The Black Desert Primer Preview: AsTrA

The Black Desert Primer Preview:  AsTrA

AsTrA

In a Solar System full of interplanetary cruisers, ultra-powerful lasers, and dozens of independent colonies, it was recognized early on after the Great War that some sort of regulatory body would be needed to keep the peace, provide for safe passage, and most importantly, keep the Terra-watt level Navigation Lasers from being used as weapons. What emerged from these necessities was the Aerospace Transport Authority.

AsTrA is still in its infancy; chronically underfunded, the multi-national organization much more impressive in theory than in reality. Tasked with regulating interplanetary transit, AsTrA ostensibly has direct control of all Navigation Lasers in Terran and Martian orbit. In practice, however, AsTrA must rely on assistance from the polities that use the Lasers for transport. In order to prevent political or economic factors from overly influencing freedom of travel, delegations from all polities and organizations are assigned to each transport node so that they can police one another. Tensions run high in the outposts that house the Nav-Lasers, and many feel that unless AsTrA is given more funds, it is only a matter of time before personal conflicts in space spill over into conflicts among nations.

A Plausible Business Model for Colonizing Space?

 A Plausible Business Model for Colonizing Space?

         Today's preview of The Black Desert Primer features an organization that was first mentioned with our Conestoga PDF.  The Destiny Foundation, as you'll see below, offers a legitimate way to get normal people into space.  Take a look:

        Despite having gone bankrupt in the years before the Great War, The Destiny Foundation is still one of the more influential organizations in the Inner System. The brainchild of one of humanity's most daring and eccentric philanthropists Walter Hopkins, the Destiny Foundation defined the early twenty-second century with its ambitious business plan and even more ambitious building projects.

         Like many commercial space companies of that era, The Destiny Foundation was created by a billionaire who earned his fortune specifically to get into the space industry. The goal of Hopkins was not only to make settling on other planets possible, but profitable and in the financial reach of average middle-class Americans. In order to accomplish this, the Destiny Foundation developed their unique business plan that take advantage of the Mass/Commodity Principle of Economics.

       The Mass/Commodity Principle, simply put, is a way for space colonists and investors in the space industry to take advantage of the then enormous costs of transporting people and matériel into Low Earth Orbit. By the 2070s, the cost at launch had dropped to around $2000/kg. While far lower than at any time before, all but the most expensive of items cost less to make than they did to launch. Under these conditions, a kilogram of state-of-the-art electronics is no more expensive in space than a kilogram of air. For this reason, it was more economically feasible to send robots, which were expensive but lightweight, into space than people, which consumed many times their mass in air, water and food.

The reverse of the Mass/Commodity Principle is that a kilogram of platinum, worth millions on Earth, is practically worthless compared to a kilogram of life support essentials in space. By exploiting this disparity between the cost of rare earth elements in space and their value on Earth, space development could theoretically be made practical.

       Like most speculative mining operations of the era, the Destiny Foundation, allowed investors to purchase, for a quarter of a million dollars, a mining robot. The robot was sent into space and put to work mining Rare Earth Elements and Helium-3. A share of the profits of these materials on Earth, in proportion to the number of robots owned by an individual and minus a small commission, was paid to the investor. What made Hopkins' proposal different was that the Foundation allowed families of regular investors, who would most likely have to liquidate all of their assets in order to invest, to live at the Foundation Headquarters and receive training in The Foundation's space program. During the two-year training period that followed, The families' robots could earn enough from their efforts to pay for the training, housing, and a trip into space for the families as settlers. By this method, ordinary Americans could afford to send themselves and their children to the frontiers of Mars or the newly created asteroid cyclers.

       In the end, the Mass/Commodity Principle was flawed and the Mining bubble burst, impoverishing millions of investors and settlers alike. Dispite this legacy of Hopkins' vision is very much a part of life in space today. Most if not all settlements in The Black Desert include at least one or two modules developed by the Foundation, and many of those who live off Terra can trace their ancestry to the pioneers who took a chance on the Destiny Foundation and reached for the stars.

* * *

       Of course, this business plan may make space colonization possible, but it doesn't make it likely.  That leap would require enough reasonably successful people to want to leave behind everything, including their entire planet, and risk their lives in the most hostile environment humans have ever tried to live in.

       ...I dunno.  I'd do it.  Maybe.

The Black Desert Primer Preview: The L-Drive

The Black Desert Primer Preview:  The L-Drive

         With only a few days left before it becomes available, this week we'll be featuring short excerpts from The Black Desert Primer.  Today, we'll take a peek at one of the signature pieces of Tech from the setting, the L-Drive:

1) Water Tank, 2) Electrolyzer, 3) Turbofan, 4) Propellant tanks, 5) Fusion Plant, 6) Laser generator, 7) Thruster Bell

The L-Drive

One of the two breakthroughs in aerospace technology that made the modern solar system possible, L-Drive is a laser propulsion system that super heats the atmosphere under a rocket to produce thrust without the need to carry reaction mass. Unlike the laser systems proposed in the early twenty-first century, which involved using ground-based laser arrays to propel a spacecraft, L-Drives use lasers mounted in the stern of the rockets themselves. L-Drives only became possible after the Helium-3 boom on Luna, which allowed the mass-production of safe fusion plants in the 2050s. By the dawn of the twenty-second century, L-Drive technology had become as commonplace as the use of disposable, multistage chemical rockets became a thing of the past.

At its heart, laser propulsion is relatively simple. A laser, usually mounted in a ground installation, fires into a specially shaped bell in the tail of the spacecraft. The laser's ultra-high temperature instantly super heats the air in the bell, causing it to expand and push the craft upwards. By pulsing the laser, The air is replenished and the shuttle is boosted further and further up.

L-Drives are an evolution of this concept. An on-board fusion reactor produces the massive amount of power needed to fire a high frequency laser, allowing the spacecraft to take off and land anywhere. In addition, the air used to propel the craft is provided by a system of ducts and turbofans that compress and feed massive amounts of atmosphere to the thruster bell. This allows an L-Drive equipped rocket to launch much larger masses into orbit than conventional laser propulsion systems. Once in space, a ship with L-Drive can use stored propellant to accelerate and maneuver. While the thrust is less than a conventional chemically powered rocket, it is not necessary to punch through the thick atmosphere as fast as possible, as that very atmosphere provides the spacecraft's propellant. The twin virtues of unlimited air and nearly unlimited power make L-Drive the most efficient, and therefore cheapest, method of putting a ship into Low Earth Orbit.