Asteroid Threat : Defending Our Planet from Deadly Near-earth Objects (9781616149147)

by William E. Burrows

  And while living away from the home planet for a lifetime has usually been considered anathema to most people, O’Neill saw a benefit to it. “The self-sufficiency of space communities probably has a strong effect on government. A community of 200,000 people, eager to preserve its own culture and language, can even choose to remain largely isolated. Free, diverse social experimentation could thrive in such a protected, self-sufficient environment.” He also noted that the communities would be protected from cosmic rays by the depth of the atmosphere and by land and steel supporting structures, but he erred in claiming that meteoroid damage should not be a serious danger because of their composition. “Most meteoroids are of cometary rather than asteroidal origin and are dust conglomerates, possibly bound by frozen gases; a typical meteoroid is more like a snowball than like a rock.” Comets, as has been noted, are indeed more like snowballs than rocks, but meteoroids are small rocks that are derived from meteors and, hence, asteroids, and they are therefore also rocks, not chunks of ice.16

  Gerard O’Neill was not the first to envision a large, self-sustaining colony in space. But he was a modern visionary whose detailed description of one and what would be necessary to keep it functioning so captivated Carolyn and Keith Henson that they created the L5 Society in Tucson in 1975, the year after “The Colonization of Space” was published, to carry his dream to fulfillment. The group took its name from the Lagrangian points, where the gravitational pull from Earth and from the Moon cancel each other out, so the colony would stay put without drifting off.

  But there was an obstacle. It was called the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, or the Moon Treaty for short, which turned over the jurisdiction of all celestial bodies to the international community in a “common heritage of all mankind” morass. The Moon Treaty was born out of a palpable fear after Americans landed on the Moon that either side, but most probably the Americans, would build a missile base there with the weapons trained on targets on Earth. Missile defense was hard enough when they came from the other side of the North Pole, but it would be next to impossible to stop a barrage of them raining down from lunar launchers. And, beyond that, there was a feeling that a nation that controlled the Moon would have some unarticulated but real advantage over the other nations on this planet, most likely having to do with its vast natural resources. The treaty therefore held the United States to the spirit of Neil Armstrong's famous declaration about he, Aldrin, and Collins being there for all humankind.

  So the agreement stipulated that the Moon had to be used solely for the benefit of all nations and peoples, and activities on it were therefore subject to international law. That put it off-limits as the site of a farm for the space colony. More important, the treaty prohibited any form of sovereignty or private property in space, which would have been the death knell for the colony itself. Nations with space programs—Russia, China, Japan, and India—did not ratify the treaty, and the L5 Society saw to it that the United States did not ratify it either. In the end, however, the colony literally died of its own weight. Calculations showed that the cost of rocketing the many thousands of tons of material to the Lagrangian points where Island One, as it was also called, would be constructed would be $96 billion.

  Freeman Dyson, another theoretical physicist (though from Princeton, not Caltech), thinks that that sum is “preposterously large” to spend on a single enterprise, even on Island One.17 In his autobiography, Disturbing the Universe, which celebrates science's contribution to civilization, he notes that O’Neill claimed that the $96 billion would be repaid within twenty-four years and asserts that, in reality, the space colonists would have to work for 1,500 years to pay each family's share of that staggering debt. The answer for Dyson is governmental. “It must inevitably be a government project, with bureaucratic management, with national prestige at stake, and with occupational health and safety regulations rigidly enforced. As soon as our government takes responsibility for such a project, any serious risk of failure or of loss of life becomes politically unacceptable. The costs of Island One become high for the same reason that the costs of the Apollo expedition were high. The government can afford to waste money but it cannot afford to be responsible for a disaster.”18

  William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist who is the first Senior Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Cultures and was on the faculty of Towson State University, had a breakthrough more than two decades ago when he predicted that the colonization of space would not only preserve humanity but also profoundly change it by diversification. “Among the potentially radical results of space flight is the utter transformation of human society,” he wrote in Goals in Space: American Values and the Future of Technology, published in 1991.

  Beyond the pull of Earth's gravity we could create “new cultures,” thus achieving “increased cultural diversity.” Establishing “societies on other planets” would lead “to hitherto unknown life-styles,” “creating an alternate pattern of life that a lot of people will enjoy.” This is to be expected from the space program partly because “knowledge and technology change life-styles and beliefs over time.” Such changes may be essential “to develop alternatives to current ways of life that are careening towards nuclear destruction.”19

  Bainbridge went on to explain that the material condition of colonies would differ, requiring different modes of life, and that social isolation would permit “cultural drift and random innovation.” And he quoted Dyson very effectively: “It is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilization that small groups of people can escape from their neighbors and from their governments, to go and live as they please in the wilderness. A truly isolated, small, and creative society will never again be possible on this planet.”20

  The term conquest connotes triumph over a dangerous opponent in a contest—an opponent that could be a wilderness—and that is the way humankind's relationship with space was often couched before the Space Age. Outer space (as it was called to emphasize its awesome vastness) was known to be airless, gravity-free, and subject to the kind of deadly radiation that does not reach Earth because of the atmosphere, so it was considered an alien environment that would have to be conquered like the Himalayas and other high places. That is why the place where spaceships from Earth landed on the Moon would be prospected by men wearing “spacesuits,” Clarke explained, which would be rigid because of the pressure inside them “like an inflated tyre, thus spread-eagling the unfortunate occupant.”21 The Collier's series “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!” anticipated humankind's inevitable triumph over worlds beyond its own, including the “conquest” of the Moon, before the Space Age began with the launching of Sputnik.

  Bruce C. Murray, a planetary geologist like Gene Shoemaker, who became prominent in Solar System exploration when he interpreted the discoveries of the early Mars missions and went on to head the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), was a firm believer that the exploration of the Solar System has to be an international effort, not a nationalistic one. He made that clear in 1989, during the last flushes of the Cold War, when he envisioned an expedition to Mars that was also applicable to the Moon.

  For the taking of the great step to Mars, there is ample time. Unlike Kennedy's Apollo counterpunch in response to the Soviet space successes of 1957–61, the next great human leap to a new world need not be a nationalistic space race. It need not stress human and material resources as intensely as did Apollo or compete as furiously with other national and global imperatives.

  Next time we can go to Mars together in a resounding victory of human intelligence and spirit over runaway technological and political change. The U.S.-Soviet rivalry for world leadership can evolve from unrelieved military confrontation to sophisticated competition to lead and facilitate international cooperation.22

  Murray also believed that equating the exploration of space with that of Earth was a stretch. “In fact, there is little in human experience upon which to project extraterr
estrial colonization and migration. Sometimes Columbus's voyages to the New World are cited as a historical precedent. But those European endeavors were motivated and financed by parent-country expectations of economic return. The pursuit of individual goals in the New World—scientific curiosity, religious and political freedom, adventure and personal fulfillment—was possible mainly because of economically motivated kings and parliaments, who remained safe at home awaiting their financial return.”23

  That return, with other motivating factors, bears on establishing a permanent presence in space, a factor that Harrison H. Schmitt, geologist, protégé of Gene Shoemaker, and the last man on the Moon as part of the Apollo 17 crew, supports. Of all the resources that abound on the Moon, helium-3 is the most important, in Schmitt's opinion, as well as others who are knowledgeable on the subject. “The financial, environmental, and national security carrot for a Return to the Moon consists of access to low-cost lunar helium-3 fusion power,” he says. “Helium-3 fusion represents an environmentally benign means of helping to meet an anticipated eight-fold or higher increase in energy demand by 2050. Not available in other than research quantities on Earth, this light isotope of ordinary helium reaches the Moon as a component of the solar wind, along with hydrogen, helium-4, carbon and nitrogen. Embedded continuously in the lunar dust over almost 4 billion years, concentrations have reached levels that can legitimately be considered on economic interest. Two square kilometers of large portions of the lunar surface, to a depth of 3 meters, contains 100 kg (220 pounds) of helium-3, i.e., more than enough to power a 1,000-megawatt (one-gigawatt) fusion power plant for a year.” And, ever the futurist, Schmitt envisions helium-3 being used to power settlements in space as well as on Earth. “By-products of lunar helium-3 production will add significantly to future economic returns as customers for these products develop in space. No such by-products are known that would warrant their return to Earth; however, locations in Earth orbit, on Mars, and elsewhere in deep space constitute potential markets. The earliest available by-products include hydrogen, water, and compounds of nitrogen and carbon. Oxygen can be produced from lunar water. Finally, metallic elements, such as iron, titanium, aluminum and silicon, can be extracted from mineral and glass compounds in the lunar regolith (soil).”24

  Schmitt is also convinced that the cheap fuel is also potentially useful for space settlement and the necessary asteroid defense that goes with it. “An ultimate benefit to humankind from a lunar resources and helium-3 fusion power initiative will be its inherent potential to catalyze human settlement away from Earth. First of all, the initiative needs permanent habitation on the Moon to minimize operational costs. In addition, the immense technology base arising from such an initiative, the space life-supporting by-products of helium-3 production on the Moon, and helium-3 fusion technology adapted to interplanetary rockets will enable broad scale use of space stations, the initial settlement of Mars, the diversion of asteroids from a collision course with Earth, and human travel elsewhere in the solar system and possibly into the galaxy.”25 Harrison Schmitt believes that space is there for our progressive expansion, and helium-3 is a resource that nature has provided to help us achieve that expansion. Like others who have been to space, he understands that it is an infinitely vast combination of extraordinary, exhilarating beauty and is spiritually necessary for our cultural growth and fulfillment while at the same time being so environmentally alien that it can easily be deadly. He is certainly mindful of the fact that the large, speeding rocks are one of the things that can make it perilous.

  There are two rational responses to that danger: repel the attackers in the ultimate strategic-defense initiative, and disperse in case repelling them fails. But to disperse is not to flee. It is the positive, creative process of spreading out to expand the human presence as far as possible: to settle along new frontiers and shape environments wherever possible in which humans and their collective culture can spread, take root, multiply, and thrive.

  Alan Wasser is for the occupation of space, too, and is one of the growing number of entrepreneurs who are convinced that space settlement for both economic gain and safety is supremely important. He also believes that NASA, as a government institution, is not equipped to oversee the creation of the settlements and that unbridled capitalism—making space profitable—is a vital imperative for humanity's expansion and survival. He has been the chairman of the National Space Society Executive Committee, has been active in other space organizations, and has written a series of informed articles that propose US land-claims-recognition legislation to foster private enterprise to colonize the Moon and Mars. It is called the Space Settlement Initiative, and here is what Wasser says about it, with the asteroid threat obviously in mind:

  The settlement of space would benefit all of humanity by opening a new frontier, energizing our society, providing room and resources for the growth of the human race without despoiling the Earth, and creating a lifeboat for humanity that could survive even a planet-wide catastrophe.

  Space development has almost stopped, primarily because no one has a sufficient reason to spend the billions of dollars needed to develop safe, reliable, affordable transport between the Earth and the Moon. Neither Congress nor the taxpayers wants the government stuck with that expense. Private venture capital will support such expensive and risky research and development ONLY if success could mean a multi-billion dollar profit. Today, there is no profit potential in developing space transport, but we have the power to change that. We have the power to create a “pot of gold” waiting on the Moon, to attract and reward whatever companies can be the first to assemble and risk enough capital and talent to establish an airline-like, Earth-Moon “space line” and lunar settlement.

  “The Lunar Line” would be a perfect name for the enterprise.26

  Wasser has anticipated that some will invoke the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which has been signed by more than one hundred nations and forms the basis for international space law, to show that his plan runs counter to the agreement. But he staunchly—and correctly—maintains that such is not the case. Among other things, the treaty prohibits any nation from claiming the Moon or any other celestial body as its own; that they are the common heritage of all humankind. “But quite deliberately,” he says, “the treaty says nothing against private property. Therefore, without claiming sovereignty, the U.S. could recognize land claims made by private companies, regardless of nationality, that establish human settlements on the Moon or Mars.”27

  Randii Wessen, an engineer and deputy manager of the Project Formulation Office at JPL, agrees. Being with JPL has gotten him intimately involved in Solar System exploration, and he knows that it has fallen off abruptly. He also obviously knows that Elon Musk's company SpaceX has taken over supplying the International Space Station, while the space shuttles are relegated to being tourist attractions—“Museums”—with Enterprise at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York; Discovery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington; Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and Endeavour at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

  Wessen sees a clear parallel between the development of aviation and commercial spaceflight. “The first thing that happens is the military wants one—they'll find it themselves. Next, the U.S. government says this is critical to national security or economic competitiveness, so we need to make up a job for these guys to keep them in business. For airplanes, the government said, ‘We'll have you deliver mail.’ They didn't need this service, but they gave it to airline companies to keep them going. This is analogous to spacecraft today. The government is saying [to companies like SpaceX], ‘We want you to resupply the space station.’ That's where we are now. As this gets more routine, these private companies are going to say, ‘If we put seats on this thing, we'll make a killing.’ They did it with airplanes. You can see that staring today, with four or five different companies who have suborbital and orbital launch capability.”28

  Annalee Newitz, a ve
teran science writer, has done extensive research on humanity's precarious existence on Earth and has come to the conclusion that spreading out is not only prudent but is also a matter of survival. “Eventually we'll have to move beyond patrolling our planetary backyard and start laying the foundation for a true interplanetary civilization,” she has written in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, which takes the position that, while defending against a threat is obviously justified, a good contract with nature, like a good contract with other people, has an escape clause. “Asteroid defense and geoengineering will only take us so far. We need to scatter to outposts and cities on new worlds so that we're not entirely dependent on Earth for our survival—especially when life here is so precarious. Just one impact of 10 on the Torino scale could destroy every human habitat here on our home planet. As horrific as that sounds, we can survive it as a species if we have thriving cities on Mars, in space habitats, and elsewhere when the Big One hits. Just as Jewish communities managed to ensure their legacy by fleeing to new homes when they were in danger, so, too, can all of humanity.”29 According to the NEO watchers’ best calculations, the “Big One” is not due back for another century or so. But, again, as Robert Arentz put it succinctly, “It's not a matter if; it's a matter of when.”

  Planetary defense, which is to say the defense of life on this planet, requires two courses of action, both of them necessarily international and depending on close coordination. The attackers must be stopped, literally at all costs, by whatever means are judged to be the most effective. That requires a graduated response that begins with trying to nudge the potential impactor off course twenty-five years or more before the collision. If it will not be nudged, or if there is a surprise attack with the impactor discovered when it is dangerously close, then weapons—missiles or other projectiles, lasers, or nuclear weapons—will have to be used and should be ready. The Department of Planetary Defense should develop the weapons in close coordination with the international community.