What is science fiction, and why is it important?

This is covered by many writers of the genre, so perhaps another treatise is not worth adding to the mix, but Many times writing about something helps me clarify my own thinking on the matter. Since I am writing science fiction, fantasy, and dystopian fiction, it's probably appropriate to define what I'm trying to create. At least I'll be able to tell if I have succeeded in my attempts.

One of the basic tenets of science fiction is that it has to have future possible scientific developments woven into the world created by the writer as if they were part of that world. The scientific aspects of the story have to be realistic enough that a present day reader would see the connection between our world and the one created by the author. This differentiates science fiction from fantasy, which usually has no basis in science. Think of Harry Potter's world of wizardry and Terry Pratchet's Disc-World. These are fantasies rather than true sci-fi. Many lump the two genres into one--sci-fi/fantasy, but I try to keep them separate in my thinking. I enjoy reading both, and I enjoy writing both, and I'll even throw another genre into the mix, that of dystopian fiction. Its name speaks for itself. Think of Orwell's 1984.  That said, a good read in any of these genres has to have people at its center, just as other literary works do.

We want to read about people and how they deal with their problems. The best science fiction puts the problem in a future or dystopian setting, and asks what if ... ? That 'what if' question is what makes science fiction worthy of my time to read. What if society were faced with an alien invasion? How would humanity react? (Read H. G. Welles's War of the Worlds) What if we inadvertently loosed a deadly virus on our world? How would we come to grips with so serious a problem? (Read Steven King's The Stand) What if a giant asteroid were headed this way and we were sure it would smash into us, leaving no survivors on the Earth? How could we be saved? (Read Andreas Christensen's Exodus)

Actually more than one book has been written about each of those themes, because each of them calls up serious questions that deserve to be asked, and an author's job is to examine human nature under the stresses created by such scenarios. In the end, it's about people. To quote Steve MeEllistrem in his blog posted April 28, 2015,

         The best science fiction, the science fiction that lasts, examines our society as it is and extrapolates out to what it might become. It issues a warning to all of us to understand the path we’re on and to reassess whether we want to stay on that path.

         This is true of all fiction, of course. We read to be entertained, to experience life through another's soul, to look at how others see the world, so we can perhaps understand our place in it

Genres can be mixed, too, which makes for a delightful smorgasbord to please any reader's palate. Look at Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. These are both Young Adult  novels as well as fantasy novels. Randy Ingermanson's Oxygen has elements of both the suspense and romance genres, while being foremost a science fiction novel.  Richard K Morgan's Altered Carbon series is reminiscent of hard-boiled detective novels, but it's clearly science fiction.

With self-publishing, the availability of inexpensive books in any genre is amazing. A new author will usually offer his first book for free or a nominal sum. Books may be uploaded onto Amazon or iTunes simply by following easy self-publishing guidelines. As readers, we can go to either of these sites and check for free books. There is even a free pod cast service for authors to upload their books and make them available as audio books for free. I was introduced to Nathan Lowell, who wrote Quarter Share through podiobooks.com. I have since purchased every one of his books for reading on my Kindle. An author may even record his own books for Audible.com, or hire a narrator for a royalty. Self publishing is a subject for another post. Just know it makes for exciting reading by new writers in any genre for not a lot of money.

If you're a science fiction fan, as I am, it's a great time to be alive.

The Hydrogen Economy

Spectron telescope of hydrogen in the Orion Nebula

If we apply a perversion of Occam's razor to the problem of global warning made worse by increasing demands for energy, we are left with the simplest of fuels – natures most abundant and simplest element – hydrogen. All of the burning of fossil fuels is really a way to burn hydrogen. But using hydrocarbons burns the hydrogen while producing large amounts of CO2. What if we could burn the hydrogen in its pure form? It turns out we can. And the byproduct is simply water. We have been doing it since fuel cells were first invented back in 1839 by Sir William Grove.  It's such a good idea that NASA has been using it for years to provide both water and power on space missions.

Schematic of a fuel cell showing H on one side of the cell, and water on the other

A fuel cell is a device consisting of a gas diffusion electrode comprising a catalyst that separates hydrogen atoms into their component parts, a proton and an electron. The protons traverse an exchange membrane and travel through another diffusion electrode, while the electrons are used to power something. In the above illustration, they power a light bulb, while in a car they power an electric motor. After this they are reunited into hydrogen atoms, which combine with the oxygen in the air to produce water. All that is needed for this to happen is a continuous supply of hydrogen gas. Boeing has a drone that is powered by a fuel cell with hydrogen produced by a solar array that electrolyzes water. The California Fuel Cell Cooperative has even established hydrogen refueling stations to service cars that are powered by fuel cells.

Hydrogen fuel cap on a fuel cell powered car

Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, VW,  and Honda all have fuel cell cars in production and planning stages.

Maine has an economic and environmental interest in the hydrogen economy. At The Hydrogen Energy Center in Portland, ME,  in addition to hydrogen and fuel cell applications for transportation, they are exploring hydrogen as a storage medium for intermittent energy sources, hydrogen fuel cells for combined heat and power, and hydrogen applications in the pulp and paper industry. According to their web site, "When a renewable, economically viable production process of hydrogen can be achieved the advantages will spread out to many industries. Some of the proving grounds for various production methods can be locally developed to provide hydrogen for these industries."

The difficulty all along has been the technology required to obtain and store hydrogen.

Current methods rely on electrolysis of water which separates the water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen. While Elon musk, the founder of Tesla, an electric car company, has put down the concept of hydrogen in favor of his electric, battery-powered cars, those cars are charged with electricity produced by carbon based fuels.

Tesla Motor Company's Tesla 2X

If this exciting hydrogen-as-fuel concept becomes widespread, that problem will be eliminated because large hydrogen burning power plants will replace the current hydrocarbon-based approach. This means that electric cars can be more efficiently charged using electricity produced by hydrogen-based power plants. Still, recharging takes a significant amount of time. Eventually, motors in today's electric cars may be powered by fuel cells. In either case one of the least desirable aspects of living in large cities, toxic smog, will be eliminated. If all the vehicles and all the heating plants in large metropolitan areas were burning hydrogen, there would be virtually no pollutants in the air. The byproduct of burning hydrogen is simply water. The byproduct of separating water from the hydrogen is extra oxygen either being stored for commercial use or simply released into the atmosphere.

Recent breakthroughs involving catalysts and very small amounts of electricity are yielding exciting results. There is even a plastic credit-card-like substance that, immersed in water and exposed to sunlight, causes this breakdown of water into its constituent elements. It's called an artificial leaf.

Testing a 1 cm x 1 cm artificial leaf.

This is an exciting prospect because it has the potential for providing small home sized power systems in Third World countries as well as in developing nations, without the dangerous burning of carbon-based fuel. It even  produces potable water.

Many aspects of the future use of hydrogen as fuel are already in place. Many are being developed. All are on a fast track to reality, along with as yet undiscovered and unexplored means of making and storing this amazing and useful element. A good thing, too, because, while Elon Musk may be wrong about hydrogen as fuel for cars, he's right about the need for responsible uses of our planet's resources. If we do nothing, we're headed for disaster.

Is it science or fiction?

Is it science or fiction?

There is so much futuristic science around, that anyone writing a scientific treatise would find it hard to avoid spilling into the realm of science fiction. Conversely, anyone writing a science fiction blog could very easily make it seem realistic, given the futuristic state of today's science. So this will be a science/science fiction blog.

For instance, Nathan Lowell has written a series about the days of the solar clipper. He makes no bones about comparing these stories to legends about sailing, even going so far as to begin his first novel in the series, Quarter Share, with the iconic "Call me Ishmael." That's the first name of his character throughout all the books in the series; Ishmael Horatio Wang.  His solar clippers are sailing craft that get their main motive power from solar  winds, until they are far enough out of the gravity well of their solar system to engage an FLT (Faster than Light) drive, whereupon they appear at the outskirts of another solar system, capture the solar wind of the new system and sail in to the orbital station of the new system. The time between solar systems is instantaneous, but it takes weeks or months to get to the point where an FTL drive can be engaged, and more months to get to the new system's orbital docking station.

Just how feasible is such a system? There are three aspects of it that warrant discussion; the orbital station, the solar wind, and an FTL drive. 

First is the orbital station: how feasible is it? Assuming this is several hundred years in the future, an orbital station would be reasonable. The major difficulty would be our ability to ferry material that can be used to build such a station into an orbit about the planet. Lifting all the material off the planet itself is probably not the answer, but there is a lot of material floating around out there that could be used to build such a station.

NASA rendering of a possible lunar colony building created by a 3D printer using lunar particulate.

Mining asteroids for metal, processing it in orbit, and fabricating such a station using 3-D printers and the like, while pretty futuristic, is not so far-fetched as to stagger the imagination. We have the printing capability, and NASA is already developing materials and approaches that can augment resources at hand, such as moon particulate, to build spare parts for a lunar colony as the above NASA rendering illustrates.

Second is the solar wind itself. We are very fortunate in our solar system because the solar wind of our sun is a significant potential source for both motive and broadcastable power. A space ship could use an electronic antenna array to capture this power and build up tremendous velocity on the way out of the gravity well of our solar system. NASA has developed contingency plans to power flights to Mars and beyond using solar wind to shorten such a journey to no more than a few months. They are even on the brink of using such power in small craft operating in and around a space station. The following ESA/NASA photo shows the solar wind via a fly-by from one of our voyager satellites.

ESA/ NASA photo of solar winds taken by a Voyager 

Third is the concept of an interstellar FTL drive. The science fiction jury is still out on this one. Many novels just use standard ballistic acceleration to get a space ship to near light speed, taking many years to travel between stars. One example is 2001--A Space Odyssey. To while away the time, travelers must be put into some sort of stasis for the duration. There are also difficulties with time compression/dilation here, causing problems for space-faring folk. They have to differentiate between subjective time and time as experienced by those on their home planets. Other science fiction novels posit a wrinkle in the space-time continuum that allows you to jump from one locale to another. One FTL drive would be able to create such a wrinkle and thereby create a door between one system and another. This would require astrogation and a lot of energy. It's what is used in Lowell's books. For a look at other science fiction approaches to this problem, check the FTL link above.

This is a simple examination of a very complicated possibility. We have the technology to build an orbital station. Indeed we already have such a station, though it is not as large or sophisticated as those depicted by Lowell. We have the ability to use solar winds, at least in theory. FTL travel is awaiting discovery, but it may not be as far away as we think. It wouldn't take much of a leap to imagine a practical application of all this technology. Interstellar travel awaits. A good thing, too, because if Elon Musk, the father of Space X company,  is right, we need to get off this mud ball for survival of our species.