The Second Space Race:

Earth Orbit, Luna and Mars

 

 

“Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peacefully and safely than the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea or the English Channel? Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void....”

 

- Johannes Kepler, letter to Galileo, 'Conversation with the Messenger from the Stars,' 19 April 1610.

 

 

 

The First Space Age symbolically ended in August 8, 1973, when the German landing pod Mondkaninchen and its crew of three landed in Moon’s Mare Serenitatis. After this feat, two more expeditions, lead by the U.S. and an Anglo-French joint program, reached the Moon in 1975 and 1979, respectively. The remaining Great Powers concentrated their efforts in other projects: satellital networks and space laboratories were the main manifestation of these “sideshow” of the Space Race.

 

By the 2020s, all the main powers and some corporations managed their own satellital networks, and at least three powers (Japan, the U.S. and Germany) had established succeful space laboratories. But the deterioration of the international situation and the desire to exploit technological advances in composite material developed in low-gravity ambience lead to a growing interest in the penetration of space for commercial and commercial services. In the case of some powers, specially Germany, the lack of a wide access to the open seas canalized toward outer space the efforts made by other countries in the conquest of the oceans.

 

The increasing presence of Germany in space meant a growing uneasiness, mainly in Paris, London and Washington, who approved increasing funds for prestige and defence projects. Thus, by 2040, most Great Powers and Confederation saw themselves in a hotly disputed Second Space Race. The tremendous costs associated with the space mission, particularly the Mars mission, forced the merger of the different space programs: the Germans associated with the Scandinavians; while Japan, Italy and France formed a consortium to built and launch a common mission to Mars; and finally the U.S., Canada and Britain merged the NACA and the British Interplanetary Society and formed the North Atlantic Space Agency (NASA).

 

The landmark Space Treaty of 2011, sponsored by the League of Nations and signed by most nations, including all the space faring ones, lied the groundwork for resolution of future conflict over “space real state”: the original Treaty and the subsequent 2021 revision established that no nation, individual or corporate entity from a signing nation could lay claim to any celestial body. Most of the commercial and scientific facilities are administrated by a consortium created and funded by all the space faring nations and corporations: the International Commercial Space Transportation Bureau.

 

 

 

Earth Orbit (LEO, GEO, HEO)

 

Orbits around Earth can be classified as Low Earth Orbit (LEO, 320-800 kilometers above the surface of the earth), Geostationary Orbit (GEO, 35850 km above the surface) and High Earth Orbit (HEO, Lagrange points and orbits 20 degrees above the lunar plane).

 

In LEO is where most of the “constellations”, or satellite networks, are located. These are too numerous to describe in detail, but they can be divided in three categories: scientific, telecommunications and military. The scientific and communication satellites are very common and are used in numerous tasks, while an international treaty banning nuclear, kinetic, charged particle beams, X-ray, EMP and HAARP weapons from orbit had reduced the military satellites to observation and vigilance units.

 

The short distance to Earth allows the satellites that observe our planet, like Remote Sensing and Weather satellites, to capture very detailed images of Earth's surface. The LEO environment has become so crowded that limits to the number of satellites in this orbit had been enforced: today pieces of metal from old rockets, broken satellites, even frozen sewage, represent an increasing danger for manned missions.

 

The most common transportation vehicle to LEO are small-sized, Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) robotic spaceships, equipped with ultra-efficient chemical engines. The first of these ships, named Kankoh-maru, was developed by the Japanese Space Agency, which sold the rights over this technology to an international consortium: "Galaxy Express" is today’s the mayor cargo transport company operating in LEO, offering its services to nations and companies that cannot afford the high costs related with maintaining an independent space program.

 

 

 

In GEO is where most of manned space stations are located. Manned space stations became common in the 2020s: after the success of the Japanese Fukuko manned space laboratory, similar schemes were used by the nations and corporations to expand industrial, scientific and military activities and interest to GEO. The relatively easy access to earth and earth resources, the hard vacuum around the station, the microgravity environment and the absence of atmospheric drag makes GEO the best place for manned space stations.

 

Among the most important manned space stations in LEO are: San Marco (Italy), Melbourne (Macronesia), Magalhães (UEO/Brazil), Uhuru (Azania), Columbus (NASA), Feniks (Siberia/New Russian Unity), Plank (Germany), Roetgen-Huygens (European consortium), Ericsson-Lindgren (Scandinavia), Palapa (Indonesia),  Feng Yun (China/Dong Feng consortium), Mugunghwa (Korea/several companies), Shinshiki-Nouveau Siècle (TotalFina-Renault/Mitsubishi) and Aruani (Iran/several companies). Most of these bases have scientific or industrial purposes, although the New Russian Unity and the U.S. maintain two bases (Kristall and America, respectively) with undisclosed, but clearly military, purposes.

 

There are also turistic space stations. Formal research on space tourism began in 2013, and by 2025 two permanent turistic space bases (Carnival and Soluna) and dozen of orbital and sub-orbital turistic flight per week cover the space turistic demands. The International Commercial Space Transportation Bureau regulates this industry.

 

 

 

The High Earth Orbit is usually divided in two: the Lagrangian Libration Points and a set of four orbits located 20 degrees above the lunar plane. The Lagrangian Libration Points are locations in the Earth/Moon orbital systems, where the equilibrium between Earth and Moon’s gravities grants great stability to any satellite or space base located there, avoiding the drift suffered by object in LEO and GEO.

 

The two most useful (for their stability) are Lagrange 4 (L4) and Lagrange 5 (L5): in each of these two are located Transfer Platforms that serve as the primary transfer hub for all Earth-Luna system traffic. These stations are administered by the International Commercial Space Transportation Bureau, which provides services to all the moon civilian and scientific bases. Due to the long distance from Earth, L-4 and L-5 were built until regular travels to Luna made them necessary. The other Lagrange points are currently reserved for future use.

 

The other “half” of HEO, the set of orbits located 20 degrees above the lunar plane, are occupied by the “Space Complexes”: combinations of orbital shipyards and launching points, used for long range mission. Today the only complexes in operation are Capricorn (NASA) and Azur (Germany/Scandinavia) are in operation: the Franco-Japanese complex Sakura/Cerise has been mothballed after the finalization of their joint Martian mission, and the fourth orbit is vacant.

 

 

 

Luna

 

The first permanent installation in the lunar surface was Lunar Base Goddard, located in central Oceanus Procellarum: in 2019 NASA installed there the first domes pre-fabricated in LEO and towed to Luna. Soon, more than 15 lunar bases were built: Tournesol/Himawari (Franco-Japanese) in Mare Nubium, Granat (Siberia/New Russian Unity) in Regiomontanus-Purbach, Freja (Scandinavia) in Mare Humboldtianum, Sternglänzend (Germany) in Mare Crisium and Australis (Macronesia) in Mare Australe. Also minor bases were established generally by consortiums: governmental organizations generally in combination with large companies and universities.

 

At first, there were great expectative about the colonization of the Moon. The construction of the L4 and L5 space station seemed to demonstrated how Luna could serve as the “springboard” of large-scale colonization of the Solar System. Rudimentary ‘mass drivers’ (very fast, high acceleration maglev catapults) were built to support the trans-system orbital installations, and plans were made to use larger mass drivers to send to large quantities of mineral ores HEO to be processed. Some people even imagined that the mass drivers can be used to deliver cargo and spaceships to any place: Mars, the Asteroid Belt or perhaps places farther afield.

 

But the apparition of the laser drilling technology and the nuclear powered turned completely irrelevant these plans. Most of the minor lunar bases closed, and the few remaining are maintained due to the still important economic and scientific activities in Luna. The mining of rare earth elements and He3, astronomy, geology, secret or dangerous experimentation and some manufacturing techniques unique of Luna keep a permanent human presence there. The biggest facility today is the Chinese Chang'e Base, focused in offering facilities for industrial laboratories.

 

 

 

Mars

 

The Martian expeditions, conducted between 2030 and 2040, were mainly prestige missions, executed officially as “struggles for a more important place in the world space science field and raise the deep space exploration technology to a higher standard," but in reality as boasts of technological progress and feats to boost national prides. Several dozen of robotic probes sent in the years previous to the manned expeditions, transmitted valuable data, including the existence of “lakes” of frozen water in the surface, a fact that encouraged the missions. So far, only minor scientific discoveries were made by the seven missions conducted over the Martian surface, none indicating the existence of native Martian life. It is discussed if several samples brought back to Earth indicate, however, the existence of life in the southern pole almost four billions years ago.

 

Of course, in the moment the manned German spaceship Wandereraumschiff landed on Chryse Planitia, in 2032 marking the first time humans step on another planet, all the people of the world wept with joy. The next missions, conducted by NASA (Odyssey, Utopia Planitia) and the Franco-Japanese joint mission (Kyokko/Aurore, Noctis Labirinthus), were launched immediately: the first arrived in 2035 and the second in 2037. Manned expeditions notwithstanding, several robotic missions were sent in those years, some to support the human crews on surface, others on independent missions.

 

But eventually this thrilling period of the Second Space Race also faded, when the governments of the major space-faring nations were no longer willing or interested in investing the financial resources of their apathetic citizens in this costly pursuit. The last missions left behind several fusion-powered robotic laboratories which still function and send to Earth scientific data. The most important of these is the huge German Vorwärts laboratory, which is conducting an intense geological investigation in Asperitatis Elysium, a little explored region near the Martian equator.

 

The enormous cost of maintaining human habitats in Mars (and military forces in the cases of the U.S. and Germany) discouraged other powers to follow with their plans for Martians expeditions. After suffering staggering economic losses the space-faring powers, the “race for Mars” finally collapsed: an international treaty signed in 2062 banned military forces in Mars, and turned the planet in a “Mankind’s reserve”: any Power can freely send scientific missions, manned or unmanned, and can install just one permanent base, but they will refrain to claim any territory for the next 50 years.

 

 

 

Other missions

 

Other lesser known missions were launched to other points in the Solar System between the years 2020 and 2040. Among these the most remarkable are the advanced robotic probes sent to

·        Venus: Myojo (Japan), Efir and Zond (Siberia/New Russian Unity), and Conestoga-Midas (NASA);

·        to Mercury: Hermes (France) and Honjara (Macronesia);

·        to the Sun: Starlette and Alouette (France), Uribyol (Korea), Helios and Astra (NASA) and Akebono-Zarya (Japan-Siberia);

·        to the Asteroid Belt: Sich (Siberia); Ikonos (Greece); Feuerrad and Gipfel (Germany), Alexis (private consortium);

·        to Jupiter: Omega (NASA), and

·        to the outer Solar System: Black Arrow (NASA) and Nozomi-Nadezhda (Japan/Siberia).

 

 

 

Propulsion systems

 

During the First Space Race, chemical rockets were the only type of propulsor used. But this chemical propulsors possessed a number of inherent limitations: the worst were their enormous fuel requirements and limited exhaust velocity; proving adequate for LEO missions but completely inadequate for longer range missions.

 

The Germans utilized in their multiple missions to Mars nuclear fusion engines known as NMRFA (Nuklearmotoren für Raketefahrzeug Anwendungen). These engines uses hydrogen -as a reactive fluid- and pumped it through numerous narrow channels in an active nuclear reactor which heats the hydrogen into high-energy plasma. The plasma is then ejected from the ship, creating thrust. The only disadvantage of these engines is the enormous size of the fusion core, because they require very heavy physical shielding to stop the high-speed neutrons produced in the fusion process. This situation has made necessary to built completely the ships in LEO shipyards, adding several billion more DM to the construction budgets.

 

The United States used in his long range mission (Mars, Jupiter, Venus and the Oort Cloud) a far more powerful (and complicated) engine system: the Daedalus. Daedalus uses an array of a dozen simultaneously-fired high-powered lasers, directed by mirrors to implode pellets of fuel to fusion temperatures onto the ignition focal point. The pellets are made of a combination of deuterium, tritium, and helium-3. A superconducting ring magnet halfway up the engine is used to produce the magnetic fields that contain and direct the pulse detonations that propel the craft. After a terrible accident with one of the ships, which fell to Earth causing tremendous humane and ecological damages to several Bengali communities, international pressure has forced the U.S. to activate these engines far away from Earth in the Capricorn Space Complex, and now the vessels are towed from LEO by chemically propelled “tugboats” to their launch points.

 

The Franco-Japanese Martian expedition used a Vapour Dynamic Cold Fusion Propulsion (VDCFP) engine. The VDCFP engine utilizes a system very similar to the German engine, but with two main differences: instead of a hot fusion core, it has a cold fusion core to heat the working fluid, and the working fluid isn’t hydrogen but water. This configuration solved the problem of containing the fusion reaction in a confined space like in the German design and there’s no necessity to build a heavy shielding to contain high-speed neutrons; and the use of water as fluid allowed the mission to load water from the Martian “lakes”. At the same time this was the main disadvantage of this design: the necessity to load a relatively large quantity of liquid water as fuel reduced the space available for the crew and the equipment.

 

Current projects on new energy sources for propulsion systems includes the Imperial University of Tokyo’s experimentation with a muon-catalyzed fusion engine, where the orbital electron of hydrogen fuels is replaced with a muon. Since the muon has the same electrical charge but is 207 times more massive than an electron, it reduces the atomic radius and increases the probability of fusion. An experimental reactor is being built in the University’s Advanced Propulsion Laboratory in Himawari Base, Luna, in collaboration with Ishikawa Heavy Industries and Taiwan Power.

 

The European corporations Siemens-Daimler and Outokumpu-Platinova, with financial support from Germany and Scandinavia, are researching the feasibility of a Deep Plasma Focus fusion system. This systems forces plasma into a long, cone-like magnetic "funnel" that continually compresses the plasma until, at the cone's apex, the pressure of the magnetic fields becomes greater than the particle pressure of the plasma, forcing the atomic nuclei together into a fusion reaction. The flow of the plasma forced into the magnetic funnel at ultra-high pressures keeps the entire system firing continuously. The preliminary investigation has finished, and the corporations are pressuring Berlin and Kalmar for funds to built an experimental engine in Siemens-Daimler’s Lunar facilities.

 

The most daring, exotic and secretive project is Orion. NASA, in collaboration with a commercial consortium integrated by Mississippi Iron and Steel, Jayamkondam Power, Westinghouse-Fisher, Angovaal-Aneka, General Atomics, Coeur d’Alene Mining and Manufacturing, General Electric, and Meekhatarra Electric, is trying to create a spaceship fuel from antimatter. Antimatter annihilation creates enormous quantities of energy, taking the form of gamma rays, neutrinos, antineutrinos, and pions. NASA has indicated that the Orion laboratory’s scientist, working in the Capricorn Space Complex, are studying proton-antiproton collisions, which produces a large quantity of pions that can be contained and directed for thrust with electromagnetic fields. But the details about the production and storage methods they plan to use are kept secret. It has been speculate that they’re planning to use magnetic bottles to hold anti-protons, and that they will throw pellets of fusion fuel through the bottle: the energy of the antimatter annihilations then heats plasma to a fusion state, and then expelled for thrust.