Lightship

by Stephan Besik

  His search for maneuverability led him quickly to the rings of gimbals. The concept was an old trick, placing a ring that rotated vertically in another larger ring that rotated horizontally (or vice versa). It had a bunch of advantages, including the ability to turn the ship almost ninety degrees to the direction of the sun and orientation of the sail. Perhaps even more important, the gimbals would enable the ship’s hull and engines to reverse direction by rotating the inner ring to which the hull would be fastened one hundred eighty degrees. In space some way to reverse the direction of the engines had to be available to slow down after all that speed had built up from constant acceleration. Otherwise there was no way to shed enough speed to enter orbit around the Moon. Not unless landing on or crashing into the surface was satisfactory, which wasn’t exactly a good idea if the ship was supposed to be reusable.

  The gimbals made it possible to flip the central hull, and more importantly the propulsion system, making it possible to continue using the sail system to provide power to actually slow the ship down.

  He worried about the mass of the ship. The cooling systems were adding mass, even though they partially paid for themselves by returning power from otherwise lost heat. He had to let it go, however. He still needed the radiative cooling in the panels and engines to get rid of the heat that couldn’t be converted to electricity and thrust.

  Those were the fun worries. The ship was a cool project, so the problems were just part of the fun. Then there were the worries that weren’t so much fun.

  He was still in a bind. He had to focus on logistics and the organization he needed pretty soon or the plan would stay a pile of bits in memory. He didn’t want to leave the ship design as conceptual as it was, but staffing, facilities, and an organization to help him get things done had to come now. This job wasn’t going to get done if he was the only one working on it. His concept would take a lot of engineering and he had to get a good team together to get it done.

  The Other Plan

  “Well, what do you think of our boy?”

  “Our boy, Danny? Who would that be?”

  Exasperated, Danny retorted, “You know who I’m talking about, Chaz. How’s he doing? Are we making progress?”

  Sitting across from his boss for the first time in weeks, Chaz chuckled and thought for a moment. “He’s a good engineer. Very solid. I think his plan for the ship is feasible. On the other hand, so far he rather sucks at project management. He needs help there. The project is rapidly outgrowing his ability to keep it moving. He’s behind on staffing and would have made a hash of the facility acquisition if I hadn’t stepped in. He’s behind on expenditures, too, of all things.”

  “Hm. Well, what do we need?”

  “I think a modest bump in the budget to cover a project manager of some sort. That’s going to be a little delicate. Kevin thinks it’s his project, after all, and he’s not going to take kindly to having it taken away. I don’t think he’ll make it if we don’t fix this, though, and in his heart I think he already knows this. If we move a little gently I’m pretty sure the resistance will fade away and we will stay on track. He’ll be happier and so will we if he sticks to engineering and leaves what he considers the boring crap to someone else.”

  “Do you have someone in mind to manage the project?”

  “I have. He comes recommended by the project mathematician that Kevin finally managed to hire. I’ve heard he’s good from other sources as well. Name’s Klaus Erheim. Knows a fair amount about space projects and will understand the stuff Kevin is working on. Also the kind of guy who can be a real pain in the ass to anyone who gets in his way.”

  “Okay. Take care of it.” Chaz could hear Danny’s wheels grinding behind the words. “But the ship looks good?”

  Chaz smiled. “Yeah, it looks good. This is going to work, bro.”

  Then his smile disappeared. “There is one problem, though. One tiny little problem.”

  Danny’s eyes glittered. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “What exactly are we going to do with a ship that makes regular trips to the Moon economical?”

  Danny tented his fingers and smiled at his friend. “Yes, that is a small problem, isn’t it? I’ve thought about that for a while. The ship itself won’t bother anyone all that much. The target has to be bigger. Much bigger.”

  His smiled widened. “Think ownership of the Moon is big enough?”

  Chaz frowned. “No one’s going to let you have the deed to the Moon.”

  “That’s true. No one will give us the Moon. Just putting a few research landers up there won’t do it either.” He leaned forward. “But if we plant a colony up there, we’ll have done two things.” He held up a finger. “One, the heavy hitters will actually have to consider what they’ve been avoiding for years- who gets what, and how, in outer space. Right now no one can own anything up there, and eventually that little bit of cockeyed optimism is going to crumble. We could be the ones to break off the first chip.

  “The Moon is just the tip of the iceberg; the problem applies to every piece of rock up there. They’ll have to dip their toes in some very cold water. They’re going to have to figure what to do with the Moon to address the larger problem of asteroids, moons, Mars, and perhaps Venus. And if they don’t get a move on, they’ll have to deal with us and our colonies.”

  He held up a second finger. “Two, they’ll have to quit talking about space travel and actually do something. No longer will they be able to toss a few satellites up into Earth orbit, send an occasional probe to the planets, and call it space exploration. They’ve been doing that for years, and all the current talk is still just that. Those things won’t disappear, but with people on the Moon for months or years they’ll actually have to start thinking about sending humanity into deep space.”

  Chaz shook his head. “Sounds good, but I didn’t think you wanted to be a charity. Neither of those ideas actually make money.”

  Danny smiled again. “I think there might be a couple of answers to that. First, real estate is real estate. People buy rocks in the desert; this is only a little worse. The low gravity could be a big seller to people with more money than they need, especially if Earth’s gravity is getting to be too much for old bones. I think low gravity can be a big seller. Better than no gravity, for sure.

  “Then there’s research. I think we’re going to find a number of clients looking for vacuum of the sort that we will have near our lunar habitats. They won’t have to limit experiments to the restricted space of a space station any longer.

  “Over the longer term, it could be that the Moon will end up being a primary source of deuterium and tritium for fusion reactors. That might be a big winner.”

  Chaz stared at his boss. “You’re sure you want to take this on? It’s going to be expensive, and it’s going to take time. And you really will annoy some people.”

  Danny’s smile hardened. “It’s time somebody kicked the existing order in the butt. We can’t take it on directly. They’ll see it coming and they’ll figure out a way to stop us. But space is the long way ‘round. If we can get it done, they’ll be handed a fait accompli. They’ll have to get serious about the revolution, because the revolution will be upon them. Not a political one, or at least not immediately. A technical one. And an adventure for mankind that just might save all our asses.”

  Chaz sighed, and looked at his boss.

  “Better start getting your political sticks and carrots out. Oh, and you’ll need your checkbook. If this is what you want to do, it’s a big deal. A couple of years from now we’re going to make a mess of the world order. And we need the checkbook out soon, for resources on the ship project. We’re going to have to pay for some pretty exotic stuff in the near future. Not to mention paying for R&D on the stuff we’re going to need to put cities on the Moon.”

  Danny looked at his fingernails. “So, when do you think we should start planning our Moon colony?”

  Chaz grinned. “Yesterday.”

  Danny
grinned back. “You’re the plans guy. Send me a date to start the discussion.”

  Klaus the Fixer

  Kevin didn’t like what he was about to do but he was at his wits’ end. Try as he might he wasn’t able to buy launch capacity from any of the big providers. Parts were coming together and the ground tests were going well. All that wouldn’t do a bit of good, however, if he couldn’t get someone to take his cargoes up into orbit. Parts for a space dock, the Lego kits that were the prototypes, the big kit that was the ship itself and assembly drones had to have rides up.

  Much as he hated doing it he had to ask Klaus. It was a hard thing to admit, but he knew that Klaus would get as much launch capacity as they needed. He would smile and grease his way to what they needed, and if that didn’t work he’d cajole, harass, and annoy as much as necessary to get the job done. In short he wouldn’t take No for an answer. That was what they needed, and Kevin just knew he personally couldn’t get it done in time. Not without a few years of therapy, anyhow.

  He found Erheim’s number and dialed.

  Getting there is Only Half the Fun

  Danny wasn’t expecting a call from Chaz. They hadn’t talked in a while, though, so the call wasn’t all that surprising. They tended to text and email more, but calls did happen occasionally.

  “What’s up, Chaz?”

  “We’ve been working on the destination problems. I think we should get together to go over the issues and our progress so far.”

  “Okay. When do you want to do it? Do you want to come here or should I come to your place?”

  “I need a few weeks to pull a presentation together. I hate to pull Kevin and Klaus off the ship but I think it would be good if they both went over things with my destination team and me. I think it will take an afternoon to go over the issues and present some likely solutions to you. Probably best if you came here. That way if there are any last minute items we can take care of them quickly.”

  “You know I’m pretty useless on the technological details. If you want me in on this it has to be about cost.”

  “Tech useless doesn’t mean we can operate with you blindfolded. You’ve got to know what’s going on, especially if you’re going to run the politics of this project. You don’t have to be an expert, but you do have to have a little understanding of what we’re doing and why. Otherwise you can’t explain things to the press, and more importantly to potential investors and politicians. But yes, there’s also the matter of cost.”

  “I’d rather not spend my time raising money if possible, but it sounds like that’s going to have to happen.”

  “Afraid so. If trips to the Moon are going to be more than joyrides there are problems that have to be addressed. Then there are the problems we’re going to find that we don’t know about now.

  “Timing is an issue too. Right now it looks like at least one ship will be ready before we can implement a destination plan. We need time for site research and selection. We need more time to work out the technical details of a real lunar colony- where it’s going to be, how it’s going to be built, what potential revenue streams there might be, even if they’re small. It’s not like we can just get permits and have a bunch of workers go up and start hammering. We’re going to have to do some hard thinking to have a viable station plan and get things to mesh timing-wise.

  “One of the site problems is political. Theoretically no one can own the Moon. But it that’s the case, what happens if we build something there? Do we own it? Do we lease it from someone? How’s that going to work?

  “The ships will be expensive for a while but the real cost will be in the lunar station, or stations, however that comes about. We might be able to recover some ship costs by dropping probes for research projects. That could help a little, but the big nut will still be the permanent Moon habitats.”

  “All right. Give Charity a ring when you think you can set a date.”

  “Will do. See you soon.”

  Danny knew about unanticipated problems. Those were the ones that were expensive and painful. He began to wonder whether Chaz and he had gotten ahead of themselves with Kevin’s solar ship concept. He didn’t want to abandon the ship, but if the destination problems were too expensive or plain unrealistic that might have to be the decision. It would be an expensive shutdown, but that would be cheaper than an expensive failure.

  **

  There were a dozen people in the room for the presentation on lunar destination problems. Chaz opened his laptop and presented his first slide. It was titled “Problems.” There were nine bullets on it.

  Magnetic field

  Solar wind

  Moon dust

  Heat and Cold

  Nitrogen and carbon

  Locations and shelter for medium-term habitation by humans

  Gravity

  Funding

  How to make a living

  Danny spoke up almost immediately. “That’s an interesting list of topics. I thought we would be talking about lack of air and water. Things like that. And maybe your last bullet- how we keep from freezing and frying.”

  Chaz replied. “We’ll get there, but first we have to start with the fundamentals.”

  “Well, then I’ll keep quiet for a while and let you talk.”

  Chaz smiled. “Okay. I’ll get started.

  “Our first issue is the magnetic field of the moon. Or rather, the lack of one. As most of you know, the moon doesn’t have a magnetic field.

  “This is a significant issue because of Item Two on our list, what scientists call the solar wind. In addition to light, the Sun generates a high velocity flow of ions, or a plasma, consisting almost entirely of protons and electrons, the constituents of hydrogen atoms. There are traces of other stripped elements in the wind, but the wind is almost entirely ionized hydrogen.

  “The velocity of the solar wind relative to the Earth or the Moon is on the order of hundreds of kilometers per second. The density of the solar wind is pretty low, however, so over short periods of time it’s generally not dangerous. The short-term hazards tend to be Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) from the sun, during which the solar wind can increase by a couple of orders of magnitude. While the CMEs are a problem, we can build defenses or move underground to protect from them. The larger problem, however, is really about long-term exposure. Over months and years continuous exposure to the solar wind can do a lot of damage, partly by causing charges to build up on portions of the Moon, and partially by tearing the surface rock of the Moon apart- sort of like the action of a plasma torch playing against metal.

  “On Earth we are protected by our planet’s magnetic field, which diverts the solar wind around the Earth, rather than bombarding the Earth’s surface. We get a few leftovers, but typically very little of the solar wind ever reaches the Earth’s surface. We don’t have that sort of protection on the Moon. Depending on their exposure, various parts of the Moon’s surface develop rather high electric charges, and the rock of the Moon’s surface gets beaten into a very fine dust wherever there is significant exposure to the flow of ions in the solar wind.

  “So we have a long-term and short-term problem- our Moon station, or stations, has to be protected against the exposure to the solar wind, while having some way to protect against the occasional CME. We also have to compensate for the damage that the solar wind has already done to the Moon’s surface.”

  Danny interrupted. “We knew about these problems early on in the project. Do we have any solutions that look feasible?”

  “I’m getting there. I wanted to cover issues and ramifications of some of the problems first. A lot of these things are linked together, and solutions might well address multiple issues at one time.”

  Danny nodded. “Got it. We’ll follow where you lead.”

  Chaz went back to the problems.

  “As I said, we have to do something about the damage the solar wind has already done over millions of years. Since the Moon lacks a magnetic field, the surface is bombarded by the high
-speed ions of the solar wind wherever and whenever the surface is exposed to the Sun. The ion bombardment causes the rocks of the Moon’s surface to break down in a process called sputtering, producing a layer of superfine dust over much of the Moon.

  “While the overall solar wind is electrically neutral, the electrons and protons distribute across the Moon in a way that causes different parts of the Moon’s surface to have different charges. If a drone or a person moves around on the surface, a charge can be built up in one place which discharges in another place because of the difference in charge in that area. It’s sort of like miniature lightning. This can mess with any kind of equipment that is electrically sensitive, so the things we send up to the Moon have to be shielded or grounded to be protected from the charge levels on the Moon’s surface. People and installations also have to be protected from CMEs, electrical storms that can seriously mess up equipment. If a person or a vehicle is also moving around, the protection has to be good enough to prevent discharges that might do damage.

  “While the charge buildups are a problem, the superfine dust is a problem in and of itself. It’s so fine it acts as a high quality abrasive. It also gets into anything with a seam in it. And the dust itself is charged, so it is drawn to and clings to anything that isn’t magnetically shielded in some way.

  “It seems like it’s never been talked about in a really public way, but it’s also no secret. Apparently the first astronauts ran in to problems with the dust getting in to the very fine seams on their spacesuits and with dust eroding things like the soles of their moon shoes. I don’t think anyone’s ever come out and said it but I think there’s a chance that no one’s been to the moon since the first landings because some pretty extensive precautions have to be taken against the dust. The dust gets into everything and quickly destroys most anything we might want to send up there.”

  Danny raised his hand again.

  “The dust problem sounds awkward. Do you think no one has gone back to the Moon because of a bunch of dust?”