Infinity Born

by Douglas E. Richards

  EXCERPT: The notion of harvesting resources from extraterrestrial sources is not a new one. The lure of untold bounties—orbiting just out of reach—has prompted generations of poets and presidents alike to expound upon the potential applications of space mining. These days, “space mining” is no longer a mere pipe dream. Thanks to recent funding successes, asteroid prospecting is fast becoming a very actionable goal. Commercial prospecting missions are projected to begin as early as 2020.

  Although it sounds like pure science fiction, asteroid mining is quickly becoming a viable niche industry within the commercial space landscape. While the logistical challenges are not insignificant, early stage ventures are refining the technologies required for commercial deployment. Mining an asteroid for resources would in theory function very much like terrestrial mining—only absent the environmental concerns inherent to Earth-based practices.

  . . . The advancements in asteroid mining have increased at such a rapid rate—near blinding, actually—that it just might be one of those proverbial “once-in-a-lifetime opportunities” for those who jump in early. Many savvy, early-stage angel investors are already taking the plunge. Why? They understand that we truly are on the threshold of breaking into an opportunity with nearly unlimited potential.

  Kinetic bombardment (The Rod of God)

  It is truly remarkable how much kinetic energy a speeding object carries with it, and until I began doing the math, I never fully appreciated that a spaceship going tens of thousands of miles per second could annihilate an entire planet.

  My research suggests that kinetic bombardment from space is probably something the US government has worked on, but most of what is out there is rumor and speculation. I have read that the science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle originated this concept in the 1950s while working at Boeing.

  Here is an excerpt from a 2004 article in Popular Science entitled, “Rods From God.”

  EXCERPT: A pair of satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten rods—up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter—that can drop on targets with less than 15 minutes' notice. When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 22,000 miles per hour—comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete devastation of the target, even if it's buried deep underground.

  The concept of kinetic-energy weapons has been around ever since the 1950s. Though the Pentagon won't say how far along the research is, or even confirm that any efforts are underway, the concept persists. The "U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan," published by the Air Force in November 2003, references "hypervelocity rod bundles" in its outline of future space-based weapons, and in 2002, another report from RAND, "Space Weapons, Earth Wars," dedicated entire sections to the technology's usefulness.

  Finally, here is an excerpt from Above Top Secret.com

  EXCERPT: In the early/mid 1950's there was another program called Project Thor, named after the hammer-wielding Norse god who could rain metal death down as he pleased. It reportedly originated from a U.S.A.F. research project, and is basically summed up as 'an orbiting tungsten telephone pole with small fins and a computer in the back for guidance.'

  Once given the launch command, a satellite would drop the 'pole,' which would then speed up until going at orbital velocity, around 9 kilometers a second. At this speed, when it hit a ground based target, it would have the explosive equivalent of a small-yield nuclear weapon.

  This program was the first example of what we now call 'kinetic bombardment,' using dense objects travelling at very high speeds to eliminate targets without the need of explosives.

  Another program along the same lines initiated in the early 80's, called 'Rods from God', worked on the same principles as the Thor program.

  The rise of the Internet

  We all know just how vast the Internet has become, and that almost every single one of us have contributed to its unprecedented growth. But I never really considered how amazing this really was. As mentioned in the novel, the Web has grown organically, and really does show what billions of people can accomplish when their creativity can be collectively unleashed.

  I never thought about how the Internet changed a paradigm that had been true throughout human history, that a few creators had always produced content for the masses to consume, rather than everyone creating content for everyone else. The statistic I quoted in the novel, that by 2016, more than sixty trillion web pages had been created, almost ten thousand for every living human, is true. I found this statistic, and the insight about how the Internet is being forged by all of us, collectively, in a fascinating book by Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine, entitled, “The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.”

  Are our bodies replaced every five years?

  According to my research, our bodies are replaced every five years. Here is an excerpt from an article in Time magazine way back in 1954.

  EXCERPT: About 98% of the atoms in the human body are renewed each year. This surprising fact is discussed by Dr. Paul C. Aebersold of Oak Ridge in the latest Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Aebersold based his conclusion on experiments with radioisotopes, which trace the movements of chemical elements in and out of the body.

  I’ll leave you with one more excerpt, taken from the book, “The Seven Mysteries of Life,” (1978), by Guy Murchie.

  EXCERPT: Recent studies at the Oak Ridge Atomic Research Center have revealed that about 98 percent of all the atoms in a human body are replaced every year. You get a new suit of skin every month and a new liver every six weeks. The lining of your stomach lasts only five days before it's replaced. Even your bones are not the solid, stable, concrete-like things you might have thought them to be: They are undergoing constant change. The bones you have today are different from the bones you had a year ago. Experts in this area of research have concluded that there is a complete, 100 percent turnover of atoms in the body at least every five years. In other words, not one single atom present in your body today was there five years ago.

  The speed of thought

  I probably spent more time researching this than any other topic, trying to pin it down precisely, but I failed miserably. I can tell you how fast nerve impulses travel from the muscles to the brain, and I can provide any number of other parameters, but I could never get comfortable with even a ballpark figure when it came to the speed of thought.

  The subject turned out to be much too complex for me to easily sort through. The one reference I found that spoke fairly directly to the speed of thinking was from Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia (1997). Based on this resource, the speed I mentioned in the novel, between 200 and 300 MPH, was actually fast. Thinking may be as slow as 50 MPH. Here is the relevant section: “Some actions require split second responses—withdrawing a hand from a hot stove, for example. To relay the information necessary for such a reaction, there are large nerve fibers that can conduct impulses at speeds as high as 220 miles per hour. Other kinds of activities, such as scholarly pursuits, may require a lifetime of thought. For these kinds of activities, other nerve fibers can be used to conduct signals more slowly—50 to 60 miles per hour.”

  Are we living in a computer simulation?

  Are we living in a computer simulation? The short answer is that a number of scientists much smarter than me think we are. For a fascinating article on this subject, I would point you to a 2016 piece in the New Yorker (one that you can readily find online) entitled, “What are the odds we are living in a computer simulation?”

  The Fermi Paradox

  I have long found the Fermi Paradox to be fascinating. For those of you who really want to drill down, I can direct you to a book I read three or four years ago by Stephen Webb entitled, “If the Univ
erse Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life.”

  (Perhaps a longer title than I would have used, but a fun read).

  Here is the first paragraph of the book’s description on Amazon: Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps 400 billion galaxies in the universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the 14-billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our own. The sheer enormity of the numbers almost demands that we accept the truth of this hypothesis. Why, then, have we encountered no evidence, no messages, no artifacts of these extraterrestrials?

  Elon Musk, Mars, tunneling, and brain implants

  Like many people, I’m a big fan of Elon Musk. I was one of the first to read Ashlee Vance’s biography of the man. When I saw footage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket touching down softly on a landing platform, I was amazed that a private citizen has been able to achieve what Musk has achieved.

  It seemed as though everywhere I turned as I wrote this novel, Elon Musk was there. First, it’s hard to write a billionaire genius scientist character without thinking of Musk as one prime example. This is especially true since Isaac Jordan’s claim to fame was in building a fleet of spacecraft and colonizing Mars, which is exactly what Musk is working toward. In fact, I even pointed out in the novel that Jordan had beat Musk in the race to get to the red planet.

  Then I began to research the possible dangers of ASI, and of course Musk was a prominent voice here, as well.

  Are we living in a computer simulation? Yep, Musk is perhaps the most prominent of those who have weighed in on this subject, also.

  But there was one part of my character’s biography that diverged from Elon Musk’s. Isaac Jordan happened to have made huge innovations in tunneling technology, which he put to great use in his asteroid mining efforts and his underground lairs.

  And then I began reading articles like this one, entitled, “Elon Musk wants to speed up tunneling by ten times, lower costs by ten to a hundred times, and create thirty layers of mostly underground cities.” This was on a website called Next Big Future, in 2017, and it showed that Jordan’s and Musk’s biographies didn’t diverge in this respect, after all. If you Google Musk and Tunneling, or The Boring Company (which is what he’s naming this new venture) you can find plenty more. I’ve included a brief excerpt from the Next Big Future article below.

  EXCERPT: Tunnel technology is older than rockets, and boring speeds are pretty much what they were fifty years ago. In L.A., plans to extend the subway’s Purple Line by 2.6 miles will cost more than $2.4 billion and take almost ten years. “It’s basically a billion dollars a mile,” Musk says. “That’s crazy.”

  Musk says he hopes to build a much faster tunneling machine and use it to dig thousands of miles, eventually creating a vast underground network that includes as many as thirty levels of tunnels for cars and high-speed trains such as the Hyperloop.

  Objections spring to mind. Such as: Wouldn’t having hundreds of feet of hollow tunnels destabilize the ground? Nope, Musk says, the mining industry does it all the time. “The Earth is big, and we are small,” he says. “We are so f-ing small you cannot believe it.” Not only are these mega-tunnels possible, he argues, they’re the only way we can rid ourselves of the scourge of traffic.

  . . . He plans to use a machine like this to test improvements in tunneling technology. “To make it a little better should be easy,” he says. “To make it five times better is not crazy hard. To make it ten times better is hard, but nobody will need to win a Nobel Prize.

  “We’re trying to dramatically increase the tunneling speed,” he says. “We want to know what it would take to get to a mile a week? Could it be possible?”

  It was at this point that I realized Elon Musk was reading my mind, knew about Isaac Jordan and his tunneling innovations, and frankly, was jealous of him.

  But it gets worse. Today, as I sat down to write this very section, I learned that Musk was starting a company called Neuralink, with the goal of coming up with brain implants that can enhance human mental capabilities and pave the way for human/computer interfaces. I’m not kidding. Just today this was announced.

  Many of you may be aware that this is reminiscent of my Nick Hall series (Mind’s Eye, BrainWeb, and MindWar), in which the protagonist has electronic implants embedded in his brain that allow him to surf the Web with his thoughts and read minds.

  Enough is enough, Elon Musk. Get out of my head. If you’re reading this, I’m asking you to back off. It’s hard enough for me to come up with science fictional ideas that stay a few steps ahead of reality as it is, without you having to keep inventing things that make it that much harder.

  Anyway, I need to hurry up and finish this section before Elon Musk announces his intention of moving to Turlock, California or starting an asteroid mining company.

  Graphene

  Graphene has the potential to revolutionize many fields and does have some remarkable properties. I’m not sure it could block the mind-control signals of an Artificial Superintelligence, but if any material was going to do so, it would be graphene. I also chose to feature this material because it’s one that would make sense for Isaac Jordan to use in his spacecraft.

  Here is an excerpt from a 2015 article entitled, “What is Graphene?” on the website, ExtremeTech.

  EXCERPT: The word “super-material” gets thrown around a lot these days, but one super-material overshadows them all, earning its discoverers a Nobel Prize and defining the upper limit for scientific hype and excitement. It has the potential to revolutionize processing, power storage, even space exploration. It’s called graphene, and it’s the granddaddy of the modern boom in materials science. Graphene has the potential to be one of the most disruptive single inventions of all time—but what is it, really?

  Scientists have been talking about graphene for the better part of a hundred years, though not always by that name. The idea was easy enough to come up with: what if we could take a diamond and slice it into wafers just one atom thick? This would make it a so-called “two-dimensional” substance, made entirely out of carbon, yet flexible in a way that diamond cannot be. It not only has the incredible physical properties you’d expect from a sheet of crystal, widely cited as the strongest material ever created on a per-weight basis, but it also has incredibly high electrical conductivity. Being atomically small, graphene could allow much, much more tight packing of transistors in a processor, for instance, and allow many electronics industries to take huge steps forward.

  Yet despite some valiant early attempts, we had to wait until 2004 for anyone to reliably make graphene fragments large enough and quickly enough to be, hypothetically, useful. The incredible physical properties of graphene practically beg to be applied in all sorts of thought experiments. If it could be made in threads at least a meter long, some scientists believe these strands of graphene could be woven together to make a tether both strong enough and flexible enough to be the backbone of a space elevator. This single piece of flexible, woven carbon would stretch all the way from the surface of the Earth to beyond geosynchronous orbit. These are the sorts of sci-fi inventions that will become plausible if graphene manufacturing manages to come into its own.

  DARPA, the Pentagon, Helen Woodward Animal Center, and smoke alarms

  The information in Infinity Born about the history of DARPA and the Pentagon is accurate. There really is a Helen Woodward Animal Center in San Diego. I’m quite confident of this because my wife has been a volunteer there for many years. Like Riley, she is an avid dog lover. Unlike Riley, however, her father is not a billionaire (which is really too bad if you ask me—and while I’ve urged him on, he refuses to come out of retirement to become one).

  The Helen Woodward Animal Center is not only well known in San Diego, it has become one of the most influential shelters in the world. In 1999, the Center created a campaign tha
t encouraged pet lovers to adopt rescue animals rather than purchase pets from puppy mills or breeders. While the initiative began locally, by 2009 it had spread to include participants from almost four thousand animal organizations in seventeen countries, and to date has adopted out over nine million animals.

  Finally, for those of you who have never had a houseful of smoke alarms malfunction and go off in the middle of the night, I can tell you that no description of the volume of noise they produce could ever do them justice. The alarms in our house have gone off a few times over the years and I really did think my head would explode. Maybe our alarms are set louder than industry standards, but I’m pretty sure they could be heard on the surface of the Moon.

  That’s all the notes for now: If you’ve made it this far, congratulations on your perseverance and thanks so much for your interest. And again, if you could rate this novel on Amazon when you get the chance, I’d really appreciate it. Click here to rate Infinity Born.

  3) ESSAY: “Scientific Advances are Ruining Science Fiction!”

  For those of you with interest, I’ve included this essay, which first appeared in Lifeboat Foundation’s Visions of the Future (2016), a compilation of both fiction and non-fiction written by forty-two authors. I’m one of twenty-one authors named on the cover, and I can’t begin to describe what an honor it is to be included alongside some of the absolute greats of science fiction, including Robert Sawyer, James Gunn, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Joe Haldeman, Ben Bova, and Alan Dean Foster.

  Although I can’t hold a candle to any of these writers, I gave this essay my best shot, and I hope that you will enjoy it.

  Scientific Advances are Ruining Science Fiction!

  By Douglas E. Richards