Coming Soon: First Woman on the Moon!

Happy last day of August! With all the happenings over the last few months, most of them traumatizing, I'm unsure whether to think "August, so soon?" or "August! At last!" Let's hope the last five months of 2020 turn out to be a little more user friendly, deal?  :)

On to my blog topic.

As science fiction romance authors creating fictional universes, women in space is hardly a new concept. It's pretty much business as usual for those of us who travel the stars in our imaginations. 

But that hasn't been the case in the real world. 

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a total of 12 men walked on the moon. No women, of course, considering this was the era of "manned missions" and "men in space" and "one small step for Man." No, the women in this era were busy behind the scenes doing the math calculations that would get the male astronauts there--and back again--safely. 

But this is the 2020s and times and attitudes have changed drastically since those early days in another era. Now women are regularly included on space mission crews. (In fact, the accepted language is now "crewed missions" rather than "manned mission," something I strive to include in my SFRs.)

Still, as of a source article dated August of 2019, only 64 of the 566 people who have flown in space have been women. Clearly, there's still some serious ground to be made up, and NASA's Artemis Program is planning to do just that.

As we re-set our sites on the Moon decades later, it's clear that the first Moon landing in over 40 years is going to include at least one woman.

What do we know about the selection process?

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has said that the first woman to walk on the Moon will be someone in the current astronaut corps who has worked aboard the International Space Station or ISS. 

Of the 12 women serving as of 2019, not all had flown into space yet, but the good news is there are more women in the  astronaut training pipeline. In fact, the latest graduating class has a 45/55 percent ratio (5 women, 7 men).

Thanks to President Trump's Space Policy Directive 1 signed in 2017, there's a renewed interest in returning to the Moon and to space exploration, and with it, a larger role for women in space. 

By 2024--less than 3-1/2 years from now!--when Artemis is planning to conduct it's first Moon landing, there could be many more females in the astronaut program training for future missions on the Moon, Mars and far, far beyond. 

Maybe our science fiction romances aren't so far-fetched after all.

Have a great week!

Sources for this blog:

NASA Artemis Program  ( https://www.space.com/artemis-program.html )

Space.Com: Who Will be the First Woman on the Moon 

Statistic: Number of Female Astronauts Rising

President Trump's Space Policy Directive 1

Historic First Space Launch from US Soil Since 2011

Although our news continues to obsess over the Covid-19 situation, there are other events happening that are equally worthy of our focus. One such landmark is scheduled for this month, when for the first time in nine years, the US is preparing a launch to space from its own soil.

The flight is currently scheduled for Wednesday, May 27th when it will lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Aboard will be two astronauts, Air Force Col. Bob Behnken, 49, of Creve Coeur, Missouri, and retired Marine Col. Doug Hurley, 53, of Endicott, New York.

These men are no strangers to the space program. Both were test pilots and have previously flown onboard the now retired Endeavor space shuttle.

Col. Bob Behnken and Col.(ret) Doug Hurley
with the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
Photo credit: NASA

Col. Behnken manned flights in 2008 and 2010, and has logged more than 37 hours in EVAs (Extra Vehicular Activities also known as space walks). On this flight, Behnken will serve as the joint operations commander, where he'll be responsible for the rendezvous and docking/undocking with the space station.

Col(ret) Hurley was aboard Endeavor in 2009 and piloted the very last shuttle mission of Atlantis in July of 2011. Hurley will be the spacecraft commander, responsible for launch and landing.

Since our shuttle fleet was retired, the US has had to depend on Russian spacecraft to get American astronauts to and from the ISS, or International Space Station, at a cost of about $80 million per astronaut.

This time the men's conveyance will be a new craft, the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew spacecraft owned and operated by SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk. The Dragon spacecraft arrived at Kennedy Space Center on February 23, 2020. The flight is scheduled to lift off from launch pad 39A, previously used for Apollo and space shuttle missions.

This flight will be a historic milestone for NASA, not only for space exploration once again being US-based, but also for marking the first time that U.S. astronauts are carried into space aboard a commercial spacecraft that is owned and operated by a private entity, not a federal US agency.

The Commercial Crew Program could bring a new era in space flight to Florida's Space Coast. This test mission will help prove the commercial systems meet NASA’s requirements for certification to carry astronauts to the ISS and back.

There are, at present, three astronauts aboard the ISS: Two Russians--Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, and one NASA astronaut, Christopher Cassidy.

And this gives me another opportunity to share one of my favorite YouTube offerings, a SpaceX video of the Falcon heavy rocket and Dragon spacecraft, set to the music from the sci-fi television series The Expanse. Enjoy the possibilities. :)

Information for this blog was sourced from the following articles:
Military.com: Airman and Marine Will Head to Space in First US Manned Launch Since 2011
Kennedy Space Center: Commercial Crew Launch
Smithsonianmag.com: On May 27, US Astronauts will Launch from American Soil...

Have a great week.

We live in a very strange neighbourhood

When I was a youngster we learned a bit of basic stuff about our solar system at school and, because I was a voracious reader, in encyclopedias. They used to be the hard-cover equivalent of Google back then. 😊

The solar system and how the planets formed was all very logical. The sun started as a spinning accretion of gas clouds that condensed until it kind of 'turned on' and started to produce light and energy as a fusion reactor. During this process it spat out concentric rings of material which in turn started their own cycle of condensation. The first planets, those closest to the sun, were comprised of the heavier materials. Thus we had Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. We skipped over the asteroid belt. I don't remember the explanation back then. Not enough material to coalesce into a new planet? Disrupted by Jupiter's massive gravity field? Then it was on to the gas giants – Saturn, mighty Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Then, as an afterthought of left-overs, Pluto. They all danced around the sun in a pretty much flat plane and some of them had moons of their own. Back then the moonless planets were Mercury, Venus, and Pluto.

All this was a simplified view of the solar system, suitable for kids and people not interested in science and astronomy, which was just about everybody. That superficial veneer of uniformity drops off fairly quickly when start to look more closely. Venus and Uranus rotate in the opposite direction to all the other planets (ie the sun rises in the west). Venus's day is longer than its year. Uranus rotates on its side (ie the axis of the poles points at the sun). Pluto turned out to be a binary system with its large moon, Charon, and was demoted to a dwarf planet. Oh – and Pluto does not orbit in the same plane as its erstwhile siblings. Its orbit is at a 17° angle from the plane. It's also more circular, so sometimes Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune. However, there's no chance of a collision between Pluto and Neptune because "for every two orbits that Pluto makes around the Sun, Neptune makes three, which prevents close encounters between them that would otherwise destabilize their orbits." [1]

We knew there were thick clouds blanketing Venus's atmosphere – but it wasn't until space craft visited that we learned that Venus isn't covered with lush jungles as depicted in many SF stories of the '50s and '60s. 

Another popularly supported myth, originating from Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who observed Mars in 1877, was the network of canals on the planet's surface. We now know that's not true. Mars might have supported water and life eons ago but not anymore. But that myth inspired writers like HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs to write his books.

We knew very little about the outer planets until the seventies when the Voyager missions visited. Astronomers found many, many more moons, marvelled at the rings of Saturn and the moonlets that acted as shepherds of the rings. We found out there are volcanoes on at least one of Jupiter's moons and that moons might have oceans. We learned that ALL of the gas giants – Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune – have rings. In the recent New Horizons visit to Pluto astronomers were astonished to find evidence of lava flows on the planet, since it's so cold out there.

Now we know Jupiter's famous Red Spot, a massive cyclonic storm larger than the diameter of the Earth, is shrinking. Over time Saturn's iconic rings will disappear. And an object (named Kiku) has been spotted in the solar system beyond Neptune's orbit that orbits in the opposite direction to all the other satellites of the sun. Scientists, as they say, are baffled.

There is so much more to learn.

I was delighted to hear Mike Pence say that the US wants humans to return to the Moon by 2024. [2] It's regrettable that the reason is very likely much the same as the reasons for the space race in the 'sixties – rivalry with Russia and I suspect more importantly today, with China. But it hardly matters. Space exploration has languished for too long. It has been forty-seven years since a man stood on the lunar surface and that probably has to happen before we even think about landing anyone on Mars. I'm glad I have a chance of being around when that happens again.

60 Years in Space: NASA Celebrates First 6 Decades

Though it may have been lost in the shuffle of political debate and controversy these last few weeks, I think it's important to note a major milestone in space exploration history that may have slipped by us:

NASA officially celebrated its 
60th Anniversary on October 1, 2018!

Check out the special Anniversary Logo unveiled by Space.Com on Twitter

NASA's New 60th Anniversary Logo Depicts 'Historic Past and Inspiring Future' https://t.co/AoICWSp7uu pic.twitter.com/vm84NCd4b0

— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) January 4, 2018

On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed NASA’s founding legislation, the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act. The agency, however, considers October 1, 1958 to be its official birthday, because the agency actually opened for business on this day. Being a former military budget director, I can tell you this is because October 1st is when the new federal fiscal year actually begins and funding becomes available. And opening the doors of such an agency only a little over two months after the legislation authorizing it was approved is nothing short of a herculean feat!

First Space Walk: Photo Credit NASA

But it wouldn't be NASA's last herculean feat. I'll touch on some of those early highlights below.

As an author of Science Fiction Romance, I owe a great debt of gratitude to NASA. The agency continues to push the envelope of the exploration of our own solar system with both manned missions and unmanned probes, and these new discoveries often fuel the fires of our ideas and imagination. I often study these real life missions for inspiration for my novels.

To really appreciate the obstacles NASA faced and overcame in its early years, here are just a few eye-opening accomplishments:

-- On May 5, 1961, Lieutenant Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. of the US Navy was the first American in space in a suborbital Mercury Program flight aboard Freedom 7, but he wasn't the first in space. His historic flight was preceded by a Russian dog, an American chimp and a Russian cosmonaut in an automated craft. NASA was scrambling to catch up, and after several tension-filled delays, Shepard demanded of Mission Control, "Let's light this candle!" They did, and he reached an altitude of 116 miles on a flight that lasted 20 minutes. Over 45 million Americans watched. Shepard's flight answered critical questions about if humans would be able to breathe or swallow and perform basic tasks in space. No one knew the answer until he and NASA proved it could be done.

-- In a speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy set a goal to put a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. At this point in time, NASA had the sum total of 20 minutes of spaceflight experience! In just eight short years, NASA not only accomplished this impossible dream, but even more monumentally, they did it without a single loss of life in space.

-- After the Mercury Program, NASA forged ahead with the Gemini Program, a mission to build a craft that would put a pair of men in space. But there's a problem. A more powerful rocket is needed to launch a two-man capsule. The Air Force was developing the new Titan missiles but had difficulties adapting missile rockets to the manned Gemini vehicle. The Titans are initially a disaster: One out of every five fails catastrophically. Astronauts watch as the rockets explode again and again, knowing their odds aren't good. Engineers attacked the problems and created safeguards and backup systems to make the rockets safer. Finally, NASA launched two rockets in a row that didn't explode with the unmanned Gemini 1 and Gemini 2 capsules. John Young and Gus Grissom ride the next into space aboard Gemini 3. Their primary goal? Test the brand new rocket and capsule and return...alive. If anything goes seriously wrong with the launch, Young and Grissom will be killed on live television with millions watching. In a moment of optimism, Grissom names the Gemini 3 capsule The Molly Brown after the Broadway hit "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." The Molly Brown is the last NASA vehicle to be named by an astronaut. On March 23, 1965, the launch aboard the converted ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) goes flawlessly. The rocket stages fall away and the Gemini 3 capsule reaches orbit. Grissom and Young become the first Americans to fly together in space. They make three successful orbits of the Earth testing important maneuvers and altitude changes that are essential first steps in reaching the Moon.

-- NASA's next question had to be answered: How will the human body react to free-floating in space traveling at 17,500 in Earth orbit? No one knew. Can a man mentally and physically function in zero gravity? No one knew that either. The astronaut's suit would be the difference between life and death in a place where the temperature can fluctuate from +250 degrees Fahrenheit in the sun to -250 degrees in the shade. The greatest concern of all was the vacuum of outer space. If a suit fails, rips or tears, the differences in pressure will kill an astronaut in seconds when liquids within his body vaporize. The EVA is originally planned for the Gemini 6 mission, but after Russia forges ahead, a decision is made for Gemini 4 to perform the EVA, and Ed White to be the astronaut to perform it. If White's EVA is successful, it will move the space program much closer to its goal of reaching the Moon and help the USA keep up with the Russians. The astronauts train for the EVA in secrecy, often at night and in isolated conditions. Only a handful of people realize what America is about to attempt. NASA announces the first space walk will be part of the mission just a few days before the launch. Many, including some of the astronauts, wonder if NASA is moving too fast and putting the astronauts lives in jeopardy. A problem during the EVA could set back the space program and end all chance at reaching the Moon before 1970. Gemini 4 becomes the longest spaceflight, and the June 3, 1965 EVA the most dangerous venture attempted by the space program, to date. It's a complete success.

-- In just a little over four years later, the first man stepped foot on the Moon--Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969. Between 1968 and 1972, there were nine manned missions to the Moon or Moon orbit conducted by NASA as part of the Apollo program. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to enter orbit in December 1968, and was followed by Apollo 10 in May 1969. Six missions landed men on the Moon, beginning with Apollo 11. Apollo 13 was intended to land, however it was restricted to a flyby due to an explosion aboard the spacecraft. All nine manned missions returned its astronauts safely back to Earth.

Footprint on the Moon: Photo Credit NASA

It's actually quite difficult to grasp the scope of all that NASA accomplished in those early days of the space program and in the six short decades since, when NASA began to turn its sites to more distant shores.

Pluto and Charon: New Horizons
Mission - Photo credit NASA

We now know more than we could have ever imagined about some of our systems' outlying worlds and our own resident star--the Sun. We've sent multiple rovers to Mars to explore the horizons of what can potentially become humankinds' second planetary residence, and we've sent probes to our other neighbor, the hellish nightmare world called Venus.

We've seen miraculous photos of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus...and even distant Pluto, with images of the far distant dwarf planet so stunning that they took our breath away.

We've explored the 120+ moons of the gas giants and found a high potential that liquid water exists on Europa, Enceladus and Ganymede, as well as the amazing vistas of very Earth-like landscapes that came into sharp focus on the once hazy moon of Saturn called Titan.

The Voyager probes were the first man-made vessels to venture outside of our little neighborhood of planets and into the great unknown of interstellar space. They've been outward bound for more than 40 years now.

Atlantis Lift Off: Photo Credit NASA

And, of course, NASA's remarkable Space Shuttle Program has come and gone in the decades since, but it did so much to enhance our understanding and further scientific and technological advancement. (See NASA Technologies Benefit Our Lives )

I am completely energized by the recent upsurge in interest and attention by the powers-that-be in Washington for our once-withering space program. I consider space exploration to be one of the most important things we can tackle as a species. The advances in science due to NASA and space exploration cover the spectrum in areas that benefit all people--health, medicine, food production, renewable energy, the environment--and include many products we use everyday.

But even with all those benefits, we must always keep in mind that the universe is a very volatile place and having all our eggs in one basket, so to speak, is an invitation to oblivion. I think Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield once summed it up best:

"The dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't have a space programme."

Congratulations, NASA, on six decades of spectacular achievement.

P.S. If you missed Donna Frelick's movie review of First Man (the just released motion picture of Neil Armstrong's historic Moon landing) be sure to check it out just below or by clicking the "First Man" link above.

Have a great week...and keep reaching for those distant stars!

A Muse: Our Sight Exceeds Our Grasp

Like most Science Fiction Romance authors, my desire to write stories set among the stars took hold at a young age. As a kid, I often gazed up at the night sky and wished we could go explore the galaxy like the characters in Star Trek, even though I knew it wasn't likely to happen in my lifetime.

But recently, I had a surprising thought...

We don't have to wait. We're already there!   

The human race--and most of the animals on this planet--have an amazing superpower. It's been passed down through the eons from generation to generation through family and genus and species. It allows us to perceive not only our immediate surroundings, but things on the distant horizon, and even objects that are far, far away...and yes, even in another galaxy. Even beyond that galaxy to the most distant point in the visible universe.

That superpower is sight.

Because humans developed this ability, the universe has been opened up to us. Decades or centuries before any spacecraft or probe of our design will reach a distant star or dark corner of the universe, we will most likely have already seen it and studied it through our telescopes or large arrays, and we'll know many things about it--its nature, environment, atmosphere and composition.

Because we can see.

But let's go back in time. What, exactly, is sight? And how did we come by it?

The first fossilized evidence of complex eyes dates back about 540 million years to the Cambrian Explosion, the evolutionary blast of new flora and fauna species. Though eyes may have evolved even earlier, no evidence has survived to support that. Scientists have determined that eyes evolved in a time span of a mere 364,000 years from a small patch of photoreceptors to the complex organ referred to as the "camera eye."

Eyesight evolved because species that could better see their environment and more accurately interpret what was around them--and what was coming toward them--had a better chance of surviving to pass down that DNA to the next generation.

Surprisingly, the evolution of the eye doesn't have a single origin. Eye sight evolved independently some 50-100 times during the course of evolution. For instance, Octopi eyes evolved independently from vertebrates, with a slightly different structure in the nerves and retina. Yet the basic composition and how they function is very similar.

This suggests the development of a sight organ in an alien species is highly possible. Which means that there may be aliens out there at this moment, peering at the heavens with the same fascination as we Earthlings, bent on discovering what makes the universe tick.

Since modern man first appeared roughly about 200,000 years ago, our eyes have helped us to learn and survive in a hostile world through observation and understanding. Now they do the same thing to help us better understand the cosmos as a whole.

We view Martian landscapes from the current Curiosity rover, study close-up images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and their satellites sent from past Voyager and the later Jupiter Galileo spacecraft, applaud the recent arrival of the Juno Jovian probe, and have poured over surprising images of Pluto and her five mysterious moons, some 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) distant, from the New Horizons mission last year.

By looking at the images, we can determine things about the environments, make-up, geology and dynamics of these worlds as if we were already there.

Our space telescopes have helped us detect the existence of other planets and solar systems orbiting distant stars by studying the light fluctuations of those suns. Via their light spectrums, our scientists can even determine if the planets might be Earth-like and a candidate for potential colony sites in the future.

To be sure, it will be a very distant future, but meanwhile our sight exceeds our grasp. Our eyes can boldly go to those distant places where our bodies can't yet travel.

Although we continue to work toward someday exploring other planets, systems, and even galaxies, the reality is we're going there right now. The greatest space exploration vessels we will ever have is our eyes.

Have a great week.

Laurie

Long Ago on a Moon Far, Far Away...

Happy Fourth of July!

This year July 4th happens to fall on Monday, which is my day to blog. Fun!

I love this star-spangled holiday and everything it stands for. I hope the Spacefreighters patrons in the USA are celebrating the long weekend today with BBQs, fireworks and all things Americana, and our visitors from other parts of the world are enjoying a delightfully warm summer or lovely mid-winter day.

As a Sci-Fi Romance author, July always reminds me of a very famous event from July of 1969. It was the day the human race first ventured onto the surface of another world--our Moon. To this day it was a monumental achievement for space exploration.

In honor of the Apollo 11 mission, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the facts surrounding the mission that not everyone may know.

Photo credit NASA

Looking Back on History
10 Things You Might Not Know About the First Moon Landing

Number 10.
The astronauts discovered the Moon has an odor, but it doesn't smell like green cheese. The smell of Moon dust is described as similar to "burnt gunpowder." Oddly enough, back on Earth, with its oxygen rich environmental, the Moon dust has no odor.


Number 9.

Photo Credit NASA

The American Flag wasn't very cooperative. The lunar surface was harder than expected and the astronauts struggled to get the base of the pole embedded deep enough in the surface that the flag wouldn't fall over--a scene they wanted to avoid broadcasting on global television. After many minutes they got the telescoping pole buried deep enough for the flag to stand upright, and took the historic photo of the salute. When the Lunar Module's ascent stage blasted off to carry the astronauts back to the Command Module, Buzz Aldrin observed the blast knocking the flag down.

Number 8.
Why was it Neil Armstrong who first stepped on the Moon? Both Aldrin and Armstrong enthusiastically lobbied NASA officials for the honor, but the deciding factor was quite simple. The design of the Lunar Module determined the order. Neil Armstrong, as mission commander, was closest to the hatch and had to exit first.

Number 7.
Buzz Aldrin got his nickname because his little sister couldn't properly pronounce "brother," instead calling him "buzzer." The nickname took and the entire family soon was calling him "Buzz." His real name was Edwin Aldrin, Jr., but he legally changed his name to Buzz in 1988.

Number 6.
The maiden name of the mother of Buzz Aldrin was Marion Moon.



Photo Credit NASA

Number 5.

Astronaut Jim Lovell, of Apollo 13 fame, was Neil Armstrong's backup.

 

Number 4.
The official Apollo 11 patch which was designed by astronaut Michael Collins doesn't bear the astronauts' names, as does every other mission patch. The reason is that NASA wanted the patch to represent everyone who had worked so hard to make the landing a reality and the mission a success.

Number 3.
NASA turned down Buzz Aldrin's initial application to become an astronaut. Not one to give up, he reapplied and was later included among the third group of astronauts to be accepted in 1963. (If at first you don't succeed...)

Number 2.
Astronaut Michael Collins, who remained behind in the Command Module orbiting the Moon, was the first human in history to be totally cut off from Earth and human civilization. During his 22 hours of solitude, he wrote, "I am alone, now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it." His experience inspired a song written by Ian Anderson of the band Jethro Tull for the Benefit album. The title is "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me."

...and the Number 1 thing you may not have known about the Moon landing...

The mission and the lives of the two astronauts was saved by a...pen? As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin prepared to return home, they discovered a crucial circuit breaker was broken, leaving them without a way to ignite the engines to launch. NASA's mission control tried to work out a solution, but Buzz Aldrin eventually decided to try his own fix. He forced a felt tip pen into the breaker. It worked! And that's why there are not two long-dead astronauts stranded on the surface of the Moon today. 

Have a wonderful holiday! Enjoy!

See you next week.

Sources:

• http://magazine.foxnews.com/at-home/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-first-moon-landing 
• http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/11-strange-facts-you-didnt-know-about-the-first-moon-landing.html
• http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/07/18/10-surprising-secrets-from-apollo-11s-historic-moon-landing/#.V0zcdMv2aUk

The Outer Planets: Looking Ahead to a Potential Space Boom

If you have a degree of geek quotient, you've probably seen some of these headlines.

Daily Mail, April 30, 2015: NASA tests "WARP DRIVE" Engine...

CNET, April 29, 2015: Is NASA One Stop Closer to Warp Drive?

...and the inevitable...

Wired, May 9, 2015: That NASA Warp Drive? Yeah, it's still Poppycock

From these stories, many might think we're perched on the threshold of discovery, right on the brink of a new era in space exploration. And we may well be, but I think we're still many decades to a century or two away from a manned "WARP" mission. Why?

If we're developing the ability to test and employ a WARP drive or EM (for Electronmagnetic) propulsion systems that will fold space and time (thank you, Frank Herbert) and allow FTL travel, there are a lot of big questions that come with these hypotheses. Like...what would happen to a life form within that mysterious Warp bubble?

We already know the effects of plain old space travel on the human body, and they aren't good. Loss of bone density, loss of muscle tone, exposure to radiation, etc. etc. I'm not sure we can yet envision the complications and side effects that might arise from traveling immense distances through a vacuum with space and time essentially being compressed in front of or around us. Or the side effects from the drive itself.

Photo courtesy of Daily Galaxy
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/10/
our-star-trek-future-nasa-scientists-engineering
-a-warp-drive-solution-for-faster-than-light-space-t.html

Although some sources are still playing the "it's impossible" card, I don't believe that. So many things that were declared "impossible" when Star Trek TOS aired several decades ago are a normal part of everyday life now. What the human race strives for and--most of all--puts a priority on, we tend to achieve. And often in record time. Look how we pulled off a Moon landing in less than a decade!

Warp drive is exciting. Star Trek has shown us what a galaxy with Warp drive might look like and it fueled our collective consciousness in so many ways. Now that Kepler Space Telescope has shown us there are other planets out there that may be similar to Earth, we have an inspiring new reason to "seek out new worlds and new civilizations." That's why I believe that we'll see a Dawn of Warp Drive scenario yet this century. But that doesn't mean I see humans "galloping around the cosmos" (credit Captain James T. Kirk for both classic quotes) for a long, long time yet.

Why?

Because it's cheaper, safer and more practical to let robotics do our boldly going to explore those Final Frontiers without endangering human lives in dangerous and unknown circumstances, and where they would be beyond ability for emergency communications, much less rescue. By the time we could register and respond to a distress call, they'd be long dead.

For decades we've been sending probes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and even into the fringes of interstellar space--the empty void between our solar system and others that lie out there in the great beyond. Why not manned missions? Because once you add humans to the mix, all sorts of complications ensue and the costs become, well, astronomical. It's more than NASA or our government can fund with so many other priorities also demanding our tax dollars.

So when it comes to Warp-enabled exploration we'll send automated ships first, as we have in the exploration of our own system, possibly followed by human-like androids so we can analyze the effects that EM propulsion and extended space travel might have on organic life forms.

So even with EM/Warp capabilities being developed, I believe space exploration will continue in the meanwhile with more conventional (though much improved) propulsion systems. We just need to survive the next decade or two of potential economic collapse and an environmental tipping-point, and once these major concerns are addressed and, hopefully, behind us, again re-focus on space exploration on more of a global scale.

How would we do that?

Maybe we'd collectively spearhead a joint mission funded and supported by a number of governments and manned by a large international crew that could carry out the variety of tasks, duties and MAPS (Mission Assignment Parameters) necessary to support what is in essence a traveling space station. The mission would require a large crew, probably around 70, structured like that on a Naval vessel with various support centers, but adopting the Combined Joint Task Force concept, with personnel representing many nations, militaries, sciences and civilian areas of expertise.

This unique mission would employ a full service PAO (Pubic Affairs Office) with a responsibility to keep the world informed, and hopefully mesmerized, with the discoveries and sights of a mission to the outer planets. Their goal would be to ensure the public experiences the wonder of space travel and to champion a grassroots effort to highlight the accomplishments of individual crewmembers in their local communities. Public support and interest is key. It fuels funding. That's the lesson we learned in the infancy of our space program.

So where would we send this mission?

That part seems clear. In the next decade or two, we'd expect there would be a colony site or two on Mars, and possibly the start of commercial mining in the asteroid belt. We'd send our research mission out a little further, out where the water and resources could be studied, but still somewhere close enough that the mission would be doable in a reasonable timeframe, say five years. So, our target would be the gas giants. The Jupiter and Saturn systems.

Image courtesy of NASA.gov

With well over a hundred moons between them, a few of which are believed to have oceans beneath their icy outer crusts, as well as potential mineral resources that could be mined to both support future colonies and net a potential profit, the Jovian and Saturnian systems are of great interest. The colonies could also be developed into bases for mining Helium-3 from the gas giants' atmospheres as well as jumping-off points for interstellar missions in the centuries ahead.

And when would we go?

We'd first need to develop faster propulsion systems and a reliable form of artificial gravity, and that will take at least 10-15 years. Then we'd need sufficient time to plan and fund the mission, and to build the vessel--which would most likely have to be constructed in orbit--so we'd need time to construct a fully functioning permanent space station and an efficient means of accessing it, possibly a space elevator. Then we need to look at launch window timeframes. Logically, we need to plan a mission when the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn will be relatively close and aligned on the same side of the sun. That will happen in the early 2040s. About twenty-five years from now.

This is the premise for The Outer Planets, the second novel in my Inherited Stars series. The Outer Planets takes a 1,500 year step back in time from the opening novel--Inherit the Stars--to the early beginnings of this space saga, which occurs in our not-to-distant future.

But as would be expected with a Sci-Fi Romance novel, there's a big twist or two in the mix.

What Lissa Bruce knows could kill her.

A female video reporter with an altered identity and a damning secret joins the crew of a research mission bound for Jupiter and Saturn, only to find the past she wants to escape is already onboard.

Lieutenant Mitchell Coe, the loyal aide de camp to a murdered General–and Lissa’s late spouse–is the one man with the power to blow her cover…or salvage her heart. But after a series of malfunctions threatens the mission, Lissa suspects she’s not the only one aboard with a dangerous secret.

Image courtesy NASA.gov

What would you think of joining a research mission to Jupiter and Saturn? Of seeing the wonders of these planets, as well as Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Titan (and over a hundred more) close up? It would mean five years away from Earth--though two would be spent in stasis. Would you send in your application or would you prefer to sit back and enjoy the newsfeed back on good ol' Earth?