Beyond: Our Future in Space (41 page)

30
. Warwick’s most influential paper in 2003 begins: “From a cybernetics viewpoint, the boundaries between humans and machines become almost inconsequential.” Published as “Cyborg Morals, Cyborg Values, Cyborg Ethics” by K. Warwick 2003.
Ethics and Information Technology
, vol. 7, pp. 131–37. See also: “Future Issues with Robots and Cyborgs” by K. Warwick 2010.
Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology
, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 1–20.

31
. Article from 2012 in
The Verge
, online at http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3177438/cyborg-america-biohackers-grinders-body-hackers.

32
. Kevin Warwick quote is from an FAQ on his website, at http://www.kevinwarwick.com/. Francis Fukuyama quote is from “The World’s Most Dangerous Ideas: Transhumanism” by F. Fukuyama 2004.
Foreign Policy
, vol. 144, pp. 42–43. Ronald Bailey 2004 rebuttal to Fukuyama is from Reason online at http://reason.com/archives/2004/08/25/transhumanism-the-most-dangero. If you want to drink deep from the transhumanist Kool-Aid, see “Why I Want to Be Transhuman When I Grow Up” by N. Bostrom 2008, in
Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity
, ed. by B. Gordijn and R. Chadwick. New York: Springer, pp. 107–37.

12: Journey to the Stars

  
1
. This particular quote has engendered a lot of speculation and misattribution. For example, it can
not
be reliably attributed to baseball manager and purveyor of malapropisms Yogi Berra. It seems to originate in nineteenth-century Denmark and was used but not coined by physicist Niels Bohr. A detailed discussion is online at http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/.

  
2
. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pogue-all-time-worst-tech-predictions/; and http://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/12-worst-tech-predictions-of-all-time/d/d-id/1096169.

  
3
. See http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-world-will-be-wonderful-in-the-year-2000-110060404/?no-ist.

  
4
. “An Earth Mass Planet Orbiting Alpha Centauri B” by X. Dumusque et al. 2012.
Nature
, vol. 491, pp. 207–11. See also “The Exoplanet Next Door” by E. Hand 2012.
Nature
, vol. 490, p. 323.

  
5
. “Possibilities of Life Around Alpha Centauri B” by A. Gonzales, R. Cardenas-Ortiz, and J. Hearnshaw 2013.
Revista Cubana de Física
, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 81–83. The exoplanet simulation paper on the Alpha Centauri system is “Formation and Detectability of Terrestrial Planets Around Alpha Centauri B” by J. M. Guedes et al. 2008.
The Astrophysical Journal
, vol. 679, pp. 1582–87.

  
6
. “Atmospheric Biomarkers on Terrestrial Exoplanets” by F. Selsis 2004.
Bulletin of the European Astrobiology Society
, no. 12, pp. 27–40. See also: “Can Ground-Based Telescopes Detect the Oxygen 1.27 Micron Absorption Feature as a Biomarker in Exoplanets?” by H. Kawahara et al. 2012.
The Astrophysical Journal
, vol. 758, pp. 13–28; and “Deciphering Spectral Fingerprints of Habitable Exoplanets” by L. Kaltenegger et al. 2010.
Astrobiology
, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 89–102.

  
7
. “Exoplanetary Atmospheres” by N. Madhusudhan, H. Knutson, J. Fortney, and T. Barman 2014, in
Protostars and Planets VI
, ed. by H. Buether, R. Klessen, C. Dullemond, and Th. Henning. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

  
8
. “Detection of an Extrasolar Planet Atmosphere” by D. Charbonneau, T. M. Brown, R. W. Noyes, and R. L. Gilliland 2001.
The Astrophysical Journal
, vol. 568, pp. 377–84.

  
9
. Web pages on space propulsion and interstellar travel are maintained by NASA’s Glenn Research Center: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/scales.html.

10
. For an overview, see
Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship
by G. Dyson 2002. New York: Henry Holt. The original paper was “On a Method of Propulsion of Projectiles by Means of External Nuclear Explosions, Part 1,” by C. J. Everett and S. M. Ulam 1955. University of California Los Alamos Lab, unclassified document archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5uzTHJfF7. For more recent technical design work, see “Physics of Rocket Systems with Separated Rockets and Propellant” by A. Zuppero 2010, online at http://neofuel.com/optimum/.

11
. “Reaching for the Stars: Scientists Examine Using Antimatter and Fusion to Propel Future Spacecraft,” April 1999, NASA, online at http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/prop12apr99_1/.

12
. The Rand Corporation, online at http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM2300.html.

13
. “Galactic Matter and Interstellar Flight” by R. W. Bussard 1960.
Astronautica Acta
, vol. 6, pp. 179–94.

14
. “Roundtrip Interstellar Travel Using Laser-Pushed Lightsails” by R. L. Forward 1984.
Journal of Spacecraft
, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 187–95.

15
. “Magnetic Sails and Interstellar Travel” by D. G. Andrews and R. Zubrin 1988. Paper presented at a meeting of the International Aeronautics Federation, IAF-88-553.

16
. “Starship Sails Propelled by Cost-Optimized Directed Energy” by J. Benford 2011, posted on the arXiv preprint server at http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3016.

17
.
Starship Century: Toward the Grandest Horizon
, ed. by G. Benford and J. Benford 2013. Lucky Bat Books. This book represents the proceedings of a conference by the same title in 2013, featuring scientists such as Sir Martin Rees, Freeman Dyson, Stephen Hawking, and Paul Davies, and science fiction authors such as Neal Stephenson, David Brin, and Nancy Kress.

18
.
Frontiers of Propulsion Science
by M. Millis and E. Davis 2009. Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

19
. The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) project was started in 2012 by NASA and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The website is http://100yss.org/.

20
. “Light Sails as a Means of Propulsion” by T. Dunn, unpublished calculations, online at http://orbitsimulator.com/astrobiology/Light%20Sails%20as%20a%20means%20of%20propulsion.htm.

21
. “SpiderFab: Process for On-Orbit Construction of Kilometer-Scale Apertures” by R. Hoyt, J. Cushing, and J. Slostad 2013, final technical report to NASA on project by Tethers Unlimited, NNX12AR13G, online at http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Hoyt_2012_PhI_SpiderFab.pdf.

22
. “Life-Cycle Economic Analysis of Distributed Manufacturing with Open-Source 3D Printers” by B. T. Wittbrodt et al. 2013.
Mechatronics
, vol. 23, pp. 713–26. Also “A Low-Cost Open-Source 3-D Metal Printing” by G. C. Anzalone et al. 2013.
IEEE Access
, vol. 1, pp. 803–10.

23
. “A Self-Reproducing Interstellar Probe” by R. A. Freitas 1980.
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
, vol. 33, pp. 251–64.

24
. The original work is
Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata
by J. von Neumann, and completed by A. W. Burks 1966. New York: Academic Press. See also “An Implementation of von Neumann’s Self-Reproducing Machines” by U. Pesavento 1995.
Artificial Life
, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 337–54.

25
. NASA funded a program called Breakthrough Propulsion Physics for eight years. Led by Marc Millis, it resulted in several workshops and a dozen technical publications. The project website says that no breakthroughs appear imminent. It also has this cautionary note: “On a topic this visionary and whose implications are profound, there is a risk of encountering premature conclusions in the literature, driven by overzealous enthusiasts as well as pedantic pessimists. The most productive path is to seek out and build upon publications that focus on the critical make-break issues and lingering unknowns, both from the innovators’ perspective and their skeptical challengers.”

26
. “Possibility of Faster-than-Light Particles” by G. Feinberg 1967.
Physical Review
, vol. 159, no. 5, pp. 1089–1105.

27
. “The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel within General Relativity” by M. Alcubierre 1994.
Classical and Quantum Gravity
, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. L73–L77.

28
. Synopsis at the official
Star Trek
website: http://www.startrek.com/database_article/realm-of-fear.

29
. “Teleporting an Unknown Quantum State via Dual Classical and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Channels” by C. H. Bennett et al. 1993.
Physical Review Letters
, vol. 70, pp. 1895–99.

30
. Alice and Bob are two commonly used placeholder names, particularly in the fields of cryptography and subsequently in physics. The practice started because it’s more personal and appealing than talking about A and B. The first use was by Ron Rivest in
Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery
in a 1978 article presenting the first public-key cryptographic system. Rivest says the choice of names is not a nod to the 1969 movie
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
. Communication of tangled quantum states follows this tradition: “Alice wants to send a message to Bob . . . .” If a third or fourth participant is needed, they’re called Chuck or Dan. Eve is used for an eavesdropper in cryptography, or the external environment in a quantum communication situation. And that is probably more than you need or want to know.

31
. “Quantum Teleportation over 143 Kilometers Using Active Feed-Forward” by X. S. Ma et al. 2012.
Nature
, vol. 489, pp. 269–73. For a report on worldwide teleportation by a University of Tokyo group, see http://akihabaranews.com/2013/09/11/article-en/world-first-success-complete-quantum-teleportation-750245129.

32
. “Unconditional Quantum Teleportation Between Distant Solid-State Quantum Bits” by W. Pfaff et al. 2014.
Science
, DOI:10.1126/science.1253512.

13: Cosmic Companionship

  
1
. In any product of numerical terms, the product is as uncertain as its most uncertain component. Having measurements of the incidence of habitable planets in the Milky Way doesn’t mitigate our almost complete ignorance of the terms that related to alien physiology or sociology. Evolution on Earth led to intelligence and the development of technology by one species, but natural selection doesn’t predict this as a necessary outcome; to argue that it does is to fall prey to anthropic bias. The counterexamples are the many species that did not become noticeably more complex, or evolve large brains, after hundreds of millions of years of evolution.

  
2
. An anthropocentric way to estimate
L
is to use the average of human civilizations on Earth. Doing this historically gives an average of 300 to 400 years. See “Why ET Hasn’t Called” by M. Shermer 2002, in
Scientific American
, online at http://www.michaelshermer.com/2002/08/why-et-hasnt-called/. It’s also possible that there may be many civilizations that are unstable or evanescent, with low
L
, but some that are essentially immortal, with very large
L
. David Grinspoon has discussed the implications of this for the Drake equation; see
Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life
by D. Grinspoon 2004. New York: HarperCollins.

  
3
.
Contact
by C. Sagan 1985. New York: Simon & Schuster. Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan, wrote the outline for the 1997 film, which was directed by Robert Zemeckis.

  
4
.
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
by U. K. Le Guin 1974. New York: Harper and Row. This novel was something of a breakthrough for Le Guin, earning her literary recognition as well as the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards for science fiction.

  
5
. “Nikola Tesla and the Electrical Signals of Planetary Origin” by K. L. Corum and J. F. Corum 1996.
Online Computer Library Center
, Document no. 38193760, pp. 1, 6, 14.

  
6
. The Proxmire incident was described in “Searching for Good Science: The Cancellation of NASA’s SETI Program” by S. J. Garber 1999.
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
, vol. 52, pp. 3–12. Bryan’s attack is described in “Ear to the Universe Is Plugged by Budget Cutters” by J. N. Wilford, in the
New York Times
on October 7, 1993, online at http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/07/us/ear-to-the-universe-is-plugged-by-budget-cutters.html.

  
7
. “That Time Jules Verne Caused a UFO Scare” by R. Miller, online at http://io9.com/that-time-jules-verne-caused-a-ufo-scare-453662253.

  
8
. “Where Is Everybody? An Account of Fermi’s Question” by E. Jones 1985.
Los Alamos Technical Report
LA-10311-MS, scanned and reproduced online at http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/la-10311-ms.pdf.

  
9
. More than fifty (mostly) plausible explanations for the “Great Silence” and the absence of contact are laid out in
If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens . . . Where Is Everybody?
by S. Webb 2002. New York: Copernicus Books.

10
.
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe
by P. D. Ward and D. Brownlee 2000. Dordrecht: Springer-Verlag.

11
. There’s a robust argument to be made for procrastination. In any field where the technology advances exponentially, the sum of all previous projects will be eclipsed by the next project. In astronomy, this was the case through the 1980s and 1990s as CCD detectors advanced in size and sensitivity so rapidly that each new survey greatly surpassed the one that preceded it. The same argument could be made currently for mapping genomes. The argument is facetious, and of course science progresses because scientists continue to try to advance knowledge without waiting for the better capability that’s imminent.