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| Oumuamua - courtesy NASA |
Oumuamua is the strange cigar-shaped interstellar interloper that Harvard University professors think may be an alien probe sent to gather information on our Solar System. Slight changes in acceleration and direction have been given as reasons for this hypothesis. The theory is that it is the remnants of a “light sail” powered a now defunct alien probe. Oumuamua is Hawaiian for “scout”.
SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak thinks Oumuamua is just another comet or asteroid from very far away, as in another star system. That explains its unusually large velocity and its path directly through the Solar System. Comets and asteroids are known to vent gas, which acts like a thruster on a space ship to change direction, speed up, or slow down. Other scientists are skeptical as well.
I agree with Seth. It would be highly unlikely for the first chunk of material we’ve spotted from outside our Solar System to be an alien probe. Although it is much more elongated than other asteroids, it should not be construed to be a derelict light sail. It should be pointed out how likely it is that an alien probe would take on the form of an asteroid because it may actually be a hollowed out asteroid. Why is that? Convenience.
Think about what our civilization is currently planning to do. We are going to mine the asteroids. So far, we are only thinking about mining the asteroids, but it will happen. We are running out of stuff on Earth, and there’s plenty of just about everything in space. The asteroid belt is a busted up planet, and it has the same materials we have here on Earth.
A number of things are in collusion to boost asteroid mining. Nuclear fusion is about to happen. The helium-3 on the Moon will represent the outer space version of the gold rush for its ability to facilitate the fusion process. A NASA space station is currently planned for the Moon. As the helium-3 rush commences, a space elevator will be built on the Moon. Also, AI will come into its own, powering autonomous drones the asteroid mining industry will require to prospect and gut asteroids for a very fine profit. AI will also advance biomedical engineering and research, taking longevity in humans to biblical levels, making longer term projects more acceptable.
All these things will come together in a very short time to initiate and accelerate asteroid mining. These mountains of minerals and metals orbit the Sun. Some of their orbits coincide with both Earth and Mars. Once these asteroids are mined, they can be outfitted with AI pilot navigators, living quarters, and science labs and used as comfortable, safe, fuel-free shuttles between here and Mars. They are safe because their mass protects against minor collisions and hard cosmic radiation.
Want to go somewhere else? Stick a fusion drive on the asteroid powered by asteroid material and a little helium-3. Now, when it gets to Mars orbit, just keep going and explore the asteroid belt. If someone living in the asteroid belt were to see this spaceship, they would know it came from outside the belt because it is going a different direction and velocity than most everything else, just like we know Oumuamua came from outside the Solar System. It would seem a logical thing that this is what spacefaring races do when they get to a certain technological level. They mine asteroids and leave an outer shell to be converted to a spaceship, instead of hauling all that material out of some gravity well to build a ship.
This asteroid conversion scheme could be ramped up to hollow out big asteroids and turn them into large explorer vessels capable of going to nearby stars and checking out exoplanets for possible colonization. Fifty years ago Harvard’s paper on Oumuamua would be scoffed at as total science fiction created by hippy scientists smoking pot. With what we know is about to happen in this day and age, it still seems unlikely as a light sail but plausible as a probe. Fifty years from now, some researcher will run across that Harvard paper and laugh as he stubs out a joint in the recreation room of the Ceres Flyer, a converted asteroid riding a fusion flame to Alpha Centauri.
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