| The Vision Dave Dietzler, 2007 Why is space exploration so important? It is my firm belief that we can and will obtain energy from space in the form of helium 3 from the Moon and someday the Gas Giant planets to power thermonuclear fusion reactors without nuclear waste, meltdown dangers, nuclear fuel and waste transportation accidents, nuclear fuel processing facility accidents, the danger of earthquakes wrecking nuclear power plants resulting in the release of radioactivity, the dangers of sabotage, terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation. Even though deuterium-tritium fusion results in perhaps 1% as much nuclear waste as nuclear fission, there could be a time when we have 100 times as many D-T fusion powerplants as we have fission powerplants today and as much nuclear waste as we do today and more over the decades and centuries. At least DT fusion can’t meltdown and fuel fabrication, transportation and nuclear proliferation are not possible with DT fusion; however helium 3 + dueterium fusion generates about 1% as much nuclear waste as DT fusion and He3+He3 fusion none at all. Helium 3 and deuterium fusion does not require tritium, a mildly radioactive substance that only emitts beta particles that cannot even penetrate a piece of paper or the skin, but you wouldn’t want to breathe the stuff and have it enter your bloodstream through the lungs or drink water contaminated by tritium. Tritium is also useable in hydrogen bombs. If we use DT fusion there’s going to be a lot of tritium around, workers exposed to accidental tritium leaks, populations near DT reactors who might be exposed to tritium if there is a leak, and nations hell bent on nuclear weapons might find it easier to build hydrogen bombs instead of just uranium bombs. It would be very easy to compress some tritium into some metal hydride and add some deuterium and make a hydrogen bomb if terrorist nations got their hands on it. And what international political body will be able to forbid the construction of a DT fusion reactor to any nation that wants one or more. Thus, He3-D fusion that generates 1/10,000th of as much waste as fission is much safer than DT fusion too and He3-He3 fusion is safer yet. As for protium-boron fusion, that’s so far away as not to be considered practical, but He3 fusion might have the power to ignite protium-boron plasmas, but that is only speculation. Not only does space exploration promise safe fusion power, it also promises reliable 24/7 power from solar power satellites (SPS). Relays in GEO could be built to transmit power from distant solar panel farms in deserts and other barren lands across continents and oceans to populous areas. I believe the power relays in space will be superior to globe girdling superconducting cables that will find better use in power grids in populous regions. Space tourism could add excitement to life and create large numbers of jobs. Universities could conduct research in space. Manufacturing in microgravity might someday bear fruit. We haven’t found a space made product that’s profitable yet, partly because of the high cost of rocket launches, but the price to LEO might drop when mass production is applied to rocket building. Large telecommunication and defense platforms in GEO are another possibility. There is an even greater vision. It is the colonization and terraforming of Mars. Within decades of colonizing Mars an atmosphere cabable of supporting plant life could be formed by the release of greenhouse gases like CFCs and methane and SF6. While it might be centuries before and oxygen atmosphere on Mars that humans can breathe forms, the planet Mars could be cultivated with trees and crops of all sorts; probably genetically engineered for survival and heartiness on that planet. Domed cities and underground cities could be built on Mars before a breathable atmosphere forms. Space colonies could be built in Mars orbit from the trillions of tons of material available in Deimos and Phobos. Food, tree products like wood and paper, fiber, and plant derived chemicals could be launched into Mars orbit by mass drivers atop Tharsis plateau for a very low price per pound. The orbital cities of Mars would not have to devote space to agriculture. With magnetic sails, agricultural products from Mars by the millions of tons could be shipped to Earth, the Moon and Earth orbital space colonies for a low cost. Mars could also supply metals that the Moon has very little of like copper. Beyond Mars, the asteroids could supply enough metal to build millions of space colonies for people to live in. Twenty mile long space colonies will not be artificial zoos, but beautiful places to live. And space colony dwellers could always travel to planets and enjoy the far horizon or the ocean. Most people today live in cities and only get out to the mountains, plains and oceans during their annual two week vacation. People will be happy in large space colonies. Mars and space colonies will allow the burgeoning populations of Earth to emigrate and reduce human pressure on Earth’s fragile environment. Earth’s population could be reduced without one child policies and even zero child policies and rationing of products in short supply like gasoline, tree products, even food and homes when natural resources are more depleted than they are now and the population is three times as large. In a few centuries megascale engineering and the harnessing of the Sun’s fantastic energies will allow us to build starships propelled by mass beams to high fractions of light speed. We will be able to emigrate to other Earthlike planets orbiting nearby stars. Travel times will be about five years (ship time) to the Alpha Centauri tri-star system at 67% light speed or faster to shorten the voyage time even more. Suspended animation that is probably very dangerous will not be necessary. We don’t know where the nearest Earthlike planet is so some voyages might last for decades. In the future, genetic engineering to rid us of all inherited disease and healthier lifestyles and diets will make it possible for everyone to live over 100 years. If we can live for 900 years like some of the Biblical patriarchs are said to have then a 50 year journey in a Star Ark traveling at 67% light speed or faster will not seem like a lot of time to spend in a starship the size of a Bernal Sphere 1000 meters or more in diameter. Megascale engineering and solar powered mass beams built with AI robots does not require the discovery of any fundamentally new laws of physics; however, there may be laws of physics that we are now unaware of that make transluminal travel through hyperspace and other favorite science fiction ideas a reality. Until then, we can rest assured knowing that straighforward enigeering and architecture could be applied to megascale engineering projects in space to build giant solar powered mass beams and starships with superconducting magnetic sails. Fusion powered Bussard ramjets are also a possibility. Perhaps mass beams could propell mag-sail equipped starships up to a fraction of light speed and ramjets could then take over and accelerate the ship to 90%+ light speed so that time dilation reduces ship time so greatly that traveling hundreds of light years will seem like traveling for but a few years to passengers on the starship. This human diaspora into the galaxy would assure the survival of the human race for as long as the universe exists. Our race might go on beyond the death of the Sun. It seems likely that we will evolve into many different species of human life. Some no more or little more evolved than people today and others evolved into superhumans or even creatures that we would call Angels. Even so, humans must never breed like flies again and overpopulate worlds. I would not want to see every asteroid and comet in the galaxy dismantled and turned into space colonies or every planet capable of supporting life with or without terraforming turned into a human hive. Morality must evolve so that people who don’t wish to live for reproduction can do so. We are far more than our genes. Breeding is often just a form of genetic vanity, an attempt to prove oneself out of an inferiority complex, an accident or something done purely to conform to a puritannical society. Singles and gays must no longer be persecuted and infertile couples should not be pressured into having kids or tempted into having kids by celibates who promise family heavan on Earth or fertility doctors who want to make people have kids just so they can make lots of money, the true calling that moved so many doctors into medicine. This is getting to deep into moral-religious-social-political matters and I prefer to stick with technology. Let the philosophers, lawyers and legislators, priests and ministers debate all these matters. By the time they come up with solutions other than forced sterilization and the threat of imprisonment of massive fines, we engineers and scientists and visionary buisnessmen and women will have reached the High Frontier. |
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