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?

BOLDLY GOING REQUIRES A LEAP OF FAITH

Boldly going on moving day

Last week I embarked on a journey, if not into the unknown, at least into the unfamiliar. I gathered myself (and all my worldly goods, my husband and two cats) and I launched myself into the ether. I took a leap of faith.

On the surface what I did may seem a simple thing, rather mundane. I just moved from Fredericksburg, Virginia, where I had lived for almost twenty years, to the small mountain town of Marshall, North Carolina, where hubby and I are building a new house. No big deal, right? People do it every day. When I was a kid I did it every couple of years, for reasons good and bad. It’s as American as apple pie. Just pick up and make a new life in a new place.

And, really, this move isn’t that intimidating. After all, we’ve owned the land we’re building on for almost ten years and have been visiting Marshall for all that time. We know the area and some of the folks in town by name already, so we have a start on making friends. My husband’s parents are just down the road in Black Mountain.

The house goes up on the mountain

Still, we’re leaving behind longtime friendships and our kids and grandkids, who will be much further away now. And despite the close allure of Asheville, we will be giving up the convenience of town life for the peace and quiet of the country.  It will be a change.

People have mixed reactions when we tell them what we’re up to. Most won’t come right out and say they think we’re crazy, but you can see it in their eyes. Why leave everything behind and start over at our age? Some say they wish they could but . . .

Blanca adjusts

Actually doing something like this—building an intentional community with others in an unfamiliar place—takes vision and a certain amount of pioneer spirit. It takes belief in yourself and your ability to persevere and adapt. It requires creativity and determination and flexibility. The challenges it presents are a major part of the fun. All in all, it’s a lot like writing, something I plan to do a lot of here on the mountain. 

And just like with writing, you take that leap of faith knowing the reward will be well worth it once you succeed.

 

 PING PONG

--Congratulations, Laurie, on your LAST BUDGET CYCLE EVER! Yay! Pretty soon you'll be taking this leap of faith with me as you hit the retirement road!

--Agree with you completely, Greta, that you need to know the rules of writing before you can break them. The best writers often bend the rules, but it's very clear they know what they're doing in the process.

Cheers, Donna

I despise the "Rules of Writing"

I don't actually subscribe to Chuck Wendig's Terrible Minds blog, but I quite often read what he has to say because it's so often shared by the writing community. Usually I agree with him. He's had much to say about important topics such as sexism and diversity. He has also often offered useful advice to writers - he's written a book on writing which I believe many people find valuable.

But his recent advice to newbie writers left me uncomfortable. Please - go and read it. I smell your rookie moves new writers. Some of what he had to say didn't fit with my own experience. But hey. I have a nasty habit of shrugging and saying, "What would I know?"

Not everyone took that attitude, though. Foz Meadows took furious exception, and made his counter case in I see your preferences Wendig. It's a long post, but well worth the read. Go ahead, I'll make myself a cup of tea while I'm waiting.

Back?

Really, I think the only point where I disagreed with Meadows was the one about grammar. Yes, I'm a bit of a grammar Nazi, and poor grammar makes my teeth ache. However, if the story grabs me, I'll sort of train my brain to ignore the errors and keep reading. That's not what's happening in Tim Winton's Cloud Street. Winton writes Literature, and be assured he knew exactly what he was doing when he used that approach. Which brings us back to the old argument that you need to know the rules before you break them.

We all have our own style of writing. And different stories demand different approaches. Let's take the example of starting a story with action. Linnea Sinclair drops the reader right into it with Gabriel's Ghost. But she doesn't do that with Hope's Folly. Personally, I prefer to be engaged with a character before I have to decide whether I want them to win a fight. Then there's cutting your story. Um... no, not for me. I always, always, always add detail. Several thousand words worth. So it depends on how you do things.

There's a real danger in listening too much to everybody else's advice. You'll lose your own voice and you'll end up writing a story that is not your own. I know this because I came very close to ruining my Iron Admiral stories. I shared that experience in a blog post - Yes, Virginia there is such a thing as over editing.

I'll share one small example of what I cut from those books. Admiral Saahren might be a great leader, but he's not much good with women. Since Allysha keeps him at a distance, he does the only thing he can think of to tell her how he feels - he sends her flowers. Here's the section.

The team had just started on their first exercise when the IS spoke. "Allysha, you have a delivery."

Allysha straightened up beside Sirikit’s workstation. "Delivery?"

"Yes. Flowers."

Leonov’s clerk brought them in and left. Allysha flushed. Flowers again. They were beautiful, ten tall stems with blossoms like wine flutes arranged to display their deep red throats. Their fragrance was unmistakable, delicate and delicious.

"Are they from Brad?" Anna asked, her eyes dancing.

All of the others stared at Allysha, equally curious. She felt like a fugitive under a spotlight as she read the note. ‘I hope your week went well. Brad.’

"Well? From Brad?" Anna repeated.

Please, leave it alone. But they wouldn’t. "Yes."

"Was he there? At that course?" Anna asked.

She had to think for a moment. Oh, yes. She was supposed to have been instructing at a senior officer’s course. "No, he wasn’t."

"Ah hah. So he is a senior officer."

"Where did you get that from?" They were guessing; they had to be.

"The way you said it. As though no, he wasn’t there but he could have been." Anna's eyes sparkled with gleeful delight. "Besides, these are love lilies."

"What?" Allysha collapsed into her chair. She didn’t need this. But she was intrigued. "Love lilies?"

"Yep. It’s a Fleet thing. If a man gives you just one of those," Anna jerked her head at the flowers, "it’s understood to mean he’s serious."

Sirikit nodded, her liquid eyes sparkling.

"They’re hideously expensive," Todd chimed in. Allysha thought he looked rather somber. They might be hideously expensive to a lieutenant, but not to the man who sent these.

In the interests of 'does the story work if you leave it out' I cut that passage to just being he sent her flowers and her team wanted to know who Brad was. That way I could also leave out this bit, when Allysha's back home, talking to her IS.

"Brew me some kaff, Albert, then tell me what you know about love lilies."

Allysha took her cup over to a chair while Albert talked.

"It’s something of a Fleet legend, Allysha. It harks to the times when space travel took months or years and even moving from a planet’s orbit to a point where a ship could transfer to shift space could take days. Captain Isaac Ishkar finally found the woman of his dreams. But he was called to war before they could marry. He knew months would pass before his return and, having very little time to do much else, he organized with a florist to send his lady one of these flowers every week to remind her of him until he could return."

"Hm. And did he?"

"Yes. He was captured and imprisoned so he wasn’t able to return for two years, but then, at last, they were married. And now it has become something of a tradition for male Fleet officers to declare their intent by giving their lady one of these flowers."

One. He’d sent her ten. "Are they expensive?"

"It depends on the time of the year. Perhaps I should say, they are always expensive. When supply is low, they are extremely expensive."

"Why is that? Surely they’re cultivated?"

"They are. But the cultivated blossoms are not of the same quality. They lack the fragrance and glowing color of the wild stock."

He’d sent her the wild ones, of course.

In the end I put it all back. Sure, it's detail. Sure, the story stands without it. But personally, I LOVE detail. I love that rounded feeling you get when you can tell the writer really knows her world. It's why I love Tolkien and Jack McDevitt. And Linnea Sinclair.

Getting back to my post about over-editing, at the end of it I wrote "I’ve learned a valuable lesson; to use a cliché, ‘to thine own self be true’. Write your own story and stick to your guns."

If you want any writing advice from me, I'd tell you to go and learn the 'rules' and take what you want from them. Then write your own story and stick to your guns.

Oh, by the way, the quotes are from The Iron Admiral: Deception. You can find it here.
 

Tuesday Teaser - Spaceships! #YA #scifi

The summer holidays are almost over, and so are my teasers! For the last I'm sharing one that features my favourite part of science fiction - spaceships! Do you have a favourite? I always wanted an X-Wing, but just lately I'm in love with the Milano from Guardians of the Galaxy. It's the bird like thing that gets me. ^-^

Anyway, this excerpt is from my YA scifi adventure Gethyon - a SFR Galaxy Award winner and EPIC finalist in the SF category. Here my young hero has not only fallen foul of the local authorities while trying to leave, but there's a bounty hunter on his tail as well...

The warden drew a blaster from the holster at its hip and started to move toward Gethyon. I just can’t get on the good side of these guys, Gethyon though ruefully, before reaching for the controls and spinning the Drifter toward the hangar exit.

“Shut down your damn drive and surrender!” the hysterical hangar crew yelled at him. Ha, not likely! Gethyon gestured a nonchalant salute at the hangar tech who leapt up and down, waving his arms in negation, and to the warden aiming at his ship, before gunning his craft out of the hangar.

The flash of sunlight from the sea burned across his sight, and he threw up an arm to shield his eyes before reaching for a control that would cut the glare. A dark tint bled across the shattered canopy. The damage limited his external vision so he called up the holographic guidance system which drew the landscape outside over the interior of his ship in lines of green, white and red. Clear of the hangar, he tugged the safety harness around himself, and his ship juddered and rocked under a sudden assault. An alarm shrieked at him as he clasped his hands to the controls. What the Hades did I hit?

The ship shuddered again in answer and jolted out of the sky into a dive toward the sea. With his stomach doing somersaults, Gethyon wrestled to pull her back up, and a shadow shot past the edge of his vision. The Spirit Drifter turned her nose back up and another tremor shook her. Cold drenched through him as another craft zipped overhead. Jinx.

He summoned up the shields and yanked his ship back toward the tower. A touch of fingers swapped the schematic of his surroundings to one that showed his craft as a silver arrow with one in yellow pursuing. Damn!

More shots hit his ship and shook it like a storm-tossed leaf. A symphony of red warning and system failure indicators blazed with increasing brilliance across his console and the intensity of the alarms blossomed into skull-splitting vehemence.

“Siren off!” With it silenced, Gethyon tried to focus on an escape. Jinx’s ship was faster and armed. His shields were already at half-power. If he didn’t shake her off soon, he’d be grounded… or worse.

Two gigantic Seagrafter rigs crawled into the basin barely a few meters apart. Gethyon swung his craft to the right of them and followed a sharp arc in behind them, Jinx close on his tail. The sudden glimmer of an idea filled his mind. He shot out straight toward the side of the basin, even though it cost his craft two more shots to the rear and left his shields perilously weak. As he neared the constructions, he flipped his craft over and flew directly at Jinx who veered aside. In the few moments he knew he had before she corrected for her drastic evasion, he directed the Drifter toward the two Seagrafters and edged the ship lower. The shield touched the surface of the sea, and it spumed water upward. The resulting friction vaporized the water, adding steam to the fountain of liquid that veiled Gethyon’s craft and provided a measure of protection.

The schematics glaring across his canopy showed Jinx’s craft back in pursuit, but no shots followed as she left a greater distance between them. Gethyon allowed himself a grin and aimed his craft at the gap between the Seagrafters. There was barely a hand’s width to spare either side of his curved wings as he flitted between them, and he held his breath. Then he yanked back hard on the controls and forced the Drifter heavenward. He switched his rear vision to real-time, saw Jinx’s craft scrape the side of one Seagrafter and rebound into the other before plunging into the water.

The bounty hunter was down. Somehow, though, he doubted that would be the last he would see of her.

YA Scifi Novel
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