Retro-future: "How To Make a Spacious Fortune"

The return of the last Space Shuttle has reminded me of an article I wrote in 2000 for the online magazine Jackhammer E-zine. Eleven years ago — pre-9/11 — the future looked a little different.

How To Make a Spacious Fortune

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."

If space is as big as Douglas Adams says (in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy), surely there's ample opportunity for making money from it. Unfortunately, big though it is, space consists mostly of one thing: nothing at all.

But perhaps this very lack of something is what the daring entrepreneur can capitalize on. Wouldn't people pay for the privilege of being among the very first to contemplate such vastness?

What we're talking about is one of the biggest money-spinners on Earth. Whole countries depend on it for their survival in today's competitive, commercial world. It's tourism.

What works here on Earth could also work in space: luxury hotels in orbit around the globe, giving their lucky guests the chance to sample the novelties of astronautic life. Who would pass up the chance to try out a zero-gravity toilet? Who would throw over the opportunity of experiencing that curious multi-dimensional disorientation that leads to space-sickness?

It's possible, of course, to simulate gravity in space. But a slowly rotating wheel, large enough for its centrifugal force to equal even a sixth of Earth's gravity -- like the one in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey -- is too big to be a realistic proposition just yet, despite next year being when it was predicted to be feasible.

Then there's the view: the Earth, spinning in isolation, vulnerable in the void, has been described by some astronauts in quasi-religious terms. "My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity," wrote Edgar Mitchell of Apollo 14.

After being on vacation for some time, it's natural to have the odd tinge of fondness for the place one has so eagerly left. How much more profound to see it hovering below, in the knowledge that it's farther away from you than ever?

Having established that there's a likely market for space tourism, provided the price is right, it's time to look at the practicalities. Let's assume that the goal is an orbiting hotel, and some kind of regular transit service to ferry the guests to and from such a desirable venue.

The first problem is building the place, and for this it seems sensible to take a cue from that other ongoing orbital project, the International Space Station. The ISS is likely to cost American tax-payers $25 billion, not counting the contributions from the ISS partners in Russia, Japan, Europe, Canada and Brazil. The occupants of the initial few modules, enjoying reasonable life-support and accommodation for a crew of three, remain in orbit for about 90 days, but our tourists will probably want to stay a much shorter time.

Although building an orbital hotel will be a massive technological and financial undertaking, the knowledge gained from the ISS will point the way. The main reason that a hotel is not being assembled far above our heads today, is that to be viable a hotel must be easily accessible. A reliable and frequent transport system is needed. NASA's Space Shuttle is at present the only (partly) reusable transport available, but it has proved itself a flexible and adaptable vehicle.

Each Shuttle flight costs in the order of $300 million, so with a payload of perhaps six guests and one or two service personnel, the cost could be in the region of $50 million per guest at today's prices, for the transport alone. This is astronomic, even for the most exclusive accommodation on -- or off -- the globe.

The Shuttle's very versatility makes it non-cost-effective for the comparatively simple task of getting people into orbit and fetching them down again. A more specialized vehicle is obviously what's required, perhaps one with greater capacity. There are many vehicle designs on the drawing board, several of which could serve our purpose. (For sub-orbital flights only, there is even a self-build kit version, the SpaceCub -- a snip at half a million dollars, plus fuel.)

On arrival, what entertainment would be available for these exclusive guests? Naturally a fully equipped fitness room would be a priority. Even during short periods of microgravity, the human skeleton loses a significant amount of calcium -- a process called demineralization -- due to lack of muscle-stress on the bones, so a daily workout would be an essential part of each guest's routine.

There would also be periods of training. Life in space involves many hazards, and though the residents would receive instruction before traveling to orbit, there would be no substitute for learning to cope in the environment itself. This hotel would be far away from the usual facilities found in most large cities on Earth; the residents would need to know what to do in any eventuality. It's unlikely that the rear of the bedroom door would be large enough to contain all the emergency instructions.

Apart from that, they can simply admire the view.

There is a downside. Prospective guests will be aware that this would be a high-risk vacation -- one for which they are unlikely to get adequate insurance cover. Holidaying in orbit, at least at the start of the enterprise, would be for those prepared to accept that they might never come home. And such a vacation would only be for those who could afford it.

David Ashford, director of Bristol Spaceplanes in the United Kingdom, in his paper, "Space Tourism -- How Soon Will it Happen?" has estimated that at a ticket-price of $10,000, "...probably more than one million fare-paying passengers would visit space each year as tourists, requiring a fleet of more than 50 spaceplanes."

There's money to be made here. Get in on the ground floor, and you'll go to the stars -- or at least take the first major step on the way.

Copyright © 2000 Paul S. Jenkins

Note: This article was originally published in Jackhammer E-zine in July 2000. Used with permission.

Creation — a bad move?

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Many races believe that it was created by some sort of God, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle Six firmly believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they called The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.¹

As creation myths go, that's pretty ridiculous, but compare it to this (more or less random) alternative:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.²

It then goes on a bit, tending to lose its way regarding the logical order of events, but we can cut it some slack as it's a myth. But the point of contrasting these two accounts of how things got started is to show that neither is more likely or more convincing than the other. It's possible to pick holes in both stories: the first one, for instance, simply states the creation of the Universe as bald fact — this is not exactly explanatory. The second example does exactly the same: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." It just happened. It was done, by this character called "God" who is simply assumed to be there without any sort of explanation of who he was or where he came from.

Both examples may yield some insight from the application of literary criticism — but as explanations of how things came to be, they are equally misleading and uninformative. If you're seeking an explanation that correlates with reality, I suggest you look elsewhere.

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1. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (original radio scripts), Douglas Adams, London 1985, Pan Books, p 90, "Fit the Fifth"
2. The Bible, Authorised King James Version, "Genesis" chapter 1, verses 1-5

Gonzalez & Richards back-to-front in Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God

"Designed for Discovery" by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards is the nineteenth chapter of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God. It appears to be a book-promotion disguised as a litany of fine-tunerisms. Gonzalez and Richards have written a book titled The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, and if this chapter is representative of it then they've got a problem. The whole thing is upside down and backwards. Let's face it, the idea that the universe is specifically designed so that the human race can "discover" things about it is ludicrous.

Here's what's wrong with the fine-tuning argument. Suppose you invent a teleportation machine, but there are a few snags with it, such that the first time you use it, it transports you to a completely random location in the entire universe. What do you think the chances are of finding yourself in a part of the universe where you can survive for more than a few seconds? A location, for instance, where you can breathe, where you're not immediately frozen solid, fossilised or incinerated, or subjected to lethal radiation. Pretty slim, I'd suggest. In fact your chances of survival would be infinitesimal. The universe is not fine-tuned for life.

As for being "designed for discovery", Gonzalez and Richards go through a list of recipes that their "cosmic chef" would need to compile in order to produce an environment suitable for inquiring human minds to explore, but they do it as if the human race is here first — as if everything has to be adjusted to meet the needs of pre-existing humanity (or at least a humanity whose characteristics have been predetermined). That, in case they haven't noticed, is not how it happened. This is such an obvious flaw in their argument I'll belabour it no more. I'll simply quote the late, great Douglas Adams and his famous sentient puddle:

"...imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise."

(From Biota)

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952941

A tribute to Douglas Adams — the Pod Delusion

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy remains for me the cleverest and funniest thing I've ever heard on radio, and I heard the original series when it was originally broadcast. I've read most of the books, I've enjoyed the sequels, and I've appreciated Douglas Adams' other work. I thought Harry Enfield was an inspired choice for the radio version of Dirk Gently (so I'm a little less enthusiastic about Stephen Mangan in the TV pilot, but that might be because I encountered Harry Enfield in the part first).

I found Douglas Adams' unexpected early death a sobering jolt from reality, as I was (along with countless fans) expecting great things to come. He and I were approximately the same age, and his untimely death prompted me to write something on my website (what these days would be called a "blog").

Hearing the Pod Delusion's special Douglas Adams tribute podcast was a joy, especially as it seemed to be all new stuff. The show is available as a podcast, an mp3 download, direct from iTunes, or you can listen to it right here:



Enjoy.

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Apparently there are some hidden references in the tribute's theme music....

AfF #6: Fine-tuning Argument

(Click here for Arguments for Fred #5)

The fine-tuning argument is actually part of the teleological argument.

The way the universe is arranged, from the micro to the macro, is just so. It turns out that everything is just right for intelligent life on Earth. This is so amazingly improbable it must have been done on purpose.

Actually no. Look at the size of the universe (in particular, look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image). Compared to the size of the universe, life on Earth is an invisible dot on an invisible dot on an invisible dot on an invisible dot. What kind of intelligent creator would make something so mind-bogglingly vast, just so that an infinitesimal part of it could develop intelligent life, while the rest of creation remains – to an almost universal degree – dispassionately deadly? Only an incompetently wasteful one.

The reason why the universe appears fine-tuned to us is that we are a product of it. If the universe were "tuned" differently, we would be different (probably utterly and incomprehensibly different).

Some people invoke the idea of the multiverse – a possibly infinite number of universes, all slightly different, existing in parallel, and unable to communicate with each other in any way. This hypothesis may be useful as a thought-experiment, but it's unfalsifiable, so of little practical utility. The idea is that there are so many of these parallel universes that all combinations of the values of physical constants will exist, somewhere, however improbable. We just happen to be living in one that contains at least one planet suitable for the evolution of intelligent life.

Here's Douglas Adams on what has become known as the Anthropic Principle:

"...imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise."

(From Biota)

UPDATE 2009-09-10: Click here for AfF #7

Will Eoin Colfer taint Douglas Adams' masterpiece? (repost from other blog)

Eoin Colfer (pic) has been asked to write the sixth part of Douglas Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy 'trilogy', and some people are expressing concern.

I'm linking to the repost on RichardDawkins.net as well as the original Guardian article, because the comments at RD.net highlight a common concern raised whenever some piece of literature is 'continued', or a classic film is remade.

People seem to be worried that an inferior sequel or continuation somehow taints the original work. It doesn't. The original work is still there. Look at modernisations of Shakespeare. You may like them or loathe them, but the original plays are still available, entirely unaltered by any reinterpretation. My great uncle, Herbert M. Jenkins, was adamant that Shakespeare should be played in one of only two ways: Elizabethan dress, or the dress of the period the play was portraying. (He had a point - there's a passage in Julius Caesar where Caesar is described by an onlooker as "throwing open his doublet". No mention of him wearing a toga, which seems more likely attire for ancient Rome.)

I think Uncle Bertie was wrong. Authors, dramatists, film-makers, indeed creators of any kind are free to draw on any sources for their inspiration, copyright permitting. They may or may not do a good job (though that's often a matter of opinion or artistic judgement). But whatever they do, they will not extinguish the original work, which is available for anyone to experience in its pristine original form.

Or even to make yet another adaptation.

The four ages of sand and the alpha male monkey

Jason Rennie of The Sci Phi Show podcast recently posted a recording of an off-the-cuff talk given by Douglas Adams at the Digital Biota 2 conference in 1998. The talk was called "Is there an Artificial God?" and you can find it, along with Jason's introduction, here. The audio is a little hard to hear, but Jason also linked to Biota's transcription of Adams' talk.

Using his "four ages of sand" structure Adams explored how the first notions of a supreme being might have arisen as part of human evolution, and how an artificial god might not be such a bad idea. Well worth a listen/read for his typically skewed but insightful take on such things.

Not content with alerting us to this gem, however, Jason went on to devote two subsequent episodes of The Sci Phi Show to a discussion of Adams' talk with Matt Arnold (who recently co-hosted Jason's podcast) and linked to Matt's explanation of the Alpha Male Monkey concept, which they discussed in the show.

Engaging stuff -- I recommend it.