Thomas Aquinas, Explorer of the galaxy

by Rico, J. Luis

  In due course a rare Mdowe tribal up tempo chant comes on the speaker. The bongos and high noted melodies of a large Mdowe chorus fill the air.

  Agnes stops mid-sentence.

  Sister Plyler recognizes something important going on in Agnes mind and holds her gently but firmly while she shakes. It isn’t an epileptic shake. It is something much different. It is the energy and excitement of an important discovery being made. Agnes shakes and her head stares straight ahead. Her eyes, however, move back and forth with energy. A smile ticks on her face.

  The chorus and the song of her home tribe in Equatorial Guinea has made an important connection in her autistic mind. She remembers the song. She remembers the language. She remembers the bongos. She remembers her mother. Her father. Her sisters. They would sing this song while they did chores. Agnes would sit and watch her family do chores from the comfort and confines of her baby wrap. Her zeroyoyo wrap. She remembers.

  She remembers it all.

  Agnes will never be normal. She will never be outgoing. She will never be the life of a party. But in this moment she became all that she could be. The rush of memories completely unlocks the last of the isolated brain pathways and terrible memories she has repressed.

  In this moment she shakes and understands. She assimilates all of the data of her life. The family. The tribe. Her elders. The orphanage. The abuse. Yes, she sees it all and knows it all. In this moment she shakes and knows.

  Agnes rises from the floor and the comfort of sister Plylers embraces. She pauses to kiss her on the top of her head. Agnes walks to the learning terminal and examines it closely.

  From this moment forward Agnes spends more time with the learning terminal than without it. She consumes everything she can find on the terminal and absorbs it. By happenchance the first topics she examines closely on the terminal are related to side space mathematics and Hawking radiation containment field studies. They enchant her. She is hooked.

  By her sixteenth birthday Agnes is tested on the extreme right hand of the intelligence curves. She is still autistic. Nothing will ever change the ingrained muscle memory of her neural pathways and years of abuse she suffered in the orphanage and group homes in Africa. She is a high functioning autistic. She manages more and more effective social interactions. She learns to tolerate the company of others after a fashion. Especially those that are teaching her or working with her on an intellectual pursuit. By the time she finishes her primary education, she is by testing the most skilled student in generations of George Washington students. She easily qualifies and is accepted to Catholic University in the Vatican.

  Chapter Three

  Abbess Joan Van Der Nehh, History and Economics of Space Flight

  The Year 2432, Catholic University, the Vatican

  The Abbess is the personification of Catholic power and grace. Her tunic is ironed, starched, and immaculate. Her scapular crowned with a gorgeous and regal coif and bandeau. Unlike the rest of the vowed nuns, she has fashioned her own bandeau covering, simply because she likes the way it looks. Everyone, including the headmaster, Father Edwards are simply too scared of the woman to confront her about it.

  Her bandeau covering is constructed of twine and foil. Hand spun twine from Ethiopia. Created from cotton from her home in Africa. It also contains hand hammered gold and silver foil, smithed and fashioned in Norway. Both gifts from a long past class, and fashioned in a head-covering by a favorite student. A student who has since passed to God.

  The Abbess wore the fancy bandeau for a few days over a decade ago as a way to honor the life of her lost student but quickly came to enjoy the unease it seemed to generate in those around her. She has worn it since out of spite and her generous, but mostly subdued, sense of humor.

  She, like Brother Lewis, likes to pace the room. She eschews the use of modern electronics and teaching aids like holography unless it is absolutely needed to convey a point. Something as simple at the History and Economics of spaceflight from a modern perspective can be taught without such crutches.

  “The economics of modern spaceflight makes for an interesting history class.” She begins from the rear of the classroom. Dozens of students crane their necks to see behind them.

  “Humankind has been attempting manned space flight and exploration since the 1950’s. When archaic Asian continent communists and North American continent capitalists competed in the first space race. Primitive capsules containing mice, then monkeys and dogs, and then men raced upwards at escape velocities, using primitive chemical rockets that were as inefficient as they were dangerous.”

  “Manned space travel and exploration were restricted to a few trips to the Earth’s moon and some limited industry in geosynchronous and low earth orbit from the 1950’s to the 2040’s. Satellites buzzed the skies above the earth, they were economical. But large-scale industry and exploration of space were limited. Artificially limited. Artificially limited by the economics of government control.”

  “If governments were the prime mover in space exploration, goals were often not met, cost overruns were the norm and artificial limits were imposed on private or corporate participation. Government was, and continues to be, the problem with most issues, not just space exploration.” Several students smile at the Abbess.

  “In the early 21st century, pioneering capitalists began to enter the space race. Billionaires, back when that was a lot of money, financed independent space projects. Projects separate from government control and, sometimes, out of the reach of government rules and regulations. It began slowly. A few more efficient rockets were produced. Making satellite launches more affordable. Then came making the rockets themselves reusable. This was a key development. The same rocket that launched the satellites no longer tumbled back to earth into the ocean. It came back and landed at the same launch tower it left just minutes before.”

  “The image of a rocket coming down, tail first to a controlled landing next to its launch tower was then, and remains to this day, a shocking scene. Rockets go up, coming down, controlled, purposeful, and right side up was a true leap of genius and moved men truly and permanently into space. The rocket itself, which at the time cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, could be reused.”

  “In the middle 21st-century, industry in low earth and geosynchronous orbit flourished. There were permanent space stations established. Manufacturing facilities were constructed. Zero gravity manufacturing led to many discoveries that benefit us to this day. Men reached out to the nearest planet. Mars. Round trip times to Mars were right on the edge of bearable. Most trips became one-way due to the economics of space travel at the time. Habitats were established. Nano technology was used. Nano tech that largely resulted from zero gravity research in geosynchronous orbit, led to large self-assembling structures for shelter. Water ice under the ground and on the Martian poles allowed more and more men to move to Mars permanently. Unlike the Earth’s moon, the scarcity of water ice there would limit industry and habitats for another hundred years.”

  “Men quickly reached past Mars into the asteroid belts. And there, they found a bonanza. Large, heavy metal asteroids made entirely of copper and nickel and iron were there in nearly unlimited abundance. Water ice was present throughout the belt as well. Men moved into the asteroid belt and flourished. Industry moved from the surface of Earth, Mars, and the Moon and into the belt with something akin to wild abandon. Fortunes were there to be made. Fortunes on a scale never thought of before. By the end of the 21st century, there were millions of men living permanently in space. Mostly in the belt. In the hundreds of thousands of large rocky or metal asteroids.”

  “This was our first diaspora. Men left the confines of earth for the opportunity presented in space. Industry flourished. Wealth was created unlike any other time in history. Corporations flourished. Individual men became wealthy. Governments became less and less relevant almost immediately. They did not go quietly, mind you. But one cannot govern tens let alone, thousands of individual asteroids str
ung across the extreme distances of the belt.”

  “During these heydays, religion was stunted. Our faith dwindled in numbers and relevance. Men were lured to materialistic things and forgot their spiritual grounding. Catholics were not alone. All religion stagnated and dwindled. In the year 2120, there were 10 million men in space. The belts. The glorious belts. Mars. In orbits around Venus. On Mercury, after a fashion. On several of the moons of Jupiter. But the numbers of Catholics were under a billion for the first time in 200 years.”

  “Pope Alexa the Gentle changed that for all of us. His direction to plow all the church's resources, which were still enormous, into the funding of several Church-owned mining companies which, in turn, plowed their profits into more and more mining enterprises. His direction saved the Church from becoming irrelevant. Instead, we became magnificent again. The Catholic Church began to dominate the belt within a few years. By the year 2150, sixty percent of the asteroid mining and manufacturing in the belt were controlled in one manner or another by the Mother Church.”

  “In terms of wealth. In terms of capital. In terms of the power and influence and control of the church, we were at a zenith. Mass was said on a thousand rocks, three planets, and over a dozen moons.”

  “The Pope, now Pope Johnathan the Wise, directed sums of monies and power that were completely unimaginable in the prior decades. The vast resources in space were there for the taking by the bold, and we were the boldest. Catholic-funded research and mining ships visited the Kuiper belt. We landed on Pluto and took its measure. Mining colonies on the Earth’s moon sprang to life urged on by the discovery of water ice buried in several comet impact craters aging hundreds of millions of years old.”

  “Man had become masters of the solar system. Of the boundary defined by the termination shock or heliopause of our solar system.”

  “The year 2210 brought the first generation ships.”

  “Men were crammed into large cylindrical ships that spun on a central axis to mimic gravity. Men by the thousands are sent to our nearest neighbors at sub relativistic speeds. These trips and the extremely complicated and expensive generation ships hardware and engineering efforts required were financed from the immense wealth created in the belts. The Catholic Church financed and sent over a hundred generation ships. The Muslims sent dozens. The Mormons sent six. That we know of. They are secretive about these things. Three of the larger secular corporations sent dozens as well.”

  The Abbess walks around to the front of the class finally. The students return their heads to face forward. The Abbess seems to glide across the marble floor. Her dress hem caresses the floor and glides just above it. Her steps are measured and in perfect time. The illusion is uncanny.

  “Generation ships powered to significant fractions of C, over a course of years, and in some cases decades. Directed towards habitable planets identified through years of meticulous survey and research. Ever larger and more complicated telescopes and other instruments scanned nearby systems to look for telltale wobbles of stars caused by planets, then further researched the visible light spectrum of the planets identified looking for markers of water, water ice, carbon, methane, or anything that would indicate a habitable or near-habitable planet. Anything that would show an exploitable asteroid belt rich with material wealth.”

  “The Catholic Church led the way. Special offerings and tithes led to more and larger and more complicated generation ships, and the crews were easy to find. Highly skilled and adventurous candidates competed for the few openings. We sent the best and the brightest.”

  “Let's discuss the economics now. That is after all the name of this course!”

  “A typical smallish iron nickel asteroid in the belt contains far more than all the iron and nickel than men would find, dig out of the ground and refine on the whole of the earth for generations. A typical rock would contain these elements in substantial measure. Gold, iridium, silver, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhodium, rhenium, ruthenium, tungsten, iron, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, aluminum, titanium, hydrogen, ammonia, and oxygen. As well as water ice from cometary impacts.”

  “This typical smallish asteroid will contain these elements in abundance. Enormous abundance. Abundance that is hard to initially visualize. Let’s use the year 2100 and its dollar value and economy as a reference. In year 2100, the average family of 4 generates 250,000 dollars per year in economic value. The gross domestic product of the largest country, the United States of America is 100 trillion dollars per year. The GDP of the entire solar system is 275 trillion dollars.”

  A smallish, say one-kilometer metallic asteroid contains the equivalent of one quintillion dollars’ worth of wealth. That is to say, one hundred thousand times the gross domestic product of the largest country in the solar system. And 33.3 thousand times that of the entire solar systems GDP.”

  “This is enormous wealth. Wealth on a scale humans had to this point in time never seen before. Never even imagined before. We pushed mining ships into the belt, and those ships became capable of replication. And once Nano technologies allowed for rapid and effective mining on these scales, we flourished as a space-going species. Technology quickly evolved to deal with mega structures and effectively mine them for industrial use.”

  “In the course of human history, scarcity defined the economics of the times. In the seafaring ages, scarcity of suitable trees for ship construction defined the economics of the Spanish and English empires. Wars were won and lost over tall, straight trees.”

  “The relative scarcity of radioactive isotopes led to the victory of the largest of the 20th century’s wars when the United States of America was able to bomb Imperial Japan into submission using nuclear weapons.”

  “The scarcity of rare earth materials, or rare metals rather, in the 21st century led to price run-ups on consumer electronics. And the scarcity of same, led to under-developed countries lagging in technology and getting pushed backward versus forward in their development for hundreds of years.”

  “The mining of one smallish asteroid changed all of that forever. The universe, and our home solar system Sol, are full of all the material wealth and metals and water ice we could ever use in a million generations. I believe that this wealth and these metals were left by our Creator for us to use. For us to be fruitful and take dominion of the earth. And the heavens.”

  “Before the generation colony ships in 2160, the first unmanned ships launched for Alpha Centauri. These ships, primitive by our standards today, were still quite amazing. Over a hundred thousand thumb-sized miniature satellites were launched using a ten meter wide solar sail towards our closest neighboring solar system. Using tens of gigawatt lasers for primary boost and then flipping at the half way point to use the solar wind of the primary star in the distant system, Alpha Centauri A as brakes.”

  “These wonderful, little devices were by and large able to enter a stable orbit around either the primary star, or its binary partner Alpha Centauri B, and a few were able to manage an orbit around the smallest of the three-star system, Alpha Centauri C, a smallish brown dwarf star. 99% of the devices made the journey successfully. It was a spectacular success. A few suffered damage or failure and either never left Sol system or sped past Alpha Centauri at .25C and never slowed down or looked back. I suppose they are still out there making their way across Orion's Arm.”

  “For these early voyagers between the stars, the 4-light year journey took 24 years. 24 years in the cold and the void. These early star voyagers weighed a few grams, we could leave the energy of their propulsion source behind them. The gigawatts lasers. Obviously, a manned voyage would consist of a much larger ship, and this larger ship would need its own propulsion source. The physics is much more difficult.”

  “While scientist’s system wide peered at the new stream of data from the Alpha Centauri system, engineers continued to work the problem of interstellar travel for large objects. The data from the Alpha Centauri system was promising. Like Sol, this system was rich wi
th material wealth. All the ores, all the water ice. Complex chemicals. Abundant water ice in the extended OORT cloud around the system and plenty of rocky and metallic asteroids for the picking. In many ways, our neighboring system is preferable to our own. It has interesting and exploitable LaGrange points for mining and construction. It has three stars, the two primaries and a third dwarf that have captured all kinds of interesting objects in their orbit.”

  “In 2210, the generation ship Nicolaus Copernicus was launched from Jupiter’s L1 Lagrange point towards Alpha Centauri and its three stars and seventeen discovered planets. The four-light year journey was technologically feasible by then, as man had spread into the OORT cloud, itself extending nearly a half light year past the Sol sun into cold dark space.”

  “The Nicolaus Copernicus was built in the bulk of a very small nickel asteroid. Its diameter was a few dozen meters wide and barely a hundred in length. But it was sturdy. It was easy to spin. It was already in a convenient location near Jupiter. And it was an asteroid visited by the Pope himself during a fantastic papal voyage across the system.”

  “The highly-trained and volunteer crew, no, that’s not quite right. They were all volunteers and then, they were trained. They competed for their position. For the chance to travel out of the Sol system. Competition was fierce, and the crew was selected from hundreds of millions of potential candidates who volunteered.”

  “There was a sense of a race. A new space race. The Muslims and the Mormons were building their own generation ships after all. The sense of urgency to ensure that the first human foot to walk a planet in a new star system, a new solar system would be Catholic was real. The Pope urged on construction and crew selection. The wealth and resources that went into the first-generation ship were enormous. But like any great undertaking, we learned and we benefitted from the things we learned.”