Have you ever found yourself almost colliding on a pavement with someone walking straight towards you set on a collision course, gaze downturned? It is easy to recognise these victims of the zombie plague that has ravished our planet because they are the ones with their whole attention locked onto the mobile phone clasped in their hands. If you are lucky, they spot your feet and veer to the side at the last moment, their eyes never leaving their mobile phones during the entire manoeuvre. If you’re really lucky you may get a mumbled apology, before they drop back into the compelling world conjured up within the silicon of their mobile device.

Solar sails used for propelling space ships across the vast distances of space have always been a firm favourite of science fiction stories. I first heard of the concept back in the 1970s in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s book, The Mote in God's Eye. Also, concept images frequently adorned the pages of the science and science fiction magazines back then, such as in the wonderful OMNI (sadly no longer in print).

In September 2016, this technology will take a significant step forward, when a tiny spacecraft, Prox-1, will hitch a ride onboard the new SpaceX orbital lifter, the Falcon Heavy. And this will be a very important moment for the future of space exploration.

The LightSail 2 is the work of The Planetary Society, a nonprofit group raising funding through Kickstarter campaigns. The group's stated aim is to engage and empower people around the world, in the advancement of space science and exploration. In 2015 they deployed LightSail 1 which hitched a ride onboard an Atlas V rocket. Although the craft didn’t reach a high enough altitude for solar sailing, its deployment sequence was successfully tested. LightSail 2, picks up where its predecessor left off, and once sailing with the power of the sun's captured photons, ground-based lasers will measure the effect of sunlight on the sails. Its solar sail should also be highly visible from Earth and The Planetary Society intend to organise public viewings.

Compared to chemical rockets, solar sails enjoy a distinct advantage. Unlike the short burst of thrust of a rocket, solar sails deliver continual thrust, ultimately achieving a far higher speed than their chemical rocket cousins. And without the need to carry huge amounts of fuel, this makes them a particularly interesting propulsion system for interstellar travel.

Image credit:  NASA

NASA isn’t being left out either and is experimenting with a variant of solar sail technology. They have started testing the Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System, or HERTS for short. This is an E-Sail that uses charged wires covering an area of 219 football pitches, to electrostatically push the protons in the sun’s solar winds to create propulsion. The intention is to use this craft for travel across the solar system. By comparison, Voyager 1, launched in 1977, took 35 years to reach interstellar space. If the tests all proceed to plan, a HERTS based craft should be able to do the same journey in around twelve years, a third of the time.

Image credit: Breakthrough Starshot Initiative

Solar sails also hit the news again this week with the announcement that Stephen Hawkin has signed his name to the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. This project has announced a significant $100 million research fund to investigate the creation of a fleet of tiny nanocraft, the size of postage stamps, and packing the sort of processing power that we find in the average smartphone today. These craft, being propelled by lasers, will head out of our solar system towards our neighbouring star, Alpha Centauri, at up to 20 percent of the speed of light. Travelling at this velocity they should make the 4 light-year journey to Alpha Centauri in about twenty years, taking snapshots all the way during their long voyage and beaming their images back home. Can you begin to imagine the excitement when that fleet of tiny nanocraft finally arrives in our nearest neighbour's system?

Although there is ongoing research into esoteric drive systems like the EmDrive, the technology for solar sails exists today. The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative has a very real chance of sending a probe using this technology, out across the vast distances of space to visit our interstellar neighbours. And with that, and the other current space developments, including in reusable rocketry, it really does feel like we are entering a new era in space exploration. And that can only be a wonderful thing for our future as a species.

This week, at long last, and having heard so many glowing reviews from friends, especially other authors, I finally got to experience the Harry Potter studio tour in London, for myself. I’m delighted to report back that it really did exceed all my expectations. However, afterward, I also found myself reflecting on the books themselves and the magnitude of what J.K. Rowling succeeded in creating…

I have always felt a pull at my heart to travel the world and experience far flung places. In fact I’d go as far as to say part of me lives to travel and always has done so. 

As I write this (in Zimbabwe), we have just visited Victoria Falls, spectacularly huge (the largest falls in the world), incredibly loud, but best of all, poncho or not, that will leave you soaked within moments of being exposed to its dense, monsoon like, water mists. Wonderful. And right there is the joyous nature at the heart of travel, that often throws up life affirming moments like this.

In the 1920s, when commercial aviation was still in its infancy, the main method of crossing the Atlantic Ocean was by steamship and ocean liner. However, there was also a luxurious alternative…the airship.

The mention of airships, for many, will conjure up an image of a Zeppelin, the archetypal airship with its elegant streamlined design. In 1929 the Graf Zeppelin managed to circumnavigate the globe. This wonderfully evocative video captures the end of its journey in New York.

Sometimes when you start a journey you never know where you’ll end up. A case in point is when I have a creative writing project – WIP – work in progress, underway.

My writing process has evolved considerably over the years. These days I always start with a clear plan, with my key scenes, story arc events, and major characters, all worked out before I even begin. But there is one story that I have been recently working on, that was born in a very different way. 

Ten years ago, I left my job as an art director at a very successful games studio that I had helped co-found, to pursue a long held dream of becoming a full-time writer. 

It was the bravest decision of my life, but I was partly propelled to take it, by a story that was not so much book whispering into my ear, as screaming at me to be born. Enthusiasm is one thing, but I was a much less experienced writer ten years ago. However, with bright-eyed optimism, I began what was going to be a long creative dance, and  dived straight into writing that first book. No plan to guide me, no thought of the destination, just a burning passion to write… You can probably guess how that worked out...

When I was growing up during the era of the space race, I clearly remember how it felt at the time that we were heading towards a revolution in space exploration. The film, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, neatly captured that vision...of an orbiting space station that you could take a domestic flight up to (courtesy of Pam Am – there was even an Airfix model of the craft) and then a shuttle from it on towards the moon base. And this really what we believed was just around the corner back then, but subsequent history, since those heady days of the 70s,  had other ideas.

A base on the moon rapidly became the stuff of dreams, the cost too great to be practical. As that dream and other crewed space exploration crashed around it, it wasn't long before some claimed that the moon landings were fake. But of course  there will always be a few who prefer to believe in conspiracies, rather than the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Regardless of the chequered past of human space exploration, we do now at last seem to be heading towards a new dawn. 

Here’s a date to put in your calendars…2020. Why? Because, based on the more conservative projections, that’s the year that countries like the UK will reach a tipping point in power generation. Slipping under the radar of many people, there has been a quiet revolution that’s been steadily building momentum for many years now. It has everything to do with all those solar panels that have been appearing up on the roofs of many homes, the numbers of which have growing exponentially over the last few years.

In the UK, government feed in tariffs (FITS) have partly helped fuel the rapid deployment of photo voltaic (PV) panels. Unfortunately for an industry that’s just started to hit their stride, the subsidies they have recently been slashed by the UK government, a decision that many believe is very short sighted.

However, things aren’t necessarily as bad as they might as first seem. There is something rushing towards us that will change everything – grid parity – a phrase that we are all going to be hearing a lot more about, over the next few years.

So why all the excitement?

Grid parity is the moment at which solar generated power reaches the same price point as grid generated power, which in the main is still provided from fossil fuel sources. For very obvious reasons PV reaching the same price as fossil fuel generated power, has very bug implications for our planet. And before you think this is fanciful notion, grid parity has already been achieved in states like California. Even with subsidies falling away, nothing is going to slow down our rush towards this far reaching power generation paradigm shift for our world.

It gets better. There is nothing to stop the plunge in price of PV power, shooting far below that of the fossil fuel equivalent. PV cells are increasing in efficiency every year, and they are also getting cheaper. In the many scenarios, it is only a matter of time before fossil fuels can no longer compete with PV power.

Wind and wave power have their place in green power generation, and also some make the case for nuclear generation, despite the huge costs related to it. Of course many argue against it, including for reasons of safety.

There is one major obstacle for PV power generation, that it is lumpy and it doesn’t work at night. Also in winter PV produces less power due to the decreased sunlight. However, there are two other developing areas that may prove to have a significant role in dealing with PV power's shortcomings – and both are to do with power storage. 

The first technology is industrial scale flow batteries. Flow batteries are a maturing technology that have the potential to be able to store huge amounts of energy generated during the day from PV, and other renewable, sources such as wind turbines. Once stored, this power can be delivered back into the grid when the sun isn’t shining and the winds are calm.

Flow battery technology will be key to weaning us off coal powered generation addiction. There are very exciting developments in this area, with the recent announcement on a lithium based flow batteries that, compared to the current flow batteries on the market today, deliver ten times the amount of power storage. There are technical hurdles to be solved, but the future is looking extremely promising for this technology.

The second key development is linked to weaning off households on their reliance of the grid. At the moment a typical household with PV panels, generates excess power, that during the day, is fed back into the grid. However, what if you could store that unneeded power in your own super-sized battery? That is exactly what people like Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, has been pondering about, too. His company's solution is called Powerwall, a large battery storage device, that when used in conjunction with PV cells, will mean that household will be independent of the grid for long periods of time, maybe even in some cases, completely.

One thing is for certain. The renewable power generation revolution is gathering force and 2020 is rushing towards us. And when we reach grid parity, that can only be a good thing for putting the brakes on global warming.

“Listen to your inner self, it knows you best.”  ― C. Elizabeth

There’s a phrase I coined a number of years ago – book whispering – that I use to describe that magical moment when a book you’re working on, takes on a life of its own. But why book whispering? Because sometimes your story will talk to you in a very quiet voice so you have to listen carefully!

As many authors know far too well, writing a book can be a convoluted process. Even if you start with a well thought out plan, often the story will start to strain against its leash, demanding to head off in a completely different direction. This conjures up a lion tamer type mage, with the author battling the book every step of the way and brandishing their metaphorical chair to tame the beast. However, for me at least, the reality is very different to this sort of power struggle and certainly far more nuanced.

Creating a story often requires a degree of subtlety. Yes, when I start, I may have a reasonable idea of the action story arc, but it's actually my characters who tend to come to life during the writing process and start whispering in my ear things like: who am I, what’s my backstory, my motivation, where am I emotionally heading…and most importantly of all…how do you plan to break my heart? 

Over the last two weeks you have probably picked up on the considerable excitement in the news over the confirmation of the existence of gravity wave. So why all the fuss?

Gravity waves were first predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity over a century ago. Einstein postulated that objects like planets and stars, warp space time through their gravitational force. The classic illustration of this is a stretched piece of rubber onto which heavy spheres (representing planets, etc) are placed. The objects deform the rubber sheet into a valley around them, much like gravity warps the space time field. And it this which holds a moon in locked in orbit around its planet, and a planet around its star, all whirling in a never ending celestial dance. However, as predicted by Einstein, time is also being effected. 

Here’s a question for you…what if we’re all alone in the galaxy? What if there is no one else out there across the vastness of space?

The famous Drake Equation predicts the likelihood of life out there. And that equation tells us that statistically there should be civilisations that have evolved to a technological point that they have a desire to communicate. That equation also tells us there should 50,000 alien intelligent civilisations.

It was the Drake Equation that later evolved into the famous SETI program, which to this day, scans the heavens with radio telescopes looking for any signs of intelligent life. The problem is that so far none have ever been detected. The troubling question is, why?

It sounds simple doesn’t it to pick up the radio chatter from an alien civilisation, but it really isn’t. The radio frequency is actually a very wide band, from short wave to long wave. Originally, SETI searched through very narrow radio bands, trying to guess the magic frequency that aliens might be broadcasting on. Today, radio telescopes, thanks to computing developments, can search multiple bands at the same time. But we still haven't heard anything. And it this contradiction between what the Drake Equation and we still haven’t found, that has led to the Fermi Paradox that asks, why? 

Could it be that the hurdles to evolve to intelligent life, often referred to as the great filters are so great as to make it almost impossible to get past? In other words, is Earth a one-off?

The optical search is currently on for Earth-like exoplanets planets, measuring the dip of light as the planet passes in front of its star. This search has thrown up many candidates for planets, like our own, that exist in the goldilocks orbit – not too hot, and not too cold – where the conditions, in theory, are ideal for evolution of life. And this list is growing rapidly every year. 

However, being suitable for life is only the starting point. The point where basic chemistry tips over the line into one where life flourishes, is a tricky one to navigate. So far we haven't been able to simulate this in the lab. But what we do have is the evidence of the planet that we live on that proves this process works. Additionally, Darwin shows us that there was a single common origin for all life on Earth. 

And we aren't this planet's first attempt either. There's new research that points to the fact that life may have actually made several attempts to get going on Earth. 

And all this has positive implications for finding other life out there...

This is why the search for life within our own solar system is so significant. If we can find life on Mars or the moons of Saturn or Jupiter, then it proves that life on our own planet isn’t a one-off fluke.

Another major barrier (filter) is the evolution into an intelligent species. So could it be that humans are just a freak of nature? Or is it that perhaps alien civilisations haven't lasted long enough for their communications to reach us because they wiped themselves out? And does that mean that a similar fate awaits mankind?

Or, on a more positive note, maybe there is a technical reason that alien technology has moved rapidly beyond radio. In other words, we don't have the technology to hear their quantum entangled, or whatever they are using, communications.

But there may be an even simpler explanation... Have we simply not done enough searching yet? If the universe is represented by Earth’s oceans, then so far we have measured a cupful of all those combined seas. This puts our current efforts so far, into sharp perspective.

This is a needle in a haystack search. However, it's also a question that is so fundamental to us as a species, that after fifty years of searching, we still have no real choice but to continue. Who knows what may be waiting around the corner for us, but we won’t know unless we carry on trying.

Photo via Visual Hunt

Science fiction has existed in one form or another in our world for a long time. The history of the genre is contested, but many believe that the fantastical Sumerian poem, Epic of Gilgamesh (2150-2000BC), filled with gods and even the search for eternal life is one of the earliest examples.

For me though, the modern era of science fiction was heralded in by the stories of H.G. Wells. The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The First Men on the Moon, War of the Worlds and many, many others are a testimony to the great imagination of the man. His work transported his readers into an often scary vision of the future, quite literally in the Time Machine. In that story, part of humanity has evolved into Eloi, a simple peace loving people. However, the rest have become the Morlocks, creatures that live underground and farm the Eloi like sheep to feed upon them. The original cinema adaptions of this film caught my young imagination but it was the original War of the Worlds that scared the bejeebers out of me!

So why is that science fiction has continued to grow in popularity, both in books and in films?

Science fiction examines the effects of change upon on us, often sweeping in nature, where sometimes the future of humanity hangs in the balance. And if we have ever needed to hear this message it is especially important to hear during this age of rapid technological progress that we currently live in.

I was lucky to grow up during a very rich period of science fiction, where the works of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, and Philip K Dick, created worlds that flooded my imagination with astonishing visions of the future. And maybe that’s another reason that great science fiction resonates so strongly wth us today because, through it, it’s one way that we can peer into the possible futures that we are already speeding towards.

Authors like Arthur C. Clarke had a seer like ability to gaze into the future. In 1948 he famously predicted the invention of communication satellites. We are still waiting to see whether his predictions made in 2001 come true: that in 2030 artificial intelligence will reach human levels and in 2100 humanity will invent the space drive that will enable us to reach other stars. On that prediction, Clarke wrote, “History begins…”

Of course science fiction is often filled with bleak warnings, from the robots of Terminator to the AIs most famously represented by HAL in 2001 that killed its crew.

But it isn’t all bad news. Sometimes science fiction suggests potential solutions. Isaac Asimov in his I Robot series came up with the three laws of robotics to prevent our creations from doing us harm:

(1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

(2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

(3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Maybe this same sort of approach could also be applied to artificial intelligence.

Science fiction can also raise philosophical questions. For example in Blade Runner the film based on the book by Philip K Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), it can be seen as an allegory that holds a mirror up to us, raising the fundamental questions – who are we, why are we here and what does it mean to be human?

Through science fiction we also are able to travel in our imagination to places we have never set foot on. This ties into my own work where I explore the theme of parallel Earths. The Martian by Andy Weir highlights the sort of challenges that we may face when we eventually travel to Mars. In Interstellar, our planet is experiencing a runaway climate change, forcing us to adapt by reaching out for the stars. These stories raise the what if question. They are also stories that tug at our exploring hearts, maybe reminding us of our own pioneering spirit.

To finish this article, I’m going to leave you with a clip with one of my all time favourite science fiction movies, Forbidden Planet. 

Filmed in 1956 and based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, there is something truly special about the feel of Forbidden Planet. It’s a film that’s more than the sum of its parts, from wonderful visuals to the haunting (and first entirely electronic) film score. Whatever the magic is for me there is something unique about this film that’s always captured my imagination. And that’s maybe one of the most special aspects of science fiction, to ignite afresh that sense of wonder that's always waiting to be unlocked within us.

So what’s your all time favourite sci-fi film and why?

Links
These Restless Few
http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/exploration-is-in-our-nature.html
The Singularity
http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-technological-singularity-and.html
Photo credit: x-ray delta one via Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA

I don’t know about you, but when I watched the film Interstellar, for someone who grew up during the space race, it pulled at my wannabe astronaut’s soul. However, until now, journeying to the stars is something that we have only be able to do in science fiction. However, thanks to NASA’s Eagleworks team’s work, there’s a chance that one day we may be able to achieve this long held dream. Enter stage left, the EmDrive.

As we all all know, light speed is meant to be the speed limit. After all Einstein told us it was impossible to exceed. However, someone needs to tell the scientists working on the EmDrive, this.

The EmDrive, invented by English researcher Roger Shawye, is a microwave chamber that bounces waves back and forth to produce thrust. However, a strange thing is that it appears to produce more thrust that it should. But how can that be possible?

At night in a room with the light on, if you gaze out of the window, you will see your own reflection gazing back at you…unless maybe you are a vampire!

You have probably never given this a second thought. After all the window is a partly reflective surface, bouncing the light back at you. Simple. This works fine in principle if one intuitively think of light as rays…some get through the glass, some bounce back. And it was this exactly this idea that gave Sir Isaac Newton, who thought light was made of particles, a severe headache.

Newton grappled with this concept, trying to explain why a particular particle was reflected or travelled on through the glass. His best explanation was that it was to do with flaws in the glass itself. And in this he was wrong. The actual explanation has everything to do with the far weirder world of quantum mechanics…

It turns out that the glass is in fact a sophisticated quantum device called a beam splitter. And of course at the quantum level, the world as we know it, behaves very, very strangely.

Photons of light are in a superposition state (waves). As each photon of light interacts with the atoms of the glass, there is a probability of it passing through…or not. For those photons that are detected, they become entangled with the cloud of atoms that make up the glass. Also, as the glass thickness increases, the greater the chance of entanglement, the greater the probability, i.e. creating a reflection being created as its not just happening on the surface of the glass.

Links

A Cat, a Box and a Riddle – Schrodinger’s Cat: 

http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/cat-box-and-riddle-schrodingers-cat.html

Higgs Boson – The Treacle of the Universe

http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/higgs-boson-treacle-of-universe.html

Farewell Major Tom. Gone, but never forgotten.

Article Links:

These Restless Few:
http://therealnickcook.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/exploration-is-in-our-nature.html

After my last blog in early December, that closing month turned out to be an epic one in space flight. Not only did British school children suddenly have somebody to aspire to be, namely our very own Tim Peake who was launched on a Soyuz rocket on the 15th December for his six month mission onboard the International Space Station, but there was also a major development in rocket technology that month that could have major implications for the future of space exploration.

In November, Blue Origin, the private space company, succeeded in the controlled landing of a rocket vertically. As impressive as this was, what then occurred in December, it could be argued, was even more incredible.

SpaceX succeeded where nobody else ever has before, in landing the first stage of an orbital rocket using its rockets just like they used to all those great old black and white sci-fi films. Not only was this an incredible achievement, it also potentially opens up a new era for humankind. 

Getting into space has always been an expensive business, so much so that our dreams of conquering space were severely hauled in from the heady days of the 60s and 70s. Back then everything seemed around the corner and nearly every child wanted to be an astronaut. But as the thrill of people walking on the moon receded, even to the point that a few claimed the whole thing was a hoax (the film Capricorn One, has a lot to answer for), the stark cost became far too apparent. Excluding the incredible expense of the Apollo research program where each launch cost in 1969 $375 million (you don’t want to know how much that would be in today’s money), the Space Shuttle was meant to be the answer. But it ended up costing $450 million to launch per mission and despite being an astonishing piece of engineering, there were serious reliability issues surrounding it. No wonder our grand space exploration dreams have faded so far.

However, against this background, SpaceX’s achievement is nothing short of astonishing. Their cost per mission of their Falcon 9 rocket is currently $60 million per mission. The other cost is $200,000 for fuel. In other words if SpaceX cracks be able to reuse a rocket there is potentially huge cost savings with just maintenance and fuel costs to consider per launch. Elon Musk has been quoted as saying that travelling into space could become a hundred times cheaper. If that aspiration becomes a reality it’s a huge game changer in every sense and suddenly everything becomes possible.

A manned base on the moon? Why not. The asteroid belt become the new mining frontier? Maybe. And what about a crewed mission to Mars? It’s that particular target that’s Musk has got in his sights and sees reusable rockets as a step towards realising that dream. And right there is what we’ve always needed. The dreamers who dare to try.

Click on the video below to see SpaceX's historic achievement.