Entering Space

Citation preview

Pnalsr ron Rosnnr ZuenN

"Robert Zubrin is already one of the few individuals to have had a marked impact on U.S. spacepolicy, with his compelling advocacy of a streamlined and affordable human mission to Mars. Having galvanized the Mars mission, he now turns his amenrion to the larger picture of humanity's place in space,writing with a very impressive clarity reminiscent of Asimov or McPhee. This book works among other ways as a brilliant bit of geography, or rather cosmography, in that after reading it you have a clearer idea than before of where you stand in the universe." -Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars "Bob Zubrin is the Tom Paine of space-and about time we had one, too. An engineer who knows how to do the feats he envisions, he unfurls an agenda for the expansion of world civilization, not just another plan for going further out. This lends his book the quality of a thoughtful manifesto, well worked out in scenarios for developmenr rhat both make a profit and enlarge the human prospecr." -Gregory

"Zubdnknows

Benford, author of Deep Tine

how to make things work, and he seespossibilities and alternatives every-

where." -psnnl5 "Zubrin

Overbye, The New Yorh TimesBook Reuieut

systematically and convincingly destroys conventional wisdom about Mars

travel." -Michael

D. Lemonick, N ewsday

"His elegant problem-solving and skillful promotion have put Mars exploration back on the map." -Mark "Zubrin shows how a flight to Mars has progressed from fantasy to .

Bowden, Playboy . a reality that can

be achieved by us. Zubrin is showing us rhe way." -B1rzz Aldrin

ALSO BY ROBERT ZUBRIN Tbe Casefor Mars: ThePlan to Settlethe RedPlanet 'Ve Must (with Richard \Tagner) and Vhy lslandsin theSA7(with StanleySchmidt)

ENTERING SPACE Creatirg

a

Spocefaring Ciuilization #

ROBERT

ZT.]BRIN

Jeremy P. Thrcher/Putnam a memberof Penguin Putnam lnc. New York

Most Tarcher/Putnam books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for salespromotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. Special books or book excerpts also can be created to fit specific needs. For details, write Putnam Special Markets, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. Figures 9.3,9.7, and 9.8 fromThe Starflight Handbookby Eugene F, Mallove and Gregory L. Matloff. Copyright O 1989 by Eugene F. Mallove and Gregory L. Matloff. Reprinted by permission ofJohn Viley

& Sons, Inc.

Jeremy P. Thrcher/Putnam a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 375 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014 www.penguinputnam.com First trade paperback edition 2000 Copyright @ 1999 by Robert Zubrin All rights reserved. This book, or parrs thereof, may nor be reproduced in any form without permission. Published simultaneouslv in Canada The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Zubiln,

Robert.

Entering space : creating a spacefaring civilization

/ Robert

Zubrin. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-87477-975-8 1. Space colonies.

2. Outer space-Exploration.

TL79t.7.283

I. Title.

1999 99-24725 CIP

979.9'04-4c21

Printed in the United States of America

3579108642 ISBN 1-58142-036-0(tradepaperback) This book is printed on acid-freepaper. @ BOOK

DESIGN

BY JUDITH

AND

CLAIRE

STAGNITTO VACCARO

ABBATE

m T

t-o my parents,

CUeRLES ZusnrN

and

RosALyN

FeT,IENBERG ZusRrN,

wbo gaue nre Life and Mind

U

Y

U.

I itnessthis new-madeWorld, anotherHeau'n

FrontHeauenGate notfarr, foundedin uiew On theclearHyaline, the GlassieSea; with Starr's Of anplitude alrnostirnmense, Numerous,and wery Starcperhapsa \Vorld 0f destinedhabitation.

- JoHN MILToN,

Lost Paradise

COI\TENTS

Acknowledgments. uiii lntroduction. ix TYPE 1: COMPLETING GLOBAL CIVILIZATION Chapter One: On the Threshold of the lJniverse . 3 Chapter Two: The Age of Dinosaurs . 2 r Chapter Three: The New SpaceRace . 39 ChapterFour: Doing Businesson Orbit . j8 T Y P E I I : C R E A T I N G A S P A C E F A R I N GC I V I L I Z A T I O N Chapter Five: The View from the Moon . 7g '$7orld t r or Chapter Six: Mars: The New Chapter Seven: Asteroids for Good and Evil . r 28 ChapterEight: Settling the Outer SolarSystem . t 57 TYPE III: ENTERING GALACTIC CIVILIZATION Chapter Nine: The Challengeof Interstellar Travel . t 87 ChapterTen: ExtraordinaryEngineering . 224 ChapterEleven: Meeting ET . 247 Chapter Twelve: North ro the Stars . 27 4 Appendix: Founding Declaration of the Mars Society . 284 Glossary . 286 References' 29 r Index . 295

AC KN OWLE D GM E NTS

I wish to acknowledge the extensive help I have received in developing this book from my good friend Richard N7agner,and from Mitch Horowitz, my very capable editor at Thrcher Putnam books. I am also thankful for useful ideas or information shared by many others, including Dr. Chris McKay of the NASA Ames Research Center, Dr. Everett Gibson of NASA Johnson SpaceCenter, the late ProfessorCarl Saganof Cornell University, Dr. Robert Bussard, Dr. Robert Forward, Mr. Alan \7asser, Dr. Martyn Fogg, Dr. Dana Andrews of Boeing Aerospace,Colonel Simon "Pete" \Worden of the Ballistic Missile Defense Agency, Dr. Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, and Professor Greg Benford of the University of California, Irvine. I also wish to express my thanks to my intrepid agent, Laurie Fox of the Linda Chester Literary Agency, who sold the book. Most of all I am thankful for the constant support of my wife, Maggie Zubrtn, without which the completion of this work would have been impossible.

INTRODUCTION

this was because Our tirnewill beremembered, wbenwef.rst setsail for otlterworlds, -CARL SAGAN, T987

about creating aspacefaring civili2asien-shg HIS Is A Boor next step in the development of human society. According to the best current archeological evidence, until around t0,000 years ago the human tace, modern Horuosapiens,was confined to a small region surrounding the Rift Valley in eastern Africa. The climate was favorable, the game was fairly abundant, and nontechnological humans were more than adequate for the challenge of the environment. As a result, the Rift Valley dwellers were able to ger by with a tool kit limited to little more than the same split-rock hand axes that had served their Honto erectusancestors for the previous million years. For some unknown re,Lson,however, a few bands of these people decided to leave rhis relative paradise and travel north to colonize Europe and Asia, eventually going on from there to cross the land bridge into the Americas. They went north, into the teeth of the Ice Age, into direct competition, with giant carnivores and stocky Neanderthals who had already adapted to life in the cold. They went north, into a world of challenge, where fruit, vegetables, and game were not available all year long and where efficient weapons, clothing, and housing were necessary.In abandoning Africa, they embraced a wider world that could be survived only through the develop-

x.

Introduction

man the inventor, menr of technology. Thus was born Homo tecbnologicus, an East African from itself transformed amid ice and fire. Thus humanity curiosity to the dominant specieson this planet. In a sense,the biblical tale of Genesis tells this story but has it backward. It was not eating of the Tree of Knowledge that forced humankind to leave Paradise. Rather, it was the abandonment of Paradise that forced humanity to seek the forbidden fruit. Back in the Sputnik era, the Russian spacevisionary Nikolai S. Kardashev outlined a three-tier schema for classifying civilizations. Adopting Kardashev's scheme in slightly altered form, I define aType I civilization as one thar has achieved full mastery of all of its planet's resources.A Type II civilization is one that has mastered its solar system, while a TyPe III civilization would be one that has accessto the full potential of its galaxy. The trek out of Africa was humanity's key step in setting itself on the path toward achieving the mature Type I status that the human race now approaches. The challenge today is to move on to Typ. II. Indeed, the establishment of a true spacefaring civtlization representsa change in human status as fully as formidable and as pregnant with promi5s-as humanprofound-both ity's move from the Rift Valley to its current global society. Spacetoday seemsas inhospitable and as worthless as the wintry wastes of the north might have appeared to an avetage resident of East Africa 50,000 yearsago. But yet, like the north, it is the frontier whose possibilities and challenges will allow and drive human society to make its next great positive transformation.

FACING

THE

CHALLENGE

T proof Chinainitiatedanambitious In the early1400s,theMing emperors gramof global exploration. They constructed fleets of huge oceangoing vessels and sent them off on voyages of discovery. Sailing south and then west, the Chinese admirals explored Indonesia, then Java,and went on to discover India and then the Arabic civilizations of the Middle East. Then, turning south, they explored the east coast of Africa and discovered Madagascar. Had they been allowed to continue, in a very few years the Chinese fleets would have rounded the Cape of Good Hope and been in position to sail north and discover Europe. However, the Confucian bureaucrats who ad-

Introduction

xt

vised the emperor considered information about the outside wofld and other civilizations and philosophies to be intrinsically worthless and potentially destabilizing to the divine kingdom, and so they convinced the emperor to have his fleets recalled and the ships destroyed. As a result, Chinese civilization pulled inward, only to be discovered itselfby European seafarers a century later. By accepting the challenge of the outside world, \flestern civilization blossomed outward to dominate the globe. In contrast, the grand Chinese civilization grew demoralized in its stagnation and implicit acceptanceof inferior global status and decayed, ultimately to be completely disrupted and remade by expansive $Testern infuences. Only twenty-five years ago, the United States, following in the footsteps of the Ming emperors, abandoned its own pioneering program of space exploration. Even as the Apollo astronauts were returning from the Moon, the Nixon administration issued orders to effectively burn the fleet, destroying the Saturn V rockets and the other technological wonders rhat NASA had just developed to open the universe to humanity. At that time, America's leaders could console themselves with the equivalent of the advice of the Ming court bureaucrats----explorationis too expensive, and nothing of value exists beyond what is already famlliar. Now we know better. The recent discoveries of numerous planers-petential homes for life(t) \) z-

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