mph) that wasn't plummeting out of the sky would seem utterly astounding and just barely in the realm of the possible.  Yet today, almost any mundane road vehicle can achieve that speed.

We reached the Moon in 3 days, not 83.  The Voyager 2 probe reached Neptune in 12 years, not 2,571.

Millions of years to the stars?  By our best estimates using realistic technology we now have that down to merely a few tens of thousands of years.  Ninety four years from now, the time between that encyclopedia and us, who knows what it will be?  Perhaps they will look back on what we write today,a nd chuckle at how limited our thinking could be at times.

2) It reminds us just how awesome the world we live in can be.

We take a lot of things for granted.  We get so caught up in our every day struggles and work and problems that we forget to take in the wonders of the world around us.  Space travel and probes to other planets and computers and intercontinental jets and so on seems pretty mundane to us nowadays.

But I can imagine taking a ten year old boy who may have read that old encyclopedia in 1918 and showing him all the things we take so for granted to day.  He would be utterly astonished and overcome with wonder.  Real pictures of other worlds!  Airplanes that can fly faster than sound! Thinking machines!  Wireless telegraphs that can talk around the world!

We would complain that men haven't walked on the Moon in 40 years.  He would be have trouble just getting his head around the fact that men walked on the moon at all.  We may be inconvenienced by technical difficulties with our computerized communication networks; he would be amazed that we even had such a thing to be inconvenienced by it in the first place.

We live in a world full of wonders that would utterly astonish almost every generation that came before us.  I think sometimes we just need to step back, take a deep breath, and realize just how awesome that is.

The Habitat Gap

The big news going around the space community recently is that China recently announced plans to construct and orbit a 60-ton, multiple-module space station by 2020 (pictured above.) You can find more details of it HERE on physorg.com's website. See also the original source HERE from the China Daily website.

I can do nothing but applaud this development. I know according to some people, China is supposed to be the US's big bad rival in the next decade, but any nation or organization that helps to expand on humanity's presence in the daunting frontier of space should be welcomed and encouraged.

The station itself, called 'Tiangong' (translated as 'heavenly palace') for now, will be composed of a main habitat module and two laboratory modules. It will be attended by a dedicated cargo ship and be designed to dock with Chinese space capsules. Though more modest than the ISS, it is definitely a step in the right direction for China's fledgling manned space program.

For the longest time, people pushing for human space exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit have focused almost exclusively on propulsion technologies. I think in some ways that has proven a mistake.

As I've stated a number of times on this blog, the development of long-enduring space habitats is as vital as advanced propulsion if we ever want to create a real human presence off Earth. And the way to do that is to actually live and work for long periods in space to determine which systems and techniques work best. That's what the project that eventually became the ISS was originally all about, but somehow people always end up whining (such as in the PHYSORG.com article's comment section) that the ISS "isn't going anywhere" or "isn't giving a valuable scientific return." It was never supposed to. It was originally supposed to be a testbed for humans living and working in space.

Some people seem to have the idea that all we have to do is strap a huge rocket onto an Apollo capsule and just like that we can zoom off to Mars. But even if NASA's advanced propulsion projects achieve all their goals flawlessly, future astronauts are still going to have to consign themselves to voyages of months or years once past the Earth-Moon system. Cramped, skimpy metal cans like current space capsules simply will not be able to keep human explorers safe and productive for such immense journeys, especially in an environment as hostile as space.

For those impatient to travel into the greater Solar System, one has to come to terms with the fact that improved propulsion technology like VASIMR alone is not enough. You also need space habitats that can keep a human crew healthy and in working shape for the entire voyage, and that's far, far more complex and tricky than most people surmise. In order to develop such habitats, we need the experience that space stations can provide us. Perhaps if more people had understood this and had not tried so hard to roadblock the ISS program in its various incarnations over the years, we might have already had human explorers on the way to other planets.

I have the feeling that future interplanetary spacecraft will end up looking much more like MIR or the ISS than the souped-up space capsules than many dreamers seem to envision. Or perhaps even like China's newly proposed Tiangong station, at a minimum. When you're out in the deeps of interplanetary space, on the longest journey by several orders of magnitude that any human has ever undertaken, what kind of ship would you rather have? A large one with the redundancy of systems and space to handle emergencies, or a cramped one that will tank if any one of several dozen life support systems fail?

NASA's proposed Nautilus-X, basically a mobile ISS, is definitely where things should be leading to by the 2020s. It would be relatively slow compared to some visions of interplanetary flight, but it definitely would be the best bet for getting a human crew alive and healthy to its destination. And the only way we can ever build such a craft successfully is through the data and experience we can collect through operating space stations. The public has to get past the notion that space stations are just hunks of metal orbiting in the sky, and understand that they are in truth our gateways to the heavens.

NASA's Exploration Mothership

(First a quick apology for lack of updates lately, both here and on the main site. I've been caught up in that whole 'earning a living' thing lately and that's been sapping time away from OV. Hopefully things will calm down soon.)

Its big. Its ugly. Its as graceful as a swan glued to an anvil.

I love it.

Its NASA's proposed Nautilus X ("Non-Atmospheric Universal Transport Intended for Lengthy United States eXploration"), an idea put forth by the NASA Technology Applications Assessment Team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. You can read more about the details in THIS recent Discovery.com Blog.

Basically, it replicates ISS in over all design using cheaper components, attaches rockets and more up-to-date supplementary systems, and sends it cruising on long-term missions. Proponents say that it could be built for $4 billion dollars and be ready by 2020. Realistically, we know that all initial budget and time estimates are significantly low-balled, so let's say it would really cost 3 times that ($12 billion) and would take as long to build and assemble as the ISS, which means 15-20 years with an earliest launch date of say, 2025.

It would still be more than worth it, in my opinion.

This is EXACTLY the approach to long-range manned exploration we should be focusing on. A larger robust, customizable, reusable habitat that can use reasonable propulsion technologies. This is in contrast to the super-compact vehicles where most of the emphasis is on the engine rather than what keeps the astronauts alive and healthy. The idea behind the latter is that if you can get astronauts to and from their destination sufficiently fast enough, you needn't bother with advanced habitat systems.

But the reality of both the vast distances in space, as well as our own near-future technological limitations (no warp drives or antimatter rockets any time soon. Sadly,) would seem to dictate the former approach. We HAVE to get used to the idea that if you want to go anywhere interesting beyond the Earth-Moon system, you're going to be spending a long time getting there. And that's just for manned exploration. Trying for economic exploitation such as construction or mining will require even more capable long-term mobile habitats.

Astronauts in these situations don't need cramp capsules attached to gigantic rockets, as many deep space proposals have posited, such as those to send astronauts to an asteroid or even to Mars in nothing more than two linked Orion capsules. They need actual ships that they can properly live and work on for months at a time. If you were trying to cross the Atlantic, it wouldn't matter how big a motor you attached to a canoe, because in the end it would still be a canoe, and poorly designed to handle the rigors of transoceanic travel. But if you had a big enough ship, travelling slower wouldn't be that big a deal, and you would be much better prepared to handle unforeseen circumstances.

This analogy I think very much applies to space travel, and why an idea like the Nautilus X is a big step forward. If we want to go back to the Moon, to an asteroid, even beyond to Mars or Venus, having an actual reusable ship that can do all that in succession makes more sense than building a new ship for each task. Plus the Nautilus is designed to be modular, and can be modified and updated through it operational lifetime.

But whether anyone at NASA will take the Nautilus-X seriously and moved forward with it is another matter. The space community is nothing if not traditionalist and slow to change, not only in their methods but in their modes of thinking about space exploration in general. Let's hope that won't be the case this time.

NASA's Solar Sail Makes Saving Throw, Orbits Earth

NASA had some amazingly good luck recently as its NanoSail-D spacecraft spontaneously came unstuck from its mother satellite and unfurled its solar sail. It has since been orbiting Earth. For the full story, go HERE to read the full article on NASA's science page.

Earlier in January, a defective spring aboard the FASTSAT mothership had prevented the NanoSail-D from separating from it. For reasons still unknown, however, it spontaneously launched itself free on January 17th. On January 20th, the spacecraft unfurled its solar sail, only the second such to be deployed in space after Japan's IKAROS probe last year, and the mission is now proceeding as scientists had hoped.

NASA has often caught a lot of bad luck in the past on too many missions, so its nice to see them catch some good luck for a change, especially in testing a technology that could be very vital to a number of future space efforts.

(Plus for those who didn't spend (mis-spend?) many hours of their youth playing tabletop RPGs, a 'saving throw' refers to a D&D trope where a character has to avoid a bad outcome by a literal roll of the dice.)

The Exoplanet Atlas

Wired recently put out THIS great graphic that illustrates in a layman-friendly way a lot of facts about the most interesting known exoplanets. Relatively sizes, distances, and temperatures, plus a quick primer on how exoplanets are discovered.

Exoplanets is one of the most exciting fields of astronomical study, and the one that may have the most long-range benefits. In terms of not only possibly finding other Earth-like worlds and alien life, but in more fully understanding the genesis and development of our own solar system. Plus of course there's the possibility, many centuries from now, our descendants may be visiting or perhaps even living on or around these far-off planets.

Anyway, check out the graphic!

SpaceX's Big Step

The Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, much more widely known by its abbreviated moniker SpaceX, reached a major milestone on December 8th: it launched, orbited, and recovered its unmanned Dragon capsule in its first full test flight. More details can be found in THIS linked article at the DISCOVERY magazine website.

This is significant as its the first private company to achieve this feat--successfully recovering an orbital spacecraft. This paves the way for it to make unmanned cargo runs to the Space Station and for the Dragon design to maybe eventually carry astronauts to Earth orbit as well. Here's hoping for their continued success in the future!

Asteroid Discovery Animation

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've had a very Wile E. Coyote summer, with three separate injuries since June (a fractured foot, a sprained ankle, and bursitis in my elbow.) Along with all the various heat waves its kept me from a lot of various creative work.

Anyway, to get back into the groove of things, I thought readers might be interested in THIS ANIMATION found on youtube, showing the sum of asteroid discoveries from 1980 through 2010. The text with the video explains the color codes and other features. Its fascinating to watch, both from an intellectual/science wonk perspective, but also beautiful in its way, almost a work of art.

Swimming Pools...On The MOOOOON!

I was putting together ideas for a new scifi story and one element kind of threw me...how would open water, like say in a swimming pool, act on the Moon? I read up a lot on different science subjects, but I'm no expert on fluid dynamics or low gravity physics. So I posed the question to Reddit's Scifi Board, and got a lot of great responses.

Some interesting conclusions from the responses, summarized here:

-- Without so much gravity pulling on the water, intermolecular attraction plays a bigger role in how the water behaves. For example, surface tension would create a meniscus (basically a broad hump of water) in the middle of the pool. It may be possible to over fill the pool by an inch or so, as the meniscus would 'suck' the excess water into the middle of the pool.

-- When you got out of the water, much more water would cling to you. As one commenter pointed out, it could be a liter worth of the stuff. So just toweling off might not be enough if you bathed or went for a swim--you may need to scrape off the excess water first.

-- Waves would propagate much higher than Earth. You cannonball into a lunar swimming pool, instead of foot-tall waves, you'd create a mini tsunami with maybe 5-6 foot waves. Splash fights could become truly epic. It seems to me that the sides of swimming pools would actually have to be high, sloping, and segmented it order to break up possible high rogue waves and prevent a lot of spillover.

-- The waves and water motion would move slower than they would on Earth, though, seeming to go in slow motion. Just as astronauts hopping on the moon seem to move slowly because they 'float' downward, it would be the same with the water motion because of the lesser gravity.

-- Stunt swimming and diving could also become truly epic,as you'd be able to swim and jump and dive in the water like a dolphin.

Just some interesting stuff to contemplate. Maybe someday our children or grandchildren or great grandchildren will actually see some of this for real, when they vacation on colonies on the Moon...

Review: Rocket Girls

JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency) has been in the news a lot lately, with their automated cargo ship to the ISS, their asteroid-sample return mission, and their deployment of the world's first solar sail. It was through talking about JAXA in online forums that I ran across the mention of this 12-episode TV anime series, on which JAXA served as technical advisor and real-life Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, who flew on STS-131, voices a small animated cameo as herself in episode 7. Rocket Girls is based on a series of light novels by Hosuke Nijiri and is available in english on DVD and for viewing online.

At first, this series seemed like the usual teenage girl action-comedy anime fluff. You know the kind; pilot slick mecha, fight outrageous aliens/demons, crush on teenage boys, something-something girl power. To my pleasant surprise, Rocket Girls turned out to be anything but, and had more in common with Planetes than say, Sky Girls.

The Solomon Space Association (SSA), a consortium of private Japanese companies trying to create a manned launch facility on the Solomon Islands, keeps having catastrophic failures with their large LS-7 rocket. So, in order to make their deadline and keep their funding, they fall back on their smaller but much more reliable LS-5 rocket. The only problem is, that requires their potential astronaut to weigh less than 40 kg, or about 88 pounds.

At the same time, waifish but fiery high school student Yukari Morita is also in the Solomons, trying to track down her deadbeat dad who left 17 years before. Through a comedy of errors, she ends up together with SSA's ever-more-desperate director, who hires her on the spot as an astronaut since she's the perfect size for their new rocket.

Soon a back-up pilot is found among the Solomon natives; Matsuri, who turns out to be Yukari's half-sister (this and the father subplot is quickly resolved in the second episode, so I don't consider this to be a major spoiler.) Half-way through the series, they're joined by a third girl, Akane, a genius science nerd from Yukari's old school.

At first the high-school-girls-in-space premise seemed a little off-putting, but I started watching episodes about the same time that news stories were headlining a 13-year-old climbing Mount Everest and a 16-year-old attempting to sail around the world solo. Then I realized the only thing realistically keeping anyone from launching a teenager into space is someone reckless enough--or desperate enough--to actually entrust them at the top of a multi-million dollar rocket. And as SSA's own director points out, if monkeys can be astronauts, then why couldn't a teen-age girl?

Once past that bit of rationalization, Rocket Girls turned out to be an extremely likable series, mostly comedy but also some moments of real drama, excitement, and even inspiration sprinkled throughout. One can kind of think of it as The Right Stuff populated with high school girls and played as a sitcom.

The series has three strong points. First and foremost are its characters. The three girl-astronauts are the only ones who are really well detailed, but for a 12-episode series, we really can't ask for much more. Yukari, the main character, is bold and brash and abrasve. At first, she resists becoming an astronaut, obsessed with finding her dad and forcing him to come home to Japan, and then with having a few Peter Parker moments where she believes she'd much rather just be a normal high school student rather than embrace this extraordinary thing that's happened to her. In fact, most of the series can really be thought of as her slow growth from petulant high school student to responsible heroine.

Matsuri, Yukari's half sister, starts off as a badly stereotyped generic Native Girl, but she too undergoes growth and maturity as the series progresses. Though mystical and supposedly naive about modern society, she turns out to be the most practical-minded and down-to-earth of the three girls. I only wish she had more to do during the last five episodes or so, as she mostly became the voice of Mission Control.

The third astronaut girl, Akane, was the most surprising, and surprisingly inspirational, character. Looking and often acting so frail that a harsh breath could break her in two, she shows up unexpectedly to fulfill her dream of going into space. Whereas the job of astronaut just kind of fell into Yukari and Matsuri's laps, Akane pursues it with unflinching determination, inspired by Yukari after a (very) unexpected stopover at her old school. Akane gives the series its most Right Stuff moments, as the base doctor puts her through a series of truly grueling physical tests to try to get her to quit. Not out of cruelty, however, at it first seems. The doctor explains that there is no one in space to help you; if something happens, you have to be able to save yourself. In other words, you have to have the 'Right Stuff.' Akane's heroic underdog struggle to join Yukari and Matsuri as an astronaut is probably the series' single best story arc.

The second important element to the series' success is its solid and realistic science. Its not ironclad, mind you, but its very easy to see how JAXA made sure it got most of it right. When it does occasionally veer off on a minor tangent, only space buffs or real engineers will be bound to notice. There's no fantastic mecha or megawapons here. Yukari and the gang fly very basic space capsules barely big enough to fit them, with design features borrowed from Soyuz, Apollo, and the Space shuttle in equal measures. The tech is idealized, ie, what JAXA would love to have when it begins launching its own astronauts for real, but not unrealistic.

One interesting tech note is that the girls wear advanced biosuits (you can find details of that tech idea in the article HERE.) The joke here is that the skin-tight fabric shows of the girls 'attributes' and makes them feel practically naked. But the thing is, what the audience actually sees in the anime hardly looks scandalous at all, and is even more modest than the spandex outfits of say, gymnasts at the Olympics, who usually have millions watching, so the joke kind of falls flat. This is not to say that the series doesn't have some cheesecake shots (this is anime, after all), but they're mostly fleeting and relatively tame.

The third feature that makes this series worth watching is that intangible quality all great science fiction shares, and all the bad science fiction lacks: a true sense of wonder. Rocket Girls is very light on violence, except for occasional comedic effect. There are no monsters or aliens to fight, no constant threat that requires constant kinetic motion. Instead, the series allows its characters to look around and feel just how awesome what they're doing is. Yukari, even in dealing with a major problem on her first mission, is hypnotized for a few moments in naked wonder at seeing the unfettered night sky from space. When she talks about it later, in her phase of trying to be a normal student again, you can hear the unexpected longing in her voice as she describes the experience to the rapt Akane. And the SSA's lead scientists give a short, impassioned speech early in the series about his heartache and dreams about spaceflight that gave me goosebumps. This optimism and inspirational spirit, plus its realistic science, is what made Rocket Girls remind me in small ways of Planetes, which I consider one of the all-time classics of science fiction, of any genre. Rocket Girls never quite achieves the same level of storytelling as that other series, but at times it is clearly cut from the same cloth.

The series's drama comes from two space missions, Yukari's first flight half-way through, and an assist mission to the Space Shuttle Atlantis in the last three episodes. Mishaps and unexpected disasters occur, and the girls are tested in many ways. I actually I found these encounters, with all their nuts-and-bolts grittiness, to be much more compelling to watch than a dozen mecha battles.

Rocket Girls is far from perfect, however. There's some gaffes in logic, and sometimes the plot twists are a little too unbelievable, even if they are played for comedic absurdity at times. Many of the secondary characters are underdeveloped, though we see hints of much deeper characters here and there. And the balance it tries to strike, switching off from comedy to drama to philosophy to action and back again, doesn't always transition smoothly.

However, in the balance, Rocket Girls turned out to be a very pleasant viewing experience. Its safe for most ages (12+), and may even inspire some young budding astronauts, to whom its clearly angled. It is also smart and savvy enough to easily entertain adult science fiction fans as well.

MORE Tech Levels Of Science Fiction Groups And Cultures

This is a follow up to the ORIGINAL ARTICLE put up on the main site two years or so ago, detailing where exactly on the Tech Level scale different scifi civilizations would fit. It was by far the most popular thing ever put on the site, garnering over 100K hits since.

Tech Levels are based on the idea that, looking back, human history can be divided into distinct eras of technological development (stone age, bronze age, iron age, middle ages, etc). The Tech Level scale assigns a number to each of these, and tries to predict which future technological era a new innovation might fall. On the OV scale, there are 10 Historical Tech Levels (stone age = 1, iron age = 2, etc) and 15 Future Tech Levels (10 years from now = 11, 25 years from now = 12, etc.) Tech Level 10 corresponds to modern day Earth. For more details, see the articles on Tech Levels HERE and HERE.

On the OV scale, we look at a future idea or invention, and based on what we already know and are capable in the early 21st century, how long it would take to create that innovation for real. Yes, there are a number of speculative technologies that are in all likelihood impossible (such as FTL travel) but for our purposes here, we ask that if it is possible, how advanced technology in general would have to be in order to invent it.

Different people and properties have very different ideas about the pace of technological progress. For example, in the Star Trek universe, Warp Drive is discovered in the next 50 years or so, at Tech Level 13. But at OV, we assume warping the fabric of space to that degree is much more difficult (if its possible at all, of course), and isn’t doable until at least Tech Level 21. Both views are legitimate; its only a matter of interpretation.

Some caveats to clear up some confusion that arose from the last article (all conditions from the previous article apply as well):

This is a subjective interpretation only and not meant to be authoritative. People can, and should, have their own opinions.

This is not meant to imply the quality of storytelling or production of one particular property over another. This only compares the tech curve created for each scifi property against the tech we have in reality.

I’m sure I’ve left out a bunch of scifi properties still, particularly scifi computer games. I simply haven’t seen/read/played everything yet, and others I may have just plum forgotten about. Apologies.

This is meant purely for FUN. Relax, nerd out a little, and don't be afraid to let us know your own thoughts and opinions.

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Fringe (Alternate Universe)

Tech Level: 12

The alternate universe accessible in the TV series Fringe seems to be 20 or so years ahead of its sister Earth in its mainstream technology, with more advanced electronics, biotechnology, and sophisticated airships. Interdimensional and other weird tech, given the nature of the show, will likely remain in the superscience prototype stage on both Earths.

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Planetes

Tech Level: 14

One of anime’s truly great science fiction stories, Planetes takes place in 2075, when the world’s powers have harnessed helium-3 fusion, colonized the Moon, and have built an extensive orbital infrastructure.

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WALL-E (WALL-E himself)

Tech Level: 14

A sophisticated and long-enduring AI robot system that evolved to sentience over the course of centuries.

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2300 AD

Tech Level: 15

Game Designers’ Workshop’s late, lamented space opera RPG had a very hard science, nuts-and-bolts approach, even more so than its big brother Traveller. (Will be reviewed on this blog soon.)

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Cowboy Bebop

Tech Level: 16

The creators of the anime classic Cowboy Bebop played fast and loose with technology in the series, freely mixing space opera tech (like warp gates) with earlier anachronisms (like 20th Century firearms). Still, a sprawling interplanetary civilization, terraformed worlds, advanced AI, and advanced genetic manipulation place it at about level 16.

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Battlestar Galactica (New and Classic Series)

Tech Level: 17

Large and sophisticated spacecraft, fusion power, very advanced AI and robotics, place both series, humans and cylons both, squarely into the lower space opera Tech Levels. The main differences in tech between the two series seems to be that the classic series relied on energy weapons and force fields more and had less sophisticated robots, while the new series had less sophisticated weapons and more advanced robots(pictured at top.)

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Revelation Space (Humans)

Tech Level: 17-18

The human civilization in this series by Alistair Reynolds seemed to have created a very sophisticated sublight civilization that had colonized a number of nearby star systems before running afoul of the Inhibitors, with the Conjoiner faction being one level ahead of the mainstream civilization. The Hell-Class Cache weapons described in the novels are considered one-time superscience prototypes, and aren’t used for classification here.

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Farscape

Tech Level: 18

Though it has interesting takes on a number of technologies, the societies of Farscape seem to fit fairly comfortably into the role of typical space opera civilizations, at level 18.

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Wall-E (Axiom)

Tech Level: 18

Ubiquitous force fields, sophisticated anti-gravity, extremely versatile and powerful AI robots, seems to indicate Earth reached an amazing level of sophistication before the Axiom and her passengers abandoned it.

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Type I Civilization

Tech Level: 18

In the classic scheme of characterizing advanced civilizations, a Type I civilization is capable of harnessing the energy potential of entire planets. Assuming that this includes taking advantage of every energy source available on a planetary scale, including tapping the planet's molten core, the tidal energy of its oceans, and the planet's magnetic field, this should fit fairly comfortable at Level 18 on the OV scale.

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Type II Civilization

Tech Level: 21

A Type II Civilization in the classic scheme of characterizing advanced cultures stipulates harnessing the energy output of entire stars. With the creation of advanced Dyson Spheres, this capability comes at Level 21.

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Transformers (Live-Action Movie)

Tech Level: 21

The living, quick-morphing, fast-healing AI robots of the film, along with the technology-altering Allspark energy source, would seem to require at least Tech Level 21 to construct. Interestingly, both factions of robots in the film seemed to have lost the very technological knowledge that was used to create them.

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Gateway (The Heechee)

Tech Level: 21

Able to easily manipulate mass and gravity, create ultra-tensile strength materials, and hide out within the event horizons of black holes place the Heechee at about level 21.

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The Culture

Tech Level: 22

Iain M. Banks’ far future utopian society is capable of building immense ringworlds (‘orbitals’), using sophisticated antimatter power and AIs, and routinely employs force fields, teleportation, and advanced nanotechnology.

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Revelation Space (The Inhibitors)

Tech level: 24

Immensely powerful and advanced femto-machines left over from an eons-old war, they are charged with destroying any civilization in the Galaxy that reaches a certain technological level.

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Type III Civilization

Tech Level: 25

A Type III Civilization is capable of harnessing the energy of an entire galaxy. How exactly this could be done is pure conjecture at best, and thus falls at the edge of what we can reasonably project even with the best guesses of speculative technology provided here.

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I'll no doubt do another update like this sometime in the future.

IKAROS Unfurls Its Solar Sail

The Japanese probe IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) has apparently successfully deployed its solar sail, the first of its kind to actually be used in space. For details, see the articles on MSNBC's Cosmic Blog and Popular Science's website. For details on the exact workings of the craft, go to the IKAROS Project Page on the JAXA website.

You have to give JAXA (The Japanese Space Agency) a lot of credit. A few short years ago they were definitely a second-stringer as far as space capabilities go. But they began building up many of their capabilities, with probes to the Moon and a nearby asteroid and an ISS cargo ship. And now they've done something no one else ever has--successfully deployed a solar sail, something that previously only existed in the realm of science fiction.

In an age when most space agencies are either cutting back (like the US) or just trying to reinvent the wheel in order to catch up to the front runners (like China), its inspiring to see somebody actually try to forge ahead into new territory. I've always been a bit dubious about the long term practicality of solar sails in space exploration, but I'd be glad to be proven wrong if it turns out to be the case. No matter what, solar sails are just damned neat.

It will be a few weeks yet until anyone will be able to tell if the solar sail is working properly (with a light sail, momentum builds up very, very slowly over time, so its changes in momentum will be very hard to detect at first.) But here's hoping for the best.

Also, for people in the US, pay close attention. This is the kind of cool stuff that can happen when a national space agency isn't constantly having to reinvent itself every time a new president is elected (a problem going back practically to Nixon's administration), and long-term projects are allowed to actually come to fruition.

In the meantime, however, go Japan!

Betelgeuse Will Kill Us All!!!!

There's some wild rumors going on around the internet that the red supergiant star Betelgeuse, some 640 light years away, may be getting ready to go supernova. (Or, to put it more accurately, the star may have already blown over half a millennium ago and the light from the event may be about to reach us.)

The claim is inspired by some wild speculation going around on some blogs, taking note of the fact that Betelgeuse has seemed to shrink about 15% since 1993, Also, the star might have taken on asymmetrical characteristics, ie, its no longer round to Earth observers; a massive plume may have blown off of its surface, or the contraction may be speedier in some areas than other, or one of its giant convection cells may have collapsed, or some such.

But its enough for some people to cry supernova, and for even more people who can't quite comprehend how immensely far away 640 light years is to start the doomsday talk. Now, granted, if Betelgeuse did blow, it wouldn't just be a once-in-a-lifetime event--it would be a once-in-human-history event. We would have one hell of a spectacular light show in the night sky for many months. The supernova would shine more brightly than a full moon for many weeks, and slowly fade into a small, but slowly expanding, visible nebula.

There's a lot we don't know. We really don't have too much insight into the details of how red supergiant stars work up close; for all we know the contraction may be part of a natural centuries-long cycle. Its a HUGE star, its circumference is greater than the orbit of Jupiter. But that means its outer photosphere is very cool and tenuous, and could be easily perturbed by forces within or without of the star. heck, for all we know, one of Betelgeuse's surviving outer planets may just be plowing through the outer edges of the star, causing the asymmetrical plume like a water wake.

Like most stars, Betelgeuse is very active, and we simply don't know what may be going on. Just because we it do something new doesn't mean a nova is imminent (or was imminent 640 years ago--aw, you know what I mean.)

But even so, we're so far away that the radiation pulse from the initial explosion won't harm anything, though it could conceivable cause some interference in satellite signals. A gamma ray burst could happen if it went supernova, but those happen along the axis of its rotational poles, and we're in the wrong position for those to touch us. And any physical shockwave would be long since dissipated in the hundreds of thousands of years it would take to get here.

No, I think on the very off-chance that Betelgeuse may detonate, the real danger to us would be new brand of crazy it would spark among many people whose sanity was already questionable. You know the type, the people who see any minor event in the world as a sign of the end times, or that the prophet is about to return, or some such. All they'd need is an actual 'sign' in the heavens to trigger all sorts of new delusions.

But anyway, don't give too much credit to the rumors that Betelgeuse may go supernova soon--unless it beats the odds and actually happens, of course. And certainly don't believe any doomsday predictions associated with it.

When Worlds Collide Unlimited

When Worlds Collide was always one of my favorite classic science fiction movies. For its time, it was surprisingly hard science. Even today, allowing for its more primitive special effects, one would be hard pressed to find a real gaffe in the science as known at the time it was made, or in the realism of the scenario presented. I won't lie either. When I first saw the film when I was 10, it scared the heck out of me. I basically spent the entire night after watching it lying awake and worrying if Earth was still going to be there in the morning.

In the movie, a dim star named Bellus is found to be on a collision course with Earth. With barely a year before impact and facing skepticism from all sides, a group of indusrtialists and scientists begin frantic construction of an experimental rocket ship that could carry at least some human survivors to Zyra, one of Bellus' planets that could possibly sustain life. Altruism and selfish survival tug back and forth at the crew building the rocket ark, as they all try to battle the most most implaccable foe of all--the inexorable countdown to doomsday.

There's a remake scheduled for 2012. We'll see how that goes when it comes out, but given the quality of most remakes lately, I don't hold out much hope for it.

Even so, I always wondered: what would happen if the world today were to face the same kind of scenario? This entry explores a bit of what I think might happen.

The modern world of 2010 has a number of advantages that 1951 Earth didn't. For example, our astronomical observation abilities are far more advanced, and there's a lot more eyes (both pro and amateur astronomers) turned toward deep space. A 'dim star' like Bellus would probably be detected a lot earlier. So for my little pretend scenario here, I give Earth at least 5 years to prepare for the impact, instead of the one in the movie, though the lead time might easily be much longer than that.

Also, Bellus would likely be what we today call a Brown Dwarf. It radiates heat (infrared radiation) but very little light, and would likely first be detected through an infrared telescope. So though dimly lit, it is possible for Zyra to be friendly to life, if its at the right distance from Bellus. It also makes it possible for the Bellus to escape detection earlier, especially if it was moving particular fast with regard to our own star system.

Second, space travel is no longer a fanciful notion as it was in 1951. With our current capabilities, we can't go very far or very fast, but we already have a great deal of experience with both constructing and launching spacecraft.

I don't think it would be a matter of IF we could get survivors to Zyra, but how many and by what method. And how many crazies would stand in the way.

With five years to prepare and enact a plan, how smoothly would that go? In the movie, there were a number of skeptics who kept the governments from doing anything substantial at first. In the modern world, that would happen as well. There would be a huge amount of resistance to doing anything at first--look at the prevalence of global warming deniers who took one bad winter as 'proof' that climate change wasn't real. Or all those who denied that the housing bubble would collapse until it crashed the global economy. Many people just seem to refuse to buy into any prediction of bad news, no matter the amount or quality of evidence presented to them. These would inevitably include some people in power, who would gum up the works as best they could.

But there would also be those who would fully believe from the start that Doomsday would be coming, and would kill anyone who would try to prevent it. Mostly these would be religious extremists and doomsday cults, such as the Hutaree that were in the news recently. They would see the coming collision as the Rapture and would actively fight anyone who would try to thwart what they would see as God's will.

However, I don't think either faction would win the day, and with evidence mounting, governments and corporations and most other major organizations with power will begin making preparations. Very likely, the major world powers would cooperate as much as practical, as coordinating efforts and resources would assure the greatest chance of any individual nation's efforts succeeding.

So what could we specifically do?

Deflection of Bellus is completely impossible without at least Star Trek-level technology. Its just too big and massive. Hitting it with all the world's nukes combined would be like trying to move an aircraft carrier by throwing a firecracker on its deck.

So like in the movie, the best bet would try to get as many survivors, along with equipment, food, medicine, crops, and animals, to Zyra as it passes.

One way of doing that I read about on some forums like Reddit: using a Nuclear Launch Cannon (NLC), the details of which can be found HERE. Under normal circumstances, the environmental and political controversy such cannons would create would likely prevent them from ever being used. However, with Doomsday quickly on the way, I think the major powers would agree that such things no longer mattered, and would begin using them as soon as they could be manufactured. And with thousands of nuclear weapons still readily available, they wouldn't lack for propulsion charges.

The NLCs could put many thousands of tons of habitats, ships, supplies, and equipment into orbit and Zyra-intersecting trajectories. So unlike the movie, there will be more than one or a handful of ships to make it to Zyra. The survivors will have plenty of tools and equipment to help them.

But even if NLCs aren't used for some reason, there's still a lot one could do with conventional rockets for hauling up cargo. Both the US and the USSR developed heavy-lifter rockets in the 1960s within a handful of years, and Russia still maintains theirs. Since its already a known and well-used technology today, it would probably take less than two years for most of the major industrial powers to re-gear themselves to produce heavy-lifters in quantity, if they were really motivated to do so.

Among the equipment provided would probably also dropships. Just getting the survivors into orbit and having them make the interplanetary crossing would be a tremendous feat, and having less mass to consume fuel would help greatly. So part of the plan may be to have the survivors dock with drophips in Zyra orbit, which will ferry them on their final leg of their journey.

Getting the people up there would be a more complicated matter. NLCs would kill any living thing launched from them; the G forces would just be too great. So it would depend on conventional rocket technology to get them into orbit and transfer them to Zyra.

Thing is, how many would that be? In the movie, the characters had to wait until the last possible moment before the collision to launch, to conserve as much fuel as possible. I really don't think anyone in a modern day scenario would risk that if they didn't have to. The unmanned cargo vessels could be launch early and take trajectories that may encompass months or years to get to Zyra as it approached. The manned vessels would be more problematic.

We already have one long-endurance space habitat available: the ISS. Take a year to kitbash it with better rad shielding and maneuvering thrusters. Put a full crew on board (maybe up to a dozen people total, if they don't mind being crammed in together for months) jam it full of supplies, and clamp an engine onto its main docking collar. with this heavy-duty rocket motor, let it slowly make its way out of orbit and into place so it can be picked up by Zyra's gravity well when the planet makes its closest approach. Then have it dock with one or more dropships so the crew can land on their new home. This could be done months ahead of the collision, and the crew could already be (relatively) safe on the ground when Earth meets its doom.

The surviving space shuttles could maybe be used similarly. Taken out of mothballs, they would be launched with heavy-duty habitats filling their cargo bays, so they too could maybe carry up to a dozen people each. These habitats would have large docking collars attached, and separate booster stages would be launched to connect up with them in orbit. Using these booster engines the shuttles could also slowly make their way into an intersecting orbit with Zyra as it passes by. They too would dock up with dropships (no runways on the new world for the shuttle itself to land) for the final journey to their new land.

Small space capsules such as the Soyuz probably wouldn't be used to make the transition on their own, at least not in quantity. However, they could used as the dropships that actually land on Zyra, as they're a proven, rugged technology that would fit the task well.

All of this is with existing space tech. Given the five year window a number of true 'space arks' will be built specifically to carry crews to Zyra, just as they were in the movie. These probably wouldn't use too much very innovative technologies or designs, as the builders wouldn't want to take any unnecessary risks with such precious cargo. We're basically talking big metal cans here, with just enough life support, supplies, and rad protection to last for the transition flight. How many people they could handle would depend on the design, but probably wouldn't be any bigger than an ISS module (or a train of them linked up in orbit) attached to a rocket motor. Let's say 10 people or so per can, maybe 30-50 per train.

And if the building countries are smart, it wouldn't just be living human beings they'd send. Frozen zygotes, or sperm and ova, would likely be sent as well, taken from a host of volunteers left behind on poor, doomed Earth. It would be hard to guess just how many actual survivors could make it to Zyra alive and healthy. Maybe a few hundred if everything went reasonably well, but given Murphy's Law and the extremes of what they may be trying to do, it might be considerably less. So the survivors would be facing a major long-range problem with a limited gene pool and the dangers of inbreeding. Banks containing hundred or thousands of frozen zygotes could help to mitigate that problem by giving the seed population on Zyra access to a much greater genetic diversity than they would otherwise have.

A final alternative to ensure that at least something of human heritage survives would be to take DNA samples from thousands of volunteers and launch them into space on small probes, hopefully into orbits that would take them far away from disaster and preserve their cargo for as long as possible. This would be in the hope that the survivors on Zyra would flourish and, in the fullness of centuries or millennia, find these DNA repositories and use them to resurrect a good portion of the human race, at least at a genetic level. For countries that do not have a lot of high-tech resources, this may be the only option open to them.

The last two options may be important to help mitigate panic on Earth as the disaster approaches, as many people could be assured that at least something of themselves would last beyond the celestial impact. But only somewhat. I think that life on Earth would continue pretty much as normal, more or less, until Bellus showed up visibly in the sky and Zyra passed close enough to make its gravitational effects felt. Once people have clear, unambiguous evidence of their inevitable doom, all hell would break loose all over the planet. While I do think many would do their best to hold things together and to help their neighbors regardless of how little time they had, I think many more would take the opportunity for revenge for any wrong they may have suffered in the past, real or imagined.

It wouldn't be limited to just individuals, either. Wars would break out in every hotspot on the globe. The Middle East, the Balkans, and the Korean Penninsula would become bloodbaths--possibly radioactive ones--overnight. Religious Doomer cults would swell to unprecedented numbers, and they would vent their fanatical fervor on anyone who opposed their doctrine. Many mobs, not knowing what else to do as panic and fear swells, would just lash at anything near them. Hundreds of cities around the globe would likely burn in the last weeks leading up to doomsday.

And all this panic would also threaten the space efforts to send survivors to Zyra, which would have to wait until the last few weeks for he most fuel-friendly trajectories. Just like in the movie, crazed with seizing on even the dimmest hope for survival, mobs would attack the launch facilities, trying to seize the rockets and get themselves or their families on board. But of course, even if they do win the day, that wouldn't work. The space capsule-arks would only have so much life support capacity, and be able to launch so much weight. Plus, most of the crew would have been trained in how to handle the spacecraft systems and conditions in space, whereas random mob guy and kids wouldn't. So we couldn't have a scene like in the recent movie 2012 where average joe survivor talks his way onto an ark; even if the authorities are sympathetic (which I'm sure many would be), things simply couldn't work that way. Even taking on one additional untrained person could jeopardize the whole thing.

But of course fanatical mobs wouldn't listen to reason, and would try to do their best to tear down or hijack what rockets they could anyway. Probably at least a quarter of the manned launches would probably fail just from this.

But the final days wouldn't be all bad for those left behind. Brown dwarfs like Bellus probably have fairly large and strong magnetic fields, and given its presumed speed, would give rise to amazingly spectacular aurora displays that would fill the sky as it approached Earth and the nearby Sun. The world may be doomed, but at least it would have an amazing light show toward the end.

Earth as it currently is wouldn't hit Bellus directly, either. Tidal forces would likely tear the planet apart as the star got close, and huge chunks of it would spiral in over the course of months and year as Bellus careened again out of the solar system. So what survivors there would be on Zyra could watch their old homeworld be devoured piecemeal over the course of their new lives on their strange new alien home.

I always wondered how I'd spend my last few days before such a doomsday, if it ever happened. Hopefully with some good wine and an even better woman, watching the planet-wide aurora light-show. Of course we'd have a gun or two nearby so we could end things quickly once things got really bad and the planet started ripping itself apart...

The Thousand Worlds of Humanity

The future of humanity in space lies in junk.

I've been asked before what I think humanity's ultimate future in space will look like. There are many possibilities, and truthfully, there's only so far into the future that one can make an educated guess. For those of you who frequent the main site, Orbital Vector does attempt to categorize many fantastic, far-future technologies. However, trying to "realistically" predict the nature of space travel and colonization beyond Tech Level 15 (technology circa 100 years from now), considered the highest of the 'hard' science fiction levels, is problematic. Tech Levels 16+ begins contemplating technologies based on science that is as yet still highly speculative, and can't really be included in any attempt at 'realistic' predictions. To be perfectly blunt, we don't know for sure if any technologies beyond Tech Level 15 are actually possible in the real world, so for this entry at least they'll be mostly left out.

So what can we get at Tech Level 15? Actually a great number of technologies that can make profound contributions to the way mankind can utilize the environment of space to benefit itself in scientific, economic, and cultural terms. The most important of these include:

--Advanced nuclear fission power and propulsion
--Fusion power and propulsion
--Antimatter propulsion
--Advanced, long-enduring space habitats
--Advanced computer systems, possibly true AI
--Alternative energy methods
--Widespread industrial production of carbon nanotubes and other advanced materials
--Zero gravity and nanotech manufacturing and fabrication
--Increased human longevity and advanced bioengineering
--Redirection and engineering of small celestial bodies

I think over the next century and beyond, humanity will continue its slow but steady expansion into space. I'm sorry, space fans, but the Apollo era seems to have been the exception, not the rule, to how the world community handles space. Big, frenzied pushes like it, if they ever come again, will likely be rare and short-lived. Rather, if you look at the past four decades since, you can see one by one more nations across the globe setting up their own space programs, more industries becoming involved as more profits from it are realized, and a much greater percentage of the population now believes at least part of our race's ultimate destiny lies beyond the constraints of Mother Earth.

We need to disavow ourselves of a notion that space is a race we need to hurry up and win. Rather, very practically, it is an expansion of our species into a brand new ecological niche, one far, far vaster than any we have encountered before. This is going to be the work of a great many generations, and what we're doing today is just one rung on a very long ladder.

THE most important technologies, despite what some may attest, are not so much those of space propulsion, but rather space habitats. Propulsion is an important field, but even if our wildest dreams about plasma and fusion rockets are realized, people are still going to have to spend long periods in space to get anywhere--months or years or even longer. Future space pioneers are going to need habitats that can readily protect them against vacuum, radiation, and impacts, as well as provide air, water, food, and other essentials for life.

This is where the 'junk' comes in. Asteroids and comets, the junk debris left over from formation of the sun and planets, exist by the billions around the solar system. They present a vast treasure trove of resources. And unlike the larger planets and moons, they can be made mobile.

Despite the ideal envisioned in many scifi sources, I think it actually would be more efficient to build centralized processing nodes (say at certain trojan points throughout the solar system, starting with the Earth-Moon Lagrange points) and move the asteroids to them, rather than send out mining ships hopping from asteroid to asteroid. This wouldn't be a quick process--moving any one asteroid would likely take a number of years--but things could be coordinated for the rocks to reach the processing node or a holding point in a steady stream over the decades.

Each processing node would be able to hold much heavier-duty equipment, more automatons, and more workers than ships sent out into the asteroid wilderness on their own. They would in turn make the mining and processing the space rocks that much faster and efficient.

But there is a point of diminishing returns, economically. After all the profitable materials are removed, what does one do with all the left over husks?

If they're the right shape (or can be molded into one,) size, and composition, you can turn them into the raw shells of space habitats. A number of other sources speculate how one could hollow or modify an asteroid or comet to accommodate a human colony, so we can gloss over that here and assume its doable.

Would there be customers for these shells? I think a great many. Most of this century will concentrate on man-made space stations. However, many will find these to be both expensive and self-limiting, as one still has to fabricate every single component and launch them. With an asteroid, much of the initial digging can be done at the processing node according to a buyer's needs, and the buyer could concentrate more on interiorneeds without having to worry over much about the outer shell. Any such colony would start small, say in one small area of the space rock with a few dozen individuals, and would continue to slowly expand over time as automatons and humans continue to dig and rework the floating mountain. Within a few decades, maybe less, one could have a large O'Neill-style colony that could hold many thousands.

At first, rich nations and more prestigious groups would invest in these new colonies, but over time, prices would lower so that smaller groups and individuals--especially individual families--could buy stakes in them, giving birth to a whole new era of homesteading on the high frontier.

Many of the asteroid colonies would be moved into or near Earth's orbit, in order to facilitate trade and travel between the mother world, the Moon, and all the other colonies as well.

And over centuries, more and more of these colonies would be established. They could end up numbering dozens, hundreds, or even thousands.

And even while asteroid colonies start up, similar exploration, exploitation, and eventual an manned presence would be established on the Moon, Mars, Ceres, and eventually Mercury, the moons of the gas giants, and perhaps even a modified Venus.

So this is how I envision the solar system about three hundred or so years from now, with hundreds of asteroid colonies at the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, at the Earth-Sun Lagrange points, and in their own independent solar orbits nearby. Smaller clusters would be found in orbit about Mars and its Lagrange points, and in the Asteroid Belt. Independent asteroid colonies would dot the solar system here and there, owned by more isolationist interests, with comet colonies eventually dominating the outer system. And a number of these colonies, along with clusters of raw comet bodies to provide consumables, would be flung even farther out, into the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud and beyond, to function as resupply bases or launching points for possible interstellar-bound probes, exploration vessels, and generations ships.

Some people have lamented that the Space Opera future so beloved of scifi fans will likely never come to pass; the universe simply isn't set up that way. In a way, they're right. FTL travel is in all probability impossible, and life-bearing worlds may be incredibly rare among the stars, even more so any with living civilizations similar to our own in development.

But the dream of hopping in a spaceship and visiting one of hundreds or thousands of strange exotic worlds is certainly a possibility. The diference is, instead of going out into the universe and discovring it, we'll build it right here in our home star system. The planets, the moons, the asteroid and comet colonies, will likely be founded by many diverse groups, who will themselves evolve culturally on their own as time goes by. Throw in advanced bioengineering and a willingness to vary the human form for various purposes, the Solar System may indeed by an exciting and amazing place to explore a few centuries hence.

A thousand exotic worlds built on the dreams of ourselves and our descendants lies in our possible future. Its just a matter of how much we want it.

Review: Avatar

I've finally seen Avatar, after getting it on DVD. Thought I'd do a quick review.

I've watched it twice so far and, surprisingly, it was actually better the second time around. I think that it was because I was able to take in a lot of the little details that passed me by the first time. The story IS cliched, as much a retread of a classic story arc as Star Wars was (the 'Stranger in a Strange Land' motif, ie, hero travels to far off land, befriends the natives, has adventures and becomes a great hero--see also Dances with Wolves, Lawrence of Arabia, Ferngully, etc, etc), but just like with Star Wars, the cliched plot path didn't prevent the story from transcending its expectations.

I did not see the movie on a movie screen in 3D, I saw it on a standard TV screen, so I was able to enjoy the story without being overwhelmed by the special effects. Not that I still couldn't appreciate them, but they weren't the main attraction for me in watching the story.

All that being said, Avatar is an important scifi milestone. Pandora easily is the most fully-realized alien world in on-screen science fiction. Kudos to Cameron and his crew for such amazing attention to detail in creating the alien biosphere of Pandora.

The technology of the Earthers was also created with an eye toward realism. The mecha looked less anime-streamlined and much more like what such a system would look like if made in the real world. I especially like the shots of the starship, complete with glowing-hot radiators on the twin nuclear engines and the translucent icy impact shield on its bow. Gave me goosebumps.

For those of you who frequent the Orbital Vector main site, you might be interested that I'd classify the Humans' technology in the movie at about Tech Level 15, maybe edging toward 16. Some anomalies, though--firearms should have been much more advanced, for example.

An interesting thing I was contemplating the second time through is that I don't think the Pandoran biosphere naturally evolved. There seems to be tantalizing hints (particularly the big floating mountains, the huge apparently invulnerable arches around the Tree of Souls, the presence of super-conducting Unobtanium, plus some other stuff) that the world may actually be built on the ruins of a much older more advanced civilization, maybe even post-Singularity. For whatever reason the inhabitants may have decided to abandon technology and bio-engineer a nature-centric utopia for themselves.

I did think Cameron was a bit too hard on humanity, but then its apparent he was trying to drive home certain points. Despite what some conservative critics may have said about the film, I don't see it as anti-American or anti-military, as some have said. Rather, like most films of its type, its meant as a cautionary tale, showing us the dangers of a what could happen if we let certain forces in our society run out of control. (Ie, no 'green' left on Earth, and humanity apparently run by out-of-control, amoral corporations.)

There are some exceptions, of course. Cameron apparently could not resist taking a few digs at past US administration, but they are few and fleeting.

I don't think every human soldier and worker on Pandora would have gone along with the destruction of Na'vi except for a few scientists and the Hot Aircraft Pilot. I think a lot more would have protested and tried to block Colonel Bad Guy and Corporate Douchebag. But I also realize the film could only get so complicated and long, so the creators had to simplify things a bit with this.

The Na'vi in a way also had to be streamlined in a certain way for the same reason. In order to work, the movie needed to portray the aliens as actual sympathetic characters. However, making them too inhuman, as realistic aliens would be, would take too much time and work that it would distract too much from the story, which was making for a long movie to begin with. Most other scifi films and TV series run into this problem. Because of limited time to tell stories, creators have to choose: should the aliens be human-like, and be characters the audience can relate to, or should they be realistically inhuman, and result in them being puzzling enigmas? Here, Cameron obviously chose the former path, and though it is kind of stretching believability that the Na'vi would look and act so human having evolved on a completely alien world, for the purpose of a two+ hour movie it works well enough.

As I said, the plot as a whole was pretty familiar. Since I myself kind of came up with something similar with part 1 of The Shattered Sky (see the sidebar for links), I can attest Cameron did NOT 'rip off' the story as some people say. Its just seems that when you have certain story elements, certain plots and characters follow naturally for drama's sake. But even if events were in the broad term predictable to anyone who's seen this type of story before, it was in the details that the story become very enjoyable, and at times even surprising.

All in all, it was well worth seeing, and definitely a science fiction movie milestone, mostly for its stunning world-building and satisfying if unsurprising story. Looking forward to the eventual sequel and seeing if I'm right about Pandora being a post-technological society.

Constellation Given A Reprieve

The Constellation program has apparently been given at least a partial reprieve by President Obama. See the full story HERE in an article from spaceref.com.

Good news indeed that the administration has decided not to let US manned space program languish entirely in the hands of private business. Not that I don't believe that a number of private firms will eventually be up to the task, but for the time being they're still a largely unproven commodity. It really is best that NASA and the US government keep pushing forward with manned space flight for the time being, and give private enterprise time to prove their worth before we shift anything major over to them.

((And sorry about lack of updates lately, life has a habit of getting in the way of such things. Hopefully soon I'll be able to contribute a lot more than I have.))

Its Coming Right For Us!

It turns out that a small red-orange star called Gliese 710, currently some 69 light years away, is on a collision course with the Solar System. But before anyone panics, it won't actually collide with the Sun or any major planets, and will in fact just clip the outer edge of the Sun's Oort Cloud. And all this won't happen for another 1.5 million years or so. Check out the the full article form NEW SCIENTIST.

The brushing of the Oort Cloud is actually pretty significant. For those who may not be up on such things, the Oort Cloud is an extremely disperse 'cloud' of cometary material left over from the formation of the Solar System. It extends roughly from the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt (where we find planet-sized iceballs such as Pluto, Sedna, and Eris) at some 50 AUs out to up to two light years away from the Sun.

Such a massive object passing so close to the cloud would disturb the orbits of a great many of the comets drifting out that way, inevitably send some veering toward the inner Solar System--and Earth. So its very possible that Gliese 710 could precipitate one or more extinction events during its cosmic flyby.

But an interesting possibility no one has mentioned yet is that even while Gliese 710 mucks up the Sun's Oort cloud, the Sun will also muck up Gliese 710's Oort Cloud in turn (assuming it has one, of course. From what we understand of star/solar system formation, it should have one, but we don't know for sure). In fact, chances are the Sun, being more massive and with a more powerful gravitational influence, would likely end up drawing off more comets from Gliese's Cloud than vice-versa.

This raises an interesting possibility. Other such near-misses must have happened in the past, and each time the Sun would have drawn off comets form other stars' Oort clouds. We tend to think of all the debris like asteroids and comets in our Solar System as left over junk from the formation of the sun and planets, but what if a significant percentage of it has actually been 'stolen' from other stars during near misses? It might give a boost to panspermia theories, which theorize that life on Earth originated from space and was seeded by ancient comet impacts.

Of course we can't know for sure until there's an extensive survey of the chemical composition of various comets, and that's at least decades away. But its something to think about.

Comet Ghosts Haunting Earth Orbit

A new type of asteroid, or at least a type that's been poorly studied before because of their difficulty to spot-- has been detected in orbits that cross Earth's own. Go HERE for the full article from New Scientist.

Basically, the scientists are guessing that these may to be the remnant cores of dead comets, having long since used up all the ice and other volatiles that made up their visible tails. They reflect less than 5%-10% of the light that strikes them. However, because they absorb so much more, they are able to be spotted much more easily in the infrared spectrum, such as in the photo above (image courtesy of NASA, btw.)

I think its a very cool discovery, considering they're like comet 'ghosts' haunting the space near Earth. As long as none of them hit us, of course.

600 Million Tons Of Lunar Ice

Recent data analysis from India's Chandrayaan-1 probe has confirmed the presence of water ice in craters near the Moon's poles. The full article can be found HERE on NASA's main website.

If their estimation techniques are correct, the scientists estimate there being at least 600 million metric tons of water ice in the lunar polar region. That is of course spectacularly good news for future bases, and further into the future, colonies, on Earth's natural satellite. That much ice, combined with careful recycling and management, could both provides water, oxygen, and rocket fuel for manned endeavors there for many decades.

And of course, ironically, this comes on the heels of the Obama administration killing off any prospect for returning to the Moon in the short term. We can now see much more clearly how feasible a long-term manned presence on the Moon can be, only to have the prospect of establishing such an outpost pushed out of our reach to at least until the mid-2020s. Its not that the other projects the new administration want to pursue aren't worth doing, but actually opening up a brand new world to humanity would seem to be the better choice of a long range goal, in my opinion.

Oh well. One thing I should suggest to NASA (not that i think anyone there will actually read this): as long as you're underwriting various private space endeavors and X-prize like contests, how about underwriting a sample-return mission for the lunar ice? We can learn definitively what's in it and probably how it was formed. plus the mission may just help to scout out a possible future manned landing site...

Review: The Dragon's Nine Sons by Chris Roberson

I've decided to start doing book reviews on here, at least those that I think the readers of OV might be interested in. These reviews won't necessarily be timely; I mostly just read books that catch my fancy, rather than going for whatever happens to be the latest release on the shelves.

I'd like to start of with a novel with one of the most original science fiction premises I've seen in quite some time: The Dragon's Nine Sons by Chris Roberson.

The story is a fairly rare breed of novel: alternate history projected into the future. In a world where the European nations never rose to global dominance, Earth is divided between two powers: Imperial China and the Aztec-populated Mexic Dominion. Now, in what another reality would be the year 2052, these two bitter rivals are fighting a war for global dominance that spills out into interplanetary space. Of particular contention is the newly-colonized red planet Fire Star, aka Mars.

The novel’s back story is, as with most alternate history tales, an odd mixture of fascinating details and jarring juxtapositions. Roberson has obviously done very extensive research into his subject matter, and has built up his alternate timeline through a number of previously published stories.

Decades before Christopher Columbus, Imperial China sends ‘treasure fleets’ around the known world, reaching India, the Middle East, and eventually Europe. This results in the establishment of the trade routes the Portuguese and Spanish would have otherwise created a century later. The main difference here is that the vast wealth created by these new global markets flows east instead of west, assuring China’s new prominence in world affairs. Later Treasure fleets even reach the Pacific coast of the Western Continent, called Vinland here, and set up a Khalifate in honor of the expedition’s Muslim captain.

The Chinese also take Leonardo Da Vinci’s advanced designs seriously, allowing them to develop some technologies much earlier than in our timeline, such as flying machines. Combined with their burgeoning trade empire, these new devices soon allow them to dominate the globe.

Oddly, a version of the USA does arise in this world, called the Commonwealth of Vinland, complete with the original 13 english colonies, a revolution in 1776, and the later annexation of Texas. But it, like most of the rest of the globe, is eventually conquered by the imperial Dragon Throne in the late nineteenth century.

To the casual reader, the Empire at first does not sound like an overly pleasant place to live. It is still primarily a feudal monarchy, with many strictures on freedom and behavior we would be find uncomfortable at best, oppressive at worst. A towering bureaucracy dominates most facets of life, especially in the armed forces.

In many ways the Empire is also a romanticized version of old Imperial China, albeit with spaceships and nuclear reactors. The author, through the characters of the novel, shows that its a place where honor and tradition still holds great sway, and many of its citizens are proud of their nation’s glorious imperial past. The children of the Dragon Throne can still give birth to heroism and idealism, even if those heroic values and ideals don’t necessarily reflect the ones we’re used to.

Whatever the Celestial Empire’s failings, however, the novel quickly makes clear that it is a cuddly wuddly panda compared to the Mexic Dominion.

The Dominion is peopled by the descendants of the Aztecs, who in this timeline were never conquered by the Spanish. Because of their position on the globe, they were also among the last powers to come under the scrutiny of the Chinese, allowing them plenty of time to develop near-equal technology and resources of their own.

The problem is that the war-like Mexica still cling very tenaciously to Aztec religion, which makes frequent human sacrifice a central tenet. It has become so incorporated into their culture, in fact, that spaceships and orbital stations cannot even operate unless a live human sacrifice is performed regularly on altars on the bridge, which are equipped with sophisticated hemoglobin sensors to make sure the victims bleed enough to please the gods. Many die in this manner in the Mexic Dominion everyday, and the Dominion’s preferred source of sacrifices are, unsurprisingly, the citizens of its Imperial rival.

In the early twentieth century, the two powers fought a vicious fifteen year long World War that resulted in a victory for the Chinese and well over a hundred years of simmering hatred and resentment for the Dominion. Now, with the colonization and terraformation of Fire Star well underway, a new war has broken out, with space as its main battlefield.

It is in this world that we find our main characters, misfits and scoundrels and criminals all, being recruited and trained for a suicidal mission to destroy a Mexic asteroid base. If they succeed in their mission, they will be pardoned for their crimes. If not, well, no one will miss them anyway.

The novel’s main story derives very obviously from similar great action tales on film such as The Dirty Dozen, The Guns Of Navarone, and even The Magnificent Seven. In lesser hands this might have been a detriment, but the plot is handled deftly, and could even be considered a decent tribute to those movies. But even so, it follows a familiar formula; a small group of misfits and ne’er-do-wells take on an impossible-seeming mission with all odds against them. They all know death likely awaits them, but perhaps a lucky few can find redemption as well.

In fact, the story’s resemblance to those films is so strong that I had a hard time not picturing Yao, the main focus of much of the story, as a Yul Brynner type. Yao is a Bannerman (the Imperial equivalent of a Marine), a commander who asked too many question about why his superiors apparently allowed the Mexica to slaughter thousands of Fire Star colonists while his unit stood helplessly by, under orders not to interfere. He was sentenced to be executed for his insubordination, but was given a reprieve to ride herd on the other misfits assigned to the mission.

Joining him in command is Captain Zhuan, who was disciplined for cowardice for failing follow a suicidal order that would have destroyed his ship and his crew. But his actual reasons were far from noble; he simply was afraid to die. Now, facing a similar choice on this new mission, he wonders if he can find the courage to follow through and regain some semblance of honor.

The rest of the characters fall into various war movie cliches. There’s the immensely strong but dimwitted ‘man mountain,’ the cocky gunfighter, the shifty sneak thief, the practical joker, the lazy slacker, and the pugnacious hothead, all apparently right from the Celestial Empire’s version of Hollywood central casting. Some of them come across as entertaining; others seem a clunky fit for the story. The one breath of fresh air here was Syuxtun, a Muslim whose deep moral convictions had forced him to commit a surprising act of sabotage against his superiors.

Even the more awkward stock characters in and of themselves might not have been such a bad thing if they had not ended up revealing their back stories in such annoying ways. Too many times, the author depends on long, unbroken monologues to tell their stories, often at very in appropriate times dramatically. At one point the ship they’ve stolen from the Mexic is about to have its nuclear core melt-down and one of the crew may have to bleed on the altar to save everybody; so, of course, it’s a perfect time for a five-page segue as a minor character yabbers on about his life story.

Their mission is also complicated by the fact that once they reach the Mexic asteroid base, they find dozens of Imperial citizens held captive, waiting to be sacrificed. Their mission of sabotage suddenly becomes an even more impossible rescue mission, as they try to accomplish one last decent act among all their misdeeds.

Can these nine expendable criminals become the saviors for dozens of trapped innocents? Can they destroy the asteroid base as planned and stop the Dominion attacks on Fire Star? At what cost?

If you’ve seen any of the aforementioned material which was the obvious inspiration for The Dragon’s Nine Sons, you already have a good idea on how things will generally turn out. But novels like these are like amusement park rides; just because you know how its going to end doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the twists and turns along the way. The author’s shortcomings with character exposition are minor compared to how he handles both the action and the often very fascinating details of his alternate world. All in all, an admirable effort and a good read for fans of science fiction and alternate history alike.