Check Your Facts

Several years ago, I got an idea for a science fiction short story. It involved the young captain of a ‘worn-out’ asteroid mining ship who found herself pregnant. Such a thing is hardly novel on Earth, but I had the idea stuck in my head - with no idea where I had gotten it - that it wasn’t possible to get pregnant in space. The entire crew is left wondering, “How did that happen?”

Not terribly original, I suppose, but I hoped I was treating the story ‘differently’ from everybody else who had ever written a ‘mystery pregnancy’ story.

So I took the story to my writing group, where everybody told me that of course, she got pregnant; nobody was using birth control, and there’s no reason why people can’t get pregnant in space.

Bummer. That was one of the things that convinced me that my science knowledge was out of date, where-upon I subscribed to and started reading various science magazines, trying to do some catch-up. Until a week ago, I had tried to shove that space pregnancy story out my mind, figuring it had taught me a lesson; Check your ‘facts’.

I was wrong. But not in the way I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I came to an article in the May/June 2019 issue of Discover about how scientists are studying the problem of human reproduction in places that are not on Earth. The problem being that it doesn’t seem possible. Which would make colonies hard to sustain.

As I remember it, they started with lizards and amphibians, which they took to the space station for a period of time. Those didn’t seem bothered by the lack of gravity, or the increased radiation, but some of their off-spring weren’t right.

Then they tried the same experiment with mice, who are mammals, and - biologically - quite a bit like humans. (That’s a lovely thought, isn’t it?) Strangely, the mice must have been freaked out by the no-g or the radiation, or something, but they were not nearly as interested in sex as mice usually are. And even when they did indulge in sex, they didn’t have any offspring.

Apparently, there is a piece of the female mouse’s sexual organs that rapidly decreases and then completely disappears while the mouse is in space. If the same thing happens to human females, then Earth would be the only place where we can make more humans.

Now, that’s a Bummer. But... I was right! (To a degree.) If technology provides a method of humans to begat humans, but only in places that more or less replicate conditions on Earth, then the first human baby conceived without those conditions would indeed be a shock. Not only for the parents, but for the entire race. And that’s the kind of shock I was trying to portray.

So, yes, you should check your facts that you are putting in your stories. And even if everybody in your writer’s group says your fact is wrong, maybe you should check their facts, too.

Martian Shelters Summation

Okay, so that was pretty much all I found for ideas about Martian shelters: tents of various shapes made of multiple layers of flexible plastic and insulation (probably foam), either buried in the sand or not; tunnels and rooms dug deep underground by robots; and a top-side shelter shaped like half a bagel with a layer of ice between the sheets of plastic.

I did see some reference to making a spun glass (fiber glass) insulation from sorting the Martian sand and melting a particular type of that sand. I’m not sure that would be available for the very first shelters, but maybe it would be a useful building material later on.

For that matter, rocks have been used to build human home for centuries, perhaps millennia. Sand could be combined with other materials to make a type of cement or even mortar. That assumes the colonists can find a supply of calcium silicate nearby, or some other binder to use. If not, they could use polymers, but that would need to be shipped to them from Earth, or they would have to make it on Mars, and I have no idea how complicated a process that might be.

One other idea, briefly mentioned, was to dig holes into a large boulder to create a small shelter, perhaps a type of emergency shelter. I kept thinking about today’s ‘tiny homes’ and thinking a sufficiently large boulder might make a nice small home for someone who really liked his/her privacy.

So, if you are going to be one of those first colonists sent to Mars, don’t expect a mansion. Of course, if you were expecting a mansion, you probably wouldn’t be one of those chosen to colonize Mars. Or anyplace else.

http://www.imagineeringezine.com/e-zine/mars-makeshelter.html

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/a-new-home-on-mars-nasa-langley-s-icy-concept-for-living-on-the-red-planet

https://phys.org/news/2016-12-nasa-ice-house-mars.html

Martian Shelter 5

I was beginning to think we had run out of ideas, but it turns out I was wrong. So, how about an ‘ice home’? They’ve been used in the Arctic Circle for centuries, haven’t they? But, the ones proposed for Mars are a bit more complicated than igloos. They are, once again, inflatable, but... in the shape of a doughnut. The body of the doughnut would be where people would live and work.

The ‘skin’ of the doughnut would be a double-wall, flexible, of course. The interior wall would hold in the air and provide the space for people to occupy. The space between the 2 flexible skins would be filled with water and allowed to freeze. That outer wall and the ice under it would keep the radiation out, and protect the inner sections from any nasty weather Mars can produce.

Despite recent findings of water of Mars, it is not nearly as omnipresent as it is on Earth, so where does that water come from? No, it won’t be shipped from Earth. What they would ship from Earth is robots with the equipment to find, mine, and transport the water to the shelter area so it could be melted, pumped inside the walls and allowed to re-freeze.

Presumably, this store of water could serve a second purpose; that of being turned into fuel when it was time to leave. To me, this seems counter-productive. It assumes the people will be leaving, abandoning their colony to return to Earth. Even if they were ‘only’ there for a shift of a couple years, wouldn’t more people be expected to arrive to take over, like is done with the space station? On the other hand, keeping options open can be a very good idea.

Of course, with proper timing, those robots could be sent out to mine more water to replace what’s been turned into rocket fuel. You’d just need to make sure the equipment doesn’t get clogged with sand in the meantime.

The biggest drawback I see to this design is that it could take 400 days to fill and freeze the shell. So those robots had better know what they are doing in order to get it ready before humans start arriving.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/a-new-home-on-mars-nasa-langley-s-icy-concept-for-living-on-the-red-planet

Martian Shelter 3

Today, let’s take a look at the 3rd design for a Martian home:

3. A greenhouse-type structure constructed of multiple layers of plastic film, built in such a way that visible light could get in, but infrared light (heat) could not get back out. That type of glass is sometimes used in Earth greenhouses, and could plastic be any more difficult?

Seems a bit unusual, to think of living in a greenhouse. Houseplants are one thing, but to actually live in your garden? I suppose one could get used to it, as long as you don’t grow something that sets off your hay fever. And to avoid the ‘fishbowl’ feeling, you could erect walls in some of the more private areas, even if those ‘walls’ were only curtains.

Have they really thought this through? There’s still all that harsh radiation that doesn’t seem to be considered, and will multiple layers of flimsy plastic keep enough heat in during the Martian night? The dust on Mars gets blown around quite a bit, despite the thin air, and settles onto everything. The rovers using solar panels have to hunker down and conserve their energy whenever a dust storm comes along, some of which encompass the entire planet and last for weeks. If solar panels can’t get enough power to work, how will plants do in constant shadow?

Not too thrilled about this one, either. That under-ground balloon is looking better.

Like I said, no split-level ranches, no colonials or tudors. At least the concept of a greenhouse is familiar, so maybe we’ll find something we can wrap our heads around yet. You never know, the next one might be exactly what you want!

http://www.imagineeringezine.com/e-zine/mars-makeshelter.html

Martian Shelter 2

Okay, last time, we looked at the balloon-type house/shelter. It sounded like a lot of work to get it set up, supported, tied down and covered in sand. Not to mention the care that would be needed to see that it didn’t get any holes poked in it. Would it come with a set of ‘instant bandages’ you could use to patch any accidental holes? Personally, I think I’d make that a condition before I agreed to buy, but maybe that’s just me.

Today, we’re going to look at a slightly different possibility, one that apparently does not require shoveling sand around:

2. An above-ground shelter made from multiple layers of plastic film with low density foam between them. The thinking is that the Martian atmosphere is so thin, it would not ‘suck’ heat from the shelter walls. I’m left wondering about the radiation that was considered omni-present and probably deadly in years gone by. And... really? It’s cold, but it’s a thin cold, so that doesn’t count? Right, and 120° in the desert is hot, but it’s dry, so that’s okay.

Can you show me the Heat/AC power consumption on that type of shelter?

We recently visited the Kennedy Space Center, where the display for Atlantis (shuttle) explained that excess heat was disposed of by running tubes of heated liquid into the shuttle bay doors, which were opened to let that heat disperse. There’s a lot less ‘atmosphere’ in space than on Mars, but heat only gets sucked away when you want it to be, and doesn’t get sucked away when you want to keep it? You have to work at it, either way, and I’m just not convinced flimsy plastic and foam is enough insulation.

Also, I have to assume there is some sort of support system for this ‘tent’. Who gets to put that up? And tie the walls down? Once again, it’s going to need air locks, so will those be pre-fabbed and attached to the ‘walls’ before lift-off? But, since there isn’t any mention of burying it in the sand, would there be sections of the plastic film that would be transparent so the new Martians can look outside and see what the weather is like? Of course, the low density foam in those areas would need to be transparent, also, but I’m doubting that foam could avoid distorting the view.

Well, this is a little mind-boggling, isn’t it? You wanted a cottage to raise a family in, maybe with a picket fence, and all we’ve looked at so far indicates your actual choices are either a balloon buried in sand or a tent that may or may not retain any heat when the wind blows. Buck up, we’ve just begun to look at the possibilities. We’ll find something that’s just right for you.

http://www.imagineeringezine.com/e-zine/mars-makeshelter.html

Martian Shelter 1

People are finally giving serious thought to the possibility of living someplace off the Earth. Thought we’d take a look at what those new house designs might look like. Seeing what might be available, once we get to go. We’ll start with Mars, since everybody’s so excited about the possibility of getting there in the next decade or so.

The first shelters will be shipped to Mars from Earth. Maybe they’ll be shipped ahead of time and need to be activated when humans arrive, but probably, the shelter will arrive with them. After all, it worked on the moon, though the shelter in that case was a piece of space ship. It served the purpose for the short time that anybody was there. They even brought part of it back with them. Kind of like living in your car, do you suppose?

So here’s some of the ideas that are floating around for housing on Mars:

1. One suggestion for an early shelter is an inflated balloon-type structure. Think of some kind of thick, air-tight fabric that could be unfolded and laid out in the desired position, hooked up to a supply of air, and blown up. The fabric could be augmented with support structures, and finally, the entire thing could be covered with sand for extra insulation, both from thermal variance and radiation. The average Martian temperature is -80° F, plus the air is mighty thin, so you have to have plenty of insulation. You’d probably have to tie this puppy down before you started inflating it, or risk it floating away in the breeze, but I’m sure the instructions would point that out.

After reading about this proposal, I’m left wondering how the door would be added. It would have to be an air lock, or else opening the door really would mean you’d let all the heat out! I keep thinking an airlock would be made of metal, but perhaps they could fashion them out of plastic or something similar, and they could be added to the ‘balloon’ before it left Earth. Would they only put one door in this balloon, or would they add a back door, too? And who is going to shovel all that sand on top and around? Would they dig a hole in the ground to hold the balloon? Sounds like a lot of hard work, if the ground is frozen or otherwise solid. What’s the circumference of this balloon? Will they have to walk (or drive) all over it to get the sand distributed?

I suppose it has possibilities, but it really sounds an awful lot like a fixer-upper.

Well, phooey. We’ve only looked at one possibility, and I’m out of words. Can’t make these things too long, or so they tell me. We’ll have to continue this search for a new home next week, because there are definitely other possibilities. But don’t get your hopes up; I didn’t see a single split-level ranch on the list.

http://www.imagineeringezine.com/e-zine/mars-makeshelter.html

Weird Planets 11

Good Morning! Today we'll be visiting some of the Gliese discoveries, and then... well, we'll see if we have the time to visit anything else.

Our first visit is to Gliese 436b, which orbits that faint red dwarf you can probably see in the distance. Gliese 436b is about the size of Neptune, but has a small rocky core, surrounded by ice that makes up the majority of its size. And then 436b has a huge hydrogen cloud surrounding it, a cloud that is approximately 50 times the size of 436b proper. Like a comet, 436b exudes a 'tail' of this hydrogen as it orbits its sun. And finally, despite its icy exterior, this planet has an average temperature around 439 ⁰ C. Some people call this the 'burning ice planet'.

Here is Gliese 581c, which made headlines when its discovery was announced in 2007. This is a super-Earth, with a mass 5 times that of our own. So if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, here you would weigh 500 pounds. Even so, this was one of the first to be announced as a potentially hospitable planet. However, further study revealed that it was 'tidally locked', meaning that one side always faces its parent star. That side would be blistering hot, and the opposite side unbelievably cold. The only possible location that might offer acceptable temperatures would be the 'twilight zone' between day and night, which I'm thinking would possibly experience a lot of wind. So, a fairly thin band of livable area with a lot of wind, and you weigh 5 times what you should. Surely we could find a better place to colonize?

Gliese 581e is in the same system. 581E used to hold the title as the smallest alien planet, but in January 2011, the announcement of Kepler 10b meant 581e lost that title.

Okay, we do have time for a couple more, so let's look at the WASP planets!

WASP 17b is the first planet discovered that orbits in the opposite direction as its host star's rotation. It also currently has the title of 'Most Puffy'. This is because it is the 2^nd largest planet currently known, but its mass is half of Jupiter's. Sounds like a big ball of gas, right?

That brings us to our final system for the day, WASP 47. This is a compact multi-planet system, the only one known to hold a 'hot Jupiter' with close companions.

Now, sit back and relax. We'll be back at the station in a jiffy.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/20-intriguing-exoplanets

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Weird Planets 5

Now we begin exploring the exo-planets that only appeared on 2 of the 4 lists. Does it seem like this series will never end? Cheer up; the process will get faster. The fewer lists that contained a particular planet, the less information I have to pass on to you. I’d like to get through several planets today, so let’s get started.

Earth Jr is only 20 light years away. It’s official name is Gliese 581d. Actually, there may be 2 planets around the same star, but only 581d is mentioned on both lists. 581g was a ‘shiny thing’ that briefly appeared in the same paragraph on the first list.

Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star located in the Libra constellation, and 581d sits on the outer edge of the Goldilocks zone, so it would be possible for water there to be liquid. In addition, the atmosphere produces a significant greenhouse effect, making it even more hospitable for life (more or less) as we know it. It is, however, 8 times the mass of Earth, so do you think any creatures living there would be Big and Strong? Or Short and Strong? I can’t decide, myself, and I assume it would depend - at least in part - on the biochemistry of the creatures.

If it exists, Gliese 581g sits in the middle of that same habitable zone. Some research says it does exist, other research says it doesn’t. This is only 20 light years away, so let’s go find out, shall we?

WASP-18b is 325 light years away. But since we don’t yet have light-speed travel, we aren’t likely to get there before it dies. Some scientists think it should have already died, before we ever got a glimpse of it. WASP-18b races around its sun in less than 24 hours, but its orbit is apparently degrading, so it’s getting closer and closer to its sun, and in 1 million years (or less?), it will plunge into that star.

WASP-12b is 870 light-years from us. I don’t think we’ll want to settle there, for it is rather warm - 4000°F or 2250°C. It sits only 2 million miles from its sun (Earth is 93 million miles from our sun), and takes just over 1 Earth day to make a complete orbit of that star. It’s also a gaseous planet, with 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter and about twice Jupiter’s size. Obviously, it’s less dense than Jupiter, right? So, even less chance that in all that gas there would be anyplace solid to build a new home. And can you imagine the air conditioning bill?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/g1265/space-oddities-8-of-the-strangest-exoplanets/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/643662/The-10-weirdest-planets-to-have-been-discovered-so-far

www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

Swords - Fantasy or Fact?

A Guest Entry by Ta’Yant bilora vi Grrrck (of Floya 4 - There are other Ta’Yant bilora vi Grrrcks, but they aren’t from Floya 4!)

A common occurrence in the genre ‘high fantasy’ or ‘epic fantasy’ is the use of swords, some of which had or are said to have had magical powers. Since many of these stories appear to be set on Old Earth and include other items that also appear in ancient Earth myths and legends - such as elves, dwarves, dragons, magic and the like, I decided to search the ancient texts from the Home Planet to determine how much of the legend of ‘swords’ might be purely imaginary.

First, let me say that it is very difficult to discern whether a particular text is truly factual. So many texts either gave no references or referred to texts that are no longer part of what records we still have, so cannot be verified. Since the chances of finding additional texts seems impossible, with Earth (and indeed, that entire system) in their current inhospitable state, I can only present what I found as a series of supposed truths, with the understanding that it might be completely contaminated with ‘facts’ that are nothing more than ‘beliefs’ of the time.

One source text came to be a wealth of knowledge to me, or would have, if the links to its sources had been intact, or if I had been able to verify anything it said from some other source. Even the title of this reference text was incomplete, consisting of “...ikipedia.org/wiki/Spath...”. Ancient historians (meaning those who study ancient history, who or may or may not be ancient in their own right) believe this title places it in the ‘wikipedia’ reference source of the 22nd century, which is either famous for being so large and all-inclusive, or infamous for having no basis in fact, depending on which historian is speaking. This article stated that a spatha was a long, straight sword, originally used by the ‘germanic’ people against the ‘romans’, who started with swords that were shorter. The ‘romans’, however, adopted the longer version so that they could stab opponents from a longer distance.

So, if this information is correct, swords were real, and came in different lengths. In my efforts to double-check everything, I could not find ‘germanic’ or ‘romans’ on any maps within the available wikipedia texts. I did find a map (circa 2100) that showed an area called Germany, and somewhat south of that, a city called Rome. If these are the areas of the peoples referenced, further study of even more texts indicate that Germany was a source of many huge wars involving the entire planet, and that the highly religious Rome people were led by a Grand Priest, alternately referred to as ‘The Pope’ and ‘Ceasar’. I personally have trouble with the thought of a ‘deeply religious’ people who carried and used weapons, but I am not versed in all types of religion. Perhaps their religion called on them to dominate others. In that case, I can not be surprised that they eventually came to blows with the war-faring germanics.

I ran across 2 ‘news articles’ from 2015 and 2016. As ‘news stories’, they had no links to any reference materials, but I include them here because I found them so interesting. In 2015, a ‘hiker’(?) found an ‘ancient viking’ sword on the side of the road in Norway, and a specialist from a local museum (?) stated the sword was from 750 AD, approximately 1200 years before it was found. (I can’t make any sense of their calendar! I thought these dates were in the same calendar era, but 750 plus 1200 equals 1950, not 2015!) The specialist went on to say that if given a new handle, the sword could be used ‘today’ (meaning 2015). 

In 2016, a local ‘couple’ found an ‘amazingly preserved’ sword in a ‘field’ near their home in Denmark. This sword, a museum representative stated, was 3,000 years old. Apparently, swords were in use for more than 3000 years, since one of these was that old, and the other only needed some minor repairs before it could be used again! And yes, Norway and Denmark were both on that map, Norway north of Denmark, with a strip of water between them. But research indicated that Norway was colonized by Denmark, so why would they be at war with each other?

My head is spinning, just trying to keep all these ‘facts’ straight and get them presented in a logical sequence. And I’ve just barely begun telling you all that I found in those old replicas! My time for this entry is up, but as soon as I can pick up two thoughts and put them together, I’ll see about writing another entry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatha

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3284415/1-200-year-old-Viking-sword-lying-road-Norway-s-good-condition-used-today.html

archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2016/09/3000-year-old-sword-found-in-denmark.html#fykqDcC4bOGEvIbd.97

Shake & Rattle

Your dream has come true, and you are now living on the moon! You start your new job in the morning, so you should get some sleep, but you doubt if you can. After all, you're on the moon! Your suitcases aren't even unpacked yet.

Not that you've been sight-seeing since your arrival, although you have craned your neck to look around as you were hustled from one safety meeting to a technology overview to another safety meeting to... What was with all the safety meetings?

You were thoroughly trained before you left Earth, but these people treated you like a child, repeating the same mantra over and over: "If things start shaking, get into a spacesuit or a rescue pod - whichever you find first - and stay there until you are personally told you can get out."

Shaking? That tiny hint of vibration you felt travel up your legs during the last safety class? That was when the grizzled instructor lunged for a locker and tossed a spacesuit your way as he simultaneously shoved himself into another. He was locked inside his before you could stop gawking and start putting on the oversized thing. You were supposed to worry about that?

He stared at you, didn't even offer to help. Confused and embarrassed, you had just started inserting your second leg when a buzzer went off in 3 short bursts. You could hear it coming through the suit radio as well as the base intercom. You stopped to listen to the voice that followed. "Okay, this appears to be just the normal monthly deep quake, people. It should fade away eventually. But as always, be alert and ready in case it gets worse."

Sound like fun, living on the moon? There's no weather, so you don't have to worry about hurricanes, tornadoes or lightning strikes. There's no tectonic plates, so there wouldn't be any- Wrong! While it is true the moon doesn't have any tectonic plates, it does have quakes.

Scientists are still trying to figure out what causes the 4 types of quakes that happen on the moon. They have figured out 2 causes; the strike of a meteor sets off a quake, and the first thaw after a region has been frozen hard for 2 weeks is another cause.

The quake I spoke of in my little daydream was a 'deep moonquake'. They occur about every 27 days, and are apparently located 700km below the moon's surface. Scientists thought they were caused by the same gravity force that produces Earth's tides, but the computer models are not completely bearing that out. Deep moonquakes might reach a magnitude of 2, which few people feel.

But the ones that a lunar colony would have to watch out for are the shallow moonquakes. 'Shallow' may not sound like much, but the shallow moonquakes have reached a magnitude of 5.5, which can topple heavy furniture and crack walls, here on Earth, in the less than 2 minutes that it rumbles. A lunar colony would have to be built to withstand that kind of torture, because if a wall cracks, it could lose all its air in short order. And you couldn't just stand there and think, "It will all be over in a minute" because on the moon, a quake could last for hours! I think I'd be jumping for the nearest spacesuit or rescue pod for the duration.

And here I was thinking of building a colony under the moon's surface! For a story, of course.

Complicated

I have this game I’ve been playing when my brain is fried and I need a break. I thought it was a ‘time management’ game; others have called it a ‘sim’ game. Whatever. It amuses me.

In this game, I am an outsider, washed up on some island. It is my job (apparently) to organize the natives to build houses, grow food, and such things. When I get a village on that island to a certain size, I take a few of the natives on a raft to another island, to start a village there. Communication and trade between the villages flourishes, and there always seems to be some new quest for me to take on.

All the natives are men, and they all look exactly alike. I add to a village’s population by having a hut or house built, and when it is done, another native comes running in to live in it. When I have them build a house that will hold 2 people, they are 2 men. Are there no women on these islands?

Yes, there are, at least on the original island, but let me talk about them later.

After I’d had a few huts built, and they were growing crops, they wanted some amusement; a bar, cafeteria and a hot tub. They wanted bonfires to keep the evil spirits away, benches to sit on, and paved streets. And then... an altar of emotions. I could not imagine what that was, but I had them build it.

And that’s where the women appeared. The altar of emotions seems to be a cross between a brothel and wedding chapel. When a man feels lonely, he goes there to see his girl friend (all of whom look exactly alike), although one quest was to perform 10 wedding ceremonies. And then it dawned on me that each time a man went to see his girl friend, he left money for the village coffers. So... what did that make the women? Because they never appear anyplace other than the altar of emotions.

That does not sit well with me.

But it is just a game, and we can’t expect the designer to make it lifelike.

I like this game because I enjoy imagining colonies in their first few years of existence on another planet. Was it a planned colony or a shipwreck? How many people are there, and what skills do they have? Do they actually have the equipment they need, or do they start out with a basic campfire and have to create or re-create any technology they remember? Are there any intelligent natives? Dangerous predators?

I have one colony I’ve ‘designed’ a number of times over the years. Usually because I lost my previous plans, or realized they would need plumbers, or doctors, or something I had forgotten. I get lost in the details of that colony for days or weeks. However, I don’t need all those details to write stories about that colony. Kind of like the game; keep it simple for the reader.

Real life, of course, is far more complicated. And somehow, far less entertaining.

Bubble Colony

Now that we’ve visited the moon a few times, nobody is talking about setting up a moonbase. Everybody seems to want to move on to colonizing Mars. But you know what? Venus is a lot closer.

Earth’s orbit is 93,000,000 miles from the sun. Mars’ orbit is 141,600,000 miles from the sun. The closest Mars and Earth can get is about 48,600,000 miles, while the furthest away they get is 234,600,000. Venus is 67,000,000 miles from the sun, so the closest Earth gets to it is 26,000,000, and the furthest away Venus gets is 160,000,000. So yes, it’s about half the distance to get to Venus as it is to get to Mars.

Why is nobody clamoring to colonize Venus?

At first glance, Venus does not seem very welcoming. Oh, sure, it has about the same amount of gravity as Earth, but that’s the only thing that might be called ‘welcoming’. Its atmosphere is carbon dioxide and nitrogen, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. There may be trace amounts of H₂O and HO in the atmosphere, but don’t expect to go outside without a space suit. The corrosive atmosphere is so dense, no probe that landed on Venus lasted longer than a couple hours. If the acid doesn’t get you, the pressure will. That pressure is the same as being 1.5 miles deep in the ocean. And that’s assuming you don’t land in a volcano, because the surface is highly volcanic.

The atmosphere is the cause of runaway greenhouse effect, and the surface of Venus is about 900°F. Venus rotates backwards, so the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, but it rotates so slowly, a ‘day’ (single rotation) on Venus is 243 Earth days, while it only takes 225 Earth days to complete a circuit around the sun. That would take some getting used to. And despite Venus’ slow rotation, the top lay of clouds whip around it in about 4 Earth days, at speeds of 225 (or more) miles an hour.

Ready to make it your home yet?

There are people considering how it could be done. They don’t see a colony on Venus’ surface, however; they envision an enclosed ‘station’ that floats 30 miles above Venus’ surface, where the pressure is about the same as sea level on Earth. The temperature would be about 160°F, but that would be relatively easy to deal with. And being below that top layer of clouds, it might be pushed around the globe, but not at hurricane speeds.

That doesn’t sound so bad. Maybe they could devise a way to grow plants on the outside walls to change some of the carbon dioxide into oxygen. If enough of that happened, the greenhouse effect could start to calm down, the temperature might lower, and those racing high-level winds would slow down. Who knows, maybe it would be possible to establish a base on Venus’ surface... in a few millennia.

Ready to ship out yet? Or are you waiting for the ship to Europa?

Harvest Feast

Thanksgiving Day in the US is traditionally a day of over-eating. Each family develops their own quirky traditions in what they eat and do on that day, but over-eating is generally common ground.

In the US, legend says early colonists did not bring enough supplies, so half of them (50) died in that first winter. But friendly natives helped the rest survive after that, teaching them to catch eels and grow corn. Before their second winter, they harvested plentiful crops, and hunted wild birds and deer, so they had full larders. And for 3 days, they over-ate in joyous thanksgiving.

Basically, they were celebrating a good harvest. And harvest feasts go back a long, long time, at least as far back as Ancient Egypt, possibly as far back as when man changed from hunter/gatherers to farmers.

It makes sense; after a good harvest of the main crop, food was abundant. There wasn’t as much work to do in the fields, so the workers had more leisure time. In some cases, the coming months would be cold and dreary. Keeping all that food in good condition might not be easy. So it was natural to celebrate in having plenty of food.

Over-eating in the fall could also give them extra fat, which could help protect them from the cold, and give them extra calories to burn, should things get lean before anything became available in the spring.

But what if future colonists landed on a planet with different seasons than Earth? For instance, the winters are so mild, this is when the crops grow. Harvest is held during increasingly hot days, as the climate turns into a blistering summer where Earth plants struggle to survive, and the colonists stay indoors to avoid heat stroke - or worse.

When would they celebrate? I am assuming storage of crops would not be a problem. Would they feast at the end of harvest? Gain a few pounds of fat to lug around through the sauna-like summer? I don’t think fat is a good insulator to keep a person cool.

Or would they wait until the temperature starts to dip, and they will soon need to prepare the fields and plant the crops? To do that, maybe they could use some extra calories to get all that hard work done. Plus, they would have an idea just how much food they could use for a feast.

That assumes the colonists are doing hard, menial labor themselves, not sending machines out to do it. Perhaps they are. Maybe there wasn’t room for farming machines, or the machines are broken.

Would they think things through and have a delayed feast? Would everybody agree to that, or would the question breed dissent, even anger?

Or would they just follow tradition and feast right after the harvest? Would they eventually learn to delay that feast?

I see story possibilities here.

Have a great Thanksgiving. Only our youngest son will be joining us this year, coming over early enough to help with the cooking. We won’t be watching football, so we’ll be debating which sf movie disc to put in the machine. That’s one of our traditions. A quiet Thanksgiving is still Thanksgiving.

Exploration

I've heard NASA has awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to provide rides for astronauts to the space station, starting in 2016/2017. I figured something like this was coming, because I knew that

1) they discontinued the shuttles because Congress won't let them do more than one project at a time. I guess that's one 'transportation' project, because there's been loads of science projects done at the same time.

2) they were paying Russia a b**tload to carry astronauts to the station, but recent events in Ukraine have made that arrangement tenuous.

3) private companies have already been given contracts to take supplies and equipment to the space station, including mice and other lab animals, so why not people?

I've also been thinking about the history of exploration, of people moving into new and unknown territories. Most of it happened before any notes were kept, before the only government was tribal hierarchy. But from what I can remember of world history, there was a pattern to exploration and settling a new 'unknown' territory.

The pattern seems to be that a government would send people out to explore. Sometimes the ruler would accompany his army, such as Alexander the Great, but in other instances, the government merely provided the means, such as for Christopher Columbus.

Alexander may have been 'seeing what was there' for himself, but his great venture was more about conquest than exploration, and the lands he went were already well occupied and settled, so there was not much in the way of resettling.

But in the case of the Americas and Australia, there was still plenty of land available. And people set out to claim their own little piece. (Yes, this was not voluntary in the case of Australia, I know that.)

The point is that governments may have 'found' and 'explored' unknown territory, but businesses and individuals then did the actual moving in. Yes, it's more dangerous to leave Earth for a space station, the moon or another planet than to sail across an ocean of water. But as a government agency, NASA has done its job in producing a space station, exploring the moon and is now moving on to more distant territories.

It's time for (some of) us to move out there to start homes and businesses.

Happy Birthday, Mac!

It dawned on me that book characters have birthdays, too. In Mac on Fireball, the soap opera I'm putting out as a blog, Lt Bugalu's birthday is August 2. He was born on Earth, so he knows that.

People born on a colony - whether planet, space station or even space-faring ship - don't necessarily have the same calendar to work with. Gaelund, which is where Mac was born, not only has slightly more gravity, but a slightly longer year. She reached legal age (of 18 Earth years) to sign up to join the Fleet when she was 16.5 Gaelund years old.

On Gaelund, she knew when her birthday was. But when she reached the Academy, which works on the Earth calendar, she was informed that Sept 17 was her Earth birth date. So at the Academy, and on any Fleet ship she works on, her birthday is on that date.

But she is a Gaelunder, and sometimes she feels affronted to be 'aging' faster than everybody else from her home world. When she first reached the Fireball, she was 27.75 Earth years old, but only 25.6 Gaelund years. Maybe it is this too-speedy aging that makes her somewhat reluctant to celebrate her 'birthday' by this time.

Or possibly - since she won't talk about her earlier assignments, this is pure speculation on Bugalu's part - her birthday offered an obligation to accept gifts from crew members - and officers - that she didn't want to accept.

Whatever her feelings about her birthday, while she is in the Fleet, Mac celebrates on a date that has no noticeable correspondence to the date she was born on the Gaelund calendar. At the Academy, the early fall date didn't feel anything like the early spring date she knew as her 'real' birthdate. It may be easier on a ship, where there are no seasons. Or maybe not, since the calendar is not the one she grew up with.

What about you? If you were suddenly told your birthdate was now Korbalco 33rd, and you were a few years older than you thought you were, would you be inclined to celebrate that date or not?

Going to Mars

Every once in a while, I happen across a bit of information that indicates The Future Is On Its Way! It doesn’t seem to be arriving in a way that’s logical or methodical (to me), but I’m not in charge of these things.

I would have thought it logical to build the space station into an actual way station, possibly even a place to build things like space ships. They could be ‘launched’ without having to battle their way out of the Earth’s gravity.

They could be built with resources mined from the moon, which has much less gravity, so getting those materials into space would take less fuel. That would mean there would need to be some kind of working colony on the moon, to provide workers for the mine, and possibly for refining the materials, or even making the pieces for the space ship. And, of course, to care for the support systems for the workers; the food (garden), air and water supplies.

Eventually, some of that mining could be moved to the asteroid belt. More stations could be built out there, as way stations/refineries/colonies. From there, it seems it would be relatively easy to move on to Mars.

I know, I’m talking old school science fiction stories. Well, a lot of the science fiction authors I read as a young person were also scientists, so they tended to think these things out logically.

Instead, I find articles about thousands of people being whittled down to a handful of colonists for Mars. (How are they getting there? Where will they live? How many supplies will they need to take with them? I haven’t heard anything about any of that.)The space station humans worked so hard to create is all but forgotten. Same with the moon. A warp-speed ship is being designed, even though no one knows how to create warp speed.

The latest article I saw is about NASA’s plan to create one component of rocket fuel on Mars. No humans required. Although, once those humans did arrive, they could breath the component, since the robots NASA plans to send will be converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. The other component needed for rocket fuel - hydrogen - was mentioned in the article, but as an after-thought. As if all the colonists would need to do is run down to the local grocery store and get some.

I’m excited by the prospect of humans going to Mars and that someone is thinking far enough ahead to spend time designing a warp-speed ship. BUT I really think these things need a support system behind them. Otherwise, we are just asking for failure. One tiny little failure could doom a colony that had to rely on Earth for help. It would still take time for help to arrive from an asteroid colony, but not as much time.

Okay. We’ve taken a couple baby steps into space. Now we’re reaching for the big shiny toy in the next room, completely ignoring all the not-as-shiny toys between us and there.