100 Years Avast!

Too the Stars! © Solomon 2011

DARPA and NASA have jointly issued a request for information soliciting ideas for an organization, business model and approach for a self-sustaining investment vehicle in support of the development of a Starship that could make at least a century long run through the heavens. In other words, they want private business to figure out how to build, run, and staff such a craft. They are also curious about what it might be good for.

Good question. It’s the same question that sea faring nations, and bankers and insurance companies in Europe asked when crazy people came with crackpot ideas to build boats capable of traversing our terran globe. Why would you need a boat to go someplace faraway? Why not just take the horses and carts to China? They already knew how to do that. But, the money guys and the Kings of nations with ocean coastlines eventually saw the economic benefit, or at least potential in such experiments. At least the King might get a watch that actually worked out of the deal (such would be required for navigation across the seas), and maybe some of that mythical gold at the edge of the world, in the Land Where There Be Dragons.

Well, today we know there is no edge of the world, but there is outer space. In our own backyard of Sol’s neighborhood, there’s plenty of gold to be found, as well as more useful stuff. There’s the lithium in the battery of your laptop or hybrid car. There’s Helium 3, which will come in handy when we finally build that environmentally friendly fusion reactor. It’s all over our own Moon. There’s lots of other stuff to be mined and explored. Maybe even extraterrestrial life. Someday, a shrimp-like creature from the submerged ocean of Europa may be a delicacy on your grandchild’s plate. But, such exploits, business schemes and exploration will not require a space craft capable of a hundred year voyage.

So, what to do with such a craft? How about going to a place like Gliese 581, a star but twenty light years away from our home? That is not far by cosmic standards. That is almost next door. But, at first blush, it is uninteresting. It’s a puny M-Class star, a Red Dwarf, that barely shines. Circling it, however, is Gliese 581d. This is a large rocky planet where it is likely that fresh water might exist for critters to slake their thirst upon and swim, perhaps even bath in. That is if there is an appropriate atmosphere for the bathing beauties to indulge their fondness for the pleasant fragrance of alien flowers, or simply to breathe.

We have already directed messages toward this plant, using our greatest radio telescope in reverse, sending rather than receiving. It will take forty years to get a reply, if there is to be one.

Back to the real questions at hand. What are the essential details of a trip to Gliese 581d?  Assuming that we will develop tech capable of powering a large craft fitted out with all the practicalities to keep many folks fed, toilets that work, care and schools for the kids that will inevitably be born, there’s still the issue of speed.  We are presently nowhere near running a space craft at near light speed. We will likely not send people out to just look at the sky aboard the grandest invention of the Human Race , and thence die in a the void… unless our purpose is to rid the planet of religious nuts.

So, assume that we develop the tech (or our travelers improve the tech brought from Earth) to reach half or a third of luminal velocity. They would be using the acceleration to produce artificial gravity. After some years of increasing speed, they might get to Gliese in one piece. Maybe. But…

Let’s do the arithmetic and future myth. One Hundred years is about four generations of Humans today. It will take two generations to get to Gliese 581d. It might be three, if kids continue to fornicate as my generation has. Generations Two and Three will have never known Earth. Their grandparents are gone. Their parents never knew Earth, neither. Would the grand kids or their children want to come home to a place that might be as much a fabled place as the Garden of Eden?

Whoops, we’re back to the religious nut problem, a possible religious war on a world that has never known Humankind before we brought our strange ways to their doorstep.

Perhaps, though, like the folks that came to the so-called New World, they would have no desire to return home to a place of such strife and hardship as their grand parents told them of. Maybe they would make a New World. A more perfect union? Meanwhile, in orbit is a Starship all ready to sail on for another fifty Terran years and still under warranty…

Hic Finis Est,

S

Artist's Rendition of Gliese 581d

Quite a Twisted Time

Quite a Twisted Time  © Solomon

Folks,

This has been a boss weird couple of weeks. The weirdest since my first tour in the Grateful Dead Show through Western Massachusetts, Eastern New York, Vermont, and Southern Canada . That was back in the ’70’s… I think. Who knows for sure. Whatever.

So, here’s what went down recently…

I was staying in a room at the edge of town. I’d just moved back to Noho so I’d be able to get together with my Chinese writing partner, Dr. Tao, to finish up work on a book/movie deal we have in the works. Some things cannot be done via email. Madmen on a mission must, sooner or later, collaborate in an adjacent space and time. So, I took this place after speaking on the phone with what seemed like an agreeable fellow who had a room to let. He managed a joint for the absentee owner. The next day he took my first and last month’s rent. The guy’s name was Boxo.

Within a day, he was no longer agreeable. He was the most disagreeable man that I have ever met. The first morning I woke there, before 8AM, the guy was having what I would learn was his usual breakfast. That was cheap beer. That first beverage would prompt him to burp loudly and with great satisfaction before the angry complaining would start to issue from a foul mouth as beer froth dripped from this ogre’s shaggy mustache. Around 11AM, it was cocktail time. Rum and Coke! The anger and whining rage at an unforgiving universe that done him wrong intensified. At this point, I’d leave to go work with my partner across town, or to just get away from the torment.

I’d come home around 6PM, to get dressed down for doing my “faggy things” downtown. He’d mouth off about how the Jews where ruining his life. I am a Jew, but not gay. Nonetheless, while the Jew-thing put me off, just a bit, the “faggy-thing” really twisted my ethical shorts. I stand with anybody who gets picked on for being born as they got born.

I said to him: “Yeah. I’m a Jew and I’m a fag.” I went upstairs to write in my room until he likely passed out, but unable to tune out the continuing chaos downstairs.

He would not pass out for several hours. First he had to whirl and stumble through the Hour of Nagging the Girlfriend, and more beer. Then, there was the brief thirty minutes of The Blessing of Yeasty Happiness, when all was right with this bozo. This was followed by the Mysterious Rite of Barfing, and finally the Moment of Splendid Collapse on the Couch. Of course, not being a supplicant of the Orthodox Church of the One True Drunk, he was allowed to take the sacrament of Procumbent on the Floor.

This went on, day after day for about fifteen or sixteen days. Who’s counting? Eventually, though, the Great Moment of Reckoning occurred. This dude was the sort of drunk that seldom remembered what he had done the previous day, nor how much booze he had washed down his poisoned gullet. He had, the evening previous to the Final Accounting swilled down not only all of his bad beer, but his girlfriend’s rum. Finding the fridge barren of liquid gruel and no intoxicating sugar drink to mend his bruised pia and dura maters, he was a very grumpy troll. So was his girlfriend, the over-plump Ms. Dixie. She railed on his soul and threatened to kick his fat, sweaty ass.

Boxo was not a man to be treated in such a way. No! He was a Marine. Never mind that the U.S. Marines kicked him out the corp before he got through an enlistment engineered by a parole officer to keep that fat sweaty ass out of jail for numerous and sundry crimes as an addled and possibly mentally handicapped youth. A Marine is always a Marine. Ms. Dixie backed down and retreated to cry in the bedroom when threatened with yet another beating by this trained killer.

He turned his sites on me. He blamed me for tossing back that jug of rum and ten cans of beer. Now, I haven’t had a drink in about sixteen months, and I never much favored rum. Grain alcohol and branch water was my drink, chased by ten or twelve hits of speedy blotter acid. None of that sissy rum and coke stuff for me. Jeezuz! If you’re going to do a job, do it right. Whatever. Those days have passed for me. But, Boxo never got to drink that wine. He’s a sad man, a miserable man who has never tasted ecstasy. Now he was blaming me for his troubles with a fat lady who was just plain scared of him and his poor behavior.

Anyhow, I look into his dilated eyes beneath his sweaty brow. He’s clenching his thumbs in his fat fists, kneading them like putty, as he hunches forward and proclaims, “Buddy, I want you out of here!” I can smell the funky musk of adrenaline and alcohol on his breath.

“That’s fine. I’ll pack my things. What about my next month’s rent? You owe me money.”

“Fuck you, man. I’ll rip your ears off!”

Now, my dad was also a Marine. He was the first guy to enlist on the morning of June 7^th, the day after the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. He actually got his picture on the first page of the New York Times, and he became a Marine Drill Instructor.  He was a formidable man and a good father. When I was a kid he taught me a few things about how Marines fight.

In an instant I remembered some of those lessons. First, I recalled him telling me that a reasonably fit human can truloy rip another guy’s ears off. It takes just three foot/pounds of torque and a good twist to make the enemy earless. Second, you should never bring a weapon to a fight unless you mean to use it. In the present situation, my weapons were my hands and feet, as were my opponent’s. Third, if you know that your enemy has a vulnerability, exploit it. Forth, if the opponent engages you in hand to hand combat and goes for your head, duck, turn around and kick as hard as you can at that soft spot. I knew that Boxo had a blown out right knee!

Now, if he had come after me, I could have possibly achieved those first four steps and saved my hide. But, step five was not appealing. Once I had the pudgy bastard down, I had been instructed to stomped on his head until his skull was crushed or his neck broken. And, of course, there was the Prime Directive issued by my father. If you’re going to do it, DO IT! In other words, don’t even think about what you have to do before you defend or attack.

Whoops! I’d just thought about it. I would not have minded killing this jerk, but dealing with the following mess, the puke and shit, blood, a corpse and the cops was not to my liking. Neither was the prospect of time in prison.

Fortunately, at that moment of crisis, a neighbor came out of his garage with his lawn mower and took notice of a conflict on the adjacent property. Boxo took a deep breath. I stepped back and quietly asked him when and where I should meet him to get the money owed. He mumbled  grumpily, “Tuesday, May 31^st, the parking lot by Pop’s… you faggot.” I went upstairs to pack and make a couple of phone calls, hoping to find a place to land later in the day. Meanwhile, Boxo did a woozy dance with the rig of his old motor boat before swerving down the road toward the river for an afternoon of endangering others on the public waterways.

May 31^st, the Day of Near Final Collision, arrived. I arrived at the parking lot outside of Pop’s to find Boxo getting into his big, yellow Econovan with a case of beer and a handle of rum. In the passenger seat was his buddy, another murderous thug so loony that even the Marines found him useless. The buddy was waving an envelope from the window, and I walked up to get whatever was in it. As I reached for the package, Boxo stomped on the gas, fish-tailing the van and almost clobbering me with the rear end, but I got the envelope!

As Boxo and his moron accomplice weaved down Main Street at speed, I counted my change. He’d only given me half of the money owed. Whatever. Our paths were untwined. I took some satisfaction in the prospect that the cruiser waiting up the street would pull him over and send his sweaty butt to jail and thence to court for his third DUI. I had a roof over my head for the next few days, and a place to write. The weather was sunny and mild. I had some cash in my pocket. It was a good day. Nobody got killed.

Res Ispa Loquitor

S

Ad Endum

There’s an amazing recording by The Bard, Robert Hunter that is dear to me. It’s called Tiger Rose and it includes a tune called that I do love. Here’s a capable rendition of Cruel White Water performed by Donnie Eidt (with lyrics in text). This old bit of banging on the floor boards and words were well in my head as I awoke at dawn the morning of June 1st. No online version of a Hunter performance, in his perfectly foggy country tenor is available, as far as I’m willing to spend the time to tell. But, a lyric shorn of music is a lamentable thing, so I pass on Eidt’s fine effort. Anyhow, see the following lines from the song for the essential message that was called to mind from the tune. Each word in this song is precious when wedded to the rhythm and melody, so I included Donnie’s link for both musical and literary delectation.

Home inside the hour, tuning my guitar
I get that sudden urge I know so well
I finished my rendition of don't pity my condition
Then looked around to find what I could sell

Okay, I’m done with my words, and I trust you may enjoy those of Hunter’s. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming of Deep Space Adventure and Music for the Soul.

Hic Finis Est

S

What Do Aliens Eat?

Dear Friends,

On July 24^th,, 2024 the spacecraft Armstrong completed its more than billion mile, eight year journey to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, after looping around our Terran Moon and the planet Venus, thence threading its way through the asteroid belt beyond Mars. Once the robot made contact with Europa’s icy surface, the ship’s radio-thermal power generator (RTG) began to heat its exterior to 27º C. Armstrong then melted it’s way to the briny, dark sea ten kilometers below. The descent into the enshrouded ocean took just less than two years.

Once there, Armstrong opened his eyes and tasted the enveloping waters and all that it contained. His ears activated, and he could hear to shrieks and whooping of the beasts that inhabit this new vista. Just over an hour later, by radio, scientists on Earth saw, tasted, and heard what Armstrong perceived.

On the floor of this ice-buried ocean little beasties that looked like earthly tube-worms by submerged volcanic vents wagged in the gloomy currents. They expelled soft flakes that smelled of sulfur. About them swam translucent, bioluminescent creatures that looked rather like our flounder. They flickered as though signaling each other with their light. Indeed, our cryptographers believe that what they have seen was akin to Morse Code or Semaphore. These critters were intelligent, or at least communicative with each other.

However intelligent, they were not immune to the predation of what our biologists term Wasps, that being their behavior. Their appearance, though, was more like a giant eel, but with a prehensile, many fingered tale and a gaping maw that contained teeth of a sort. Those teeth were, as well, agile. Apparently having no jaw, they masticated their pray by slowly grinding, massaging the gooey flesh with the action of their terrible incisors, then somehow absorbing the meal through their skin.

After 3.46 terran hours in service beneath Europa’s ocean, Armstrong had completed its mission, it’s communication systems failed. The cause of failure in not certain, but it is theorized that the Wasps actually have their stomachs on the outside of their body, and potent gastric juices fatally corroded both the high-gain and back-up antennas.

Yours in Scientific Enthusiasm,

S

Who's That Knocking?

Dear Friends,

Stephen Hawking has cautioned us to stay clear of alien visitors, to not advertise our presence. They might be hunting for precious resources on rocky world rich with minerals and meat. the solution to Fermi’s Paradox may be that advanced civilizations have figured out that it is best to stay hid from their galactic neighbors.

But, what if we do get a visit? That’s unlikely, of course, given the vastness of even our observable backyard. More likely, we may get message in the form of modulated laser light in an appreciative response to an “I Love Lucy” episode from 1960. Or, the message may be in the form of a controlled implosion of star that radiates an SOS, sent from a species that can manage stellar mechanics but not solve their troubles with the little beasties that are eating all their methane.

Here on The Home Planet, our own species can’t even communicate with our Cetacean cousins, nor our closest kin, Great Apes. The creatures that we call pets, who live in our own homes, are a mystery to us. Just ask anybody who keeps a cat.

Hic Finis Est,

S

The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes…

Dear Friends.

As ever, the next moment in history, or even the events of your walk to the park, remain uncertain. But, read this! Don't ever miss a chance to make a difference, if only by example.  As old Sam Clemens said, "The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

Res Ipsa Loquitur,

S

Look to The Skies!

Dear Friends,

By my lights, this Universe is a pretty good operational definition of a miracle. It's amazing that anything exists, really. That the Universe gave us eyes to see It dancing, to have the senses to taste Her perfume on the breeze that graces our tender hides, to hear those songs on the wind, to feel the shadow of one of Her clouds or the creatures that She made to fly… to know without looking that we are not alone in Creation and feel compelled to gaze to the heavens and imagine… I am not a religious person, but  I do believe that somehow this place got put together pretty well just exactly perfect.

Check out this video for a preview of a real good show coming up in about ten days. You'll have to get up early (or stay up late) but if Nature cooperates and the sky is clear, it will be worth it. With nothing more than your outstretched arm and a thumbs up, you will see celestial mechanics in action and get a fresh perspective on where you live.

Res Ipsa Loquitur,

S

An image of Jupiter. The dark spot is the shadow of Europa, a small world that may well harbor an ocean below miles of ice. In that ocean, may be life.

This is how it's done…

Dear Friends,

The guy in the picture below is a fellow named Ed White. One day in June of 1965, when I was just nine years old, he hauled his butt out of a perfectly fine space ship to take a "stroll" over the Home Planet. He was traveling at about 17,000 miles an hour, and all the while falling but not landing. That is the definition of being in orbit.

There were a few concerns about putting even a steely-eyed missile man in this situation. A person might reasonably be expected to puke up his lunch of freeze-dried goop in his helmet under, or above the planet that appeared to speed along below, or above, his feet. That would be bad for the steely-eyed missile man stuck inside a pressurized helmet.

There was also some concern about getting him back into that perfectly fine space ship. His protective suit was inflated. He had barely an inch of room to squeeze himself back into the craft's hatch… if he survived his little "walk-about" one-hundred and sixty miles above where his feet were designed to live. Oh, and if his buddy on the ship couldn't yank his corpse back into the space ship, they would both be former-astronauts. You can't land a space ship with one door open and a dead guy flopping around in the incinerating breeze of reentry.

Well, Ed got back home okay. His buddy, Jim McDivitt and he came down to earth, but White would die a few years later, on the Terra Firma. He was getting a new space ship ready, and it was to fly to the Moon. Things went horribly awry. Three courageous men perished due to a couple of errors in engineering a vehicle designed to take a Human to the heavens on top of a fire breathing monster that had the power of an atom bomb. Whoops!

Anyhow, this picture shows how we're going to deliver on the aspiration that pretty much any kid who has looked to the sky has likely felt. That would be most of us, wouldn't it?

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

S

Ad Astra, Edwin White II.