The two brick labs glisten in the sun, unmuddled by age. The faintest smell of mortar still lingers. The other three structures sway with the breeze, their canvas sides riddled with tears and earth. Nevertheless, the tents feel more practical. The rift hasn’t grown, or shrunk, or otherwise fluctuated in 20 years, but permanence seems presumptuous in a world without the limitation of time.
I watch for a brief moment and have seen all 19 scientists busily shuffle in a pattern that makes them appear like a swarm. I don’t think they ever stop moving. A worker bee with long black hair suddenly freezes. Her white-gold eyes are piercing, even from here, but they are vacant. I wish I could ask her what she is seeing, but she is not from here. She is one of the scientists that they sent in from Nevada, most of them are. Only four of them are local, five once Logan finishes interning. Our parents are equally as thrilled about my younger brother joining the Ignis group as the higher ranking scientists are to be in Prestin.
Not a full 20 seconds pass and the woman buzzes back into stride and disappears behind one of the 2-story buildings between us, in the opposite direction of the records tent. Whatever it was it must not have been important.
I widen my gaze and watch the whole rift at once, without focusing on any one thing. The hill that grew our tree is the shortest of the half-dozen hills surrounding the valley, but it is so steep that my shoes slide and slip under me even when the grass is dry. It is 5 second agility test that I don’t often pass. But this hill and this tree are at the far end of the town, and to get here is worth the risk of accident or embarrassment. From here a person can peer between the rolling hills to nearly every street in the city, and if they would rather forget the city entirely for a moment it only takes a turn of the heels.
I am only tall enough to make out a thin blue line that is the Atlantic Ocean and the rest of my vision, peripherals and all, are taken up by a sea of trees. This is one of the last natural forests on the continent and the Pragredium is making it thrive.
I spin back to civilization and coast unsteadily into the valley.
I was listening to a podcast at work the other day called “Space Nuts,” and I don’t recall the specifics, but at one point one of the guys said offhandedly, something-something “…now that the space race has gone commercial.”
I paused the podcast.
I was fully taken aback and had to let that reality absorb into my brain. I suppose growing up watching sci-fi shows set in years like 3000 gave me an unrealistic expectation of space exploration. The space race is commercial?! Already?! When I think “commercial” the synapses that go off in my head are: Ford, Jeep, Chevy, Dodge, and that old lady saying “Where’s the Beef?” and Walmart. Are we really about to make an orbital Walmart?!
TV-Show Futurama, set in the year 3000
Okay, not quite.
But there is a lot more movement than I thought in this idea of the average guy on in space.
Virgin Galactic
Let’s all take a beat to fully appreciate the name of this company. Side bar: Growing up watching corny sci-fi shows and movies, I thought there was no way words like “wormhole” and “holodeck” and “intergalactic” would be used seriously when the things in cinema became real. I assumed that they would come off too silly for serious endeavors. Yet here we have the Virgin Group stepping up to the plate with a name like Virgin Galactic. You’ve heard of all the Virgin airlines, and Virgin cruise lines? Yeah, this is them, except now they are creating a Virgin spaceline.
Virgin Galactic spaceship and her mother ship, White Knight
Should I say instead, THE spaceline.
Virgin Galactic is the first company entirely dedicated to building and operating spaceships to transport regular, paying customers to and from space. They build airplane spaceships. And as of December 13th, 2018 they successfully completed their first manned space flight! We could be taking weekend trips to space before you know it, y’all.
Orion Span, Aurora Station
If we do catch a redeye to space someday soon, we’ll need somewhere to stay on the other end! That’s where Orion Span comes in, apparently. Orion Span announced in April of 2018 that they are building the first luxury hotel in space, called the Aurora Station.
Here’s a rundown of their snazzy accommodations: A stay on the Aurora Station will be 12 days long, with only 3 other guests and 2 crew members. You want privacy? Space is your place. For a mere 9.5 million per person, a trip will include all amenities (including transportation, sorry Virgin Galactic), and food that you’ll grow yourself in orbit. Are you a ‘rise with the sun’ person? Well the Aurora Station will orbit Earth once every 90 minutes, so you’ll have about 16 sunrises and sunsets every day.
The Aurora Station
In all seriousness, this is a pretty cool endeavor, and according to their website all they are waiting on is the rest of their funding. Orion Span estimates housing their first space guests in 2022. The only thing that makes me weary as a potential customer is their training program. Obviously neighbor Joe Bob can’t wake up one morning and decide he’s gonna go to space, but the standard training to go to the space station takes 24-months. For the Aurora Station project, Orion Span cut it down to a 3-month program. 3 months. And part of your training is online.
Okay listen, I’ve taken online classes. I get it. Very convenient, super efficient, learn at a different pace. But if I’m preparing to be strapped to a rocket and shot off the Earth, I think I’ll take the year long, hands-on program, thanks.
That being said, they must know what they’re doing because a month after the announcement of the Aurora Station, NASA similarly announced a proposal to study “the future of human spaceflight commercialization in low-Earth orbit” with plans to research habitability in low Earth orbit. You beat NASA to the punch, Orion Span. Kudos.
Elon Musk, SpaceX
So the space race is commercial. With enough money, you can buy your way to space. But what if you think it’s too expensive? What if you go to buy a rocket, as one may do, and the sellers are asking too much? Why, you build your own rocket!
That’s exactly what happened to Elon Musk. In one lay-woman’s opinion, if any single person is going to make a difference in democratizing space, it’ll be Elon Musk. Afterall, his personal car is orbiting the sun.
What you may not know, though, is why he sent his car to space. It was actually not about the car at all, the flight was a test for the Falcon Heavy Rocket which SpaceX built to ultimately carry humans to space (particularly his colony on Mars, but that’s a whole other topic). Usually these rocket tests carry some fake cargo for a realistic weight in flight, but Elon Musk is anything but boring so instead of some arbitrary blocks of concrete he used a car.
No big deal. Let me just stuff my $100k car into a rocket head.
It was an efficient research tactic though, because they were also able to get an in-flight, in-space test of their new space suits on their dummy driver, Starman.
Actual photo from Elon Musk’s Tesla in space
Is anyone else as astonished as I am about commercializing space? I’ve researched space stuff and followed NASA’s goings-ons for years, but it wasn’t until that moment, when I heard someone so nonchalantly mention it, that it hit me that space isn’t only for astronauts anymore. As for me, I’m not very adventurous. I don’t see myself booking a flight to space anytime soon.
Okay, now that I have your attention I can ask the real question…
Aliens?!
If you remember a little over a year ago, we had an interstellar visitor in the form of a long cigar-comet-rock thing. (If you have been living in a box for the past year and haven’t already seen this everywhere, here’s a link to catch you up! https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7006) The Hawaiian Institute that discovered it named it ‘Oumuamua (oh – MOO uh – MOO uh) and even over a year later they still don’t know exactly what it is. ‘Oumuamua doesn’t fit neatly into any category of space stuff that we’ve already studied, like an asteroid or comet for example, but recently a couple of astronomers from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics think that it could be a lightsail from an extraterrestrial civilization.
So. Many. Questions.
Let’s start at the beginning. What is a lightsail?
I’m not going to lie to you here, when I first started seeing the articles I thought it meant the smallest version of a sail like on a sailboat. You know, you use a light sail for easy sailing, a medium sail for a soft breeze, and a heavy sail for a blustery day? Yeah? No, not that kind of “light.” For clarification, a lightsail is also called a solar sail. A “light” sail in that it is propelled by light!
Example of what a lightsail or solar sail might look like in space
That makes so much more sense, but I am slightly disappointed that Harvard wasn’t imagining a pirate ship style UFO missing a small sail somewhere out in the great wide open.
They did, very specifically, imagine a lightsail though! Which is almost as curious as ET’s pirate ship.
What evidence do they have for this theory?
Well, it’s more about what evidence they have that could disprove their theory. Which is none! But apparently that sort of thinking doesn’t sit well with most of the scientific community. That’s part of the reason I haven’t put this blog up until now, because every space news headline on the planet for the past few weeks has been a form of “Don’t Be Stupid, It Is Not From The Aliens.”
Spoiler Alert: the naysayers are probably right… Regardless, those Harvard astronomers outlined what could suggest ‘Oumuamua is not just your average space rock.
Odd Acceleration
We were all fine and dandy with calling ‘Oumuamua a rock until it headed out of our solar system. According to physics and whatnot, after the slingshot around the Sun and intense amount of gravity exerted on ‘Oumuamua, it should have slowed down, but not only did it not slow down, it sped up!
This would make a little bit of sense if it was releasing gasses but it didn’t do that either! It also would have probably broken apart if it had been a comet (Fun Fact: That’s what gives them big tails!)
So this out of the ordinary acceleration is a big selling point for the lightsail theory, because that is how a lightsail would act in that scenario.
It’s Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before
Like I said before, it doesn’t fit into the category of an asteroid or a comet, but also it lacks a key similarity of space things: Space dust! Space is made up of space dust so everything in space is usually surrounded by it, but not ‘Oumuamua.
Well, It’s Something Like Things We’ve Seen Before…
… just not in space yet!
Similar things have been built by humans! Japanese-designed IKAROS project and the Starshot Initiative are both ventures to build lightsails to send off to other solar systems to scout for us. (Because obviously our knowledge and inventions are the best and the aliens of course would do things the same way we do, that’s not presumption or pretentious at all. But I digress.) Afterall, ‘Oumuamua in Hawaiian pretty much translates to “Scout”
Annnddddd that’s all they’ve got. Not that all of those things aren’t true, but I see why other science peeps were quick to tell all the commoners like me to sit down. It is true that ‘Oumuamua has some characteristics of a lightsail, but that doesn’t automatically mean that it is a lightsail. Humans have some characteristics of sea sponges, too. Point made.
What other theories could there be?
Could ‘Oumuamua be the flotsam of space?! Could there have been a giant galactic war going on right outside our solar system that we were oblivious to? Or is that why we haven’t seen the aliens? Did they all kill each other in this huge war just before our time? Or even the jetsam!? Could this actually be an object purposely sent off out of distress?
Or perhaps could it instead have been the remnants of a supernova? From a planet exploding into a million fragments because it was too close to the star on D-Day? ‘Oumuamua may be the shrapnel of a distant planetary tragedy.
While we are throwing out alternative theories, then I personally think ‘Oumuamua could be a space amoeba turd. Makes sense to me; long and thin, propelled by gas, came out of seemingly nowhere. If we are going to argue for the aliens, give the space amoebas their limelight, too.
What is it really?
I think it is really neat and very encouraging that so many big names in science are validating the theory of aliens. Even if ‘Oumuamua is not part of an alien recon mission, the fact that the scientific community is willing to argue for the theory tells us that they wholeheartedly believe that the aliens are out there.
In all reality though, it is probably a regular old rock that has an unstudied composition (thus the weird shape and not being able to be categorized as an asteroid or comet) and is experiencing the Yarkovsky effect.
Quick science lesson of the day: The Yarkovsky Effect happens because of solar heated photons cooling off and releasing the radiated pressure to act as thrusters.
It’s difficult to explain, but as far as I can gather, the direction that ‘Oumuamua is rotating plus it’s weird shape causes the sunlight to hit the surface unevenly in favor of the rotation which would push it into a slightly larger orbit. Since it was going too fast to hold in orbit, it just pushed it faster away from the Sun.
Listen y’all, I’m not an astronomer. I’ve got an art degree for God’s sake, so work with me.
The Yarkovsky effect would easily explain the acceleration, and the composition could simply mean that there are other materials out there besides the handful that we know of here on Earth. It was an interesting theory to think about though, Harvard. Thanks for believing.
TL;DR: It’s probably not the aliens. I’m just as disappointed as you are.
Photo of ‘Oumuamua The Mystery Rock
Side note, if you don’t quite understand why it is so odd that ‘Oumuamua sped up after its slingshot, go download the app Orbit, it’ll help you understand by example. (Plus it’s a really fun game!)
Also, I know this whole ‘Oumuamua explanation has been told non stop, so my apologizes. My intention wasn’t to be redundant, but to throw out a layman’s version for us non-science people who are still interested in learning about space and keeping up with all the new discoveries and theories. And I wanted to say “space turd” to someone besides my husband.
I think I could have built my own lightsail with all my resources:
Looking at my google news the other day I saw an article titled “Voyager 2 Spacecraft Approaches Interstellar Space.” I was thrilled but in the spirit of full disclosure I have to admit, I had forgotten about the voyagers until I saw this headline. Out of sight out of mind, right?
For those of you who don’t know or may have forgotten: The Voyager 2 and it’s twin, the Voyager 1, are sedan-sized, unmanned spacecrafts that were born and launched into space in the late 1970s. Their original mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn, but after having such wonderful success NASA decided to see how far they could push these explorers. Voyager 2 went on to see Uranus and Neptune, and Voyager 1 shot off towards the great wide open.
Originally, these little spaceships were only built to last for 5 years; That means NASA assumed that both the Voyagers would be obsolete by 1982! I think the moral here is to not underestimate a flying saucer. Now they expect them to stay in contact with the Deep Space Network (DSN) until 2025 and remain functional until 2036. NASA has already turned off most of their extraneous equipment and will lose that remote access once the ships get out of range, but with none of that pesky friction up there in space both of the Voyagers should theoretically continue moving along until they hit something.
After the Voyagers were done exploring our solar system, NASA set their sights on interstellar space. The Voyager 1 made history when it left our solar system in September of 2012 and now very soon the Voyager 2 is getting it’s day in out of the sun.
Graphic from the original article showing the Voyagers position in the Heliosphere
So my biggest question was: How do they know? I mean, it’s not like there is a border wall on the edge of the solar system (yet). I saw the drawing of the heliosphere and understood the concept, but after I read the original article on NASA’s website and they defined all of the “helio’s” then I comprehended.
“The heliosphere is a bubble around the sun created by the outward flow of the solar wind from the sun and the opposing inward flow of the interstellar wind. That heliosphere is the region influenced by the dynamic properties of the sun that are carried in the solar wind–such as magnetic fields, energetic particles and solar wind plasma. The heliopause marks the end of the heliosphere and the beginning of interstellar space.”
This instantly reminded me of seeing freshwater meet saltwater. Obviously it’s all water but the differences in density and salinity keep each body suspended separately. It’s also not unlike a droplet of oil in a glass of water, for a more microcosm comparison. Well apparently, space stuff works the same way! Who knew, right? As our sun burns, it puts off a certain combination of “stuff” (very scientific, I know) that radiates out from all directions and then hits up against the interstellar space around it, which is putting off a different combination of “stuff” that doesn’t mix with our heliosphere.
Just like the oil droplet, the heliosphere shifts and flows dynamically but doesn’t ever mix with the rest of space. The solar magnetic field stays inside and the cosmic rays from deep space stay out. And that is precisely how they know; by measuring these cosmic rays around the Voyager 1, NASA was able to track it’s approach towards open space and predict when it would cross through the heliopause.
Fast forward to the present and the Voyager 2 is starting to pick up more cosmic rays, leading NASA to believe that it will soon join it’s twin out in the void. That’s what is happening at the moment. So the Voyager 2 isn’t in interstellar space yet, and there isn’t a way to definitively say when it will be, but we do know that it is getting close.
The real question now is, what happens now that they’ve actually gone where no man has gone before? At this point do they serve as less of an exploration effort and more of a testament to how far the human race has explored beyond what we thought was our farthest reach? They were built in the 1970s after all. And if that is the case, is that necessarily a bad thing? I think I can accept that sentiment. Even when they are out of reach of our most advanced equipment, when they are lifelessly drifting into the stars, even if the golden records are never found by alien civilizations, the Voyagers’ discoveries and legacy will live on forever.
Voyager 2 going through tests
I highly recommend checking out the galleries of all the photographs taken by the two Voyagers of our outer planets. (Jupiter is my personal favorite.) They also took several other photos not just of the planets and moons such as the famous “Pale Blue Dot” photo that was taken right before they turned off their cameras on Valentine’s Day of 1990.
Also, a fun fact for my fellow December babies out there: the Voyager 2 is actually headed right towards the constellation Sagittarius! The Voyager 1 is headed for the star Alpha Centauri in the Little Dipper, which is pretty cool too. Alright, I’m finished geeking out now.
Dabbling Adult 