The overall premise of the story revolves around humanity's ambitious venture into space, specifically focusing on asteroid mining and colonization as a means to address Earth's dwindling resources and environmental crises. The narrative begins with contemplations about the silence of the universe and potential reasons for not encountering extraterrestrial life, setting a tone of cosmic mystery.
As the plot unfolds, it follows a group of scientists, engineers, and visionaries who embark on an interplanetary mission to mine asteroids, starting with Lutecia. They grapple with technological advancements, ethical dilemmas surrounding AI sentience, unexpected pregnancies among crew members linked to mysterious alien influences, and radical shifts in human evolution facilitated by their new environment.
Ultimately, this epic saga explores themes such as human resilience against adversity, our quest for knowledge beyond earthly confines, implications arising from blending technology intimately within our biological makeup, philosophical questions regarding creation versus intelligent design; moral responsibilities when wielding god-like powers over natureâand whether death truly marks an end or simply another beginning within an infinite cycle governed by "the One" mind that permeates existence.
The overall premise of the story revolves around humanity's ambitious venture into space, specifically focusing on asteroid mining and colonization as a means to address Earth's dwindling resources and environmental crises. The narrative begins with contemplations about the silence of the universe and potential reasons for not encountering extraterrestrial life, setting a tone of cosmic mystery.
As the plot unfolds, it follows a group of scientists, engineers, and visionaries who embark on an interplanetary mission to mine asteroids, starting with Lutecia. They grapple with technological advancements, ethical dilemmas surrounding AI sentience, unexpected pregnancies among crew members linked to mysterious alien influences, and radical shifts in human evolution facilitated by their new environment.
Ultimately, this epic saga explores themes such as human resilience against adversity, our quest for knowledge beyond earthly confines, implications arising from blending technology intimately within our biological makeup, philosophical questions regarding creation versus intelligent design; moral responsibilities when wielding god-like powers over natureâand whether death truly marks an end or simply another beginning within an infinite cycle governed by "the One" mind that permeates existence.
The air was crisp with the first bite of autumn as Penelope Daniels stepped out of the Sydney Harbour Marriott at Circular Quay, the morning sun just beginning to kiss the top of the Opera House with a golden hue. In the autumn, Sydney was a beautiful sight, a city transitioning from the exuberance of summer into a more somber, reflective season. The foliage around the city, usually lush and vibrant, was now adorned with leaves in shades of russet and gold. Autumn was her favorite time of year, and she looked forward to taking the ferry ride from Circular Quay to Manly that afternoon.Â
After four days of meetings at the International Near-Earth Object/Asteroid Mining Conference, today would be less formal. It was a chance to unwind from the week, from the stress of presenting a paper on the progress of Asteroid Mining planning at BlueDot, where she was the lead physicist specializing in the complexities of multi-body gravitational orbital mechanics. The conference was interesting, and she enjoyed participating in a keynote panel on the future of asteroid exploration and mining.Â
But that was work. This was not play but an oasis of relaxed downtime in her busy schedule. Her flight back to Los Angeles was not scheduled for two days, and this was her chance to enjoy Sydney before returning to the overflowing mailboxes and the pressures of multiple project timelines that seemed to have become her fate. She planned to spend the day walking on the beach, shopping, and enjoying the spectacle of the surfers riding massive waves on one of the great surfing beaches on the planet.
As the ferry pulled away from the quay, the iconic Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge slowly receded into the background, replaced by the main body of the bay itself. The bay was dotted with dozens of sailboats, creating a visual feast of color and motion. The ride to Manly usually took about thirty minutes.Â
Today, the water was a deep, dark blue, and the sun cast a shimmering trail of diamonds across its surface. After about fifteen minutes, the ferry made its way toward the opening of the bay to the Pacific Ocean, where the swells grew larger and more pronounced. This part of the journey was a well-known feature of the trip and a bit of a thrill, as the ferry would rise and fall with the rhythm of the ocean, giving the passengers a gentle reminder of the vastness and power of the sea.Â
From the front of the top deck, Penelope could see the whitecaps forming on the waves as they rolled in from the open ocean, crashing against the rocky shore with an awe-inspiring and humbling sound. She was delighted to watch as the heavy swells made the little sailboats all around them bob up and down, alternately appearing and disappearing as the ferry rode the waves.
In ten more minutes, the ferry approached Manly; the swells started to subside, and the water became calmer. She felt a sense of accomplishment after making it through this part of the journey, as if she had faced the forces of nature and emerged unscathed. As the ferry docked at Manly, she stepped onto solid ground, feeling rejuvenated and at peace.Â
She disembarked and walked about a quarter of a mile to the Pacific side of Manly, onto the promenade facing the broad, sunlit sand. She walked along the beach, breathing in the salty sea air and feeling the sand between her toes.Â
The ride on the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly on a beautiful autumn morning was a chance to reflect, rejuvenate, and reconnect with the natural world. Today was no different, and as she looked out at the ocean, she was reminded once again of the beauty and power of nature and the small but significant place we occupy within it.
She found a seat at an outside bistro table, ordered a flat white and a croissant, took out her iPad, and prepared to spend several hours relaxing. The only remaining obligation she had that day was to meet a few colleagues from the convention at Hugoâs on the ferry pier for drinks and pizza at three oâclock.
She smiled and relished the thought of a few lazy hours on this beautiful stretch of beach.
Life was good.
********
Sam Cohen stood in the lobby of the Marriott near the front entry doors, waiting for his colleague, Malcolm Bergstrom, to come down and join him, sharing an Uber to get to the informal social event that the members of the keynote panel hastily planned at the end of their session. The plan was that they would all meet at a bar on the north side of the bay, in Manly, called Hugoâs. The group was organized around their common interests in the conferenceâs main topic, the feasibility of mining asteroids for resources that could be used in space and on the planet as needed.
Samâs credentials were impressive. With a double major in aeronautics and civil engineering, he joined Space Command out of college and became one of the first SpaceCorp astronauts to ferry the Eagle capsule to the ISS in 2020. His doctorate laid the groundwork for him to become the lead designer for the âRealâ space station planned for geosynchronous orbit.
On the conference panel, he represented the stakeholders interested in the realistic expectation of building self-sustainable mining colonies on asteroids. He worked for SpaceCorp, Adam Grantâs commercial space company, which had been the first to apply free market capitalism to the exploration of space, an industry that government agencies like NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos had previously dominated. His background served him in the astronautics and construction engineering that would make such enterprises work. He had always tried to explain that self-sustainable infrastructural architecture was needed on Earth to ensure humankind could survive on its home planet. Sadly, he realized space was the only place to prove or demonstrate those ideas. His first step was the space station; the next step would be creating mining colonies on small asteroids.
His goal was still his boyish vision of saving the world. This was how he might do that.
After a few minutes of waiting, his iPhone buzzed. He read the text on his smartwatch. It was Malcolm saying that he was on his way down.
Malcolm Bergstrom stepped out of the elevator and walked toward Sam. He was twenty-nine years old and was already known to be one of the leading AI engineers to come out of the sandbox built at Stanford. He took neural networks, natural language processing, and cognitive simulation algorithms to the current state of the art. He joined ZetaCorp, the megacorporation formed when the worldâs largest online retailer and the leading AI-based search engine company merged, at the age of nineteen, shortly after the ink on his PhD was dry. He still had that youthful sheen that inspired the nickname âThe Kid,â even as he approached thirty. Malcolm led the team that created MAX, widely considered the most advanced artificial intelligence ever built.
As he crossed the lobby toward Sam, anyone who saw him would not have guessed that he was one of the most intelligent people on the planet at the time. He was average height and slightly overweight, with hair just a bit too long. He looked exactly like what a nerd would look like.
On the panel, he brought his deep knowledge of computer and information science and a background in the plans for space exploration that had developed over the years. Advances in computation had powered space programs from the beginning. Complex missions like asteroid mining and colonization would require AI-driven architectures. Malcolm brought that to the table.
âGood afternoon, Sam,â Malcolm said as he raised his hand. âHow was your morning?â
âNice.â Sam shook his hand and then pointed to the door.
âI slept in, grabbed breakfast from the buffet, and caught up on emails and texts. I hate being fifteen time zones from home. I feel disoriented, even after being here for a week.â
Malcolm was looking forward to their planned afternoon. He enjoyed the company and conversations the group shared at the conference and hoped the happy hour and dinner would be valuable.
He looked at Sam, smiled, and said, âReady for some fun?â
âI am if you are. The car will be here in two minutes.âÂ
They walked outside to the curb just as a black Mercedes autonomous EV pulled up. Samâs watch sounded an arrival alert tone; the car recognized them, and the passenger doors opened.
Sam and Malcolm got in. The doors closed.
âWelcome, Dr. Cohen and guest. We are now departing for Hugoâs on Manly Pier. Trip time is estimated to be thirty minutes,â the car announced and then quietly departed.
âHave you ever been over to Manly before?â Sam asked.
âNo, but I have heard from Penelope that it is worth going, even for the day,â Malcolm replied. âSorry about making you take a car. I get seasick easily; the ferry is famous for the swells.â
âNo worries. Although you might need to get over that motion sickness if you ever plan to go off planet.â
âI know. I know. One more thing I will have to adjust to. The story of my life.â
âLooking forward to our happy hour. I have enjoyed getting to know you guys this week,â Sam offered.
âAgreed. Itâs so comfortable to be in a group that shares a vision,â Malcolm replied.
âTogether, we might just be dangerous.â
Then they both sat back and enjoyed the ride.
*******
Penelope was already sitting at the bar when Sam and Malcolm arrived.
Patel Premji was running late. After the conference, Patel had slipped in a few hours of personal time, which was unusual for a world-class workaholic CEO. He was visiting a cousin who had a house on Isoldes Beach, on the other side of the bay. He would use a water taxi to get to Manly Wharf, which was not known for being on time, since the little boats were very much at the mercy of the sea gods as they traversed the harbor.
Patel was the grandson of the billionaire founder of Eragon Enterprises, Ltd, a global industrial and technology megacorporation and the largest company in India. He was mandated to create the SpaceIndia Transport Company, leveraging existing corporate assets and new technologies to build a global industry to support space infrastructure, from launch pads to spaceports to cargo containers that could be used to ferry heavy loads into high orbit. The new company had also perfected 3-D ceramics printing and nanotech fibers to build new ways to manufacture almost anything on demand. He was thirty-five and the only married attendee at the meeting. His wife, Maggie, was the love of his life and a geophysics professor at the University of Texas in Austin. She had been his rock as he built his company and reputation, and he struggled each time his work took him away from her.
Patel represented the space industry on the panel. As a peer to SpaceCorpâs founder, Adam Grant, and BlueDotâschairman, Elias Erskin, he drove the âspace as a businessâ marketplace.
While Sam went to the registration desk to claim their table, Penelope and Malcolm caught sight of the water taxi coming around the pier to a ramp just forty feet from the restaurant.Â
The taxi docked, and Patel, a tall, olive-skinned Indian man with dark black hair, dressed in yacht club casual wear, deftly jumped off, came up the ramp, and walked toward the group at the bar.
âWell, now the gangâs all here,â Patel said. âSorry Iâm late. Whoâs hungry?â
They sat at a table near the open-air patio. After ordering their pizzas and a few pitchers of Tooheys beer, they began chatting. After a few minutes of going over their impressions of the conference, reactions to their panel, and impressions of the industry in general, the discussion headed into its most enjoyable phase.
It took on the feel of a group of college friends expressing ideas and philosophical insights, a casual intellectual debate.
They started talking about the big topic of space exploration, and this was when the discussion became fun and interesting for each of them.
Perhaps it was the relaxation of the beer or just the comfort of the company, but the agenda took on a life of its own.
*******
Future historians would probably credit the origin of humankindâs diaspora into space to that restaurant on Manly Pier on the north end of Sydney Harbor one sunny autumn afternoon in March 2026, rather than Yuri Gagarinâs first orbit in 1961 or the epic Apollo 11 landing on the moon in 1969. Indeed, as impressive as each of those events appeared at the time, they both represented a wholly flawed and myopic methodology as a way to take humans to the stars.
They were an impressive group, brought together by their obsession with asteroids, their concern for the future of the human race, and the opportunity to drink, eat, and discuss those obsessions and anxieties.
Other patrons in the bar would have hardly noticed the group, four brilliant people engaged in their mid-career lives with an intense passion for making a difference. They just looked like a few twenty- and thirty-somethings, friends enjoying a great place, a fantastic view, and the perfect weather.
One hundred fifty years later, those future historians would have found it of value to chronicle those early days so that the coming generations could see how a few pints of Tooheys New Lager wound up leading to sustainable space exploration and the achievement of Adam Grantâs dream of humankind becoming a multiplanetary civilization.
********
âGravity is a bitch,â Malcolm said as he pounded his palm on the table with enough force to accentuate the point.Â
âIt literally and figuratively shaped our planetâall planetsâand the stars and the galaxies,â Penelope said. âSo what?â
Malcolm picked up his pint glass, pondered for a moment, took a sip, and responded, âItâs obvious. We, all of us, everything, grew up in a gravity well. We spend the first year of our life developing ways to pull ourselves off the ground and walk. Escaping gravity is programmed into our DNA. Newton used his experiences to ponder how the apple fell and extrapolated it to what would become orbital mechanics. We learned to fly and go to space as a part of our need to defy gravity.â
âSo, you are saying that gravity shaped us?â Sam smirked. âThat is the reason that we are a civilization? Cities? Airplanes? Rockets?â
âYes. And no,â Malcolm replied. âI am saying that it shaped our perception of the world. That is why NASA, the Russians, and even the Chinese equate space travel with going to other planets and making those planets livable. We were born in a gravity well, so we must live in gravity wells as we colonize space.â
âGuys, you are forgetting the most important part!â Penelope interjected, putting down her fork. âWe need gravity to stay healthy. Remember what happened to the ISS crews after long stays? Bone loss, muscle atrophy, blood chemistry changes? Evolution made us dependent on gravity.â
âNot to mention habitats that only make functional sense with gravity. Our infrastructure and building architecture assumes that the floor is the floor and up is up. Freefall habitats are disorienting at best, difficult to build and expand, and feel wrong.â Sam was getting more interested now.Â
âWhen we look at the Geosynchronous Space Station, we have to architect using a doughnut rather than a box. And it must spin to âcreateâ gravity. Occupants walk on the inside circumference of the ring, living on a curving floor rather than a flat one. âUpâ is the central hub, the center of the spin. Weâve known this since before Apollo. We are currently planning the structure in the movie 2001, way back in 1968. That is the only way to keep humans healthy outside of a gravity well.â
âThat is why we have to go to planets,â Penelope continued. âCivilizations need room to grow, resources, and gravity.â
âYou are falling into the same trap that every space mission strategic planner has fallen into,â Malcolm replied. âThere is another alternative.â
âReally?â Patel spoke up. âAnd what might that be?â
âIâll get to that in a bit,â Malcolm said. âGive me the podium for a few minutes.â
âWhy are we all here, in this lovely bar on a pier in Sydney Harbor on this fine day? Asteroids. The âother stuffâ that NASA was responsible for, as well as all the space agencies, was watching out for asteroids. Near-Earth objects. The public was terrified of the dinosaur killer, the extinction-level event that might be just around the corner,â Malcolm continued.Â
âThey made Hollywood blockbusters like Armageddon and Deep Impact, scaring the public into worrying about such and even fooling them into believing that Bruce Willis and a team of Texas oilfield workers could save us from an impending disaster. Governments used this fear to justify budgets for space exploration, even though NEO tracking was a tiny portion of the spending.Â
âIn 2020, NASA and the United Nations Planetary Defense Agency played a massive multination simulation game. A hypothetical object was discovered thirty-five million miles from Earth and on a collision course. The simulation ended in disaster for Europe after every current response technology proved impotent in the face of a big rock crashing into our planetâno Bruce Willis. No nukes. Just evacuate and hope that the rock is not big enough to destroy almost all of the life on Earth.â
âAgain. The dinosaurs,â Penelope interrupted.
âYes. Again,â Malcolm continued. âBut we digress. So, the NEO issue is like a Sword of Damocles hanging over our civilization. Adam Grantâs wish to make us a multi-planet civilization uses this as one of its pillars. He also worries about war and plague. We have had our noses rubbed in what a virus can do since 2020, and you will still see people here on the wharf wearing masks today, just to be careful. But his point is valid. We as a civilization need to get off the planet to ensure that we will not perish on the world of our birth.â
âBeware the Great Filter!â Sam giggled. His giggle failed to communicate the seriousness of this issue to Sam himself. His concern for the future of humankind drove him to dedicate his life to getting humans out into space, precisely to avoid the Great Filter Effect. He became an astronaut and an engineer capable of designing and building things in space to ensure he had an active part in that dream.
âBut, my dear colleagues, our visions for doing so are flawed,â Malcolm continued, waving his hands in the air as he spoke. âRockets. To other planets. There are so many things wrong with that. Penelope can recite all the issues with getting out of the well.â
Malcolm was telegraphing a concern he had felt almost all his life. When he looked at the strategic plan for colonizing space, he realized that this issue, the cost to lift and drop masses in and out of gravitational wells, could never make economic sense. He had focused his career on making the computational side of space travel as good as it could ever be. He knew the math in his proposed new strategy would be beyond current human mathematical capability. He focused on artificial intelligence. His vision was that spreading out in space would involve humans and their machine intelligence working together. He was enjoying this conversation.
âYou are right.â Penelope took the stage. âThe Rocket Equation. It states that you need so much fuel and machinery to climb up to orbit that the expense and complexity always go up with mass. The Apollo capsule sat on a Saturn V rocket stack almost as tall as a thirty-six-story building. The entire stack was used once to get the command module and the LEM into orbitâone time. And it was then thrown away. SpaceCorp changed the paradigm by building the Falconrocket, a completely reusable stack, which changed the economics of throwing weight into orbit, but still, you needed the climb out of the well for each pound of each mission.â
Malcolm retook the lead. âAnd when we get to the moon or Mars, we must use fuel to land. And if we want to come home, more fuel. The Rocket Equation kills you on round trips if you need to bring enough fuel for the whole trip. Indeed, long missions are hard because you donât need only to bring enough fuel for the entire mission but enough air, water, and food for the crew. Enough energy production to run the machinery and electronics.â
Sam spoke up. âThe sustainable ecosystem that cannot be replenished is a fundamental limiting factor in deep-space travel. SpaceCorpâs answer for the Mars permanent colony in the next few years is to send dozens of containers full of food, air, fuel, machinery, ground vehicles, and 3-D printers before one human touches the surface. The landers will use all of their fuel to land on the surface and then wait to be replenished from resources extracted from Mars itself. They will melt surface and subsurface ice to get water, oxygen, and hydrogen. They will use material on Mars to make fuel, tools, and structural raw materials to build the colony.
âThey will need to live in lava tubes or bored-out tunnels to protect the colonists from radiation until such infrastructure exists as to construct domed habitats with radiation shielding,â Sam continued. âIt is a civil engineering nightmare, or wet dream, based on perspective. While we here on Earth talk about needing to be good environmental stewards, the Martian colonistsâ very lives will depend upon it. They must find and utilize good local sources for almost everything and protect those resources. Failure to do so would mean death.â
âThe Chinese always thought of planetary colonization as a one-way trip,â Penelope chimed in. âNASA was always limited by the âno man left behindâ model. They needed to design missions as round trips, and the limits of supply made colonization unreachable. SpaceCorpâs leadership tells the potential colonists that they might die and that there is no guarantee of return.â
âThat shocks people,â Malcolm said, âbut it was exactly the model the Europeans used when colonizing the New World. The ship had to bring everything the crew needed to make the trip and achieve self-sufficiency before supplies and weather became issues. Some colonies, like Jamestown, failed due to famine, disease, and conflict with indigenous peoples that might have helped them survive. Often, colonists took apart the ships that brought them from Europe to have lumber and brass for plumbing in their newly built villages. No way back.â
âSo, planets are hard,â Patel said. âI get that. But what else is there? And donât give me that space station bullshit. We would need a million habitats spinning like tops to house even a small percentage of our population. And the expense of building and supplying them would be unattainable.â
Patel understood the business of space. His company focused on building all the hard and soft infrastructure to support companies like SpaceCorp and ZetaCorp. His mind was already racing with economic straw men to support or shoot down what the others were discussing. To him, space needed to make economic sense. The others were dreamers and artisans. He was thinking about what must be done to make those visions real.
âExactly. Planets and space stations are hard to construct at scale and with realistic economics. But what if there was another way? One so obvious that everyone, or almost everyone, was looking right past it?â Malcolm took a long breath. âBlueDot was formed to start a new industry, asteroid mining. NASA had plans to capture an asteroid, but these were abandoned in 2018.
âNow there are plans to redirect an asteroid into orbit around the moon. BlueDot will attempt to land on that asteroid, extract water from its materials, and use it for fuel and oxygen supplied to the moon and Mars-bound spacecraft. Creating âgas stationsâ in space would give an inflight resupply model to enhance long-range missions.â Malcolm paused. âThe hope is that rare earths and other metals in short supply on Earth could also be mined. Then the problem becomes transport back to our home planet. Can the economics work? Can refueling from fuels made from asteroid stuff happen?â
âSo, what are you saying? Colonize the asteroid belt first? Before the moon and Mars?â Sam objected. âBullshit. Too far away. The supply problem is exponentially larger. Radiation from long voyages is lethal. Zero-gravity health impact goes through the roof. It would be best if you went to the belt after Mars. â
âLet the man finish!â Patel held up his hand.Â
âThanks,â Malcolm continued. âLet me sketch it out for you. I have given it a lot of thought. And I have learned a lot just by talking to you guys. So, itâs still rough. But here is the gist. Again, I am proposing using existing technology and hardware that we already have and the companies we work for. No governments.â
âAll ears.â Penelope stood up and came around to sit closer to Malcolm.
âAsteroid capture is hard. If you try to grab one as it whizzes between the Earth and the moon, you are dealing with a bunch of complex physics issues, especially relative and orbital velocity. You must deal with a ton of momentum if you want a decent-sized asteroid. You would need a massive set of rockets with tons of fuel to slow it down and nudge it into an Earth or lunar orbit. Hard to do. Very expensive. And probably very dangerous. If you get the math wrong, you wipe out Europe or everyone on Earth.â Malcolm paused. He smiled, knowing he had already modeled several scenarios for projects building his AI.
âUnderstood,â Penelope replied. âCapture bad!â
âNow, redirect is easier. You go into space to find an object in a stable solar orbit, one with a proper size, say one hundred miles in diameter, composed of early solar system stuffârocks, iron, ice, carbonatesâa typical asteroid. There are hundreds of thousands of candidates.â
âHow far away?â Sam asked.
âTwelve to fourteen months.â Malcolm waved his hands as if that was not important. âWe take a small crew, less than two hundred people, and enough rockets and containers with supplies to make a nice gentle approach, match orbit, and land. Once on the rock, we unpack one of those boring machines and start digging. We find ice, process it for water and air, and move the people into some caves or surface craters for radiation protection. We then physically mount our rockets to the asteroid. We use fuel that we brought, adding fuel that we should be able to make from the materials on hand, and we turn the asteroid into a spaceship.â
âYou are insane!â Sam blurted out. But he loved this insanity, so far out of the box that it had not been discussed at NASA when he was there.
âGo on. This is crazy, but not insane.â Penelope raised her palm.
âI am not talking about building the Enterprise here! Just attaching three or four Falcon 9 boosters to a piece of rock a hundred miles wide and doing some perfect math to nudge it into a trajectory toward Earth. NASA has already modeled doing this as a part of its redirect strategy to prevent a collision. This varies only in intent. They want to nudge it away; we must nudge it toward the Earth. If we could add locally sourced fuel, we would be able to be under steady thrust for long periods. Longer acceleration means higher velocity and, thus, less flight time on the return leg. Controlled acceleration and staggered attitude-correction burns will give us better maneuverability. We can tune the trajectory as we transit. Halfway through, we flip the assembly and decelerate. As we approach Earth, we ease the asteroid into a nice geosynchronous orbit, where it will sit in one place in relation to the surface.â
No one spoke for a minute.
âPenelope, is this even remotely possible?â Sam asked.
âAs crazy as it sounds, the orbital mechanics are very straightforward. The math is hard but not impossible. There are no fly-bys or gravitational assists, and there is no need for a warp drive. Yes, it could be done.â
Patel stood up, walked around his chair, and sat down. âOkay. I am thinking out loud now. We have a contract with SpaceCorp and BlueDot to build containers for the Falcon and Cooper rockets to support their lunar, Martian, and asteroid-mining efforts. The designs and construction of specialized modules for crew habitats, supply carriers, and factory setups are underway.âÂ
âAnd,â Penelope interrupted, âwe at BlueDot have contracted with Grantâs Boring Company for a vacuum-rated version of the Prufrock 7 machine, which can cut one mile per day to do mining when we finally get to an asteroid. Wow.â
Malcolm looked straight at Sam. âYou were in Space Command. How do you think they and NASA, the Russians, and the Chinese would react to the plan so far?â
âWhen you fired up your rockets to nudge that asteroid toward Earth, they would go to DEFCON 1 and start plans to blow you out of the sky. That assumes that you manage to fly there without them knowing. There is no way that the government space agencies or the military would allow you to risk destroying the world.â Sam looked down as he spoke.
âWhat if we showed them the math?â Penelope asked.
âFear trumps logic,â Sam shot back. âYou donât know the underlying paranoia of the Aerospace-Military Complex. The only reason there is a space program is that the military used fear to fund it. âWhat if the Russians get the high ground?â was the hammer the Pentagon used to get Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo funded. The fear of you crashing an extinction rock onto the planet will shut it down.â
âSo, letâs not tell them,â Malcolm whispered. âWe make it a corporate-only venture. Make it look like we are doing a BlueDot base in the belt, get set up, fire the rockets to set up a trans-planetary trajectory, and deal with it then. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.â
âVery, very dangerous,â Sam said sullenly.
âBut there is more. May I continue?â Malcolm implored. He had them interested in his vision, so he thought he might as well spill it all.
âOnce we return to Earth orbit, the real fun begins. SpaceCorp, BlueDot, and Patelâs SpaceIndia guys start launching stuff to the asteroid. By stuff, I mean habitats, food, agricultural infrastructure, construction equipment, 3-D printers, nuclear reactors, solar panels, transport rovers, and materials needed to manufacture everything we can make on the asteroid. We immediately begin to build settlements across the surface. Mining begins at once. If it is there, water, rock, rare-earth metal, carbon, and even gold or platinum.â
âThat is what BlueDot wants to do anyway. Why is this cool?â Penelope asked.
âBecause now the output of the mines is only a short single-stage-to-orbit ride up. Fill a container and send it back to the surface. Still dealing with gravity well, at first. But then the final piece of my plan changes the future history of humankind.â
âAnd what is that, you egomaniac?â Penelope poked.
âA space elevator,â Malcolm said with a smile.
âOMG. Brilliant!â Penelope yelped. âYou would create a truly free market between Earth and the colony, and each could provide for the otherâs needs. Amazing.â
âInteresting.â Samâs head came up. âThat could trump the politics. We need to talk more about that.â
Patel stood up next. âSpaceIndia is under contract with NASA to study the feasibility of the space elevator. In the past two years, we built a working prototype of a carbon nanotube extruder that could create strands of fibers that could be used to spin a cable two inches in diameter with enough tensile strength to support itself over 23,000 miles, exactly what would be needed for Samâs space station, or now, for our proposed capture asteroid. We could build a factory on the part of the asteroid facing the surface, and it would take a year or two to build and theoretically could produce twenty miles of cable per day.â
Sam pulled out his iPhone, tapped away momentarily, and spoke. âThat would mean about two years for the factory, three years for the cable, and another one or two to make it operational. Not bad. Plenty of time for the creation of a new economic ecosystem. And plenty of potential wealth creation.â
âOne more worry,â Patel interrupted. âWhere should the space elevator attach to the Earth? Wherever it is will become the economic and thus political center of the New World Order as mankind uses our colony and the elevator as it becomes a spacefaring civilization.â
âThat may be the biggest issue of all of this,â Sam replied.
They continued to talk, finishing the pizzas and downing several more pitchers of beer.
The group was tired, full, and slightly buzzed as the sun set over the harbor. They paid the bill and sat quietly for a minute before leaving. They were each pondering the conversation, the idea, and whether or not this was all even possible. Each of them balanced the excitement of the adventure versus the risks and hard work necessary to make it happen.
âSo, do we do this? Do we wake up tomorrow, line up all the stakeholders, and make it happen?â Penelope asked, as she was the first one standing.
Malcolm rose next, hugged Penelope, and said with his hands up, âIf not us, then who?â
Sam and Patel spoke together.Â
âI like it.â
âIâm in.âÂ
âWhatâs next?â
Thus, the future of human civilization was set into motion. Four humans in a bar on a pier in Manly Beach, Australia.
Innerspace: A Cosmic Odyssey is a novel by Michael Simon Bodner starting in 2026 and stretching over a hundred and thirty-eight years and centers around the colonization of an asteroid within our solar system. The first part of the novel describes the planning and the mechanics necessary for such a feat, both scientifically and politically. The second part entails the crewâs voyage to the asteroid named Lutetia and the final part consists of the crew settling on Lutetia permanently. The main characters are a motley crew of scientists called Penelope, Sam, Malcolm, Patel and an AI called MAX. The story is thick with theoretical science, metaphysics, and climate disaster.
At a meeting in Manly, Australia in 2026 the team devises a plan that could either save the world or end with them being shot from the sky. They decide to keep their plan a secret and with the help of the Indian government and a lot of money from the private sector, they start planning a mining colony on the asteroid Lutetia. Central to this plan is the development of an AI called MAX and the implantation of neurochips in the two hundred crew members. As they start the voyage toward Lutetia however, strange things start happening to the crew that defy all logic, and a substance is discovered dating back to the creation of the universe.
The premise of the story is captivating from the start and the world-building is interesting. Unfortunately, the author uses little of the setting to tell the story. A negative aspect is that most of the discoveries and revelations in the novel happen in meetings, and even though the meetings are VR they are still only meetings, which means a lot of talking and explaining takes place. Bodner plays with the ideas of one world order and one world religion, or in this case, one universe religion. Through this concept, he creates an unrealistic Utopia, with no explanation for this suddenly perfect state of being other than the discovery of a soul dimension. If that is all it takes to make a perfect society, we would already have one, with vast portions of the world believing in an afterlife. Overall, the book has an interesting premise, but it falls short in some areas.Â