The Hundred Gram Mission (2 page)

"So you think we’re a real mess, is that it?"

"We're trying to survive and reverse climate change. We're trying to help First World nations not become Third World ones. We're holding on to Still-Third World ones, to keep them from becoming failed states. This is the darkest the world has been since World War Two."

"You don't think we can win?"

"I think we can, but I want it to still be
us
who wins. Democracy, freedom, human dignity. That needs to be how we save the world, and ourselves. Not control, fear, and surveillance."

"You want to leave those to the Chinese?"

"No. I want to take those away from them, and their mushrooming allies. We're coming out of this century with a free planet, or a controlled one."

Three Hours Later

"Sleeping Beauty awakes."

Stockwell opened his eyes and yawned.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"Country report for Indonesia. Chinese influence. Agreements with Australia. The movers and shakers in the Junta."

"Anything that stand outs?"

"They were doing well, once. It was a rich country, but with a booming population. Successive governments exploited them.  Fast forward a few decades and you have a typical, Still-Third World, country.  A large, poor, illiterate, and bitter population. Now apply climate change."

"You think they should be a bigger mess?"

"The obvious choice as things got worse, would have been to de-secularize. Indonesia has over three hundred ethnic groups. However, they’re almost entirely Moslem."

"So, they did?"

"They tried. The military intervened."

"That only encourages extremism."

"Yes, but no one wants a failed state of three hundred million, next door. Australia and Singapore give the Junta lots of tech and military aid. China though, is the biggest sponsor."

"Because of the space elevator."

"Partly.  The PLA currently has over twenty thousand ‘advisors’ in Central Kalimantan province. That’s expected to go up. There’s a growing civilian presence as well. Contractors, construction workers, middle men, prison laborers."

"Makes sense that the MSS would have people on the ground."

"No," she shook her head, "Check your mail, Likavec wrote us, while you were asleep. MSS is not involved anymore."

"Who is?"

"The People’s Liberation Army Military Intelligence. And it doesn’t sound like they want us."

Daryl Spektorov, I

2011 AD, Brookline, Massachusetts

"Daryl, what are you doing climbing all over the couch?"

The boy, toy shuttle in both hands, looked at his father in the doorway.

"I’m making my last flight to the ISS!"

"Really? Your last?" Mr. Spektorov pulled off his tie. "Maybe you could get off your Mom’s cushions before she sends
me
on my last flight, too."

Daryl jumped down, and ran to his father.

"It’s all 'cause of stinky Congress," he confided. "They’re cancelling the space shuttles because they don’t want me to go to Mars."

"Maybe Congress is on to something, thought about that?" he scratched his son’s head. "There are a lot of problems on Earth. Many of them will get a lot worse, once you’ve grown up. Maybe you want to think about solving those?"

"Nuh Uh!" he shook his head vigorously. "When I’m big, I’m going to space! I’m going to go to the stars! Just like in Avatar!"

"Did you do your homework, Mister Astronaut?"

"Yes."

"Did you do your
extra
homework?"

He looked down and fidgeted. "Yeees?"

"Come on. Let’s go do it."

"But I don’t wanna!" his shoulder’s drooped and he pouted. "It’s so
boring
. Why can’t we just play with my spaceships?"

"Daryl, we can play with your spaceships, all you like. But first, you need to work on the lemonade stand. The world is going to be a meaner place when you grow up. The most important thing you can learn is how to make money, and keep it."

"Mom says you’re too serious about money."

"Mom’s family’s rich. She’s used to money. She thinks it's always going to be there. You, you’re going to learn the same way I did. Now come on. Put down your space shuttle, and let’s work on your lemonade business."

2040 AD, the Muddy Charles Pub, 265 Smoots from Harvard Bridge

"So, what you’re saying Damien, is the Space Elevator is what? Bullshit?"

It was a weeknight, and sparse inside the dimly lit pub.  A few African grad students sat about drinking beer and talking French. On the TV, the Pats were taking on the Miami Dolphins.

Damien Flores, MIT aerospace engineer, shook his head. "No Daryl. It’s not bullshit. But it’s poorly understood and being misrepresented. Everyone thinks of the Space Elevator, like some railroad into space. But when you talk about costs, it’s presented in terms of airline travel."

"As cheap as flying on a plane," said the ratty-faced man across from Damien.  Elijah Newman wore a Tom Baker-era, Doctor Who scarf. "Let’s say you want to build a skyscraper. You want to airfreight all the cement? All the rebar? The
sand
? A thousand times cheaper than a rocket, is still too expensive for a big project."

"For serious space construction, materials have to be as cheap as they are on Earth. The Elevator won’t do to that, but it doesn’t need to. Everything you need to take to space is already there in abundance."

"You mean energy?" asked Darly Spektorov. The venture capitalist looked like he’d been born wearing a sports jacket.

"I mean sand, water ice, iron.
Everything
," said Damien. "There are thousands of Near Earth Asteroids. We’re used to seeing them as a threat, but they’re also an opportunity. The closer they come to Earth, the lower the cost of reaching them."
[i]

"And these mass drivers ," Daryl said the words slowly as if they were foreign, "they can bring them in, safely?"

"The mass drivers are just electrified rails," said Elijah. "They’re loaded with buckets, full of rocks from the asteroid. The buckets are accelerated and the rocks flung out into space. The asteroid receives a small nudge. A few nudges at the right points, and you can change their orbits."

"Is there something here that can be patented?" asked Daryl. "'Cause that's what you need. Patents, proprietary control, anything that keeps out copycats."

"You can't patent asteroid mining, sorry," said Damien, "It's just an idea. People have been working towards it, for decades. Several companies are focusing on collecting Water Ice.  We may as well cede that to them.

"But, there are two barriers to copycats. One is proprietary. It's clear cut, but not a tremendous barrier to competitors. The other is
property
. That would make it an absolute barrier. However, it is on shakier legal ground."

"Property, but on shaky legal ground? You're really selling me here, kid. Let's talk about the first one. That's your catalog, right? The one with the best asteroid candidates?"

"Yes," said Damien. "Two years of data, sifting through every known NEA and working out their density.  It's
very
crude, but we’ve identified the candidates with the most metals.  Some are so dense they must contain particularly heavy metals, like lead. Radioactive ores are not impossible."

"And you two, Sun Star Prospecting, own this catalog, one hundred percent?"

"Yes," said Elijah. "The problem though, is that anyone else can put together their own one. The information needed is publicly available. It’s a fair amount of work though; it will take them some time. Unless they hire an astronomer or mathematician, they’ll likely fuck it up, too."

"Like I said, it’s not a considerable barrier," said Damien. "And, if you want data good enough to start mining, you'll still need to send probes to do proper prospecting. The catalog just buys you time. A competitor needs to do that research to have as good an idea as we do on what's out there."

"You're right, it's not great."

"The property barrier though," Damien, "That would be absolute."

"I like absolutes. Let's talk about that one."

"There’s not a whole lot of space real estate laws. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty
[ii]
is what most space law is based on. It forbids state ownership, but doesn’t say anything about private ownership."

"Now this I know about," said Daryl. "The ASTEROIDS Act
[iii]
allows ownership."

"Actually, it only allows ownership of resources
obtained
from an asteroid. It doesn’t say that the asteroid itself can be owned."

"Or what happens if the entire asteroid is ‘obtained’," said Elijah. "Legislation is going to lag until ownership and occupation become real issues. When the lawyers join in, they'll argue that simply claiming land is not enough. There needs to be demonstration of intent to occupy."

"Are you going to ask me to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement?" Daryl asked. "Cause it sounds like you're about to tell me something I can't unhear."

The scientists looked blank.

"Well, maybe next time," said Damien. "It doesn’t really matter, it’s just an idea. It’ll take a lot more than just an idea for this project to work. However, you will want to keep this to yourself."

"Okay, spit it out."

"We pick an Earth orbiting NEA with an elliptical orbit. Something that goes as far out as possible," said Elijah. "We fly over at its closest approach, and set up mass drivers."

"So you can change its orbit and park it over the Earth?" asked Stockwell.

"Yes, but that's actually secondary. If there's a problem and we can't do it, it doesn't really matter."

"This I have to hear."

"There are easier ways to steer an asteroid," Damien picked up. "If they have ice, you can use focused sunlight to superheat it, to steam. It can give you higher impulse than hydrogen burning rocket."

"So why not just do that? Why bother with mass drivers?"

"They’re
space launchers
. We can use them to deliver payloads to anywhere else in the inner solar system. That's why we need something with an elliptical orbit. It'll take us further out, and cross more orbits. We'll set up the mass drivers and leave. From Earth, we'll direct the mass drivers where and when to aim. Launch windows will open to the most lucrative asteroid prospects. The mass drivers will send instrument packages to them."

"Instrument packages? What kind?"

"Nothing fancy. Simple, cheap devices like transponders, cubesats, and pocket rovers. They’ll study the asteroids and do some simple prospecting."

"You demonstrate intent to occupy!"

"Exactly. Capturing the asteroid in the first place, is secondary. Perhaps it's useful for demonstrating intent, proof that we can actually do it."

Daryl sat back and frowned. "But this isn't new. Asteroid prospecting companies have been sending probes out, for decades."

"Yes, but their approach is
very
limited," said Damien. "They confine themselves to what they can most easily reach."

"That seems reasonable."

"It's very reasonable. They launch them from rockets on Earth, or push them out of space stations. But, this confines them to the volume of space immediately around Earth. It's a small volume, and fewer NEAs pass that close. Certainly not most of the ones in our catalog."

"That smaller volume still gets plenty of asteroids," said Elijah. "But they tend to be small. Small ones aren't detected till it's too late to do anything about them. You'll have a launch window of days, or even hours.
[iv]
And what's your return on that readiness? Something twenty meters across? Who cares?"

Spektorov nodded and said nothing for a while.

"You have a business plan?"

"We do," said Damien.

"Can I see it? I just want to see the mission cost estimate."

Damien texted the file to him. Spektorov swiped through it on his device, frowning.

"The cost is much lower that I expected."

"We plan to use off the shelf components," said Damien. "Bigelow modules and a SpaceX engine. And a lot of money is saved by the crew. It’s just me and Elijah, we both have pilot’s licenses with instrument ratings.  We’ll fly without pay, but instead a corresponding share of the new equity. All Spektorov Investment would have to do, is pay for the parts and the launch."

"If it goes well, you’ll part own a company with the single biggest reserve of high grade ores in the inner solar system," said Elijah. "And if it goes
very
well,
all
the best reserves in the inner solar system."

Daryl beamed and looked between the two, nodding.