Back to the Moon to Protect the Earth

NASA geologist Paul Spudis predicts in Forbes that China will beat NASA back to the moon. He gives good reasons why there is little will in the NASA bureaucracy to return to the Moon any time soon. I play out a similar scenario in Beyond Earth where China and other nations nearly beat the U.S. back to the moon. But where Spudis urges us to go to the Moon for economic resources, I present a more compelling reason, national defense:

Back in the late 70's Gerard K. O'Neill proposed building large solar power space stations in orbit between Earth and the Moon to help supply energy for Earth. Solar power from space might not seem to pose a threat to world security, and O'Neill never meant it to be, but the potential is there. According to the plan, these stations would beam the power back to Earth at regular intervals via high-energy microwaves. The receiving microwave antennae on Earth were to be placed far from populated areas because if anyone walked near the antennae array while the microwaves were beaming down, he would be fried in his tracks.

Now place such a solar power plant on the Moon, far from the reach of a missile strike from Earth (It takes a couple of days to reach the moon by rocket). Give it a precise aiming mechanism so that it can direct the microwaves anywhere on Earth. Now you have a weapon of mass destruction that could potentially destroy a whole city or region within minutes. Imagine placing that in the hands of people who believe that the ends justifies the means. They might be willing to use it against their own people, or any nation that doesn't bow to their wishes.

So while going back to the Moon probably doesn't make much economic sense, it does make sense to seriously consider it for the defense of our nation. I hope we get there first.

How Long Could Mars Hold its Breath?

Lewis Dartnell, A researcher with the UK Space Agency proposed that life grew on Mars, but some catastrophe stripped the planet of its atmosphere eons ago. That sounds like a great story, except that Mars lacks the gravitational pull necessary to hold together an atmosphere. Mars has only 11% of the Earth's mass. So why would Dartnell come up with such an outlandish idea? Because Mars shows signs of having once had an atmosphere.

Mars is covered with signs of past liquid water, and that requires an atmosphere with a pressure similar to our own. Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system, displays winding, branching channels indicative of water erosion along its edges. In 2011, ESA's Mars Express turned up more signs of water erosion. NASA's Mars rover has now determined high levels of liquid water exist a meter under the surface. All this could not be sustained under Mars' current atmosphere where water either freezes or boils. So Mars once had a substantial atmosphere.

But for how long? That's a question I pose to you physicists and mathematicians. Given Mars' low gravity, how long could it hang on to an atmosphere like that of Earth before the air would boil off into space? Here's my round guess: somewhere in the range of a hundred years, give or take several decades. You see, the best scenario to explain Mars is not that a catastrophe stripped it of an atmosphere, but that a catastrophe gave it an atmosphere, but the planet didn't have the gravity to hang onto it for long. I'm curious to hear your figures and factors.

To Mars in 30 Minutes and Other Science Fantasy

Philip Lubin's laser sail concept

A lot of science fiction these days amounts to fantasy dressed up in scientific language, and that can be entertaining, but it's not true speculative fiction; it's a flight of the imagination. This kind of speculation has so influenced science lately that even scientists are stooping to fantasy.

Philip Lubin's recent statement that with current technology we can travel to Mars in 30 minutes is an example of this. Many are pointing out the problems with his proposal, such as space debris, braking and the energy required. But here's another practical detail he seems to have missed: The affects of acceleration on the human body.  Maybe someday we might propel an object to Mars in 30 minutes, but getting it there by the means he describes requires accelerating it half the way and deccelerating it half the way.

You can see the limits to this without consulting a mathematician: At its closest approach, Mars would be about 35 million miles away. Half of that is 17 million miles. If our complete trip is supposed to last 30 minutes, we have to cover the first 17 million miles in 15 minutes, or 900 seconds of acceleration.

Let's be charitable and say our astronauts only have to accelerate one mile per second each second to get this vast distance, though they would need to go much faster than that. 1G acceleration is about 32 feet per second faster each second. One mile per second each second is 165 times more acceleration, so that's 165 G's, right? Tell me if I'm missing something here. That's more than enough to smush any astronaut.

Lubin is not alone in skipping the realities of interplanetary travel. In a way, he's being more realistic than others who propose taking a year or more to travel to Mars. I've mentioned the problems with this in a previous post ("Around Mars in 500 days"). The only practical way for humans to travel to the planets is by getting there fast. In my novel, Beyond Earth, I propose a 1G drive, where the astronauts accelerate at 1g for half the journey and decelerate at 1g for the other half. It would make for a comfortable ride and shorten the journey to about two days. Of course, someone has yet to invent a 1G drive, so that's where imagination comes in.

Life on Enceladus?

Enceladus geyers, courtesy NASA

I wrote previously about the possibility that life might be discovered in the oceans of Saturn's moon Enceladus, and I proposed that genetic testing would show it to be related to life on Earth. So how did it get there all the way from Earth?

Note what the article says: "The salt is the same familiar sodium chloride found in our oceans..." What if, at some point in the Earth's history (say, about 4,000 years ago), a great deal of water from underneath the crust spewed out, some of it raining down salty water over the Earth and into our oceans, and some it reaching escape velocity? Do we have any record of this?

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month--on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. (Genesis 7:11)

Living organisms may not turn up on other planets, but if they do, this would  explain how they got there. On reaching space, the water would flash-freeze, preserving any bacteria and small forms of life contained in it. The sun would drive a form of evaporative jetting much as comets do, sending the ice crystals spiraling out to the outer solar system where they would be captured by the gravity of the outer giants and rain down on their moons. On Enceladus, with the ice melting beneath the surface, some of the bacteria might revive and grow. The likelihood of this happening is slim, but more likely than life coming from non-life. As Pasteur demonstrated, all life is from life. You can read more about this Enceladus scenario in my novel, Beyond Earth.

Saturn's Saltwater Moon

Simulation of plumes on Enceladus

Two teams of researchers reviewing data from the Cassini spacecraft came to the same conclusion that Saturn's moon Enceladus not only has a global ocean of liquid water beneath its ice, it's salt water. CNET explains how the researchers analyzed imagery of icy plumes on the surface:

Looking at this data, the team was able to determine the content of the plumes -- and by extension the subsurface ocean -- to be highly salty with an alkaline pH of around 11 or 12. The salt is the same familiar sodium chloride found in our oceans and on our french fries here on Earth, but there's also a healthy dose of sodium carbonate, also known as "soda ash," which we use here in detergents as a water softener and sometimes in cooking.

The researchers get very excited about the possibility that this salty soda water might harbor some form of life. Why does this idea so excite them? Because in their minds, this would be a vindication of their belief in Evolution. If life was found on Enceladus, wouldn't it prove Evolution?

In a word, no. In my novel, Beyond Earth, I've written a chapter about just such a scenario where life is discovered in the ocean of Enceladus. But it proves to be so problematic for the Evolutionist that he... well that would be giving away the story.

How could discovering life in space be a problem to an Evolutionist? When that life proves to be genetically identical to life on Earth. In any court of law, genetic testing proves paternity beyond a shadow of a doubt. In this case, if life is discovered there, and it proves to be genetically related to life on Earth, then the simple conclusion is that it came from Earth. Then the question is, how did it get there from here? I'll get to that in my next post.

NASA Fighting its Ultimate Demise

Space elevator by NASA

The Wall Street Journal reports that NASA is courting science fiction authors to write pro-NASA science fiction novels. In a current collaborative novel, the enemies of humanity are cast as "tightfisted bureaucrats who have slashed NASA's budget." Really? Could it be any more obvious?

I don't fault NASA trying to prop up its budget, but this illustrates how they are increasingly becoming an agency without a reason to exist. The military has its own space program. Private sector space companies are quickly filling in launch capabilities for other public needs, such as weather and navigational satellites. Experimental aircraft design? The military and private sectors have that covered pretty well too. And space exploration? Even this former NASA mainstay is getting nibbled at by private sector activity, Red Bull and Google being prime examples.

My novel, Beyond Earth, envisions a day when NASA is no more. Could we continue to advance in space without some big, federally funded space agency? Definitely. Think of how expensive in the past an Arctic or Antarctic expedition would have been. Did these require a government-funded agency? Oftentimes, these were privately funded groups, that today we would call non-profits. There were many different motivations: a desire to discover something new, a quest for fame, patriotism, personal competition. Some may have eventually hoped to profit financially, but it certainly wasn't the only reason they invested in such expeditions. If you're wondering what forms a private space expedition might take, you might start with reading my novel.

Mars not so Red After All

Cores taken on Mars, courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

News reports describe how the Mars Curiosity rover has found evidence of an ancient lake on Mars. What stands out to me is this photo of the drill core taken from the apparent ancient lake-bed. It clearly shows the red iron oxide of Mars lies only along a thin layer of the surface. Granted, this is just one spot, but it's a spot declared to be the bottom of a lake that was supposed to have been around for millions of years. Amidst all the talk of Mars having liquid water for millions of years, no one even poses the question of how the water could lay there for millions of years and never seep any deeper than a few inches below the surface. Could it be that the water was only there for a short span of time before it evaporated into space? That's the scenario I explore in my novel, Beyond Earth.

Oxygen on Mars! Of Course.

Spirit Rover, courtesy JPL

Some people in planetary science must be either really desperate for headlines or really leaving behind common sense. A recent article in Device headlines with Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere a billion years before Earth. It describes how:

--recently, NASA has come upon one heck of a realization thanks to the data which Spirit sent Earthward: Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere way before we did — at least 1.5 billion years, if their data is correct.

Chronology notwithstanding, is this really a shocking discovery? Mars is the "Red Planet," after all. It gets that rusty color from iron oxide—as in oxygen. They just realized that now?

How does iron oxide form? The most common way is exposure to liquid water. That implies that the majority of Mars' surface was exposed to liquid water in the past. Now that's curious. Mars doesn't have the gravity to hold a dense enough atmosphere for very long, and that means water wouldn't remain liquid for very long. It's almost as if a whole bunch of water slammed into Mars all at once and then evaporated away to leave the planet rusty red. Beyond Earth explores some major clues pointing to such a scenario. See my previous post about this, "Mars like Earth in the Past?"

Beyond Earth AZOSA Review

 Here's a review of Beyond Earth by Dr. Joseph Kezele of the Arizona Origin Science Association (AzOSA):

I have found Beyond Earth to be absolutely delightful! The greatly imaginative use of the bodies of the solar system to introduce the biblical/young-Earth creation model as well as elements of the Gospel message is marvelous. It is a pleasure to read science fiction that glorifies our Lord Creator and is a fun read at the same time. This book deserves a wide readership. Kudos.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Life - A Quest of Faith?

Fine-grained mudstone on Mars, courtesy NASA

The New York Times declares, "Mars Could Have Supported Life Long Ago, NASA Says," yet look at all the unknowns mentioned right at the top of the article (emphasis added):

Several billion years ago, Mars may well have been a pleasant place for tiny microbes to live, with plenty of water as well as minerals that could have served as food, NASA scientists said Tuesday at a news conference on the latest findings from their Mars rover. But they have yet to find signs that actual microbes did live in that oasis.

What is it that keeps the these scientists going despite the lack of proof? It appears to be faith. My science fiction novel, Beyond Earth, explores this, following a scientist who is "certain life is out there, somewhere." At one point, he complains to a colleague:

--The universe is so big, I could go on searching my whole life and never run across the proof. That is... proof to convince the skeptics. I feel like Schiaparelli seeing canals on Mars; or worse, some UFO cultist who, when confronted with the lack of proof, says "But that just shows how good they are at covering it up."

Consider how faith-like the search for extraterrestrial life can be:

• There is no experimental proof of it.
• There is no historic evidence of it.
• There is nothing known for certain about its form or nature.
• Its supporters persist despite a lack of positive evidence.
• Any evidence to the contrary is interpreted by the dogma rather than calling the dogma into question.
• Only a universal negative would be accepted as proof that it does not exist.

Some day we may find life on other planets. But is it from other planets? I'm sure that will be debated. In the meantime though, it appears to remain a quest of faith.

Around Mars in 500 Days

Dragon Capsule, courtesy Space X

First it was the Ansari X Prize and Spaceship One, then Red Bull's sky-dive from space and Google's Lunar X Prize. Now millionaire Dennis Tito wants to send a privately funded mission to Mars in 2018. It seems like privately funded space exploration is catching on. My novel, Beyond Earth, explores this trend, and I think we'll be seeing many more such missions.

Whether Tito succeeds in his plan or not, it does bring up an important issue of interplanetary travel. According to DVice:

Tito... is going to try to swing two people around Mars without stopping and then bring them back to Earth on a mission lasting 501 days.

500 days in a 10 cubic-meter capsule for one or two days worth of sight-seeing? Whew! If they're not bored to death, they face the problem of cosmic rays and solar wind. Discovery News reports a study from the University of Rochester Medical Center that found:

--that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Wow! Go to Mars and come back a vegetable. There has to be a better way. Improved shielding technology would certainly help, but better still would be a faster journey. What I propose in Beyond Earth is 1G propulsion. For half the journey the ship accelerates out at 1 gravity, then turns around and deccelerates at 1 gravity for the other half. That would cut a 250-day outbound trip down to just a few days. It seems that manned interplanetary travel may depend on someone inventing an efficient 1G engine. Not only would it simulate the gravity of Earth that's so important to our physical health, but with high energy particles zipping through our brains, the less time in space the better. As Dorthy said after visiting Oz, "There's no place like home."

Water on the Moon... as Predicted

Lunar Rock, courtesy NASA

It's not often you find a science fiction novel predicting something scientists later discover, so you'll pardon me taking a moment to say, "I called it!"

All right, it was a guess, but an educated guess. Here's the recent news from Science World Report:

Researchers announced the discovery of tiny amounts of water in the moon rocks brought to Earth by the Apollo missions, which in turn could invalidate the current theory of how our Moon was formed in the first place.

The sample comes from the lunar highlands, which is considered the oldest region of the lunar surface because it's not covered in lava from major impacts. Most current theories of lunar formation say any water that may have been deposited there should have long since disappeared, and yet this new sampling turned up trace amounts of water.

In my novel, Beyond Earth, we find character Neiman Hyatt explaining to some aerospace engineers that he's going to get fuel from lunar ice for his return trip from the Moon:

"Then you need to land at one of the poles to get enough ice," they would say. "That's where the Europeans plan to go."

"No. We're landing at Alphonsus." He pointed toward the lunar highlands at the center of the face of the moon.

"There’s no ice there."

Neiman pulled up the radar scans to prove it.

The engineers remained skeptical: "After a few million years, any ice in the lunar soil would have baked away in the sun. It has to be something else giving those readings."

Neiman insists the ice is there because it wasn't deposited millions of years ago, but in a single, more recent event. While the new discovery is just a trace (6 parts per million), it's enough to throw a wrench in the works of the more favored lunar theories, because water shouldn't be there at all.

On what did I base my guess? I read one the best books on earth and planetary science you can find, In the Beginning, by Dr. Walter Brown. I highly recommend it.

Mining Asteroids

image courtesy deepspaceindustries.com

Deep Space Industries is planning to mine the asteroids for profit. Will they really be able to turn a buck? NBC News reports the idea behind the venture:

Theoretically, mining the right kind of asteroid could produce precious metals worth sending back to Earth, such as platinum, gold and rare-earth minerals.

This assumes asteroids contain these minerals. They seem to be rightly named rare-earth minerals, because so far, evidence suggests they contain no mineral more valuable than iron. The more we learn about asteroids, the more they begin to look a lot like inactive comets--piles of dirt and rocks glued together by water frost. Have you noticed how most asteroids lie trapped inside the orbit of Jupiter, not outside? It's as if the comets and asteroids were blown out from the inner solar system and trapped by Jupiter's gravity, rather than Jupiter pulling them in from deep space--something to think about.

In any case, asteroid mining has to deal with the economic law of EROEI, or Energy Returned on Energy Invested. My novel, Beyond Earth examines this. In the words of character Neiman Hyatt:

There's no product here worth the amount of energy it would take to bring it back to Earth. Why go 250,000 miles away to get something you could get 25 miles away? It just doesn't add up.

He's referring to the moon, but the principal also applies to the asteroids and other planets. It's a question not often considered in science fiction, because it raises another question: Why even go into space? There are plenty of other reasons to go, and in Neiman's case, he's going to explore. I believe the planets and asteroids may hold some surprising discoveries, which I speculate on in my novel.

Beyond Earth Book Review 2

Entertaining Science Fiction

The book is well written and entertaining. There is much variety in terms of characters, countries, and situations. Some novel theories are worked out as somewhat surprising. Differing philosophies of various ones give good variety. The language is essentially clean and the violence is as expected with catastrophes and war. The book tours various planets and moons in our solar system in some interesting detail. To fully enjoy the book, one needs some scientific feel and concept of the solar system. It is science fiction of the future where much of the present world situation has dramatically changed, although many of the concepts are seen in current literature.

Larry Craver
Review of Beyond Earth on Amazon.com

Mars like Earth in the Past?

Simulation of Mars with an atmosphere by Kevin Gill, NASA

Fox News mentions NASA Engineer Kevin Gill was inspired to render a simulation of what Mars might have looked like with an atmosphere. While the image is pure fancy, the inspiration for it is a growing body of evidence that Mars had liquid water in the past. The article states:

As we send more missions to Mars, it's becoming clear that the planet was once a wet world with features that were very Earth-like. For example, NASA's recently landed Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity touched down on an ancient riverbed inside Gale Crater where water, perhaps two feet deep, used to flow. Evidence of clays near Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity are also evidence that minerals have interacted with surface water some time in the past. (Read more)

Herein lies a mystery which I explore in my novel, Beyond Earth: Liquid water requires an atmosphere at an Earth-like pressure or the water immediately boils away. Yet with only 1/3 of Earth's gravity, Mars can't hang on to a thick atmosphere for very long. Over time, the excess gas diffuses into space. How long such an atmosphere would last is merely guesswork at this point, but estimates range from hundreds of years to millions. At the high range, this makes Mars' ancient atmosphere too young to fit the conjectured 4-billion-year age of Mars. At the low range, it suggests sometime in the past Mars gained and lost an atmosphere over a relatively brief time--an intriguing idea I'm not aware of anyone exploring in science fiction, apart from Beyond Earth.

Beyond Earth First Book Review (CSFNM)

The following book review comes from one of the board members of the Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico. I post it in its entirety:

BEYOND EARTH—the Rise and Fall of the Interplanetary Age by Paul Lewis

Beyond Earth is an insightful story of entrepreneurs driving the conquest of the solar system. Seeing great profit in capitalizing on possibilities that are made real by new materials manufactured in low- to zero-gravity environments, commercial enterprises reach out to the planets, their moons, and asteroids. Exploration, colonization, and exploitation are the themes of a movement reminiscent of the Gold Rush days. Space, however, is a harsh host, its harbors not well suited to the Earth-born. Technology can bring humans far, but commercialism is driven on timely payoffs- let the buyer beware!

In this story, a sprinkling of Christians are instrumental in the business of conquering space. Their various contributions, personalities and private lives express a truth not readily perceived in much of literature; each Christian is an individual, and each is very much a human. Strengths and weaknesses are apparent in each, as much as in the characters of those who find Christianity offensive. Along the way, a few find reasons to believe in that God that they might have thought they left behind, or outgrew.

A remarkable fact of this book is the near-total absence of Islam. The word Islam does not occur.  There is an historical reference to caliphates long gone, and late in the story a space traffic controller’s thoughts list some “moon-faring countries”, among which are ones that are now or likely to become, Muslim- Egypt, Indonesia, Persia, Uganda, Malaysia. In a decade even Europe might be Muslim-dominated.

Persia is an anachronistic name which I take to mean Iran. Events could be imagined and perhaps should have been referenced, to return it to its former name.

In any case, could so much of human history happen without significant occurrences under a crescent banner? Islam might not drive the space race, but to imagine no significant influence seems to me to require a very different reality.

One character in this string of stories about Man in space fascinates me. Introduced as born and raised on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, this person is a great representation of a possibility which I hope has not and will not actually happen. Yet, in another sense, there are many of them all around us. I pray that God gives me wisdom and love to understand them whenever I come upon them.

Finally, I note that Beyond Earth ends with an easy path for a sequel. The status of the colony population on one planet remains in question. It happens to be the most viable venture in the system, having lost no humans. What has happened with it now that Earth’s influence has abated? Another story might be on the way!

Terraforming Venus

Artist's conception of a terraformed Venus, courtesy i09.com

Terraforming a planet, or engineering it to be like Earth, has long been an attractive idea to science fiction. But what planet is the prime candidate? You might be surprised to find out that many consider it to be Venus. Not that the planet offers an easy time of it, but Venus offers one thing Mars and the other planets don't--a gravity nearly the same as Earth's. At about 90% of normal Earth gravity, it can easily hold an atmosphere, and would minimize the atrophy to humans from living in low gravity.

However don't count on anyone terraforming Venus soon. Venus has no magnetic field to speak of, it rotates too slow in the wrong direction, and its crushing, poisonous atmosphere is hot enough to melt lead. Each of these issues present such an immense engineering challenge that many would say it's impossible. But if it was possible, how would it be done? And what would it look like? Read Beyond Earth, to find out.

Organic Materials on Mars

Mars soil samples, courtesy NASA

Space.com reports that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has detected organic materials on Mars' surface, that is, compounds containing carbon. What's interesting is the assumptions by which they interpret the discovery:

However, the science team can't yet be sure whether these compounds truly come from Mars, or arise from contamination transported to the Red Planet onboard Curiosity.

Notice the only two sources currently being considered for the organic material:

1. It grew on Mars, and is evidence of life evolving independently on Mars
2. It was contamination brought by the Curiosity rover from Earth

 We see this clearly in the following:

"Even though [Mahaffy's] instrument detected organic compounds, first of all we have to determine whether they're indigenous to Mars," said John Grotzinger, Curiosity's project scientist.

Indigenous or contamination... But what about a third alternative? That the organic material came from Earth some time in the ancient past, say around 4,000 years ago? That would imply a catastrophic event, one that in the minds of many scientists is unthinkable. Read Chapter 7 of Beyond Earth and find out why.

Has Curiosity rover found what my book predicts?

Fox News reports about NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars:

Mars mystery: has Curiosity rover made big discovery?

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery "for the history books," but we'll have to wait a few weeks to find out what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest.

The discovery was made by Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, NPR reported Tuesday, Nov. 20. SAM is the rover's onboard chemistry lab, and it's capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.

Read more...

Compare that with Beyond Earth, Chapter 7, "The Fields of Mars."

It came through as mere numbers on the monitor.

“It’s life,” said Dr. Bailey. “Look at that spike in ATP.”

“Life,” said Dr. Ash. He said it quietly, with reverence, as if he were saying a prayer. Then he said to Dr. Bailey, “It’s time to spread the good news. Will you help me finish off the press release?”

“Of course,” said Dr. Bailey.

Life in some form may well be found on Mars, but if it is, it won't be what most scientists expect. In fact, I'm certain it will leave a good many scientists scratching their heads when they find out what it is.

For those of you who prefer a book you can hold in your hand, Beyond Earth is now in print. Take a look inside on Amazon.

It's also available on the Kindle.

Beyond Earth is an entertaining science fiction adventure, but watch out! Along the way, you might end up learning something about the planets. More on that to come.