Critical Mass, page 45
“More importantly, once earned, this lūna can be invested or spent up here at the CCE. Thus, if someone on Earth wants to invest in the most vibrant off-world marketplace, lūna is their only means to do so—providing an added incentive to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere.”
Tighe spun the virtual globe, looking at all the nodes in the DAC network. The effort was clearly widespread. He tried to recall the numbers Monica Balter, the solar satellite expert, had shown during dinner years earlier. Would this be enough to make a difference? He recalled that her plan required giant solar power satellites in geosynchronous orbit—none of which existed yet.
Marín folded his hands. “Now, J.T., tell me about this nuclear propulsion spacecraft you wish to finance.”
“We’re doing it as a group. Yak was telling me it’s probably going to cost something in the neighborhood of fifteen billion USD—or whatever that is in lūna.”
“That should be no problem. Let me step you through the process . . .”
CHAPTER 42
Debtpocalypse
CLARKE STATION POPULATION: 161
DAYS TO RYUGU DEPARTURE: 327
RESOURCES LAUNCHED TO L2: 153,000 TONS
On July 10, 2041, stock markets on Earth began to go into free fall. The steady accumulation of climate disasters, corruption, and resource wars had spiked international debt beyond sustainable levels, and financial markets could no longer hide the fact that the world’s economies were shrinking. Servicing all that debt was now clearly inconceivable. Once the first domino fell, the inevitable occurred.
And so, in mere minutes, tens of trillions of dollars in “value” evaporated—although Tighe wondered how “valuable” it all was if it could vanish like a mirage. In the US, Europe, and Asia, currencies plunged along with their stock markets. In a matter of days, millions upon millions of people were thrown out of work. However, the expanding global financial depression did nothing to relieve the droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, pandemics, war, and mass migration chaos. It was all happening at once, and modern society was ill-equipped to deal with it.
Two new regional wars began within a week.
James Tighe could not help but encounter the news. Everywhere he went on Clarke Station, crew members were watching TV or talking on the phone or having video calls with distraught family members back home. And though he felt guilty about it, his first reaction was to be concerned about the effect all this would have on the effort to build a rescue ship.
But here and there, fragments of Earth’s tragedy came back to him where he tangentially had links. For example, the death of a Nobel Prize–winning economist who had predicted all this back in the 2030s stood at the top of the news worldwide for an entire day. Sankar Korrapati—or “Dr. Doom,” as he’d been derisively known among Wall Street types—had died during widespread unrest in Mumbai. Beaten to death by looters in his home.
Tighe recalled the mild-mannered Korrapati, speaking in earnest to him in Nathan Joyce’s study back on Baliceaux Island all those years ago. “In the modern world, money does not represent value, Mr. Tighe. Money represents debt.”
The memory felt like it was from another life—from a time when Tighe still thought space was the domain of NASA astronauts.
Korrapati’s seemingly outrageous prediction of a global economic collapse had come true, and now the media hailed him as a great visionary. And like all true visionaries, he had been roundly ignored until his vision was no longer of any use. Or at least of any threat.
Then it occurred to Tighe that Ramón Marín had been right, too, though less famously. The widespread suffering on display around the world—it was due to the failure of money. And the lifeline of the lūna currency was eagerly embraced.
As economies collapsed across the world, the map of nodes in the CCE’s CarbonExtraction smart contract exploded in number. And with each day, it expanded further still. People on Earth were desperate to get involved in the lūna economy, whose stability was like a harbor in a raging storm.
The only way to (quickly) get involved in lūna back on Earth was to pull CO2 out of Earth’s atmosphere. Even flailing billionaires, leveraged to the gills, were racing to unload limited-edition Ferraris and Warhol paintings to buy direct air capture equipment.
As the Debtpocalypse continued to expand day by day, hyperinflation wracked the major fiat currencies of the world. The dollar, the yuan, the euro—they all tumbled. Earth-based cryptocurrencies were locked in frenzied trading, but planetside data centers and exchanges were quickly embroiled in the general unrest. Transactions were sluggish, resulting in panics that mirrored bank runs.
Real estate skyrocketed in price—being used solely as a hedge against hyperinflation, as opposed to any useful purpose. Homelessness exploded.
Meanwhile, for the CCE, the chief concern was that the only means of reaching Clarke Station was controlled by Jack Macy and his Galleon rockets. Macy tripled the ticket price to orbit. Then he quintupled it. The very wealthy were all too happy to pay, eager as they were to “escape Earth.” That escape didn’t last long, however, and after a couple of weeks riding the Let’s Be Friends lunar cycler, they’d be back in low Earth orbit again.
Well before the market crash, Catalyst Corporation had voted to challenge Macy’s monopoly on lunar cyclers and contracted with Lunargistics to design a replacement for the Rosette. This time, however, the company had serious mass to work with. Their design, a 5,000-ton spin-gravity vessel with an integral solar storm shelter, required very little delta-v to send back toward Earth from L2 and to adjust into lunar cycler orbit. Christened Kepler, it was completed at Clarke Station only a month after the economic collapse.
With the Kepler going into service, helmed by a Catalyst Corporation crew, Macy’s monopoly on lunar transportation was broken. Galleon rockets not only lacked spin-gravity, but provided an inferior solar storm shelter. Now spacefarers—and even tourists—could travel beyond the Moon and back in spin-gravity comfort, able to eat, shower, and sleep normally within three habitats. Macy’s Galleon service was crude by contrast. Likewise, Clarke Station now had control of its own transport infrastructure, and the size of incoming teams grew.
Jin Han and Priya Chindarkar, meanwhile, had worked with Lukas Rochat to reach an agreement with Artemis Accord signatories as well as Russia and China that gave legal sanction for the CCE to utilize the thorium refined from lunar regolith, to power something known as a “breeder” nuclear reactor, 2 gigawatts in size, which would be constructed at Morra Base. Thorium fuel apparently did not raise the same nuclear weapons concerns as uranium, even though this reactor would be big enough to power half a million homes back on Earth. The idea was to use it to power a newly proposed second mass-driver, the MD2, drawing 250 megawatts—five times the energy of Ecklund’s machine—and launching 50-kilogram cores into orbit.
Morra Base would also need to be expanded to accommodate dozens of additional Badger harvesters, to increase regolith processing and handling, and so on. It would take months of work, and Tighe opposed the idea as yet another major distraction from building the rescue ship. It caused serious debate among the Catalyst board members.
Jin and Chindarkar maintained that this thorium nuclear reactor—and the abundance of resources it would make available in cislunar space—would build enough trust between the nations of Earth and the CCE to speed approval for enriching the uranium necessary to fuel the reactors of the NTR-01 rescue ship—whose superstructure was already well underway in the shipyard.
Approval for which had not yet been granted.
Nonetheless, Tighe eventually realized—as more and more expert crew members came aboard Clarke Station—that the additional teams would be able to handle the thorium reactor work, and since the second mass-driver was scheduled to come online four months before any departure to Ryugu, the additional resources might help secure the rescue ship’s completion.
Meanwhile, the Daisy solar power satellite in orbit around EM-L1 would no longer be needed once the thorium reactor was finished. Several meetings were conducted to determine what to do with it. Certainly there were many places where 50 megawatts of power could prove useful on the Moon. NASA, the ESA, and numerous governments submitted proposals. Likewise, there were suggestions by some that they could bring Daisy into geosynchronous orbit to beam power down to a rectenna on Earth, helping to alleviate blackouts in crisis areas.
The endless meetings were not something Tighe was suited for, and he often found himself gazing out the virtual window at the shipyard, where scaffolding surrounded the metallic framework of the NTR-01, already under construction. Instead of listening to the interminable details of station management, he imagined the day the NTR-01 would be launched.
* * *
—
Not long after the global economic collapse on Earth began, Lukas Rochat contacted Tighe about an “urgent personal matter.” Tighe warily returned Rochat’s video call from his private quarters.
“What’s so urgent, Lukas?”
Rochat appeared via the comm link in his office in Luxembourg City. “I am well, thank you, J.T.”
Tighe sighed. “Sorry. Are things okay there in Luxembourg?”
“For me? Fine. Listen . . .” He tried to find words. “I know you’re estranged from your family, but I received a call from your brother-in-law . . . a Mr. Vinter of Sheboygan, Wisconsin.”
“If he wants the twenty grand or whatever I owe him, go ahead and pay it . . . again.”
“It’s not that. Your whole family is apparently in desperate circumstances due to the economic crash.”
Tighe stared. “Tell Ted to sell his sports memorabilia.”
“Your mother also contacted me. Trying to reach you.”
That shocked Tighe.
“I thought you should know.”
He processed this news. The last conversation Tighe had had with his mother occurred years ago—via sat phone just before his departure on the Konstantin expedition. The distance between him and his mother, both physical and emotional, even back then was immense. “What did she want?”
“Your family in Wisconsin is destitute. Your sister’s law firm folded, and they are facing foreclosure on their homes.” Rochat spread his hands. “My research confirms they need assistance.”
Long-forgotten emotions roiled Tighe. A flash of memory of his mother when he was still a young boy, speaking to him in the darkness as they slept in a car. His mother’s desperation at their homelessness after his father’s disappearance. And then the security that Andrew, his stepfather, had given her. Her continued disappointment in Tighe—that he would not accept the world she had provided for them. And yet . . . she was once more without safety and security.
He realized then how deep his wound was. Her rejection of him—who he was—still stung. Tighe breathed deeply to center himself.
Security. He owed her that.
Rochat waited patiently.
“Send her money.”
“Do you wish to speak with her?”
After a moment Tighe shook his head. His family no longer had any conception of who he was—if they ever did. “Just send money.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know . . . a few thousand lūna.”
Rochat gave him a look. “That’s more than a billion US dollars. A bit much, don’t you think?”
Tighe gave him a startled look. “Jesus. I have a billion dollars?”
“You really have no concept of what’s happened, do you?”
He tapped the table impatiently. “Fine. Send her whatever they need to keep their homes and to get a fresh start. Figure that out, and tell me a number.”
“You’ll need to transfer the lūna to them. I can’t do it.”
“Right. Fine. Just give me a reasonable number. And don’t trust my brother-in-law to come up with one.”
“Okay, I’ll be in touch, J.T.”
Tighe cut the line. He then spent the next half hour in his quarters, staring through a virtual window at a live image of Earth—trying to resolve Wisconsin with his naked eye.
CHAPTER 43
Overton Window
OCTOBER 10, 2041
Erika Lisowski stood near a podium as tanned, bearded billionaire Sir Thomas Morten approached a microphone. He wore a white suit with a pink dress shirt, open at the throat, as his long gray hair flowed in a tropical breeze. It was a pleasant, sunny day here on Baliceaux Island. The summer heat and humidity (and hurricane season) was over in the Caribbean, but damage was still evident all around them, with most palm trees of any size either stripped of their fronds or snapped near their base, leaving only jagged stumps.
Nathan Joyce’s former Great House stood behind Morten’s podium, its exterior ravaged by high winds, though not destroyed. By contrast, piles of wood debris, the remains of scores of guest bungalows that had been leveled down to their concrete foundations, made for a surreal, postapocalyptic backdrop for such a festive occasion. Dozens of press and VIPs had been flown in for a lavish cocktail reception beneath newly installed grass umbrellas and awnings that shaded a tiki bar. Uniformed serving staff patrolled with hors d’oeuvres as if the destruction all around them was just a party theme.
Sir Morten cleared his throat into the microphone and smiled with brilliant white teeth. “Good afternoon. You are so very welcome at Baliceaux.” He spread his arms magnanimously. “Those of you who have visited before, when it was the home of the late Nathan Joyce, may look on this destruction with dismay.” He shook his head. “But I see the potential for rebirth. This is why, as others flee the Earth’s climate-change-ravaged equatorial regions, I was glad to purchase Nathan’s former estate.” He spoke from the side of his mouth for effect. “Albeit at a very steep discount.”
The gathered press and guests chuckled.
Lisowski surveyed the crowd. The press in attendance were busy hitting the bar, but the VIPs seemed to be focused on Morten’s every word.
“I purchased this estate despite current weather patterns as a gesture of faith in humanity’s future—faith in our ability to effect positive change. I firmly believe that not only Baliceaux’s, but all of Earth’s, best days still lie ahead. By expanding our industrial and energy infrastructure into cislunar space, we will relieve the unsustainable burdens we have imposed upon Mother Earth, while not abandoning the developing world to a calamity not of their making, but instead uplifting and enriching the lives of billions.”
Someone near the bar called to the staff, “Can I have a lime in that?” to the tinking of glassware.
Morten continued, unaffected—his skin apparently thick as well as tanned. “As a demonstration of my commitment to this goal, I’ve gathered you here to announce that Vestal Aerospace’s hydrogen-oxygen-powered Gyrfalcon prototype hypersonic aircraft . . .”
Here a holographic projection system displayed alongside Morten on the diminutive stage a long, sleek, needle-shaped aircraft with outsized air scoops in its underbelly.
“. . . which flew last year from London to Tokyo in a mere two hours and ten minutes, at an altitude of sixty kilometers, producing no sonic booms and with near-zero carbon emissions—will become part of a larger Vestal single-stage-to-orbit system, offering humanity unprecedented, low-cost access to space.”
Here, the hologram zoomed out to show the Earth edge-on from low orbit as a hundreds-of-kilometers-long tether slowly rotated.
“Catalyst Corporation, our cislunar partners, propose to manufacture the first of a series of 500-kilometer-long, 6,000-ton rotating orbital skyhooks. Such a tether, counter-rotating in low Earth orbit, can descend into Earth’s atmosphere at an altitude of 100 kilometers and a speed of 4 kilometers per second—well within the capabilities of our Gyrfalcon.”
Here the hologram zoomed in to show the Gyrfalcon hypersonic aircraft meeting the rotating skyhook as it slowed briefly while the longer tether rotated beyond it in orbit. The hypersonic aircraft’s payload was then lifted from its open bay doors, at which point they separated.
“Ten tons of payload to space in a fully reusable aircraft that flies with the frequency of a regular airliner—delivering per-kilogram costs to LEO at a fraction of all rocket-based launch systems and with little environmental impact. Later versions will be able to double and triple these payloads as stronger crystalline structures are developed in the microgravity research labs of Clarke Station. Single-stage-to-space with an assist from the heavens, and at very little impact to the environment.” He gestured to the hologram. “Not bad for a parabolic carnival ride.”
This jab at Morten’s billionaire rival, George Burkette, was met by laughter and applause from the crowd—including the press.
As Morten began to take questions from the reporters, Lisowski headed through the throng and out toward the edge of the gathering. As cringey as Morten’s press conference was, at least his plan was no longer entirely impossible—and that was progress.
A voice nearby said, “I suppose you must be happy about all this.”
Lisowski turned to see a face she recognized. The elder statesman stood in a polo shirt and khakis, completely generic amid the gaggle of press and digerati.
She nodded to him and continued toward the tiki bar. He fell in alongside her. She picked up a glass of white wine from a tray that contained a dozen and offered one to him.
