Article by Zviazda Newspaper

About the outer space industrialization prospects

Ideas that change the World

THE SUN IS THE BEST PLACE FOR SPACE GARBAGE

Engineer, inventor, full member (academician) of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RANS), as well as the Russian Academy of Sciences and Arts (RUS), Doctor of Philosophy of Transport, our fellow countryman Anatoli UNITSKY answers the questions of Zvyazda readers.

 

– Dear Anatoli, our readers have a lot of clarifying questions about your international, and I would even say, interplanetary program SpaceWay. Please, let's turn to some of them.

If successful, your General Planetary Vehicle (GPV) will gradually, over the decades, provide the removal of industrial production, especially heavy industry, from the Earth. And it will be a huge success for our civilization. But how do you plan to handle space production wastes?

– The major part can be reused. What cannot be disposed for good use - to send somewhere. You wouldn't believe, but the safest place for disposal is our star, the Sun. It will not be difficult to send it from orbit to the Sun, it is difficult from the Earth.

Why exactly the Sun? Every year, billions of tons of meteorites fall on it, and everything burns out. And if some millions tons of our waste get there, the Sun will melt it and not notice it. And it will turn into radiation, that warms us. Therefore, there will be no problems with waste, you can arrange everything efficiently.

Space Orbit Industrial Necklace with EcoCosmoHouses

 

– Many people were interested in the idea mentioned in previous publications of mineral extraction on asteroids, which there are a lot of even in near space. They ask how this might look in practice.

– There is nothing surprising in such questions. I asked them to myself a lot of times. It makes no sense to create an aircraft looking like an unshapen asteroid (and they just look like that) even for our neighbors in extraterrestrial civilizations. But you can "saddle it up". Make a cavity inside and place housing, equipment, something else there. For the simple reason that traveling in space is not completely safe. I mean collisions with meteorites, very high radiation of stars and the Sun. Cosmonauts during flights are not protected from either one or the other. They were lucky that all the space "garbage" flew by. And now they have learned how to evade large objects. It is good that they fly below the radiation belts, because in low orbits the radiation is not very strong. But if only you get higher, and radiation increases at times, even exceeding by far the Chernobyl one.

Therefore, in order to travel safely, it is best to do this hiding behind the many-meter and even kilometer-long walls of asteroids. To saddle an asteroid and, again, I repeat, to make inside residential modules, laboratory, industrial premises - all that is needed. Choose a meteorite that flies in the right direction. Or, if it doesn’t require a lot of effort and money, adjust its flight. Establish the production and processing of raw materials on it. And from there, carry everything that is extracted: iron, palladium, molybdenum, nickel, or even gold. There are titanium asteroids, even diamond ones.

Equipment for their extraction can, of course, be launched from the Earth, but it will be too costly. So it’s better to do it from the GPV – general planetary vehicle. And with that, rockets will not necessarily be required. In the future, you can take into account the solar wind and solar sails, electromagnetic guns.

Another option of space logistics is also possible. Our space geologists with all their derricks will “settle” on an asteroid near the Earth or the GPV and fly on it along its orbit. The time that it will be in its own orbit, and this may be three or five years, can be used to prepare the infrastructure and establish production, the stock of finished products. A space traveler approaches again to the Earth or to our GPV - to unload the warehouses and leave the board. This is a pretty good option, but experience will show.

EcoCosmoHouses on the Orbit

 

– Here is an interesting question. And how are you going to find a common language, deal with ... extraterrestrial civilizations, readers ask. They refer to ufologists who claim that, according to recent observations, some asteroids are spaceships from nearby or distant planets.

–

From the point of view of radiation and meteorite safety for spacecraft, which I mentioned before, this would not be illogical, since the thick walls of asteroids would reliably protect us and extraterrestrials. But I don’t share the anxiety of readers, because I don’t understand how they can interfere with us and why it is necessary to negotiate with them in a special way.

The fact that extraterrestrial civilizations exist, I personally have no doubt. According to modern concepts, the universe appeared about 14 billion years ago. The solar system appeared about 5 billion years ago. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Does this mean that so much time has passed, but life has appeared on the only one of our planets? The only place in the universe where life was born? I don’t think so. I am sure that there are civilizations besides ours that have advanced billions of years ahead of us in development. You and I know how much useful mankind has done over the past hundred years, and there – billions of years of outpacing.

As far as civilizations are concerned, it’s not what you are supposed to see in fantastic movies. That’s where they always fight each other and they drub an idea into our head that we should be afraid of them. In my opinion, a civilization that has firstly developed into a cosmic one should be very humane. Because only having realized what is good, evil, having changed the attitude to themselves, their planet, future, the civilization has had a chance to go into space and become cosmic. And it won't conquer any alien universes. Non-humane civilization will kill itself even before its settling in space. Look at what is happening on our own planet – if everything continues to be the same like today, we won’t long survive. So we won’t become a cosmic civilization and we won’t be able to spread our militancy and anti-humanism in space. 

I realized that a long time ago, when I was still giving lectures to children in “Vedy” (“Wisdom”) community.

Unfortunately, we have not yet grown up to come into contact with developed civilizations. Pardon, we are still primitive beings to them. They have nothing to talk about with us, it is like talking to ants, although we have got ahead in development for hundreds of millions of years, not billions. But the point of transition between our levels of development may become the construction of GPV (General Planetary Vehicle). Because the laws of physics lay down the rule.

The General Planetary Vehicle is the only solution, which I see as a physicist for us to become a space civilization. The laws of physics are the same across the universe, and any community of rational beings should have to go through this stage. Including the civilization that will come to us, it should have to pass the GPV stage. At first, there were rockets too, but then they realized their inefficiency and non-safety with respect to ecology and started looking for a new solution.

Docking a planetary vehicle with an orbital industrial ring

 

– And then they found their own Dr. Unitsky…

– Who thought: “Cracked it! A big circle is the only way to implement the principle of Baron Munchausen, when internal forces of the system allow to escape from grasp of the planet into space”.

And this is a 100% green solution since there is no impact on the environment. Definitely, everything can be done with the use of electricity, we can use not heat engines (as well as jet engines) but a linear electric engine, which will rotate the flywheel. The efficiency of this system can be increased up to 99 %. The maximum efficiency is as high as possible and this is important for the planet. Otherwise, if the transport is inefficient as it is now, it will kill the biosphere with its waste products (including energy, heat and power wastes).  Much more than the entire industry. It’s physics, I repeat. And physics is the same everywhere – in Africa and at the Alpha Centauri.

And all civilizations that have become cosmic should have to go through this understanding. That’s why, when they see that we have also reached this stage, other civilizations will realize: we can deal with them.

Thus, we have no other way to the future than to take the industry into space, save the planet, become humane. We shall unite, not fight. Because when countries are at war, what GPV can we talk about? We need to sit down at the negotiating table, join our efforts, finance and do it TOGETHER. To get the most of the fact that we have finally become a cosmic civilization.

So will the interior of EcoCosmoHouse

 

– Let’s talk about asteroids again. Now we consider them as cosmic bodies that carry a serious threat to Earth in the event of collision. Will it be possible to build a well-equipped space defense base on GPV against asteroids?

– […] Such base can and should be built to stop unwanted “guests” during their flight. It’s hardly possible to do it from Earth, because it’s too expensive. By the way, it is also possible to build a cosmodrome or cosmodromes on GPV that will have their own significant advantages.

Cosmodromes for exploration of the solar system and the universe on GPV will be not just times, but a hundred times more effective. And not just because space ships don’t have to leave the Earth’s gravity pit. But also there’s no need to destroy the Earth’s biosphere since GPV is beyond it. And launches from GPV will be performed without disturbing the ecology of the planet itself. Not necessarily using jet engines, it may be a slingshot. It can be electromagnetic guns and other methods. To be more accurate, the base for space exploration will be built not on GPV, but on the Space Industrial Necklace (SIN), which will cover the Earth in the equatorial plane at an altitude of about 500 km. GPV is a vehicle that transfers passengers and cargo to and from SIN back to Earth in a linear equatorial city built along the equator.

– But if at first – will the launch be jet-engined?

– In any case it will occur outside the ionosphere, atmosphere and ozonesphere, so there is no risk of their destruction during launch. Still, you don’t have to launch from a combustion like today. You can use the solar photo sail, for example. A lot of methods will be found out. And in cosmodromes at SIN it’s easier to prepare an expedition into deep space, where civilization will want to go. Including to Alpha Centauri, having built a space ship for accommodation of, let’s say, thousands of people in an enclosed biosphere that simulated the Earth’s biosphere. And they will probably have a millennial trip and will live, work, develop. Their generations will change and no doubt certain generation will reach the destination. It will be possible from the SIN’s orbit but not from the Earth’s orbit.    

[…]

The creation of GPV will open endless prospects in space exploration

 

– And one last question for today, Dr. Unitsky. Anatoly, do you think that “virus threats” of recent months may somehow be associated with the degradation of the biosphere, which you have warned about persistently and for a long time?

– For sure it is associated with it, something like this could have been expected. This is because not only the shell of the Earth – the biosphere – has become degraded, but also its immune system. The biosphere above and around us is developing as a living organism, and it has its own immune system (which is primarily soil and microorganisms – they get killed, they mutate). Previously all diseases have died in the soil – plague and others.

Since the immune system of the biosphere is weakened, the human immune system is also weakened. If the biosphere and soil degradation occurs, we get micronutrient deficiencies. And all these contributes to pandemics as a whole. As a result, we have what the humanity is struggling with today. In the future, if we leave the biosphere as it is, there would be mutants, pandemics that no one can cure.     

Therefore, we need to change radically the attitude towards the soil so that the human body can get all necessary microelements and beneficial microorganisms – most complex micro factories and micro plants (over 30 trillion!) that live in our intestines and process food into something our body can absorb. In fact, they feed, nurse and treat us. Moreover, we have to “deal” with chemical fertilizers and other chemicals applied to the soil, including into greenhouses… But that’s the subject matter of a separate discussion.

And do whatever it takes to get the industry out of the Earth into space as soon as possible. This is our mission. And this is a general salvation for the Earth’s people.   

The publication was prepared by Vladimir Khilkevich and Veronika Khilkevich.  

On behalf of the creative team, we express our sincere gratitude to Eugene Petrov for his multilateral assistance and support.