The Military Values High Ground - Space Is the Highest

Moon being bombed by asteroids - courtesy NASA

The energy of the Sun near Earth is about 1368 watts/meter squared. The Falcon Heavy will be able to lift a directional mirror into space with a variable focus length of about 50 feet to thousands of miles. Its 332 square meters could focus 455,000 watts onto a spot the size of a baseball, vaporizing whatever has the poor fortune to be there at the time. 

Paper bags take 5 X the water to make and 7 X the fuel to transport than plastic bags 

Why would someone want such a machine? To mine asteroids. To mine the moon. To melt lunar regolith and asteroid material into shapes to build habitats in space or on the Moon. To power crucibles making steel and aluminum and other metals in space. To vaporize space debris that has become a hazard. Such power is handy in space, but there is a dark side. 

Asteroid being mined with solar mirror - courtesy Dan Brown on flickr

What if someone wanted to use such a mirror to do damage to a particular country or city for military purposes? One could set fire to or melt just about anything on the Earth or Moon with such a machine - cities, missile silos, air fields, ships, cities, individual buildings. No satellite in orbit would be safe. It could destroy the International Space Station. Keep the keys to the space mirror in a safe place.

There is a lot of money invested in the idea of moving an asteroid near to the Earth and mining it for metals and minerals. The acceptable location for such a huge mass of metal would be one of the lunar Lagrange points L4 or L5 where it would rest in a stable orbit about the Earth. Getting it there is the trick. It would require a robotic space tug. 

It costs $4000 to recycle ton of plastic bags worth $500 on open market. 

What if someone deliberately sabotaged the space tug’s guidance system and sent a kilometer diameter chunk of iron hurtling toward the Earth? The damage could be incalculable. From treasure trove for the future of mankind to the fall of civilization for some poor region of Earth, perhaps the whole planet. Or someone could attach such a tug to a smaller asteroid and program it to come fast out of the sun. Undetectable until it is too late. 

Asteroid being moved by space tug - courtesy Korite on flickr

These examples are besides what may be already in orbit or planned to go into orbit. This includes EMP (electromagnetic pulse) bombs and “rods of god”. Since 1967 it has been illegal to park atomic weapons in orbit, but that may not stop the likes of North Korea. To get around the orbital nuclear bomb ban, the U.S. has come up with a simple rod of tungsten dropped from orbit. The one foot diameter by twenty feet long cylinder of metal reaches ten times the speed of sound by the time it hits and mimics a small nuclear device in its devastation. It penetrates hundreds of feet into the ground, destroying underground bunkers and silos - something a nuclear weapon cannot do. 

That is not the only kinetic weapon available. Combine several NASA HiPEP ion thrusters with a TOPAZ style nuclear reactor, a guidance system, and a few tons of xenon (all properly armored against cosmic radiation); and you have a weapon that travels for light years and builds up a velocity that is an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Besides targeting other planets for destruction, the truly paranoid might put such a device, perhaps several, in a long elliptical orbit around Earth, coming close to Earth on a periodic basis. In a form of mutually assured destruction, a country under attack could threaten to have one of these hit the Earth instead of continue its normal orbit. The affect would be similar to a super volcano eruption. Actual destruction might cover a continent. The weather effects could destroy the rest of civilization over the next few years.

It takes 7 trucks to move the same number of paper bags as one truck moving plastic bags. 

Another thing about having control of weapons in space is that it would allow an interdiction of anyone else coming into space for commercial or exploratory purposes. The entity in control of such weapons would be the arbiter of who comes and goes in space, who gets the benefits, who prospers and who doesn't. This is a very powerful position. This is the kind of lopsided power that starts wars.  

On June 18, 2018, President Trump directed the Pentagon to create a new division of the military - the Space Force. “My administration is reclaiming America’s heritage as the world’s greatest space-faring nation. The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers. But our destiny, beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security,” he announced. “[I]t is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.”

It seems the President may have been ill-informed about the advisability of a new branch of the military devoted only to space. The reason is that dominance of space means true dominance of the Earth. Other countries know this. The military has always valued high ground and space is the highest. That makes the President’s statement, “We must have American dominance in space,” one of the most nakedly aggressive of any leader of a nation on Earth regarding the frontiers of space. If any other large nations are taking him seriously, they will be making plans to counter aggressive actions taken in the last frontier.

With all of this death and destruction possible from outer space, it should be obvious that the exploration and exploitation of space should be done in joint ventures with as many countries participating as possible. This will cut down on paranoia about what any one country may be up to in space and prevent physical confrontations on Earth surrounding this subject and possibly prevent the use of space as the ultimate militarily strategic high ground. 

Other articles you may enjoy:

Oumuamua: Alien Probe or Asteroid? It Could Be Both

Cryptocurrency Is Going Into Space

Going Back To the Moon Is Not Just for Governments Anymore

Why It Is a Certainty We Will Become a Space-Based Civilization

Asteroid Mining - How to Pick the Right Asteroid

Recycling Asteroids For Fun and Profit

Taking the 06-03-25 Asteroid Shuttle to Mars - An Alternative to Planned Mars Missions

A Heavy Metal, Cannibalistic Asteroid Propulsion System

Sticking the Landing On Your Billion Dollar Asteroid

Artificial Intelligence and Asteroid Mining Will Be a (Necessary) Match Made In the Heavens

The Weapon of Mass Destruction Nobody Is Talking About

How We Can Diminish the Possibility of Water Wars

There's An Asteroid Out There With All of Our Names On It

What Will Be the Most Common Currency In a Future Space-Based Society?

Workers In Space Will Live In Igloos

How We Will Get Asteroid Material Back To Earth

Very Large Scale 3D Printing In Space

Energy and Space; Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

China’s Strategy for the Future Is Scary Smart

We Will Live on the Moon: the How and Why

Energy and Space; Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

courtesy NASA

by Glen Hendrix

There is a substantial cadre of people and organizations that are very interested in the space industry. The whole industry is currently worth about $350 billion dollars, but Bank of America predicts 30 years will see an increase to nearly $3 trillion dollars.

While mostly concerned with Earth-orbiting satellites, a small portion of the industry is seriously considering the mining of asteroids on the assumption of a tremendous payback from the presence of metals and minerals in these floating mountains. 

NASA has missions scheduled in 2021 and 2023 to explore 16 Psyche, an asteroid that contains a lot of resources. It is a 130 mile diameter nickel and iron asteroid thought to once be part of the core of a planet.

The material of this asteroid is similar to that at the center of the Earth, mostly iron with some nickel and traces of other metals. It’s the other metals I would be interested in, but the iron alone is, according to the article, worth $10,000 quadrillion. 

Let’s think about that. If you did manage to bring this space mountain into  Earth orbit, nobody on Earth would buy a pound of it. It is iron, but it still needs to be melted down and turned into useable shapes, so it is essentially high grade ore. Iron ore is going for $70 per ton but this has been pre-smelted by the fiery center of a now-defunct planet so let’s give it a round figure of $100 per ton. 

Plastic grocery bags prefer this as their second career. 

There is about 1,150,000 cubic miles of iron. A cubic mile of iron weighs about 36 billion tons and is worth $3.6 trillion dollars. So the whole caboodle is worth only $4,000 quadrillion, not $10,000 quadrillion. Hah! Caught ya! Who cares. It’s a lot. 

When you go to sell it, though, no one on Earth wants it. It currently costs $10,000 dollars per pound to get something into orbit and, therefore, $10,000 per pound to get something back to Earth. Your ton of high grade ore jumped to $20,000,100 per ton on the open market because of transportation cost. Buyers on Earth would rather pay the $70 per ton. I don’t blame them. You grifter! 

There are only two options; sell it to someone that is going to use it for construction in space or figure out a cheaper means for getting it down to the Earth’s surface. Discussion of the latter will be the subject of another article.

No one is building enormous structures in orbit … yet. Your asteroid is like that 1000 acres the family owns outside of Phoenix. You know that someday it will be worth a lot when developers are ready for it. You need money now, though, to pay the bills. It doesn’t help that it cost nearly half a trillion dollars to get it back to Earth and it is really your great grandchildren who will reap the benefits because it would take so long to move that much mass. 

To give you a financial break let’s say the asteroid is not 16 Psych but 162173 Ryugu. This is a rock that comes within 6,000,000 miles of Earth (very close) in December of 2020. It is a more manageable size (1km diameter) and contains not just nickel and iron but cobalt, water, nitrogen, hydrogen, and ammonia as well. Here is a great site for picking out your asteroid. That’s where I found 16217 Ryugu. 

A Falcon Heavy delivers your 30,000 pound asteroid retrieval robot spaceship named More In That Vein from Cape Canaveral into a high Earth orbit. More In That Vein unfolds its solar arrays and begins the electrolysis of water, burning the hydrogen and oxygen in thrusters. 

It arrives at Ryugu six months later. The apparent rotational velocity of the surface of the asteroid is only one quarter mile per hour, no problem for the agile More In That Vein to match up to. The spaceship’s interface adaptor frame comes into contact with the surface at a pre-screened, structurally sound spot and sixteen explosive bolts penetrate the surface and expand slightly to provide a solid connection between the ship and the asteroid. 

Saving the world one plastic bag at a time. Recycling genius.  

Robotic crawlers explore the asteroid for water and methane. Finding a major deposit of ice, it mines this to top the tanks off for the trip home and sets up an automated refill schedule. Meanwhile, More In That Vein has de-spun the asteroid to zero rotation and plotted the quickest journey back to Earth orbit. Its swivel-mounted engine swings to the calculated coordinates and fires up gently so as not to disturb some slight structural faults uncovered by prospector bots and heads back to Earth with its treasure. 

The artificial intelligence of More In That Vein constantly adjusts the course of the asteroid, micromanaging it into place at the L5 Lagrange point of the Earth-Moon gravitational system. This is a stable point 239,000 miles from both the Earth and the Moon.

Yeah! But you still can’t sell anything. It is too expensive … wait … my phone. Let me get this. It’s for you. The Chinese want one million tons of shaped steel for a facility orbiting the Moon and a ten year option on three more million. Lucky you. Someone on Earth has just announced a breakthrough in fusion technology making it commercially feasible. The Chinese are going to build a Moon base and space elevator to extract hydrogen-3 (tritium) from the Moon’s surface and sell it on Earth to make those new fusion reactors purr like kittens. 

courtesy NASA

Obviously, no one is going to retrieve an asteroid on speculation. The initial investment is too much to leave to chance. There will be a lot of wheeling and dealing. If you hear of a robot asteroid miner being launched you will soon hear of a major orbital space project being planned for the Earth or the Moon.

Energy and asteroid mining are intertwined. Whether its mining the Moon for hydrogen-3; or building giant mirrors to gather solar energy, convert it to microwaves, and send it back to Earth; or finding water to split into hydrogen and oxygen to burn for rocket fuel; the basic economic reason we will go into space will be for energy. There is simply so much of it, and it is so cheap there will be no way for the uber rich to funnel all of that energy wealth into their pockets. Their pants would catch on fire. Energy needs to be available in vast, non-polluting, inexpensive quantities for the lifestyles we are accustomed to on this fine blue marble to be maintained without detriment to the environment. The resources we extract from asteroids are an important part of that equation. 

Other articles you may enjoy:

Oumuamua: Alien Probe or Asteroid? It Could Be Both

Cryptocurrency Is Going Into Space

Going Back To the Moon Is Not Just for Governments Anymore

Why It Is a Certainty We Will Become a Space-Based Civilization

Asteroid Mining - How to Pick the Right Asteroid

Recycling Asteroids For Fun and Profit

Taking the 06-03-25 Asteroid Shuttle to Mars - An Alternative to Planned Mars Missions

A Heavy Metal, Cannibalistic Asteroid Propulsion System

Sticking the Landing On Your Billion Dollar Asteroid

Artificial Intelligence and Asteroid Mining Will Be a (Necessary) Match Made In the Heavens

The Weapon of Mass Destruction Nobody Is Talking About

How We Can Diminish the Possibility of Water Wars

There's An Asteroid Out There With All of Our Names On It

What Will Be the Most Common Currency In a Future Space-Based Society?

Workers In Space Will Live In Igloos

How We Will Get Asteroid Material Back To Earth

The Military Values High Ground - Space Is the Highest

Very Large Scale 3D Printing In Space

China’s Strategy for the Future Is Scary Smart

We Will Live on the Moon: the How and Why

Solution to the Problem of Orbital Debris

image of space debris courtesy Wikilimages

An article in Universe Today points out that space debris is a huge problem. The retired head of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office, Donald Kessler, wrote a report on this describing the situation as bad and getting worse. Mr. Kessler originally predicted the scenario of orbital litter becoming a major problem for the advancement of the space program and a danger to satellites back in 1976. The situation he described has come to pass and is appropriately designated the Kessler Syndrome. 
A report from NASA makes two conclusions:

1. “The  current debris population in the LEO region has reached the point where the environment is unstable and collisions will become the most dominant debris generating mechanism in the future.”

2. “Only remediation of the near-Earth environment – the removal of existing large objects from orbit – can prevent future problems for research in and commercialization of space.”

Active Debris Removal (ADR) is recommended by NASA. A proposed solution to this problem is advanced in this article from Wired Science. It may have merit but it represents a lot of money to be spent just to see if it works. This is where the Space Mirror steps in to save the day.

My original Space Mirror concept (drawing shown) can be scaled up easily to perform the task of getting rid of orbital space debris. The Space Mirror consists of two disc-shaped membranes of sheet plastic approximately 8 mils thick. These are jam-up, jelly-tight next to each other. They are 1000 feet in diameter and keep their shape via an inner-tube-shaped, inflated toroid with a sectional diameter of 10 feet. The circular edges of these membranes are attached by airtight seal to the inside radius of the toroid. One of the membranes is transparent and and the other is mirrored on the inside surface. When gas is introduced between them they expand, deforming into spherical surfaces capable of focusing the sun’s rays on a small area. The focal length ranges from about a mile to almost 5,000 miles. A unit containing gas cylinders, computers, radar, and solar panels attached by a flexible umbilical provides the essentials for directing and focusing the mirror. The radar and other sensors work with the computer to fire small thrusters around the outer surface of the tubular frame keeping the device aimed and in the proper orbit. Small, semi-autonomous robots roam the cavities of the framing tube and the surfaces of the membranes looking for and repairing small punctures. It sounds like a big thing but it all folds up for one payload in the new spacecraft from SpaceX, the Falcon Heavy.

It takes 7 trucks to move the same number of paper bags as one truck moving plastic bags. 

This device was originally devised to facilitate the construction of space habitats, melting captured asteroids or meteors and then inflating them to create habitable spaces. Recently, other applications have come to mind. With its ability to direct and focus large amounts of energy, it makes a perfect mechanism to sweep from the littered skies of Earth the small debris that will eventually inhibit exploration of space and utilization of near-Earth orbits. It will simply focus the sun’s energy on these objects and they will vaporize. If you doubt this, look at the results of using just 22 square feet of concentrated sunlight. It will melt steel and even rock. Now imagine 800,000 square feet of sunlight (over 36,000 times that power) concentrated on a small area. Now double that energy because sunlight is twice as strong in space, unhindered by atmosphere. Material would not only melt, it would become a cloud of vapor almost instantly - exactly what you want orbital space debris to do. Another great thing about this concept is that it can be tested right here on the surface before installing it in orbit.

Debris strike simulation.

The 1500 pieces of large debris can also be taken care of by selectively zapping them, causing explosive reactions to decelerate them and bring them down to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
These represent 98% of space debris by mass and it is feared collisions between them will cause an increase in the threat of orbital debris to mankind's space aspirations.

The answer to the plastic bag problem is reuse. This new device makes it easy. 

Due to the implications for military applications, the Space Mirror would have to be an international effort, controlled by a committee made up by representatives of countries investing in the project. It could be set up for a specified period of time to do its job of cleaning debris from orbit and then be decommissioned. It is something that needs to be seriously considered if mankind is to advance into the frontier of space without tripping over its own trash.

Thanks,

Glen Hendrix

Look for my scifi novel Transmat World at Amazon.com

Saving the World From an Asteroid Strike

Device for wrapping an asteroid with "smart film"

Headlines read “ASTEROID ON COLLISION COURSE WITH EARTH!” Before people start forming cults and building underground shelters, the government comes on all network channels to allay everyone’s fears. A spacecraft is on its way to fix the problem.

Asteroid

What do they have on that spacecraft: an atomic bomb, a strap-on rocket, a powerful laser, or Bruce Willis and his crew? No, they have “smart film.” Huh? You heard what I said, "Smart film." I mention this device in my book Transmat World where it is used to steer slugs of lunar regolith into position in orbit around the Moon. In the book, it is already wrapped around its payload before it is launched from the Moon’s surface - very neat, very efficient. Once in orbit, this film covering the load changes its albedo selectively from black to a mirror finish on different parts of the load to “herd” it into its proper position using the pressure of photons from the sun. Remember those transparent globes with what looked like two little diagonal flags on a spindle in the middle from physics class. When you held it up to the light the little flags would spin around. Well, if you were paying attention, you would know that one flag was mirrored and the other was matte black. Photons were absorbed by the black flag and reflected by the mirrored flag. That is what spun it around. Same principle here.

It will be a little more difficult getting this smart film onto the surface of an approaching asteroid. Our NASA or SpaceX spacecraft has delivered a payload that is now approaching the asteroid. The payload begins to spin about its longitudinal axis. The outer panels come off. Twelve or more weights on tethers begin to spool out from the payload. At some point the outer edges of the smart film begin to appear and spread in a circular geometry. The tethers run all the way to the center of the circle of smart film. Likewise, a strand of the same stout material runs around the perimeter of the film and at intermediate points resembling a spider web in structure. This is to keep the more fragile smart film intact as it engages and wraps around the asteroid. The weights on their tethers act much as the bolas used by South American gauchos. As they wrap around their target, they become entangled and hold the smart film in place around the asteroid.

Asteroid strike.

This is and is not a far-fetched scenario. Here’s why it is. Because of its simplicity of construction, we will custom construct this device to match the size of the asteroid. We will know the direction of rotation of the asteroid and how fast it is going, so the payload will rotate accordingly. We can simulate the contact sequence to figure out how long the tethers must be to properly engage and fasten the smart film to the asteroid. Let’s now get on to the hard part--the film itself.

At this point in our technology, it would most likely be similar to an OLED; organic light-emitting diode. This OLED would be sprayed onto a flexible substrate and attached to an absolute paucity of chips to do the job it needs to do. In fact, a roll-up TV just debuted at the annual CES show. We may soon have the technology to send a 3D printer that converts the asteroid material into the film and crawls around the asteroid, mining material and laying down film. Or the asteroid could be sprayed with a substance that hardens into a film as the spacecraft sprayer circles the errant rock. There are several feasible schemes for covering the asteroid with an OLED-type film. The circuitry controlling the film will include some kind of inertial solar system guidance system and sensors to tell the film where to absorb light and where to reflect light in order to guide the asteroid away from its collision course with Earth. The Earth is saved! Thank you! Thank you! Please quiet down; there’s more. Here's why it is a far-fetched idea. You thought I'd forgotten. The force of photons on the dark areas of the film may not be enough to stop the rotation of a massive asteroid or nudge it out of the way in time to save the Earth from immediate disaster. That is why we need more vigilance in detecting far ahead of time those objects that could be dangerous, giving us the time for a scheme like this to work.

We will, or at least should, have this technology developed before it is needed. Humankind’s demands on Earth for raw materials will eventually outstrip the Earth’s ability to deliver. With this technology we can send out these intelligent tarps to round up material in our solar system and bring it back to orbit around the Earth where it can be more easily accessed. It beats the heck out of lugging mining equipment all the way to the asteroid belt to look for stuff, mine it, then transport it back--expensive and risky. It will wind up being one of the simple tools for the complicated job of keeping mankind from going the way of the dinosaur.

Not only can this device go get material from space, it may be the tool to allow us keep our access to space. Unfortunately, space debris has become a serious impediment to the future of all space programs. Particularly troublesome are the large pieces. These range from rocket parts to defunct satellites. You can't just blow them apart because that just creates more debris. The ideal solution is to bring them down to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. This type of application is where smart film shines. Fifteen thousand objects weighing more than 220 pounds make up 98% of space debris by mass. There is a fear of these objects colliding and breaking into smaller pieces. SpaceX's new spacecraft, the Falcon Heavy, is scheduled to launch this year. With a payload of 117,000 pounds it could carry a swarm of miniature smart film modules into space to take down the most serious of these orbital debris problems at the rate of about 250 pieces per launch. Six launches, the number of manned lunar missions, would eliminate 98% of space junk.

Meteor Crater in Arizona

For one of the most well-researched, vivid, and exciting depictions of an asteroid strike that you will ever read try the epilogue of Transmat World