Semiballistics on the Way?

Readers of science fiction grand master Robert A. Heinlein's Friday just might remember the term "semiballistic" in reference to aircraft. The title's namesake heroine, Friday Jones, is on vacation, after having recovered from a near-death on-the-job experience, and she decides to visit Auckland. She leaves Winnipeg via ANZAC's SB service, for a ride which will take forty minutes. As the point-of-view character, Friday describes the experience: "the high-gee blastoff that always feels as if the cradle would rupture and spurt fluid all over the cabin, the breathless minutes in free fall that feel as if your guts were falling our, then the reentry and that long, long glide that beats any sky ride ever built."

The distance from Winnipeg to Christchurch is about 8,200 miles so the fictional SB would be going about about Mach 20. Okay, that sounds impossible, but more chronologically gifted readers might remember a time when Dick Tracy's wrist phone seemed impossible, too.

Case in point— an experimental, unmanned aircraft is being tested by our military, and press reports state that it has gone 22 times the speed of sound. The Falcon Hypersonic Vehicle 2 sits atop a rocket, then detaches and operates within the upper regions of the earth's atmosphere, at speeds of about 13,000 miles per hour. That's almost identical to Heinlein's SB's speed.

What would it mean to be able to travel at Mach 20? It is about 4200 miles from Atlanta to London. At Mach 20, the flight would be less than half an hour. That's great! No need for an in flight beverage, and most folks wouldn't need the restroom, either.

When will the hypersonic vehicle be ready for airline service? Probably not in my lifetime, but my children may very well live to travel at "semiballistic" speed. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Current/Future

What will the future hold for mankind? Building has stalled in our community, for the most part, but this would seem to be a temporary situation. As each generation comes of age and needs living space, land which was once farmland is lost for that purpose. At some point, terra firma must be preserved as a breadbasket.

If that is so, where will future folks live? The image above is one possibility. At some point, mankind will have to expand, and the moon is the closest piece of real estate in the solar system.

Grand Master Robert Heinlein was among the sci fi writers who speculated that the lunar landscape will one day be home to people. His novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, is among the best of his work. Written some fifty years ago, this novel is pure Heinlein, with plot, science, characterization, and politics intertwined. Mannie and his computer friend, Mike, an artificial intelligence which predates most such inventions, are both entertaining and realistic. Some science fiction writers are optimists, seeing the future as a time when mankind finally outgrows its faults, Others see darkness, when in an effort to make a better world, the human condition deteriorates. Heinlein wisely avoids either extreme, but he does not see humanity as remaining static, either. In fact, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is, at its core, a novel about revolution.

As a fan and as a writer, I see mankind inching forward, forever dragging the baggage associated with our beloved imperfections. Still, I do believe that man will continue to build, somewhere, somehow.

Humanity must colonize to survive

Recently, cosmologist Stephen Hawking won The Copley medal, which was previously awarded to such accomplished folks as Darwin and Einstein. In his remarks Hawking stated that as long as it inhabits a single planet, humanity is at great risk for annihilation. An asteroid collision or a nuclear war could wipe out the entire population.

Hawking further stated that chemical rockets are too slow for colonization ventures. Inter stellar travel to a suitable solar system could take 50,000 years with current technology, but matter/antimatter reactions might be harnessed to move spacecraft at speeds close to that of light. Star Trek might be poor sci fi in some respects, but the energy source used by the Enterprise is inline with the physicist’s analysis of the problem.

Although Hawking’s remarks were made last week, they remind me of a similar statement made quite a few years ago by author Robert A. Heinlein, who also believed that humanity would have to leave this planet and colonize to preserve itself. Indeed, regarding the landing of astronauts on our moon, he stated, “The door they opened leads to the hope that h. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight.” This sci fi grand master believed in mankind and longed for a secure future for all of us.

I’ve heard all of the arguments in favor of abandoning our space program, and while some of them are valid, I believe, as Hawking does, as Heinlein did, that humanity must reach out and explore space. I doubt that I’ll live to see science solve this issue, but I do think that when great minds choose to work on it, that there will be a solution to the propulsion problem.

In past centuries, some thought mankind would run into trouble because there wouldn’t be enough wood. However, most of the human population made the transition to fossil fuel, with trees to spare. Nowadays, people worry that we’ll run out of dead dinosaurs, but there will some new technology to take the place of oil. I’m betting on hydrogen, not because it is the best, but because nuclear power has too much political baggage at the present time. More folks remember Chernobyl than the Hindenburg.

Further along in the human time line, mankind will see technologies with the power to propel spaceships beyond this solar system. I won’t see it, but I certainly believe that it will happen. Science fiction today often predicts tomorrow’s science facts. The details may differ, but the gist of that story is being written today, and I’m glad to made a small contribution to forward thinking literature.