Fancy an Exile to Mars?

I’ve written about the warnings of commercial spaceflight before here. Is there now even more cause to worry? Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX, the company bringing cheap orbital access to the nations) is reported to have indicated that his Dragon capsule, by benefit of the planned crew evacuation module, could land people on Mars. What he did not indicate was the means by which to get the capsule to Mars in the first place. Fortunately, that problem is being worked on by both NASA and ESA. More is to be heard about that soon enough, we think.

The idea of doing an Apollo style trip to Mars is what is on most people’s minds when you mention putting man on Mars. But the cost and the logistics for such a mission is frighteningly expensive and scary in terms of the physiological effects on the crew. The list of obstacles is quite long: Radiation exposure, muscle and bone density deterioration in low/micro-gravity, carrying enough fuel to blast off of Mars, getting that fuel safely to the ground on Mars, having enough supplies to survive until Earth catches up with Mars again and the Astronauts can come home without spending an inordinate amount of time in space – a wait of something like 18 months.

All of these factors make the decision makers baulk. It is way too expensive. So how is man ever going to go to Mars? Well, he could go to stay. A crazy thought maybe? Not according to two scientists: Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies. They suggest sending people to Mars on a one way trip. This eliminates a lot of the expense of building massive ships carrying the fuel to make the expensive climb out of Mars’ gravity. Then there is the human cost of rehabilitation for the returning astronauts. The savings are offset by the need to resupply the fledgling colony until it has established a working eco-system, but the technology to do that is readily (and now, more cheaply) available.

So what would it be like to be one of the first to go to Mars? And who would be likely to be sent up there? What sort of society would emerge?

I’ve let my mind run on this and have written a Novella that is published as a Kindle eBook. It follows the story of a young man whose unfortunate choice of friends has led him to making the decision to go to Mars and to an uncertain life. The novella’s name is Exile and is available at a very low cost. If you like this idea, why not purchase it from Amazon?

Purchase Exile for the Kindle and Kindle-readers for Android, PC, Linux and Mac.

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Commercial Space Flight

The one thing I love about Science Fiction is its aptitude for foresight. We get warnings from writers imagining into the future and considering the maybes and then putting up the warning signs to humanity – “there be dragons!”

Consider the most frightening or foreboding of science fiction stories, Blade Runner, Alien, for example, and compare that to the most hopeful, the likes of A Space Odyssey, Star Trek and Space 1999. (Okay, being on the moon and blasted into the cosmos by a space-bending electro-magnetic nuclear freak of nature caused by storage of nuclear waste under the moon’s surface is not exactly hopeful, but they always survive in the end don’t they?) What is the difference?

The most hopeful visions of the future show mankind pulling themselves together and reaching into the galaxy in an effort to better themselves. I had to sit down and think about this one. They are all government organisations! My most beloved Star Trek characters are all military, sponsored by government (The Federation Council, for example.) Everyone they meet (Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans) are the same. Even the Ferengi, those lovers of commerce and profit, come under the control of the Grand Nagus. Almost nothing in Star Trek’s grand united vision seems to concern commercial enterprise.

By contrast, Blade Runner’s contenders for baddie-ness are robots created by a commercial company (The Nexus Corporation.) The whole story takes place in a world that is used and ruined and everyone is leaving like rats on a sinking ship. Alien is located on the Nostromo, a tug ship for ‘The Company’ hauling a mobile refinery that turns raw material picked up at the planet of origin and is refined by the time they reach Earth. As the story unfolds it turns out that the crew are expendable, and what really matters is the recovery of the alien for the sake of weapons research. As following sequels reveal, even the military is in the pay of the company. Redeeming features are hard to find as humanity swallows itself in greed and is redeemed only by the few.

So we could take from this that the road signs up ahead are saying Togetherness – Good, let’s take this road, Commercial – Bad, lets avoid this one. Now which road are we going to go down?

Well, let me just report that December 2010 saw the issuing of the first ‘license for re-entry into the atmosphere from orbit’ to a commercial company - SpaceX. Not only did they achieve the license, but they actually flew a successful mission to do just that – and at a fraction of the cost of Nasa’s endeavours. (Did you think I was going to say Virgin Galactic? Sorry, nil point there. Virgin Galactic’s Enterprise does not even make it to orbit, it barely skims the edge of space.)

Of course all of this effort by Elon Musk’s company is so that they can get the contract from NASA to deliver humans to Low Earth Orbit, initially, of course, to the International Space Station. SpaceX are well on their way to delivering the goods in that respect. It is one thing to deliver people into space, but after safe delivery and preservation of life in space, not an easy thing to start with of course, is safe re-entry. What goes up…

And SpaceX aren’t the only ones in on this venture. The following list of companies have all received multi-million pound grants from NASA to develop crew systems:

·         Blue Origin – founded by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon

·         Boeing – Americas long-time favourite Aerospace industry, involved in the Apollo missions

·         Paragon Space Development Corporation – building life support systems

·         Sierra Nevada Corporation – Top Woman Owned Federal Contractor in the US (No really! Check out the web site home page!)

·         United Launch Alliance – delivering the Delta series of launchers

And of course Bigalow Aerospace’s commercial space stations, producing blow-up (okay – expandable) fabric space stations, two of which have already flown. With the NASA led Orion spacecraft abandoned, America’s last hope of independently getting people into space rests with the private venture.

So is the future bright? Is the future orange? Do we need to look out for face hugging, acid-for-blood monsters imported in by shareholder-devoted companies looking to make a bigger buck; because developing weapons is more lucrative than advancing the well-being of the human race? Only the future will tell, but let me tell you this…

There be dragons!