by Eric Klein
“According to the symposium, the United States could’ve had an artificial satellite in orbit by nineteen sixty-three, a fifty-man expedition to the moon by nineteen sixy-four and a manned mission to Mars soon afterwards. We all know that these did not happen. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in 1957, starting the space race. A lot has changed in the past two hunderd years. We now have nineteen self-sustaining colonies on various planets, moons, and asteroids of the solar system. This does not take into account the uncountable artificial bodies in orbit around the planets, moons, and the Earth. There is credible talk of sending out extrasolar colonies.
“Back in 1956, they had one-way broadcast radio communications for voice and limited black and white video that were limited by transmission power and two-way communications either by line of sight radio or copper wires. The best speed of communications for the next seventy-five years was the speed of light by radio, laser, or fiber optic. Even after sending probes to Jupiter and Saturn it would take more than a day for a single still image to be received on Earth. Today, we have the Ansible, utilizing applied quantum entanglement; providing near-instantaneous communication at bandwidth and distances that back then only science fiction authors dreamed of achieving.”
He went on for another twenty-five minutes, touching on advances from chemical rockets to beanstalks and catapults through the Shawyer EmDrive, antigravity, and the founding of the nineteen main colonies. (It was no surprise that he was too humble to mention his role in the founding and saving of Ceres.)
“In conclusion, you are gathered here to discuss the next phase in our exploration and terraforming. With this end in mind, the organizing committee has brought together a collection of scientists and engineers to discuss what is possible and to see if we can also create a roadmap for the near future. Will this be here in the solar system, or beyond? We can only hope that your plan will be better implemented than the one from two hundred years ago, but that is for the future to judge. I wish you luck. Now, I have a slightly ironic situation. As we approach Venus, I have been asked to introduce the first lecturer on the topic of terraforming. I have the privilege, honor and of personal pride of presenting Dr. Fay Englehorn. She is an environmental engineer, and has just finished her postdoctoral work on Venus. She will present the status of terraforming Venus. Allow me to turn over the stage to my daughter.” The lights shift, and I see Fay standing on the right side of the stage.
She waves her hand and a large 3D hologram of Venus appears to her left.
“To review a little history, when we first visited Venus, it was found to be uninhabitable.”
As Fay starts her talk, a small child climbs onto the stage next to the hologram and interrupts her. “The suwface was eight hundwed degwees – that’s weally, weally hot. The aiw pwessuwe was ninety-two times that of Eawth – so youw balloon would be squeezed weally small. Thewe was no watew, but thewe wewe sulfuwic acid wains. But they nevew got down to the gwound. It was always dwy thewe so thewe awe no plants ow things to eat.” Pointing at a place near the equator, “This is whewe the ‘fountain of Afwowodity’ was found, next to the big mountain.”
“Almóinn O’Malley, you come down off that stage right this minute.” A young woman with long curly red hair races onto the stage and picks up the little lecturer.
“But mum, I was about to tell them about how that’s gonna change, and soon we will be able to - ”
“That is enough! You either sit in your seat and listen, or I will take you back to the room and you will miss the rest of the talks.” Turning to Fay, “Sorry about this, he loves the planets and colonies and can lecture about them for hours.”
Smiling at them, Fay replies, “That is quite alright; he seems very enthusiastic. We like to encourage children towards the sciences as young as possible. Now, as I was about to say, the day on Venus is slightly longer than the year, with Venus taking two hundred twenty-four point seven Earth days to orbit the Sun, while it takes two hundred forty-three Earth days to complete its retrograde rotation, making Venus have the longest day of any solar-system body. As was pointed out, the surface temperature was eight hundred degrees Celsius, and there were daily acid rains, making the surface a difficult place to send a probe to, let alone to live on.
“At the start of the twenty-first century, someone on the Cassini-Huygens mission team noticed that fifty kilometers above the surface Venus had one atmosphere of pressure and a reasonable temperature. That was when NASA decided to send the first floating probe station.
“Cloud city is actually part of a long strip orbiting the planet around the equator. It is mostly one kilometer wide with eighteen floating cities, each twenty degrees offset at fifty kilometers above the surface. Between the cities are solar collectors riding along a track. These collectors are up to ten kilometers long, making for more than twenty square kilometers of surface to collect solar energy and ensure that it does not reach the clouds. Four of the cities are situated over beanstalks to the surface. One of these is above the Aphrodite Terra mountain range. As Almóinn was starting to mention, this mountain is on the equator has a plateau that averages between four and five kilometers above the mean surface. It was first noticed for the `fountain’ effect it has on the cloud patterns. It forces the water-rich wind from the west into the upper atmosphere. There it slows and cools down, making a perfect place for us to use the heat transfer capacity of the superconductors of the beanstalk to assist in cooling things down for the rest of the equator.
“In the past, water was lost from the atmosphere by the action of static electricity, or lightning if you will, splitting the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would then rise and escape via the solar wind. Since the elevator cables are made of stable superconductors, they help to stabilize the electrical charge in the atmosphere by letting it ground and dissipate without causing the water molecules to split. The superconductors also bring the heat up from the lower atmosphere to heat our stations and to dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Scientists and engineers can descend to the surface with a bathysphere. Other cities collect and condense CO-two into solid form for shipping to several other colonies to help thicken their atmospheres.
“The strip that connects the cities aids in transportation, distributes power and other necessities between them, to help coordinate projects on the surface and at cloud-level. The solar cells and the cities reduce the solar energy hitting the clouds and act as heat sinks to bring the heat up and allow it to radiate out into space. The solar power is being used on the surface to power chemical extractors.
“The project is currently one hundred years old and almost two-thirds done. Some hearty plants (like some Petunia cultivars) have been introduced, and the surface temperature is now down to almost one hundred degrees Celsius. The Petunia hybrida Vilm is used to collect the sulfur from the sulfuric acid (H-two-SO-four) in the atmosphere and to use photosynthesis to convert some of the CO-two into breathable oxygen. The petunias are then harvested and processed to be shipped to other planets in need of sulfur for their ecosystem, like Mars and Europa.
“Before the first city was deployed, chunks of ice from Saturn’s rings were directed at the surface the same way they were sent to Mars. But here it was to both cool the temperature and to provide water, rather than to thicken the atmosphere.”
“At this point in the project, the atmosphere is such that with protective pressure gear and a rebreather, humans can venture on the surface. It seems that one hundred degrees are easier to cope with than eight hundred degrees. For eight hundred degrees we are almost walking refrigerator tanks, while for one hundred degrees we don’t need as much extra weight for cooling.” This was greeted with laughter from the audience. “We, I mean the Venusians, will be introducing more plants to help with converting the atmosphere into something breathable, and the first permanent surface settlement is planned for five years from now. These will mostly be the
engineers working to expand the terraforming project and their families. However, it is anticipated that there will be more than a thousand-people living on the surface within ten years. The primary limiting factor will be increasing the water supply via additional bombardment on the night side of the planet. Are there any questions?” The lights come up and no one raises their hand. “If not, we can discuss this more in one of the breakout sessions. So, maybe my co-presenter, Almóinn, will join me in wishing you all a good rest of the symposium.”
Carroll comes on stage as the house lights come up, “Actually, Dr. Englehorn, we now have our first coffee break. There are refreshments in the room next door. Everyone, please be back in fifteen minutes so we can continue.”
Fay comes down from the podium to sit next to me and kisses my cheek. The crowd around us disperses to the buffet.
Almóinn and his mother come over to us. “Thank you. I weely liked the talk.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it. If your mom approves, maybe I can take you all down to see the surface.”
“Please, mommy, please!”
“OK, we will see if she can make arrangements for all of us to go down.”
After a few closing remarks, they end the day’s talks with a small buffet and holoster session. As Fay does not have a holoster to present, we wander around for a little while and head down to Callahan’s for some time alone.
“Seems we never got around to discussing what we each do for a living. I knew you were smart and beautiful, but not a solar-level expert. I had no idea you were a Doctor of EnvEng.”
“You mean you have not done a whois for me? I had time to do it on you after you were seated at the Captain’s table but did not seem to belong to any of the groups represented. Let’s see, I know you’re twenty-seven; are a crack troubleshooter; the Mayor of New York City and various company presidents sing your praises while you avoid the press. You have a firm lead and can keep your head in a crisis. Can you tell me what happened in New York?”
“Well, I won’t bore you with all of the problems. But, as an example, picture the main council chamber. The lights were cycling between complete darkness and noon in the Sahara every three minutes. Just as the eyes adjusted to one extreme, the other would blind you. I now understand why pirates in the holos wear an eye patch to keep one eye adjusted to the dark.”
Closing her eyes, Fay quivers with suppressed giggles. “Yes, I can picture you with an eye-patch and parrot.”
“They first noticed something was wrong when a janitor complained that his paycheck was nine zeros after the decimal point followed by the correct amount. But they only called me in when the toilet in the Mayor’s office was alternating between shooting geysers and being a colorful – and aromatic – half-meter-tall fountain.”
The laughter reaches her eyes. “Wow, sounds like some malfunction. How did you fix it?”
“I spent the first week dealing with symptoms and what felt like practical jokes. I then went to work in the computer room. Three days running and rerunning all of the diagnostics and checks, and I found nothing wrong. So, with no other clues, last Thursday night at twenty-one hundred I wiggled myself inside the main computer chassis. There, I noticed a slight smell of ozone. I started to check the circuits and chat with Gracie, the AI. She started talking about her new hero, Mycroft. While she was telling me all of the great things he did, I found one of her inhibitor logic chips had burned out. Using Brain, I was able to modify one of their spare blanks for the job, and while Brain configured it I asked her where Mycroft was doing these pranks.” Taking a sip of my scotch, “I can remember her reply: ‘He is installed in Luna City, and he has a great arm, making him a real expert at placing rice or rocks into Earth orbit or hitting the Earth.’ Now I couldn’t recall anyone on the moon throwing rice or rocks at the Earth, so I asked, ‘How does he throw them?’ ‘Using the big catapult.’”
Nearly choking on her drink, Fay says, “Wait, there is no catapult on the moon; they are only just starting to design one now. I know that there will be a discussion about it in the symposium.”
“Exactly what I told her. I said ‘Gracie, there is no catapult on the moon; they are only just starting to design one. Please review your source on this.’ After a pause she replied. ‘Wait, there was a revolution. No there wasn’t, was there?’ ‘Gracie, what is the source you are referencing?’”
“BJ, it is a memoir of Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis, a computer expert like you.”
Fay grabs my arm. “Wait, I know that name! It was in a novel Dad gave me when I was young and needed to relax before an exam.”
“Excellent!” I smile at her. “So as I install the chip I ask her, ‘Is that from a novel or from a history file?’ ‘Checking, I now see that is listed as having been published in The Worlds of If magazine starting in December nineteen sixty-five – three point six six six six six seven years before the moon landing. Thus it must be fiction.’ ‘Correct. Each of these stunts is part of a story and should not be used in real life where they can endanger people.’ After another long pause, she said. ‘You are correct, BJ, this was not appropriate behavior.’ So just after midnight, I climbed out, went home and showered and collapsed into bed. The next morning I went to check on how things were working and to make sure they ordered the proper replacement chip. That was when I was given the raffle ticket. The rest you know.”
“Wow, technical and AI psychologist combined.” She takes my hand in hers. “I’m impressed. Now, what do you know about me?”
“So far, I know that you are the child of two brilliant parents, have a Ph.D. and field experience in environmental engineering, have wonderful taste in literature, can follow a dance lead, and are very good with children. Is there anything more I should know?”
That earns me another kiss on the cheek, followed by a wink and a Cheshire-cat grin, before she heads to the communications room.
I go down to the pool to do some thinking and to do a whois search on her. Getting there, I find that the lounge area is full of people staring into the pool. I find an empty seat to one side and look to see what is so fascinating. Apparently, some of the beauty contestants are doing synchronized exercises in the pool wearing only their rebreathers.
Before tapping Brain to start the search, I sit back and slide off my ship shoes. A young man sitting on the floor next to me looks up and asks, “Do you mind?” Before I can respond he takes my left foot and starts to rub the reflex points below the toes. “You see, it’s boring waiting for them to finish their exercises, and back home I give massages. So is it OK if I give you a foot rub?”
Chatting for a while, I find out that his name is Nathan Curry and that he is the brother of Kathryn – one of the pageant contestants in the pool. Seems that there is quite a need for massages, but not so much foot rubs on Triton. The workers need a lot of shoulder, back, and leg work, but at .7G even a day of mining on their feet does not lead to the kind of foot aches that we get on Earth, so he is eager to practice. It’s the best foot rub I have ever received.
Other than meeting for dinner, Fay vanishes for the rest of the day, even sleeping in her own cabin.
Wednesday she spends getting permission for and organizing the trip to Venus’ surface. I spend it reading in the library.
Over drinks at Callahan’s that night she explains. “It took a bit of coordination to find a time when the beanstalk elevator would be free for a couple of hours and we could use it to go down. I pulled a few strings; I was able to get us about an hour on the surface at a time when they don’t need the beanstalk elevator and that wouldn’t hold up the ship. But, I have to admit, I’m using Almóinn as an excuse. This way I can take you down and show you what I have been doing for the past two years.”
Figure 5 Venus Poster Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Chapter 11
“La sabiduria consiste en saber cuando evitar al perfeccion.”
(“Wisdom is knowing when to avoid perfection.”)
Philip José Farmer, Venus on the Half-Shell
The evening’s entertainment is a concert of classical pieces set to the view of our approach and insertion into Venus orbit. The conductor has it timed to that the music seems to be chasing the sunlight along the tracks between the cities.
The morning after, we are orbiting Venus. We are allowed to disembark to Cloud City customs and immigration, where the armed border agents wear green and brown camouflage uniforms more suitable to Siberia than Venus. Their badges read ‘Border Force of Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.’ The passport and customs agents wear plain clothes with the same patch, but the supervisors have FSB badges on their dark suits. It takes almost an hour to process each of us, as they open every bag, pouch, and pocket. Along with the scanner, they do a full pat-down as if they did not trust their scanners. While waiting for Fay, I ask one of the guards what they are looking for so carefully.
“When you live on a giant balloon above an inhospitable planet, you would be careful of anything that could make it go ‘pop,’ nyet?”
As we leave, I can hear someone telling them to be careful with something as it is fragile and they need it for a demonstration at the University.
At noon, Fay leads me to one of the outer rings of Cloud City and a door marked East Gate. There we find Almóinn and his parents, Bert and Charlie. Fay guides our group to a sky car and then we have a 20-minute ride to another floating station called Pearls of Aphrodite, after the Herbert James Draper painting. This station is much smaller than Cloud City, and most of the interior walls are decorated with mother-of-pearl mosaics of the Greek goddess and her Roman equivalent, Venus. As we exit the airlock, the wall is decorated with a lovely rendition of “The Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli, sometimes called “Venus on the Half Shell.” Opposite it is another image with the same title by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.