What is the future of manned space exploration?

With the end of the Space Shuttle program and no new generation of manned space vehicle on the horizon for the United States, those of us who care about the future are naturally concerned. Sure, the Russians have their Soyuz program and the Chinese seem to have every intention of being the second country to put a man on the Moon, but without the Americans in the game, it seems the exploration and eventual colonization of the Solar System is becoming ever more the realm of science fiction. I have heard some suggest the future of American manned space exploration is actually better off without NASA. They believe private companies like SpaceX can do it for less money. I don't doubt that private enterprise can handle routine low Earth orbit operations such as launching satellites or shuttling personnel to the International Space Station, but are we ever going to see a manned mission to Mars, for example, from a private company? I seriously doubt it. Where is the profit in it? There's little evidence to suggest there are any resources of value to us on Mars, at least in the short term. No question, the resources of the Solar System are vast. One can imagine limitless solar energy or asteroid mining for all the raw materials the human race would need for the next ten thousand years, but these are extremely long-term efforts. Most financiers don't want to invest in projects that won't see a return for centuries. So what is the future of manned space exploration? I see three scenarios.

One, we let the Chinese do the heavy lifting for awhile. In other words, we do nothing. It's definitely the path of least resistance and there is no law of the universe that says the future belongs to English-speaking peoples. Maybe the first space colonists will speak Mandarin.

Two, we get NASA back in the game. This is certainly a possibility, especially if the Americans get shocked by the successful launch of a manned Chinese lunar mission. It seems to be a question of timing and the current American debt crisis. Will the Americans pull themselves out of their malaise in time to get their space program back on track before the Chinese get too far ahead? It's hard to say, but in my experience, it's never a good idea to bet against the Americans.

Three, turn space exploration into a non-profit, charitable endeavor. Wait...what? Admittedly, this is an unconventional idea, but I think there are a lot of people who would like to contribute to space exploration. First, there are private individuals. Millions of Americans (and Canadians) who dream about our future in space might be willing to make small tax-deductible donations to a manned space program. Even more importantly, big investors could benefit from tax incentives as well in order to get access to the billions of dollars required for manned space flight. I envision a manned mission to Mars involving some input from NASA, private companies like SpaceX and non-profit space exploration organizations working together. If we don't want to see the future of the human race shaped by the regressive, totalitarian regime in Beijing, this may be the only way.

Thoughts?

-Rognar-

Random Thoughts on Transhumanism

I recently bought a dead tree copy of Eclipse Phase and it has gotten me to thinking about the future more than any game purchase I've ever made. The basic premise of the game is the concept of transhumanism, the use of technology to advance the human mind and body. In the game, the mind (called the "ego") is decoupled from the body. The ego can be stored, uploaded and transmitted at will. The body is little more than a mobile storage device. If the body dies, it can be replaced. The body doesn't even have to be flesh and bone, it can be robotic. It can even be a nanoswarm. This concept raises a lot of questions about identity and social constructs. It is just a game, of course, so certain assumptions are made for the sake of playability, but it is thought-provoking.

One thing I have been pondering is the question of sanity. How would a human mind deal with being "resleeved" (the game term for being downloaded into a new body or "morph") into a synthetic body? Would it drive that mind insane? Is it even possible for a consciousness stored in a synthetic matrix to be afflicted by mental disorders? After all, brain chemistry is often at the root of most mental disorders. How would an ego perceive the world differently in a digital versus an organic form? I guess the designers of synthetic brains would have to recreate the human brain to a very high level, even to the point of producing electronic analogs of serotonin, dopamine and other brain chemicals that affect how the mind perceives the world.

Speaking of perception, what about human senses? Do all humans perceive a particular shade of blue the same way? Presumably, we could measure the frequency of the electrical impulses moving along the optic nerve when a person is looking at a particular colour and then reproduce it in a synthetic system, but do all human minds interpret that particular frequency the same way? Does it even matter, as long as the frequency is the same? What about more exotic morphs such as nanoswarms? It's hard to imagine being able to recreate human sensory input in such a radically different physical form.

-Rognar-

Random Thoughts on Space Flight

In the distant future, assuming mankind eventually takes to the stars, how big will starships be and how many crewmembers will man them? I have pondered these questions before as a GM for various space-based games. There seem to be two schools of thought on this in space movies, the "Star Trek" model and the "Alien" model.

In the "Star Trek" model, starships are like navy ships today. They come in a variety of sizes, but they all have large crews. It's not entirely clear why this should be. After all, a modern warship needs lots of crewmen to man guns, to repair battle damage and to replace casualties. In Star Trek, and most other space shows and movies that follow a similar model, many of these responsibilities seem to be handled by a small number of people. Weapon batteries aren't manned individually, rather, they are controlled from a single gunnery station on the bridge. Likewise, most engineering functions seem to be controlled from a single location manned by only a handful of people. Many of the people on board "Star Trek" type ships seem to serve no major purpose except to repel an occasional boarding party and to serve as casualties so the major characters don't have to.

The "Alien" model envisions enormous ships with tiny crew complements, typically fewer than 10. This is similar to modern freighters and tankers, which have small crews since they don't need much in the way of skillset redundancy or security. A small bridge crew, a cook and a couple of deckhands are sufficient. A giant freighter in space would probably need a few more crewmembers than a present-day ship because help is far away. A couple of people with technical skills would be required as would someone with medical knowledge. Still, that adds up to no more than a dozen at most.

My current thinking tends toward the "Alien" model for a couple of reasons. First of all, humans require a huge amount of resources for life. Food, water, air, living space, recreational activities all take up valuable space and cargo capacity on a ship. Many activities on a spaceship can be performed as well or better by robots and computers, so I'm guessing these will be used whenever possible to reduce the number of humans required. Secondly, I expect the drive systems needed to propel spaceships will be friggin' huge. Consider this, according to E=mc², it would take 900 petaJoules (quadrillion) to accelerate 1,000 kilograms of matter to 0.1 lightspeed. If we took a year to get to 0.1 c, it would require 28.5 GW of continuous power output. The most advanced nuclear fission reactors today produce about 0.6 to 1.2 GW and they are, themselves, heavier than 1,000 kg. When you add in fuel, radiation shielding and reaction mass, a fission drive will be orders of magnitude larger. Of course, fusion or other more speculative technologies might come into play, but we're still talking about pretty large propulsion systems. For this reason, I suspect space within starships will be at a premium, much as it is now on the space shuttle.

So, I envision massive starships, kilometers in length, with most of the bulk being drive systems. Of course, the question then becomes, why are we going into space at all? If it is just for exploration, why send people at all? Robots fulfil that role right now and they do it a heck of a lot cheaper. On the other hand, if we want to exploit the natural resources of the asteroids and comets, we will need huge cargo holds (probably in the form of detachable modules) and even more drive capacity to transport these massive amounts of material. This seems enormously inefficient, so perhaps factory ships will be the way to go. Process the raw materials where they are and then transport the refined material or finished products. Again, it seems like most of this could be done a lot cheaper by robotic systems. It seems the only reason to send people into space is colonization. That changes the calculus a lot. Now you need large numbers to create viable colonies. Depending on how livable the colonized worlds are and how much support they can expect from Earth, we could be talking a hundred or several thousand. Any less would seriously threaten the viability of the colony.

I'm not really going anywhere with this, hence the title of the post. I'm just looking to generate discussion and get ideas from the rest of you nerds.

-Rognar-