by Paul Anlee
Slowly freed of the confines of the planetary gravity well, the Moon swung in a wider and wider orbit. It eventually broke away from the planet to which it had been bound for eons and spun outward seeking a new solar orbit.
“Of course, nothing will remain of Earth or of human civilization by then, except for a little space debris which will eventually either be consumed by the Eater, or float off into the solar system.”
Greg paused to let that sink in as his audience “watched” the bleak gray sphere take the place of the vibrant blue planet they now inhabited.
“With nothing but empty space around it, the Eater’s growth rate will slow considerably. We project it will take millions or billions of years before it threatens another planet.
“Once we became aware of the threat the Eater poses to the planet and accepted that we’re probably unable to stop it, Dr. Liang and I began working around the clock to come up with a plan to save as much of the planet’s population as possible.
“For decades now, scientists—even the renowned Stephen Hawking—have been suggesting that the only route to ensure humanity’s existence in the long term is to colonize space. We agree.
“There are a lot of challenges to be met, not the least of which is that we know of no other planets in our solar system that are amenable to human life.”
The inSense presentation showed an old Apollo rocket blasting off. Views of Earth’s moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune floated by.
“All of these places are poor candidates for supporting terrestrial life. They’re either too hot, too cold, have too much gravity, or they have no appreciable atmosphere or water.”
The visuals zoomed in on a rocky planetoid, floating alone in black space.
“Meet Vesta, the second largest planetoid within the asteroid belt found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
“At a little over five hundred kilometers in diameter, Vesta is considered a protoplanet because it has a metallic iron-nickel core making up a little under half its total diameter, an overlying rocky mantle, and a surface crust.
“It’s also a strong candidate for internal terraforming and colonization. We propose drilling six tunnels running the length of one axis of the asteroid, each about ten kilometers in diameter. The tunnels will be arranged like the bullet chambers in a six-gun revolver, spaced evenly around the core about seventy kilometers below the surface.”
Greg read sentiments ranging from amused doubt to outright shock from the participants around the table. It didn’t take a lattice connection to interpret their skepticism.
He plowed on with the presentation. The inSense animation displayed in broad strokes the ideas he and Kathy had developed.
“We’ll flatten the floors of the tunnels—the section closest to the outside of the asteroid—plug the ends with fifty kilometers of rock, seal the chambers air-tight, pressurize them with an Earthlike atmosphere, add a solar-equivalent light tube the length of the tunnels, and spin the entire asteroid up to one revolution every sixteen minutes to provide artificial gravity equivalent to what we have on Earth.
“Then we’ll add water we mine from comet-type bodies in the Kuiper belt and a complete biosphere. We’ll build high-density habitations and infrastructure to support the new inhabitants. We’ll construct smaller chambers under the main tunnels to support agriculture. This will provide more than ten thousand square kilometers of living space, about five times the area of Tokyo. At a similar population density to Tokyo, we would have enough room for sixty million people. At best, we can only hope to move about ten million people—about 0.1% of the present population—in the time between the completion of the Vesta colony and the destruction of Earth.” The image faded to black, and pairs of eyes all over the room flew open.
Greg knew what they were thinking; he’d thought it, himself. How can I get myself and my family in that ten million?
“That’s the best you can do?” The Italian Prime Minister protested. “Only ten million people out of ten billion? How can we permit this?” She looked to the other Southern European Union leaders for support. The murmured discussions between the delegates grew rapidly in volume.
“It is not a matter of permission,” Greg raised his voice over the background din before further objections could be raised. “The alternative is zero; everyone dead, and the planet destroyed.” The room went quiet.
Greg continued in as reasonable a tone as he could muster. “Listen, ten million is the most we project could be saved with all available resources put to work. It’s also a number that will provide sufficient variation to guarantee the genetic health of the human species. It’s physically impossible to build and operate enough space ships to save more. And, if we don’t start work immediately, the number is going to be significantly less. If you have any better ideas, we’re all ears.”
“We’ve talked about space programs for decades,” interjected President Franklin T. Carvin from the North American remnant still calling itself the United States of America. “Heck, we’ve barely managed to put people on the moon or keep that ramshackle space station loping along at all over the past few years. How can we possibly build a colony in a distant asteroid belt in twenty years?” His barely suppressed laugh at the end of his question was echoed around the room.
“Actually, we’ll only have about twelve years to finish the first colony tunnel,” replied Greg. “That’s the latest we can start moving people out there.”
“Hah!” was the general response from around the table. Many just shook their heads, and several leaders shared derisive comments with their immediate neighbors.
A sliding door whooshed open in the wall behind Greg and a metallic sphere about a meter in diameter floated into the room. Conversation ceased abruptly as attendees wondered if the new arrival was part of the presentation and calculated the fastest route to an exit—just in case.
The security detail drew their weapons and took aim at the object, but held their fire.
Greg shot Kathy a sideways look; his raised eyebrows conveyed his query. I thought we were going to wait until later, before beginning the demonstration phase of the presentation.
You were losing them. I had to do something—Kathy replied.
Greg pretended not to notice Reverend LaMontagne hiding a smirk behind one hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Alpha-001,” Kathy announced as the sphere hovered to the center of the meeting table.
“Alpha-001 is a prototype mechanical robot I’ve constructed to demonstrate how we envisage construction of the Vesta colony being completed in reasonable time. We call them Cybrids, short for Cybernetic Hybrids.”
She turned to her left. “Madam Prime Minister, if you could ask the guards to holster their weapons, please. Alpha-001 is not a threat to this meeting.” The PM nodded to her security people.
“Thank you,” Kathy continued. “Almost all space projects since the first astronaut orbited the Earth have been based on humans working in space.
“Long-term residencies in the International Space Stations and the highly-publicized Mission to Mars failure of 2028 have demonstrated the perils of space for humans. When we travel into space, we must carry our Earth-like environment with us. That includes air, water, food, and shielding from heavy radiation as well as from micro-meteors. All of this must be transported from Earth in armored containers we call spaceships, and survive travel over hundreds of thousands or millions of kilometers.”
“In past, humans were necessary because only we had the ability to think and act autonomously without direct operation from a distant Earth. But that’s about to change.
“Our DNND technology has provided us with a way to construct independent cognitive systems, and to program them with human knowledge and even human personalities. We can have human cognition and know-how in space, without the necessity of transporting our entire supporting environment.”
The attendees were almost bursting with questions, and Kathy rushed
ahead to finish.
“Alpha-001 is only half the size of the construction robots we plan for this project. It contains a power source based on the Reality Assertion Field, or RAF, technology. It requires no food, air, water or fueling. It can operate in the harsh vacuum of space for ten years at a time or more.
“In its full-scale form, the Cybrid will contain a central processing unit based on the dendy lattice, which will give it complete operational autonomy and decision-making capabilities. The lattice will house a fully human personality and memories, and greater than human intelligence. It can calculate complex orbital dynamics while mining metal-rich asteroids.
“Using these mechanical workers, the Cybrids, will provide us with a huge population of sturdy space workers and help us to save the personalities and memories of millions more people that would otherwise be lost.”
“Wait. Are you saying you’ve solved the Artificial Intelligence problem?” asked the Indian Prime Minister, who’d been a well-known Computing Science scholar before entering politics.
Greg jumped in, “We’ve assembled a team of international experts to help solve quite a number of engineering problems in designing Alpha-001, although this particular model is only about as smart as a dog. We have a clean, long-lasting power source, reliable propulsion and manipulation systems, and autonomous intelligence.
“There will be many more inventions coming out soon that will seem nearly-miraculous, even to most scientists and engineers. Humanity has been on the brink of developing these advancements for a long time. The dendy lattice that Sharon Leigh first designed, the one she accidentally exposed her unborn son to, has simply allowed Kathy and me to think a little faster, and to explore a little deeper than our colleagues. The technology has come a long way, thanks to the advancements made by Sharon’s son, Darian Leigh, who continued her work and extended it into new areas.”
“Dr. Mahajani, you talked about programming the robot workers, the Cybrids, with human personalities,” the Indian PM began. “That sounds a lot like downloading the human soul, in much the same way Kurzweil described in his book, ‘The Singularity is Near’, doesn’t it?”
“Darian Leigh argued strongly against the existence of anything like a human soul,” replied Greg. “The dendy technology simply allows us to copy the concepta and persona—that is, the knowledge, beliefs, memories, opinions, habits, and personal preferences—our data, if you will, from the dendy-connected brain of a person into the blank semiconductor lattice of a robot. The biological person is still who they were when the process started; their brain patterns will only have been copied into a non-biological brain.”
“So you can make more than one copy of a person?”
Greg was not happy with where this line of questioning was leading. “Yes,” he admitted, hesitantly. “Frankly, I don’t see what we’d gain by doing that under these circumstances. Right now, the lattice copying procedure gives us a chance of storing the complete personalities of millions of people whose lives we couldn’t possibly save.
“Perhaps, in future, we’ll be able to copy those stored personalities back into biological bodies. Perhaps, we’ll figure a way to try out newly designed personalities in some kind of virtual reality before they become embodied.
“I can’t predict where this might take us. We have other more pressing issues right now. We need to save and encourage as much diversity of personalities out there as possible, in much the same way as we encourage biological diversity. It makes a species hardier, stronger, and more resistant to environmental shocks and surprises.”
PM Sidhu was not finished. “Even so, isn’t this opening the way for a tough new species of machine intelligence, these Cybrids as you call them, to compete with humanity? I mean, if we create these machines and give them free reign in space while our home planet disintegrates, why would they bother helping us? Are we working toward a solution that will ultimately destroy us, given the chance?”
The question was one Greg had not allowed himself to dwell on. He scrambled to formulate an answer, one he hoped that he, himself, would find convincing.
“The Cybrids would be imbued with human personas. They will think of themselves as human on the inside. Why would they turn against their own people?”
“Because that’s what I would do,” a voice called out, “and what everyone around this table would do, given the chance to start over in a new environment with a new race of beings stronger and smarter than humans.”
The words flew out of Greg’s mouth without thought of the possible consequences, “Well, I hope very few people who think that way are chosen for Cybrid embodiment.”
23
Kathy gave Greg a severe look and sent—Are you trying to make sure we get no support at all for this program?
Sorry—Greg replied. I didn’t think that one through. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Reverend LaMontagne smirking again, and this time, less guardedly.
Clearly, many of the G26 leaders and their advisors had not been pleased with his answers. The room was alive with open muttering, emphatic shaking of heads, flying hands and, everywhere, faces carved with deep furrows and sour scowls. This was not an encouraging sign.
Surprisingly, Greg noted, the Reverend wasn’t among the overtly distressed. He had contained his smirk and now leaned forward in his seat, with an eager and thoughtful expression on his face, absent-mindedly stroking his chin.
I would have thought a “Man of God” would be voicing the most and the loudest objections here—Greg speculated quietly to himself. Very interesting.
Numerous voices shouted unintelligible, overlapping questions.
PM Hudson held up her hands, trying to calm them all down. “We’re sure you all have a lot of questions. Remember, the purpose of this demonstration by Drs. Liang and Mahajani is to convince you we do have the scientific know-how to build this colony. What we need now is the political will to make it happen.”
“How is it floating there like that?” someone asked, happily changing the topic. “Have you discovered anti-gravity?”
Relieved to return to the science, Kathy answered patiently, “Not really anti-gravity per se. We can weaken the Higgs field interaction between the Cybrid’s matter and the Earth’s gravitational field. That makes it so the robot seems to have less mass, so little it can be easily kept afloat using gentle internal fans.”
While the leaders and advisers paused to process and ponder the implications of that, the measured voice of China’s President Chu emerged. “Let us accept that you can develop autonomous construction robots that are capable of developing an asteroid colony. How are we to transport these robots to Vesta in any reasonable amount of time?”
Greg had been prepared for that question and was glad to have the meeting back on track. “Good question. The asteroid belt is farther away from Earth than Mars. The fastest transit time to Mars, that is, when it is closest to Earth and using the best available rockets, is about four months. Going to Vesta, which is on average nearly three-hundred million kilometers farther from Earth, would take those conventional rockets at least two years. Clearly, on our tight schedule, this would make for considerable constraints. If you will indulge us a moment, we’ve set up a little demonstration here to show you how we can shorten the travel time using RAF technology.”
As Greg spoke, Kathy reached under the table in front of her and pulled out four things: a potato, a spring-loaded potato gun, an inch-thick block of wood, and another block of steel. She handed the potato and the spring-loaded gun to Greg. She walked to one end of the conference room and she set the blocks into the two sturdy clamps they’d positioned there earlier.
Greg held up the potato gun. “No worries, fellas,” Greg said to the nearest security officer. “It’s just a toy. Many of you will recognize this as a potato gun. We stick the barrel end into this potato and pull out a small plug.
“There isn’t much to these old-fashioned ones. When I pull the trigger, it causes a small build-up of ai
r pressure behind the plug and propels it outward.” He shot a plug at the wall.
“You’ll notice the plug doesn’t have a lot of velocity and, because it’s only a small piece of potato, it doesn’t have much momentum.”
He paused to survey the bemused faces around the room. “Now, what if I said I could split that board at the other end of the room with this potato gun? I imagine you’d think, a piece of potato shot out of this thing couldn’t even reach that board, let alone break it.” Someone at the table laughed, but most just stared stone-faced, wondering where Greg was going with this.
As he spoke, Kathy moved back to the relative safety of Greg’s end of the room. She sat down at her open laptop beside him and pressed a few keys. A cylindrical beam of translucent violet light, about five centimeters in diameter sprang into existence between Greg and the wooden board at the other end of the table. Around the room, an intrigued audience collectively gasped and leaned forward.
Greg reloaded the gun and placed the tip of the barrel an inch inside the beam of light, and aimed precisely along its length.
“This cylindrical Reality Assertion Field between the barrel of the gun and the target is a complex field. Ninety-nine percent of it, up to right before it touches the plank, reduces the apparent mass of the potato plug so that it is more highly accelerated by the compressed air behind it. No doubt most of you will recall from your school years that acceleration is equal to force divided by mass (‘a’ equals ‘f’ over ‘m’).” Blank faces looked back at him.
Greg laughed. “Or maybe not. How about this? If we throw a small rock with the exact same effort as a big one, the small rock will fly farther.” People nodded understanding.
“So while this piece of potato is being pushed by the compressed air in the gun, it will be almost without perceptible mass. The force of the air will be able to move it at a much higher than normal velocity. In fact, by the time it leaves the barrel of the gun, it will be traveling as fast as a bullet.”