S o tell
me about Everything
On second thought . . .
In The Other Passenger, a mission to Mars is being undertaken. The Earth-Mars transit vehicle, the Barsoomian Express, is being assembled at a location the author has called Farside Lagrange. The reader who hasn’t heard of Lagrangian points won’t know what that means, and the reader who has heard of them will not have heard that expression. For the latter reader, Farside Lagrange is more commonly referred to as L2. Now, for the rest of us, an explanation of Lagrangian points will help us visualize the mission described by the author. We start by imagining a dinner plate:
Well, that’s a little too much imagination. Just the plate, without the dinnerware or the designs is all we need:
That’s perfect. Now, just a little discussion on Lagrangian points and then a picture using that plate to illustrate.
Any two-body system in space, where a smaller body orbits a larger body - and in The Other Passenger the two-body system is the Earth and the Moon - has five points in space near them that, if another smaller (approaching infinitely smaller) body is placed there, it will stay there without moving relative to the two-body system. Examples of other nearby two-body systems are the Earth and the Sun, Venus and the Sun, and so on. The space crowd calls those five points in space L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5. Now, let’s paint that blank dinner plate with the two-body system for the Earth and the Moon, and put those Langrangian points on it, too:
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that, if the dinner plate above is rotated, all that stuff we just painted on it will rotate with it without our having to do anything. It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that, as we rotate the plate, the speed - in, say, inches per second - at which any point on the plate moves relative to the tabletop increases the further away we get from the center of the plate.
Now, on a mission to another planet, every foot per second of needed velocity we don’t have to pay for with the extra mass of on-board fuel and tanks and pumps and so on means that non-needed fuel mass can be used for something else, such as food, or water, or books, or beer, or shielding from radiation. So in the Earth-Moon two-body system, the place to build a planetary cruiser such as the Barsoomian Express is at Farside Lagrange, or L2, where the maximum starting velocity relative to the Earth can be achieved with the minimum required on-board fuel. As a bonus the Moon can be used as a logistics base, from which supplies and parts and workers for the Express can be delivered to the construction site (L2) about 35,000 miles above the Moon. In effect, this plan calls for expending all the extra fuel close to the fuel supply, where more can be gotten easily, so that the extra fuel won’t be needed by the craft on its mission.
Conversely, the less material and equipment that has to be taken along in the planetary cruiser, the more fuel can be taken, which translates into higher velocities, which means faster trips, which also translates into less exposure time to radiation, something the crew of the Barsoomian Express certainly understand.
As another logistics consideration for this mission, the author (although
he doesn’t detail this in the book) postulates that huge fuel reservoirs
would have already been launched toward Mars, there to orbit until needed
by a nearly exhausted Barsoomian Express as it arrives and prepares for
its return to Earth. Carrying this concept further, there could also be
nuclear power generation stations, food and water supplies, shelter construction
materials and tools, spare parts, oxygen and oxygen generation equipment,
toilet paper, adult beverages, etc., all orbiting Mars awaiting the crew
to determine where to best put them to use during their stay. The extra
fuel stores in orbit would provide for many trips back and forth between
Martian orbit and the surface by the Martian Shuttles described in the
book.
II. Cydonia, the Pyramid, The Citadel, The Face, etc.
These features on Mars actually exist. Cydonia is the region on Mars where the other features are found. The title page of The Other Passenger has a picture of the Face. It is an actual NASA photo, taken in the early 70's from Martian orbit, of a feature on Mars. Many geologists and other surface phenomena experts claim that the "Face" and other features are (depending on the expert) geological, hydrological, or atmospheric erosion in origin. Others claim that it is obviously artificial. Still others claim that there lacks sufficient data to make a determination either way.
The facts are simple: There are pictures of a what appears to be a face and other odd objects. There is nothing else to validate any explanation as to how any of them were formed. Period.
If you’d like to know more, the internet is full of sites that discuss
this. But the most constructive thing you could do to help find out is
to contact NASA and your congresspeople and tell them you would support
missions to further explore these features.
III. Phero_____ (profile, sniffer, scanner, etc.)
Pheromones are complex chemical signals emitted into the air involuntarily by all animals. They are molecules, perhaps different ones for different signals, that contain a variety of messages that are, in turn, received and acted on subconsciously: sexual "I’m ready" signals are understood at some deep, primordial level, at the very least. There may be others - for example, pre-pubescent humans certainly have different ones than adults. Older adults are probably different than younger ones. Women have different ones than men.
Little is known yet about pheromones. By the year of this story, though, research has gone far enough to determine that no two people have the exact same pheromone profile, or, as termed in the story, pheroprofile. That knowledge has allowed a global pheroprofile data repository to be formed, through which positive identification of individuals can be made by tools such as a pheroscanner, even if they have left the room. Their pheromones will linger for at time in the air.
Perhaps today’s equivalent might be the soon-to-be-established Federal
DNA registry, coming soon to a federal agency near you. Preceding or accompanying
that will be local equivalents, perhaps at the community or even state
level.
More accurately known as delta V in scientific circles. It means, literally,
Change in Velocity. Often expressed in feet or meters per second, It is
used to express how much capability a spacecraft has to change its trajectory
or orbit, as in "the spacecraft has 1500 feet per second delta V capability."
Translated, that means that it has enough fuel to change its trajectory
or orbit only as much as 1500 feet per second difference will allow. Note
that it is not necessarily additive - those meters per second can be just
as easily be applied in reverse, or even sideways, to change an orbit altitude
or inclination.
That’s short for Virtual Reality, something I’m sure you already knew. Some things you may not have known is that today VR helmets exist as experimental pilot aids. The wrap-around helmets display sensor and instrument data in pictorial format on a bright screen in front of the pilots eyes: terrain, man-made features, navigational aids, and target and surveillance information. The pilot can define his preferred set of information to be displayed, so that he isn’t overwhelmed with what can be, literally, information overload.
In this book, all this has been reduced to a small set of skin-hugging
glasses, earphones, and a throat mike. It has also been tied to a peer-assistant
system that will let a peer (copilot or instructor) pass information -
such as instructional video - to the user.
Imagine an airplane, flying straight and level. The line running from nose to tail, passing through the center of the airplane, represents the roll axis. The airplane can rotate around this line, and one wing will raise while the other wing lowers. The airplane will continue straight ahead while this rolling goes on.
Now imagine a line running through the wings, from the tip of the left wing through the tip of the right wing, along the way intersecting the line of the roll axis. This is called the pitch axis. Rotating the airplane along this axis will cause the nose of the airplane to pitch up or down, with the tail going in the opposite direction. This is how the airplane climbs or descends.
Finally, just one more stretch of the imagination: start a line from way above the aircraft, pass it down through the aircraft, and out the bottom. Along the way this yaw axis line intersects at right angles with the intersection of the pitch axis and the roll axis, forming a three-dimensional cross with all arms at right angles to each other. Rotating the airplane around this axis will move the airplane nose left or right, with the tail moving in the opposite direction, changing the direction of flight.
To imagine three-axis instability, imagine an airplane or spacecraft
moving around all three axes at the same time. That thought ought to make
your stomach lurch. The technical term for this condition is "ass over
teakettle," and pilots are universally not fond of it, at least those who
have survived.
Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the famous Tarzan series of stories, also wrote a vast collection of stories involving John Carter of Mars. The adventures are rich with adventure and intrigue, and are well worth reading by anyone interested in such swash-buckling and romantic stories.
John Carter, in these stories, is the first human born on Mars. Mars
is called Barsoom by the contemporaries of John on that planet. The Express
is named in honor of Mr. Burroughs’ works.
A term used by the crew of the Barsoomian Express describing that time
when they "kick" away from L2 (AKA Farside Lagrange) to head off Mars.
Literally, they are "kicking out" of L2, hence Kickout.
An abbreviation for one or more "gravities." One gravity, or G, is the rate at which an object in free fall at the surface of the Earth will accelerate. That number is 32 feet per second per second, or 9.8 meters per second per second. To find out how fast an object is falling at one g (assuming vacuum), multiply 32 feet per second by the number of seconds the object has been falling. For example, after four seconds an object falling at one G is falling at (has a velocity of) 128 feet per second.
Multiples of Gees are just simple coefficients, treated as multipliers.
Therefore an object accelerating at four Gees is accelerating at 128 feet
per second per second. After four seconds its velocity will be 512 feet
per second.
An HST is a HyperSonic Transport, or a passenger craft capable of flying
at several multiples of the speed of sound. The Concorde is not an HST
- it isn’t fast enough.
A boostport is basically an airport configured to handle the special
landing and takeoff characteristics of an HST. It will be well away from
civilization, because it is likely that HSTs will have very loud engines.
The story is accurate in what it relates about the hazards of radiation in space. There are two ways to deal with it (aside from not going):
1. Go very fast, thereby reducing your exposure time, or,
2. Encase yourself in vast shielding.
The shielding is not practical with current or even foreseeable technology; it would require, basically, the Earth to be a spaceship. Therefore the only remaining alternative is to go very fast. This is also difficult, although not on the same order as shielding. But it would require vast amounts of fuel and huge engines to move a small payload interplanetary distances in short enough times to reduce exposure to a survivable minimum.
The discussion on Gees in this Primer provides some though-provoking ideas. For example, what if a craft could be built with enough fuel capacity to allow acceleration of just one G for, say, 12 hours? How fast would it be going at the end of that time? Answer: 262 miles per SECOND. The spacecraft would reach Mars, 35,000,000 million miles away, in about 43 hours! Of course, slowing down when it got there would be a bitch . . .
To put that in perspective, one G is the acceleration you feel as you sit on your couch watching that fishing program on your TV each Saturday morning.
How long would it take at 50 miles per second? Just over eight days.
If travel could be undertaken at 50 miles per second, Mankind can travel to Mars and back with high assurance of not receiving a lethal dose of radiation. Slower rates increase risks in direct proportion to exposure time. So a six-month trip to Mars is very hazardous. An eighteen-month trip is a death sentence.
And, of course, you have to keep in mind the complicators: you have to have enough (or access to enough) fuel to:
1. Accelerate to the desired velocities, thenToday’s chemical engines burn for durations measured in single-digit minutes, a far cry from the hours discussed above. Fuel - or, more specifically, the capacity to lift sufficient quantities of it from the bottom of the so-called gravity well of the Earth - is the limiting factor. However, from L2 (Farside Lagrange), the fuel will already have been lifted nearer the top of the well. A craft with huge fuel reservoirs could be built there, and those reservoirs could be filled with megagallons of lifted fuel . . . Knowing that, you can imagine a mission profile for yourself.
2. Slow down when you get there, and,
3. Accelerate again for the trip back, and, finally,
4. Slow down when you get back.
Take a look at a map of Hawaii. Now let your finger travel eastward, along the chain of islands. Find the easternmost point on the island of Hawaii, and there you have the location of Space City. From that location payloads can be launched into polar orbits or equatorial orbits with equal ease and safety. Today we have two launch sites - one at Cape Canaveral, for equatorial launches, and one at Vandenberg AFB for polar launches. The Vandenberg site allows southward launches out over the Pacific into polar orbit, safely away from land. The Cape allows launches in a generally eastward direction, taking advantage of the extra velocity provided by the rotation speed of the Earth and also safely away from land and populations.
But why two sites? That’s silly. And that’s why, in the year 2046 (the
year this story begins), there is Space City, Hawaii.
In the year that this story begins, Mankind has established a sort of Earth-Moon mass transit system. This system supports the movement of men and materials to the Moon, and therefore the construction of the Barsoomian Express hanging some tens of thousands of miles above the far side of the Moon.
As in any mass transit system, there are transfer points. Craft move men and materials from Earth to a transfer point, then return to Earth with whatever passengers and cargo are in transit from the Moon to the Earth. From the transfer point a lunar shuttle will carry the outward-bound passengers and cargo to the Moon.
This allows the optimum design of transit vehicles. The lunar shuttles, for example, never get back to Earth. They have no need for re-entry protection, no aerodynamic limitations, no requirement to be able to withstand heavy G accelerations. They can be built very light and flimsy, compared to a craft that would have to be able to land on Earth. The shuttles from Earth never get to the Moon. They don’t have to carry their wings, their ablative shields to the Moon. The craft can be designed for their purposes.
The automated stations at the transfer points serve as refuelling and resupply points as well. The fuel reservoirs at the transfer points are kept filled by what amount to tankers and supply trucks launched from Earth. There is a steady stream of these, as you might imagine. Recent findings of water on the Moon may allow fuel to be manufactured on the Moon and carried DOWN to the transfer points, a far more efficient operation once the infrastructure costs have been absorbed.
These transfer points are in low Earth orbit, their orbits inclined
to match the inclination of the Lunar orbit. They can also serve as a base
for new and refresher pilot and crew training, as Mary learned in the story.
Transfer Three was the designated Martian shuttle training support facility.
A Martian shuttle is there permanently, available for training support
of shuttle pilots. In the story Mary trained on that shuttle.
In 2046 the use of customized shuttles is the norm. There are shuttles
for moving cargo and people between low Earth orbit (LEO) and the surface
of the Earth. There are Lunar shuttles that move the same items from LEO
to the Moon. These shuttles serve also to move cargo and people from the
Moon to the Barsoomian Express. The Barsoomian Express has its own fleet
of shuttles - four Martian shuttles - for moving crew and cargo between
low Martian orbit (LMO) and the surface of Mars. And last but far from
least in this story is the Earth return capsule, which, although not a
re-usable shuttle like the above examples, is nonetheless a shuttle. True,
it’s for a one-way trip, but -
The mission to Mars, in this story, begins far in advance of the departure of the Barsoomian Express. Before that happens, large unmanned cargo carriers will have arrived at Mars, there to circle in orbit with all the fuel and other supplies necessary for a successful stay on the surface and return to Earth. The Martian shuttles brought to Mars by the Barsoomian Express will be used to move these supplies around as necessary. Only when all supplies are in their proper orbits will the Express depart.
The crew will move from Earth via a LEO shuttle to a transfer point, there to board a Lunar shuttle for transport to the Barsoomian Express. Final preparations completed, the Express will boost out of Farside Lagrange when the moon is as far from the Sun as it gets on its orbit around the Earth.
After the Express completes its initial burn, it will unfold its legs and begin a slow rotation in order to simulate for the crew a 1-G environment. This will continue for the duration of the journey. Upon arrival at Mars, the rotation will be stopped and the legs refolded. The Express will assume orbit, and the Martian shuttles will be used to move to the surface. For the next several months the surface will be explored as the crew establishes living quarters and nuclear power supplies on the surface, and the Express will be refueled in orbit and prepared for the journey back to Earth.
Upon departure from Mars the Express will again assume its unfolded, slow-rotation configuration. Approaching Earth, the Express will decelerate and go into an orbit from which it can be boosted to Farside Lagrange again in the future, and the Earth return capsule will be used to return the crew to the surface, or the crew will board a docking LEO shuttle and return to Earth as passengers, saving the Earth return capsule for the next crew. The Earth return capsule, in this story, also serves as the crew’s emergency lifeboat.
While the returning crew is feted and dined in celebration on Earth,
maintenance operations in orbit will ensue, whereby the Express is returned
to its Farside Lagrange launch site, refurbished and refuelled, and otherwise
prepped for the next journey by another crew.
Copyright, 1998 by James R. Muri