Delta-v, page 48
Selected Works of Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky by Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky (University Press of the Pacific)
Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson (W. W. Norton & Company)
Space Resources: Breaking the Bonds of Earth by John S. Lewis and Ruth A. Lewis (Columbia University Press)
Space Warfare in the 21st Century: Arming the Heavens By Joan Johnson-Freese (Routledge)
Appendix
The asteroid mining ship Konstantin, spun up and en route to Ryugu. Note the four Honey Bee optical mining robots docked aft of the Central Hab. (Ship design by Daniel Suarez. Illustration by Anthony Longman.)
Honey Bee optical mining robot with twin 15-meter thin film parabolic reflectors. (APIS™ and Honey Bee™ are registered trademarks of TransAstra Corporation. Image reproduced with permission of TransAstra Corporation. Illustration by Anthony Longman.)
Orthographic view of the Mule utility spacecraft with human figure for scale. Note running boards and docking port. (Ship design by Daniel Suarez. Illustration by Anthony Longman.)
Robotic return tugs (from bottom to top): the Nicole Clarke, the David Morra, and the Amy Tsukada. (Ship design by Daniel Suarez. Illustration by Anthony Longman.)
Acknowledgments
Writing Delta-v has been an extraordinary journey. Along the way, innumerable people guided and assisted me—experts in many fields who shared their time and knowledge to help root this fictional narrative in reality.
My profound thanks to Alexander MacDonald, senior economic adviser at NASA headquarters, who provided key insights on the near future of spaceflight and advice on an early draft of this book. (And although he at one point had the same NASA title as my fictional character Erika Lisowski, this is entirely coincidental.)
Likewise, I’m grateful for the assistance of my good friend, NASA physicist, and part-time rock climber Eric Burt for patiently wading through the 174,000-word first draft of this book (sorry, Eric), offering comments and answering many questions, as well as writing software to confirm orbital trajectories and calculate potential Earth aerobraking maneuvers—not to mention sharing his knowledge of climbing knots and conversational French. (Best wishes on the real-world launch of Eric’s own team’s Deep Space Atomic Clock in 2019.)
Thanks as well to Pete Worden, former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, for clueing me in to the presence and significance of perchlorates on the surface of Mars.
My sincere thanks also to a certain real-world NewSpace titan who was gracious enough to meet with me and answer my research questions despite his hectic schedule.
Heartfelt thanks to Mark Stover, my close friend since childhood and veteran of numerous extreme caving expeditions, for helping me grok the culture and mind-set of cave explorers. I would not have been able to occupy the skin of my protagonist without those insights.
I’m grateful also to Joel Sercel, CEO and founder of asteroid mining company TransAstra, for taking the time to answer my questions and for sharing technical details of his proposed APIS™ optical asteroid mining system—components of which are already undergoing Earth-bound tests.
Arigatou gozaimashita, Dr. Makoto Yoshikawa and the entire Hayabusa2 team at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). They literally brought the asteroid Ryugu into focus for the first time even as I wrote this book and also took the time to answer my questions. I look forward to the many discoveries the H2 team will make in 2019 and beyond.
Thanks as well to Julie Bellerose of NASA’s Outer Planet Navigation Group at the Jet Propulsion Lab and veteran of the legendary Cassini mission team, for kindly acting as my liaison to JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission, and also providing critical insights on the electrostatic environment of airless planetary bodies, regolith densities, and more.
My gratitude to Cyrus Foster who, during his time at NASA’s Ames Research Center, developed the Trajectory Browser—an online tool that helped me identify the key spacecraft trajectories used throughout this story.
My thanks as well to the many NASA engineers and scientists who conceived of and designed the canceled or unfunded projects depicted in this book, from the Asteroid Redirect Mission (which became my fictional Asteroid Retrieval System), the X-33 VentureStar, and others. Good ideas never die—they evolve.
Thanks also to the following students of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland circa 2001: Matthew Ashmore, Daniel Barkmeyer, Laurie Daddino, Sarah Delorme, Dominic DePasquale, Joshua Ellithorpe, Jessica Garzon, Jacob Haddon, Emmie Helms, Raquel Jarabek, Jeffrey Jensen, Steve Keyton, Aurora Labador, Joshua Lyons, Bruce Macomber Jr., Aaron Nguyen, Larry O’Dell, Brian Ross, Cristin Sawin, Matthew Scully, Eric Simon, Kevin Stefanik, Daniel Sutermeister, and Bruce Wang, plus their faculty advisers, Dr. David Akin and Dr. Mary Bowden—whose proposal at the turn of this century for “Clarke Station: An Artificial Gravity Space Station at the Earth-Moon L1 Point” became the inspiration for the design of the Konstantin mining spacecraft in this book, albeit in a significantly modified and expanded form. The concept of an a-grav research station in lunar orbit is more relevant now than ever.
My sincere appreciation to Dr. John S. Lewis, author and professor emeritus of planetary science at the University of Arizona, for his scholarship on all things asteroid mining.
My thanks also to Don Donzal at the Ethical Hacker Network (www.ethicalhacker.net) for helping me figure out what type of operating system a spacecraft like the Konstantin would need in 2033—and more importantly for teaching me how to hack into it.
Thanks as well to Seamus Blackley for demonstrating some truly mind-blowing light field technology. And thanks also to Brian Mullins for guiding me there.
I’m grateful to exceptional space-themed YouTubers Isaac Arthur, Curious Droid (Paul Shillito), and Scott Manley for hundreds of hours of informative videos on all things space, which informed this book in countless ways. May their Patreon subscriber count continue to grow.
Tremendous thanks to Vladimir Romanyuk, the brilliant creator of the universe simulator SpaceEngine, which permitted me to view the cosmos from the perspective of my asteroid miners on every single day of their expedition. Likewise, many thanks to the developers of Kerbal Space Program and its realism modders, for helping me play with rockets without paying billions.
My appreciation also to Winchell Chung, whose website, “Atomic Rockets,” proved an invaluable resource for even the most esoteric details of space exploration.
I’m grateful also to Hans Zimmer and Thomas Bergersen, whose deeply evocative music inspired me at key moments in the writing of this book.
Thanks as always to my longtime literary agent, Rafe Sagalyn at ICM, and my editor at Dutton, Jessica Renheim, whose advice, patience, and hard work helped to bring this book from conception to reality.
And finally, thanks to the love of my life, Michelle Sites, for a lifetime of adventure.
About the Author
Daniel Suarez is the author of the New York Times bestseller Daemon, Freedom™, Kill Decision, Influx, and Change Agent. A former systems consultant to Fortune 1000 companies, he writes high-tech and sci-fi thrillers that focus on technology-driven change. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
Daniel Suarez, Delta-v
