Sunday, October 24, is the 13th anniversary of the death of
Gene Roddenberry, the man whose positive vision of humanity's future continues to inspire us to this day. To mark this occasion, it seems appropriate to review some of the remarkable achievements in just the last month that are, in no uncertain terms, setting the stage for the fulfillment of that vision.
On October 4, 2004, a privately funded vehicle called SpaceShipOne reached the border of space for the second time within a 14-day period. That accomplishment earned the team that built the ship the $10 million Ansari X Prize, a competition designed to jumpstart the space tourism industry similar to the way cash awards spurred aviation a century ago. This was seen as a significant milestone in the privatization of spaceflight, which brings the promise of greater innovation and efficiency, and greater accessibility to the final frontier for private citizens.
One of those civilians already lining up to boldly go into space is William Shatner himself, it was reported Friday.
The prize-winning SpaceShipOne flights were accompanied by the announcement that British entrepreneur Richard Branson will license the technology developed for the vehicle by Burt Rutan and his company, Scaled Composites, to construct the world's first privately funded fleet of spaceships. Branson has formed a new venture called Virgin Galactic, which — subject to safety and regulatory approvals — could begin offering suborbital flights to the paying public by 2007 or 2008. These flights would take passengers 70 miles above the ground to experience six minutes of weightlessness and view the curvature of the Earth.
The initial fare for such a flight is reported to be around $200,000 (which includes several days of training), but already 7,000 people have pledged that amount to book a seat, and Shatner is among them. Branson expects the price tag to come down as the venture expands — probably into the thousands of dollars rather than hundreds of thousands — allowing many more people to realize their dream of going into space.
At this point you may be asking: "What does this have to do with Gene Roddenberry? Surely he can't get sole credit for inspiring these efforts!" Well, yes, that's true, but get this: Branson plans to christen his first Virgin Galactic spacecraft the V.S.S. Enterprise. (See Related Links below.)
The future is not all about spaceflight, and the people behind the X Prize recognize this. Shortly after the successful awarding of the initial $10 million purse, the X Prize Foundation announced a joint venture with the World Technology Network (WTN) to launch a series of incentive prizes to help spur innovation and breakthroughs in a range of scientific endeavors, such as medicine, environment, energy and nanotechnology.
"When the X Prize was first announced in 1996, industry experts scoffed at the concept of private space travel," said Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation, in a press statement. "Eight years later, the world watched with wonder as SpaceShipOne successfully conquered that exact challenge. Incentive prizes cause amazing, unexpected results."
Right now, the WTN-X Prize effort is soliciting suggestions from the public as to which scientific challenges should be targeted for incentive prizes. A website has been established, www.wtnxprize.org, for that purpose, as well as to court competitors and sponsors. "No idea is too far out and no idea is too ambitious," said James Clark, WTN founder. In this Space.com article, it's suggested the ideas could go as far as "how teleportation might become public point-to-point travel."
Who knows, in another 60 years there might be a financial incentive to develop a faster-than-light spacecraft. And its inventor might be able to retire to Alpha Centauri.
By the way, Roddenberry's son, Eugene W. Roddenberry Jr., is an active member of the X Prize Foundation's Advisory Committee.
There have been a number of other science news items recently that suggest that Roddenberry's universe is not quite as fanciful as it once seemed. Earlier this month
the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the U.S. Air Force is quietly spending millions of dollars investigating ways to use antimatter in future weapons.
As every Trekker knows, antimatter is the highly volatile substance that, when mixed with matter, fuels warp drive starships. It's also the basis of photon torpedoes and other weapons. Antimatter has been studied by scientists since the 1930s, but there are two basic problems with its use as an energy source. One is containment, since contact between antimatter and normal matter instantly results in mutual annihilation with an immense explosion (as any starship crew member is nervously aware of). Second is the fact that with current technologies, it takes far more energy to produce particles of antimatter than what you get back from their annihilation. In the Star Trek future, of course, those problems have been solved.
Well, apparently the Air Force began funding studies of the physics of antimatter during the Cold War. Now, with that knowledge, insiders are beginning to think seriously about potential military uses, such as antimatter bombs that can fit in the palm of the hand, and antimatter engines for 24/7 surveillance aircraft. But one of the scientists working on the containment problem says his enthusiasm about antimatter is the fact that it could propel future spacecraft.
It's scary to think that someday antimatter superweapons might be available on this planet. Powerful technologies are always a double-edged sword, as for every benevolent use there is an equal and opposite malevolent potential. Assuming, though, that the human race evolves in the way Roddenberry believed we can and will, then the groundwork being laid now regarding production and containment of antimatter could yield huge advances in the human adventure decades from now.
Speaking of the USAF, the Air Force Space Command this month unveiled its new badge, designed to be worn by space and missile operations professionals. You can see it in the picture on the left or at this SpaceRef.com link. Could this be a precursor to the Starfleet emblem?
Besides antimatter, another crucial aspect of Star Trek physics which allows for warp travel is that fictional thing called "subspace." Exactly what that is has been left ill-defined by the show's writers, for good reason. But the intent clearly is to suggest that there are dimensions of the space-time fabric which are manipulable and which today's scientists have yet to discover. Physicists and astronomers have struggled with a number of paradoxes and contradictions in the mathematical model of the universe which conventional physics can't resolve. Thus they are left having to theorize about such things as "dark matter" and "superstrings."
A recent quandary scientists are grappling with is the discovery that Pioneer 10 and 11 are not where they should be. Launched in 1972 and 1973, the two probes are now several billion miles away, heading in opposite directions out of the solar system. But they are each roughly a quarter of a million miles short of the distance they should have travelled by now, if our understanding of gravity is correct. Researchers have been unable to explain away the discrepancy as deceleration caused by heat or gas emissions from the probes themselves. So that leaves strange possibilities that could rewrite all the physics books: possibilities such as dark matter tugging on the craft, other dimensions creating small forces we don't understand, or even hidden aspects of gravity.
Scientists have proposed to the European Space Agency a mission to explore "the Pioneer anomaly" with a new craft aimed toward deep space with the latest accelerometers and navigation methods. If accepted, it could launch by 2015. "If the mission were to find a natural, cosmic cause to the Pioneer anomaly, the revelation would rank right up there with other apple-on-the-head moments in the history of physics," states this Space.com article. Whether or not this mission might discover "subspace" or something along those lines, it still proves the point that our current laws of physics don't tell the whole story. Surely the universe is more complex than we can currently explain, and more wondrous than we can currently imagine.
While we're rounding up recent science news, we'd like to pay tribute to astronaut Gordon Cooper Jr., who died on October 4. Cooper was one of the original seven Mercury astronauts known to have "The Right Stuff" (and was depicted in the 1983 movie of that name). He piloted the sixth and final flight of the Mercury program — and by doing so became the first American to spend more than 24 hours in space — and later commanded Gemini 5.
"As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper was one of the faces of America's fledgling space program," said NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "He truly portrayed the right stuff, and he helped gain the backing and enthusiasm of the American public, so critical for the spirit of exploration."
Cooper died of natural causes. He was 77. Of the original Mercury Seven, only John Glenn, Scott Carpenter and Walter M. Schirra are still alive.
