I have the pleasure of sharing a few answers from the author of these exciting stories...
How much does Earth care about the life that clings to it?
JAK: Every bit as much as any other rock in the universe.
Snark aside,
only life cares about life.
Obvious, yet
worthy of a moment of reflection. Despite radioactive cores that provide a
magnetosphere to prevent the escape of air and water to space, the Earth and
every other planet, moon, asteroid, comet, and yes, even the stars, are not
alive. None of the aforementioned are thinkers. They have zero
intelligence capability. They do not feel anything. The Earth is a
fantastic and sometimes terrible host of abundant life, but it lacks the
capacity to acknowledge anything, and therefore has no care whether life exists
or not.
It has no
care whether it exists or not.
Grass has
more regard for its life than a planet has self-awareness. The roots will grow
toward moisture, the blade toward the sun.
The life
forms of Earth care -- at least on some fundamental level -- but not the planet
itself.
What is the only life form that could prevent a total extinction event?
JAK: Look in the mirror.
Probably not
you specifically, or me, or anyone alive right now. But perhaps our
descendants, unseen over our shoulders in generation after generation on an
extended scale, reaching centuries into the future. They could have some
contribution toward preserving our species, or the next iteration of it.
The obvious
difference between humans and all of the extinct, single-planet-dwelling
species that have come before us is that we can build upon current technologies
to at least try and thwart the inevitable catastrophe.
Humans alone
– unless cockroaches or some other species survive our warring nature and
evolve to our current levels – have the means to bump our potential survival
rate by 100% by colonizing another planet.
For that,
the red planet is a beacon in the night sky. As with any venture into space,
the mission is fraught with danger. But Mars as a cold and rocky planet is
still preferable to an ice-encrusted moon of Jupiter.
If we ever
do figure out a way to kick-start the Martian cores into creating a
magnetosphere, as I write of in Mars Wars, or thicken the Martian atmosphere
enough to hold air and water, the potential for agriculture is there because of
soil. We made need to scrape off the solar wind-pounded surface material and
turn it over, but ice, with Jupiter as a backdrop, isn’t going to be kind to
the roots of space tomatoes.
Perhaps we’d
even import some of the massive sandworms from Frank Herbert’s Dune to help
fertilize. Everyone knows Dune is easier to reach from Mars than it is from
Earth.
To perform
more space outreach, we’ve got to go faster at a sustained clip. Warp drive
would be incredibly convenient, but we’ve got a huge knowledge gap between
chemical rockets and light speed. If I had to choose a single category to
improve immediately, it would be propulsion. It takes us too long to reach
anything, and that’s just in our own backyard.
In Mars Wars,
planetary shuttles and remote orbiters make use of nuclear fusion for
propulsion. It is a cleaner, more sustainable burn that can use hydrogen as a
propellant. They can reach Mars in a month, as opposed to nine. Not warp speed
or hyper-drive, but a big step in the right direction.
Think how
far we’ve come in the preceding two centuries. Who knows where we’ll be two
centuries from today, if we make concerted efforts.
But what to
do once there? Live forever inside enclosures, or take steps to terra form Mars
so it is not immediately hostile to life?
Some space
advocates want to keep Mars as a planetary park, unchanged by human hands.
There is no
reason to keep Mars in its current state of death. Billions of years ago, Mars
once held water and therefore some form of air. There are many reasons to
resurrect it.
As seen in
Mars Wars, Mars has threats beyond the frigid temps and lack of air and water.
What we might find in the soil could be positive or negative, for instance. See
link below:
https://astronaut.com/finally-scientists-have-found-intriguing-organic-molecules-on-mars/
What about caring for the Earth?
JAK: The two are not mutually exclusive.
Of course we
should care for the mother planet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t expand into
space and Mars at the same time. Resource drainage from Earth can be limited,
and life on Earth can improve with technological advances.
Space
expeditions must be commercially viable, or at least self-sustaining. NASA and
other government agencies have done great pioneering work, but taxes alone
cannot continually fund space exploration. We're already seeing private
ventures from billionaire visionaries like Musk and Bezos and Branson
attempting to bring the space flight industry into a more 'mainstream' focus.
Bringing rare metals back to Earth could lead to more technology bursts.
Harvesting
resources from asteroids would be easier from Mars, since it’s closer to the
Asteroid Belt, the farmer’s market of asteroids. A dwarf planet in the belt is
blasting water vapor into space for some reason, and it may hold more water
than Earth. Amazing. And available for harvesting. Asteroids can be encased in
water ice. Others have ammonia ice that could be beneficial in thickening the
Martian atmosphere.
It’s a
process, but water can be harvested from minerals on asteroids. Comets would
take less processing time, but they’re free spirits and not clustered nicely in
a band like their rocky counter parts. Formed outside our solar system, comets
that can provide immediate water ice are not subject to the same relative
orbiting plane as the planets and Asteroid Belt. These may be more attainable
from Mars due to readiness more than location.
A couple relevant links:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/telescopes/a9982/why-it-matters-that-theres-so-much-water-in-the-asteroid-belt-16434422/
https://www.space.com/9292-water-ice-common-asteroids-discovery-suggests.html
Mars itself
may have tons of water trapped in its crust, as was recently postulated in a
finding on Earth.
This has
touched on a few hints about transforming Mars – terra forming it – into
a habitable planet. It could take centuries, or less, or never work at all and
we end up creating subterranean cities or honeycomb surface ones encapsulated
in redundant plexiglass bubbles threaded with titanium strands.
(That last
part is a glimpse of the Lunar One base on the moon in Mars Wars.)
Mars needs
heat, water and air and we’ll move in.
It’s not
been tried by humans, but the powers of the solar system have done it. It may
be possible to crash asteroids into Mars, set off a bunch of thermonuclear
bombs, create vast mirror farms to reflect more sunlight, or use other methods
to greenhouse the atmosphere so it can hold air and water and heat.
There may be
enough nitrates on the red planet to use for breathable air, since oxygen is
the lesser component. Or maybe there’s some ripe asteroids to mine for it.
A lot to
cover there, for another time.
If Mars does
become viable as a self-sustaining colony, and then network of colonies, and
then perhaps the entire planet, wouldn’t it also provide relief to
over-population on Earth?
For those
who want to focus solely on Earth until the extinction event(s) strike, don’t
we have a duty to future generations to begin the process of increasing
survival odds?
The universe
is mind-blowingly vast. Where is the spirit to attain knowledge? To push the
boundaries of what viable life can be had beyond Earth. Exploring has dangers,
but it can also lead to the betterment of Homo sapiens.
*******************
Detonation Event
Mars Wars Series: Book 1
by
John Andrew Karr
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Science Fiction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
For
decades the Space Consortium of America has searched for new ways to harvest
resources beyond an increasingly depleted Earth. The ultimate plan is about to
be ignited. So is the ultimate threat to humankind . . .
DETONATION EVENT
Battle-hardened Captain
Ry Devans and his crew of the Mars Orbiter Station One (MOS-1) are part of a
bold plan: resurrect the active molten cores of the Red Planet with
synchronized thermonuclear explosions, and terraform the hell out of that
iron-oxide rock for future generations. It’ll change history. So will the
strands of carbon-based Martian cells that have hitched a ride on the ship.
Dr. Karen Wagner knows
the microbes’ resistance to virus is incredible. It’s the unknowable that’s
dicey. Her orders: blow them into space. But orders can be undermined. Two
vials have been stolen and sent hurtling toward the biosphere. For Devans and Wagner,
ferreting out the saboteurs on board is only the beginning. Because there are
more of them back on Earth—an army of radical eco-terrorists anxious to create
a New World Order with a catastrophic gift from Mars.
Now,
one-hundred-and-forty-million miles away from home, Devans is feeling
expendable, betrayed, a little adrift, and a lot wild-eyed. But space madness
could be his salvation—and Earth’s. He has a plan. And he’ll have to be crazy
to make it work.
Excerpt:
Rogue Planet,
Mars Wars, Book 2
A new video feed began, this time sent by PS-13. Someone on
MOS-1 declared the drone had been destroyed and the landing team was prepping
for the return trip home.
Cheers and applause in the break room. Then comments of
concern when looped footage showed the landing party returning to PS-13 after
destroying the hijacked drone. Karen bit her lip at Ry’s inability to fly
without assistance.
Audio from Shannon Burroughs and co-pilot Gwen Wagner gave
their status as they lifted off the surface of Mars for the return trip to
MOS-1.
Karen closed her eyes and took a breath. She mindtexted her
children and Devans. How were they, and how was Ry?
No replies.
Ry’s impulsive streak seems to be widening, she thought.
Circumstances are hardly normal, though.
Still no replies.
Rarely did any of them let a mindtext go unattended from a
member of the circle of trust. Almost to a fault Ry would blink a rapid reply
and send along the chain of space routers.
Were his impulse responses something natural given the
stresses, or something else?
Ry had cause for anger after the EFF revolution and loss of
friends. He mostly hid it, but was torn by the fact that his son had gone full
EFF, to the point of assisting the political leadership win ‘elections.’
But everyone aboard the orbiter was experiencing loss,
separation, and anger. Hundreds of thousands had been murdered or imprisoned or
reeducated on Earth, she thought.
The three lab workers watched the planetary shuttle from
several satellite views as it raced through the weak Martian atmosphere.
Sometimes the V-shaped body vanished in clouds of ash and dust, leaving only
the faint glow of hull lights and a streak of yellow-white propellant. The
atmospheric material thinned to glittering particulate. The shuttle lights and
hull came into view and the light from the fusion engine grew brighter as they
left the Martian atmosphere and entered space.
“He’ll be okay,” Kiley said, patting Karen’s hand.
Karen smiled. “Ry says he’s too crusty to stay hurt, much
less die.”
Terrill laughed. “That drone took a liking to our space guy.
Shakuri’s team’ll figure out who did it.”
Karen mindtexted Trent that she would meet them at Columbus
Bay infirmary. She wasn’t an emergency room physician per se but could act in
that capacity. Fortunately MOS-1 had
several, doubtless already in communication with PS-13.
She had about a half hour before they arrived, so she went
back to her station and ran more analysis jobs on the third sample.
“We’re going back in to tend the mice, Karen,” Terrill said.
“We took more blood samples just before the break. Want us
to introduce them into the pull population?” Kiley added.
“Yes, thanks,” Karen said.
Kiley and Terrill donned hazmat suits and went through the
sterilization procedure.
Warnings went up again on Karen’s monitor in response to her
latest analysis of the third batch sample.
Not an outlier or glitch then, she thought.
Karen clicked into the mice cage array and peered into cage
H-8 via the live video feed. She watched the rodents start and stop on the
floor of composite chips. They navigated the bridges and tunnels, scaled
ladders, drank water from upright tubes, went to the bathroom and napped. One
pair initiated a liaison.
All normal stuff—for healthy mice.
These rodents should be dying.
They had been injected with aggressive cancer cells.
Yet they were normal.
And the microbe ratios were setting off red alerts in her
analysis runs.
Karen’s stomach lurched.
Not again, she thought.
Karen activated the lab microphone. “Kiley and Terrill, cage
H-8. Quick.”
They turned and glanced at one another, then to Karen, then
hurried past three long work stations stacked with animal cages and equipment.
They used the end of a long counter to sling-shot themselves forward. After
several strides they halted.
“We’re at H-8 ... twelve mice, mixed microbes,” Terrill said,
a little breathlessly, up at the communications monitor.
Kiley put on the sensory gloves linked to the robot arms and
hands inside the cage. She began trapping and lifting the mice for visual
examination.
Karen nodded, her lips pressed tightly shut. “Anything
strange that I didn’t catch? Injury? Nutrition and water okay?”
A mother with several young snuggled into the corner
attacked the gloved intruder. But Kiley, making movements with the gloves that
the robot arms emulated, picked the mouse up and put her in an isolation
compartment. The mother ran back and forth, trying to escape.
“They’re all okay, Karen,” Kiley said. She read the
computerized chart on the monitor next to the cage. Her face went slack. “But
they shouldn’t be.”
Terrill leaned over her shoulder to read. “We injected them
with two rounds of cancer. Microvessel density of medium to high scale.”
“Yes,” Karen replied, her tone distant and unsure.
“Could just be chance, KW. Should we hit them with another
dose, something even more lethal? Maybe the Henta Plague?”
“Wait, hold up,” Kiley said. “The baby mice are all running
hot.”
“How hot?”
“One degree. 99.42 Fahrenheit.”
Karen blinked out of her rising panic and headed for the
exit. “I’m out to Columbus Bay and the Meridian One Infirmary, then back here.
Run the same trials on a new cage and keep an eye on H-8. Maybe the lethality
is just delayed in the adults.”
She took a breath as the exit door slid away.
“Let’s hope they start dying.”
Detonation Event Amazon link
Rogue Planet Amazon link
********************
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