by Ed Finn
In “The Baker of Mars,” Karl Schroeder imagines a future where Earthbound prospectors search for mineral and volatile resources on Mars remotely, via computer control of robotic avatars that are actually on the Red Planet, as a prelude to eventual human exploration and settlement. The story presents a plausible extrapolation of current computational technologies, especially the blockchain technology that undergirds the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, to conceptualize a new economic commons applied to pools of extraterrestrial resources. Schroeder also explores the concept of latency—the time between initiating an action and learning of its results—in the context of remote operations of assets on another planet. The idea of doing as much as we can via robotics and telepresence, prior to actual human exploration, is already a fundamental component of the world’s space exploration programs. It’s easy to envision that concept expanding on a more massive scale to include prospecting for raw materials and resources robotically, and then using those resources to develop the infrastructure needed for humans on Mars.
Madeline Ashby’s “Death on Mars” also plays with the idea of latency. Astronauts are sent out to work on one of the moons of Mars (much easier to get to than Mars itself), significantly decreasing the time delay for operating robotic vehicles that are building habitats for future human explorers on the planet’s surface. This idea has already been gaining some traction in the real Mars exploration world, although mostly in the realm of conducting science experiments and exploration with tele-operated vehicles. Ashby also explores issues of crew psychology and social interactions during the long cruise from Earth to Mars, and beyond. Crew dynamics will be fundamental to the success of future long-duration missions, and one innovation in the story is the concept of an all-female crew, which has physical benefits (lower crew weight and caloric needs) and potential benefits for conflict reduction and social harmony—along with pathbreaking political consequences for the role of women in science. Ashby’s tale turns on one of the most challenging situations astronauts might face, the death of a crew member. The ethical end-of-life issues that bedevil us on Earth only grow more complex in space, where individual and social choices around a terminal illness must be balanced with mission objectives and even the risk of accidentally contaminating another planet with life from Earth. Conversations around this topic could lead to more transparency in and public empathy with the space program, and potentially to deeper connections between the general public and future astronauts.
In “The Use of Things,” Ramez Naam makes the main source of narrative tension the decision between a space future centered on human exploration and a future dominated by robotic explorers controlled by humans on Earth. Should self-organizing swarms of robots replace human explorers entirely? Are the risks of sending humans into dangerous environments justified, if robots can do the job almost or entirely as well? The story also examines the culture and politics of space exploration, acknowledging the inspirational nature of images of people heroically exploring the cosmos, rather than just sending robotic emissaries to do our bidding. “The Use of Things” is a gripping action adventure, but also a sort of philosophical dialogue between a human astronaut tacked onto a mostly robotic mission for promotional purposes and a cynical NASA administrator who would prefer to be managing a purely robotic endeavor. As Naam touches upon, perhaps it will be easier for future space agencies to build public support for expensive missions if strapping, daring human astronauts are aboard—even if their involvement adds complexity, increases costs, and introduces risks of death or serious injury that are difficult, if not impossible, to mitigate.
Eileen Gunn’s “Night Shift” places us in a future where Seattle’s software millionaires and billionaires use their riches to build a vibrant start-up culture around nanotechnology, with its epicenter inside the old Boeing Everett factory (once the largest building in the world). Gunn imagines a future for space exploration with humans on Earth overseeing a busy, increasingly autonomous workforce of robotic miners and nanobots, powered by high-efficiency solar cells and using solar sails for long-distance transport. Gunn injects the aggressively quirky energy of the Pacific Northwest’s twentieth-century software coder culture into the space exploration arena, challenging us to think through the power struggle between freewheeling computer engineers and artificially intelligent agents operating off-planet with ever-expanding autonomy and critical thinking skills. If we opt for a space exploration future shaped by human-machine collaboration, it will be crucial to develop protocols for just how much decision-making authority to vest in thinking machines, and how much to retain for human experts. “Night Shift” also dramatizes the opportunities and perils of self-replicating nanobot swarms. If given the ability to replicate at a geometric rate, nanobot swarms could theoretically overrun entire asteroids or even planets while searching for water or other resources that they’ve been programmed to find and process. Gunn treats these weighty subjects with humor and verve, giving us the chance to consider these possibilities in a nonthreatening but exciting technical and philosophical bubble.
Finally, in “Shikasta,” Vandana Singh invites us to ponder the implications of the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe, and to reconfigure our expectations about what that life might look like, beyond the familiar flora and fauna we encounter on Earth and beyond the gray, saucer-eyed aliens of film and television. Singh’s story likewise reimagines the future of space exploration by centering on a global team of crowd-funded scientists collaborating remotely across continents and time zones, and by making the enigmatic, ever-shifting relationship between the scientists and their artificially intelligent robotic emissary a source of speculation and tension for the reader. Singh’s story also complicates the scientific methods and theories that we use to guide our exploration of the cosmos: her characters bring their rich personal histories and indigenous ways of knowing into dialogue with mainstream scientific and technological practices, which enables them to recognize, theorize about, and study phenomena that traditional approaches might miss. “Shikasta” makes a powerful argument for the value of cultural diversity in space science and exploration, and challenges us to seek new methods in the search for extraterrestrial life that go beyond our preconceived notions about how that life will look and behave.
As more specific plans begin to emerge over the next few years for the future human exploration of space by NASA and others, it will be important to understand if and how those plans are consistent with the context and expectations for space exploration that have been embraced by our society based on plausible, compelling science fiction. To me it seems likely that the reason society has embraced particular stories and depictions is precisely because they are not fantasy; instead, they can represent a positive and ultimately uplifting potential reality. In a world with so many societal, political, and economic challenges, the idea that we can make it to a better future that has been at least partially enabled by the adventures, challenges, and discoveries of space exploration could be powerfully inspirational. Evidence to date suggests that such inspiration can be turned into advocacy and action, and that fiction can indeed presage fact.
Section I: Low Earth Orbit
“But the General Assembly can’t be happy that you’ve given the first concession to an old South African weapons manufacturer!”
Helmut shrugged. “Armscor has very little relation to its origins. It is just a name. When South Africa became Azania, the company moved its home offices to Australia, and then to Singapore. And now of course it has become very much more than an aerospace firm. It is a true transnational, one of the new tigers, with banks of its own, and controlling interest in about fifty of the old Fortune 500.”
“Fifty of them?” John said.
“Yes. And Armscor is one of the smallest of the transnationals, that is why we picked it. But it still has a bigger economy than any but the largest twenty countries. As the old multinationals coalesce into transnationals, you see, they really gather quite a bit of power, and they have influen
ce in the General Assembly. When we give one a concession, some twenty or thirty countries profit by it, and get their opening on Mars. And for the rest of the countries, that serves as a precedent. And so pressure on us is reduced.”
—Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Vanguard 2.0
by Carter Scholz
From the cupola, Sergei Sergeiivitch Ivashchenko looked down on Petersburg. It was night and the gloomy city sparkled. Around it curved the northern breast of the Earth, under a thin gauze of atmosphere.
Today would have been his father’s sixtieth birthday. Sergei père had been principal bassist for the St. Petersburg Symphony. He’d died 15 years ago, from multiple aggressive cancers. It happened to a lot of Russian men his age. He’d been a young teen at the time of Chernobyl, living in Kyiv.
Vera, Sergei’s mother, was a beautiful young singer when she married his father. She promptly retired, at 23. Never a pleasant person, Vera grew more unpleasant as her looks faded. When his father got his diagnosis, she immediately filed for divorce, moved out, and took up with one of his colleagues in the woodwinds. She said, “I have to protect myself.” Sergei himself was 16, an only child.
Two months later his father was dead. Sergei filed for an extension on the apartment, and was turned down. He’d been playing the part of the rebellious punk nekulturny, which didn’t help. (His band was called Alyona Ivanovna, after Raskolnikov’s victim in Crime and Punishment.)
They sold his father’s instruments. Vera took most of the proceeds, but Sergei’s own share kept him going for a drunken while. He couch-surfed with friends for most of a year. He had scholarships and grants and no other options. So he straightened up, and blazed almost contemptuously through math, compsci, and astrodynamics. He had his kandidat nauk at 23. But there were no jobs, not in Russia, and competition in the EU and U.S. and India was fierce.
So he switched tracks, took commercial astronaut training, and ended up in Uber’s NSLAM Division: Near Space Logistics and Asset Management. The work was menial—glorified trash collection and traffic management—but the pay was good, and he liked being off-Earth.
NSLAM employed about 20 astronauts, in shifts, to staff its two inflatable habitats. Apart from the Chinese and European space stations, theirs was the only ongoing human presence in orbital space. All told there were several hundred astronauts worldwide, working for nations or militaries or private industry, but few stayed in orbit.
Sergei was in the hab for three or four months at a time, then back on Earth for the same. Up here he sat in his cubby and remotely managed ion-thrust drones to deorbit space debris, or to refuel satellites. The drones would be out for weeks or months at a time on their various missions.
Once in a great while he left the hab in a spacecraft, to work on more complex projects. One such task, still ongoing, was dismantling the International Space Station. It was decommissioned in 2024 and sold to NSLAM in 2027. They were still salvaging parts—recycling some, selling some on eBay as memorabilia. He made a side income from that.
But crewed missions were rare, because they used so much fuel, and that was fine with Sergei. He liked being off-Earth but he didn’t like leaving the hab. There were too many ways to die in space. Debris, for one. NSLAM tracked one million objects one centimeter or larger. Smaller untracked objects numbered over a hundred million. And it was all moving up to 7 times as fast as a bullet, carrying 50 times the kinetic energy. A fleck of paint had put a divot the size of a golf ball in a Space Shuttle back in the day. The habs were made of dozens of layers of super-kevlar and foam, which flexed and absorbed small impacts, but they were still vulnerable to larger objects.
Then there were solar flares. There was usually sufficient warning, but unprotected astronauts had died. Even inside, he wasn’t crazy about the minimal shielding in the habs. During serious solar events, he’d seen flashes behind his closed eyelids. Often he felt like he was following his father to the same early grave.
Petersburg drifted out of view across the northern horizon as the hab orbited south. They’d be back in 90 minutes, but further west, as the Earth rotated under them.
Below, a meteor flashed over the blackness of the Baltic Sea. Nearer the Earth’s limb, over Finland, a green veil of aurora flickered. He’d see Izumi in Helsinki next week; his shift was almost done.
He swiveled and opened the cupola hatch. Cold LED light streamed in from the central shaft. He pushed gently to propel himself feet first down the shaft.
She’d hugged him goodbye, kissed him, and said:
Who will take care of your heart and soul?
He shrugged.
She pointed at him. You will. Promise me.
He’d promised, but he wasn’t sure he knew how. He could take care of himself, but that was mere survival. The self is not the soul. The soul is what you were as a child, until you learned to protect it, enclosing that fluttering, vulnerable moth in the fist of the self.
As he drifted past Boyle’s cubby he heard his name called. He grabbed a stanchion.
Sergei’s job title was orbital supervisor, which made him the most important person on the hab, responsible for the launch registry, collision avoidance alerts, and flight plans. But Boyle, the shift boss, was his superior. Competent enough, Boyle tended to see nothing beyond his position, so Sergei played his own to type: the stolid Ukie who kept to himself and loved his wode-ka. In truth Sergei hadn’t seen the Ukraine since his father moved them to Petersburg in 2010, and his drink was single malt. Talisker 18 Year, for preference.
What’s up, Geoff?
We’re going to have a visitor. A civilian.
Civilian? Why is he up?
He’s Gideon Pace.
Gideon Pace was Uber’s CEO. He was one of the world’s 10 or 20 newly minted trillionaires. The exact number changed daily with the markets, but they were still rare as unicorns, already persistent as myth. This tiny cohort controlled about 5 percent of the world’s wealth.
Uber ran a diverse portfolio of businesses on Earth. Package delivery, autonomous transport, data archived in DNA—all hugely profitable.
NSLAM was an indulgence, a pet project of Pace’s. He was a space nut who wanted a presence out here at any price. So far, Sergei knew, that presence had bled oceans of money, and not a few lives. But now governments were signing on to underwrite the core mission of cleaning up space debris—enough to have launched a second hab.
All four crew turned out to greet Pace and his pilot: Boyle, Sergei, Kiyoshi, and Sheila. Kiyoshi and Sheila had coupled a few weeks into the shift. Sergei liked Kiyoshi; he was a jazz fan, and had hipped Sergei to Kenny Barron. Sheila, the hab medic, was a petite Canadian blonde with chiseled features. She looked like Vera in her youth, which put Sergei off getting to know her. She’d cropped her hair close to keep it from floating in a halo around her head. Sergei himself shaved his; he hated their no-rinse shampoo.
Their visitor had a weasel’s face: dark straight hair in bangs, pinched cheeks, thin sloped nose, pointed dimpled chin, eyes slanting slightly upward. About Sergei’s age, but he looked younger.
Fantastic! Fantastic! I’ve been in space before, but only suborbital. I had to see this for myself.
Welcome to NSLAM Hab One.
You must be Sergei. Chief Boyle tells me you’re the most experienced astronaut here.
He wasn’t looking quite at Sergei. Sergei guessed he was wearing augmented contacts with a headsup display, clocking Sergei’s vitals and recording everything.
Sergei dialed back his English to a cute and unthreatening level.
You gather data on me.
Of course.
Right now. In real time. What don’t you know already?
Ah, I see. Well … how you are. I don’t know that. How are you?
Sergei put on a blank look, but it didn’t approach the blankness of Pace’s.
Pace smiled thinly. It’s what humans do, Sergei.
How would you know? Sergei almost said, but didn’t. Pace�
��s headsup probably picked up the subvocalization; his smile twitched.
Boyle grabbed a stanchion. Let’s show you around.
I’ve got work, said Sergei.
Join us later, Sergei, said Pace. I brought some goodies from Earth.
He had indeed. The six of them gathered in what Boyle quaintly called the “mess hall,” a multifunction common space packed with gear on every surface—left, right, up, down. The “mess hall” housed some hydrator nozzles and a fold-down table with bungees and velcro to secure plates and feet. It was seldom used. They tended to dine separately.
Pace had brought Kobe beef tournedos in vacuum pouches and a bottle of wine. Sergei would have preferred fresh vegetables.
2013 Napa cabernet sauvignon, Pace said. Heitz Cellar, Martha’s Vineyard. A wine like this you don’t want to suck out of a bulb.
His pilot passed a case, and Pace drew out six glasses and an opener. As he applied the opener to the bottle he let the glasses float. Their cross-section was tear-shaped.
An old NASA guy designed these glasses. The shape creates surface tension to hold the liquid in. Neat, huh?
Pace held one of the glasses while a trigger on the opener let compressed nitrogen into the bottle and forced wine out the spout. The wine sloshed but stayed put in the glass. He drifted glasses one by one to their recipients, lifted his own to his nose, let it twirl slowly while he inhaled. Sergei guessed he’d practiced all this in suborbital.
Enjoy. I want to thank you all for the incredible job you’re doing up here. NSLAM is now the most trusted actor in near-Earth space. It’s all because we stepped up to do something about the Kessler Effect, and you’ve all executed flawlessly.
Sergei wasn’t sure he believed in the Kessler Effect, that a cascade of debris could destroy satellites to produce more debris to destroy more, et cetera. Noisy disaster movies had been made about it, but if it was truly happening, it was proceeding so slowly that only spreadsheets detected it.
