Dream Dance

Day 87 - All the Children of the Parent Star

All life-bearing planets have similarities. They all orbit suns in a certain size range, for example. Earth's sun is in the lower-middle range of masses, Sigma 957's in the upper-middle. Too small and there are no planets or those that exist don't hit the habitability ring; too large and the radiation is too intense or of the wrong type. Likewise all except one living world has a large moon. Significant tides play a critical role in the Zhou-Betlitner process, the mechanism believed to explain the rapid appearance of left-handed amino-acid based life on suitable worlds. So too the large outer planet that sweeps out rocks and comets making it safe for the inner worlds. (Sigma 957's Jupiter is remarkable indeed, but that's another story.)

And then there's the weird coincidences. While it's true that nearly all such systems have a red planet, it doesn't seem to mean anything. These dead, red orbs aren't involved in the possibility for life, or the origin of life, or the sustaining of life in their parent star systems. Instead they seem to be failed siblings; the sister worlds that might have had life but did not.

Such systems start out with several promising-looking rocky bodies, all with liquid water and thick atmospheres. If one of them develops an ecosystem, and a stable water-carbon cycle, inevitably one of the others will simply dry out. Hydrogen, the lightest of elements, slowly escapes either due to lack of gravity or excitement by stellar winds or simple thermal randomness. Oxygen, the other partner in wetness is too heavy to escape, so it stays behind and sullenly oxidizes the soil. The stellar child robbed of the lucky breaks holds its breath and turns many shades of crimson.

The red planet in the Sigma 957 system is planet 4, and despite its differences from the more familiar Red Planet (it's very hot, for one) it fills the Martians with pride. Our four Martians have been lobbying for visiting the fourth planet at a time that would coincide with the Martian Centennial. That was about nine years ago and we're set to lap it again in two and a half years from now. My guess would be that it won't happen -- the schedule on planetary forays is close to fixed in stone -- but I would vote for it if it came to that. Knowing the Martians it's going to be a hell of a party in either case.

Day 83 - Power-Law Network Relationships, and Me

Right about now, on Earth, my life is entering a phase where everything I do is in some way related to Pi. It started quite honestly. An acquaintance asked me to help cater a party. Living in a dorm means always being on the lookout for good volunteering opportunities, so I agreed. Later, when I figured out where we were walking to I nearly tripped over my own feet.

Naia pi-Kakoska -- known universally as Pi -- lived in the largest, most beautiful townhouse on the entire campus. It was a sprawling two-story structure with hidden gardens, terraces, and a sweeping overlook of the old Neues Palais. In the giant kitchens the various senior volunteers instructed the new recruits about how to walk around with hors d'œuvres and drinks, and to not get too drawn up in the majesty of things.

It's well known that human social interactions form a scale-free network. As the number of people in the social framework increases, the number of hops required to get from any one to any other increases only logarithmically. This is only possible because some of the people act as hubs, having many more connections than the average nodes. Pi was a human super-hub. I don't think I knew of a professor or faculty member who was not at that party. I was new there; I didn't know too many people. Everyone I knew was important was there, and they were in the second tier.

The network theory really should take into account the idea that not all links are equal. It's easy enough, even for a socially awkward grad student, to perceive how the social planets arrayed themselves. Orbiting in Pi's powerful gravity well the closest companions had long ago been locked into gravitational resonance, always turning themselves to face her burning brilliance but stripped of atmosphere, hard and lifeless. In a more middle valence the Goldilocks group maintained their independence while always endowed with the flowing of liquid water driven by the power of her presence. Finally the outer worlds beheld her only as a kind of shining promise, a distant radiance to strive for but never to truly experience for lack of delta-v.

All this I see in hindsight. About now my past self is wide-eyed with wonder that anyone can command this kind of real estate -- this level of resource allocation for a single person. I knew this must be an amazing human being. And yet, in my innocence, I didn't even flinch when she came to talk to me.

Day 79 - The Day of the Dancer: Naming the DAF

About 8 years ago in my personal timeline (about 4 years from now on Earth) a bunch of us from the lab went to see Tanzen Spiegel perform at the Spaßwerk Theater. They were a very popular troop doing a sold out show, and we quickly found out why. Their first dance was an absolutely hilarious pantomime of sexual selection gone wrong. The second piece was about E3 polymerase synthesis which I didn't get although the biochemists were all enthralled. It looked really nice though. The bit after the break I forget, but their last piece was spectacular -- an absolute tour de force of the history of life on Earth. A couple of glitches in the science but easily forgivable. Even the non-biologists gave them a long standing ovation.

Part rythmist, part contortionist, they would bend themselves into crazy shapes, and multiple dancers would link together to act out the motions of their fanciful creatures. They wore leotards that would change colors to make them meld, and flash patterns to interpret the story. In particular during the dance about runaway sexual selection, red barcode patterns on the flanks of the creatures (each made of two dancers -- one the body and the other the absurd antlers) would cleverly change to indicate each new generation.

I mention them because they remind me of the DAF of Sigma 957. At first it was the red barcode; they are like the red marks on the flanks of the males. But the more I thought about it these creatures appear as if they might be contorted dancers -- otherwise graceful humans twisting themselves into strange forms. Their heads droop below raised shoulders, their bent bodies rest on legs with too many joints and angles. They look like if they stood up straight they would tower over normal humans, rather than the tallest of them coming only to my chin.

But most of all they move like dancers. Each footfall seems carefully planned, like a step in a complex coreography. Even the most confident and comfortable person makes a misstep, plods or stumbles, or simply appears uncouth and uncoached. They never do, at least to my eye. They seem to have all practiced somewhere away from my prying cameras so that when they are on stage they are flawless in their execution. They are natural dancers who, through their constant and unforced grace, act as mirror for humans of our own awkward, uncomfortable, confused existence.

These are the reasons I have made my choice. This species are to be called Tanzen -- The Dancers.

Day 76 - Roam If You Want To

The Roam is finally on-line. And oh boy is there a party happening. A big virtual party. I'm invited but I have to bring my own ethanol. I'm excited about the Roam -- I really am. I can finally just walk through the probe archives like they are right here. Earlier I could browse the index, but to access any kind of detailed records I had to make a request that might be fulfilled anywhere up to 20 minutes later when the G. Agricola came into line of sight.

On the other hand, I can't bring myself to be as excited as the rest of the team. Let's consider the key features of a Roam:

1) Bandwidth. This was the technical problem that everyone obsessed about. It requires infrastructure that we didn't have. When we got here the ship's orbit defined when we could make transmissions and getting from one side of the planet to the other was simply impossible. Today Mission Support has finally installed and calibrated the last of 96 low orbit satellites in a constellation that provides continuous high-bandwidth coverage to the entire globe. Problem solved.

2) Constant creative activity. OK, we have 56 people, and they are very bright and working round the clock to discover and record new insights, theories and data. But compared to even the most backwater parts of the Terrestrial Roam that's pathetic. Just the local Roam in Potsdam had millions of participants at all times. And we were milliseconds from everyone else on Earth. Creative input here is like a desert wasteland.

3) Hoards of synthesists. Despite what others might argue, it's really the synthesists that make the Roam work. It isn't the raw data, creativity and content that make the Roam an experience that's -- I don't know -- fulfilling? Exciting? Enriching? Productive? Yes, all those things. But not because of what any one person adds to it. It's because of the untold hours of donated expertise to sort, categorize and synthesize the raw information. Many otherwise smart people think that this just hapens by itself. It doesn't. In a properly functioning Roam there are as many synthesists as original contributors.

4) Auditors. There we have enough numbers -- I mean everyone is an auditor, aren't they? And yet no one has enough independence to be genuinely objective. We're all working so closely together that I cannot help but consider how my own research is helped or hurt but how I link to someone else's results. Proper auditing requires not only peer review, but some detachment so that the review is not self-serving. We're a little too close to make those trade offs correctly.

So, yes, it's nice to have a Roam, but I think the novelty will wear off soon. People have set up facsimilies of the favorite social hubs that we visited before we left: Left Time, Quantum Cats, and Goo Works. Those were great with millions of real participants. With few real people and tons of stiff A.I.s trying to take up the slack I think it'll start to stink. The hubs that correlate Sigma 957 research data will thrive, and we'll figure out how to make it work with fewer people, but it will not be the full Roam experience. Call me a pessimist, but I don't want to get drawn into the mass dissilusionment.

Day 72 - My Glamorous Months Riding a Giant Penis

Travel broadens the mind. So goes the old saying that is ten times more true today. Mind-broadening is what we do -- it's our business, our reason for existence, and the reason we pour so many Earthly resources into the mechanisms of space travel. That's not to say that space travel is enjoyable. It's not. Like most vehicles, space craft are designed around their limitations, and we really only care about the destination, not the trip. Once someone figures out how to let everyone sleep through the whole thing we'll all be better off.

I'm kidding of course. The experience counts for something, even if it's difficult. My first space voyage -- the hyperbolic clipper that took me to Mars -- was a relative pleasure cruise compared with what was to come. I had my own cabin, coffin-like though it was, with a (sort of) door that I could close. The ship had facilities specifically set aside for recreation, and micro-gravity games for us all to learn. Pyramid for the hard-core athletes, where two teams of four try to get balls into goals at the corners of a tetrahedron. I tried it once and the padding was not enough. For the less serious, or for those who just wanted to find temporary bunkmates, Belly-ball was a nice distraction. I forget the complicated rules but you ended up squishing your abdomen up against that of strangers a little too forcefully for my taste.

Mars to Jupiter was a short transfer orbit: high accelerations and a dead coast. The long powered boost phase meant G-couches that were remarkably uncomfortable and took up a lot of room. They collapsed, but not nearly enough, so my personal space was largely dominated by a lump of useless furniture. Thankfully there was a well-appointed gym and I spent the last part of the flight (after the first five weeks when I got exercise a different way) running a treadmill in a traction harness. That was, for me, much more pleasant than just floating about.

That was cramped, smelly and uncomfortable, and it was sheer heaven compared to interstellar travel. My first reaction to seeing our starship docked at the Callisto station was shock at how small it was. It looked like a tiny pencil next to the long haulers and clippers, and this was going to take us to the stars? And then, like everyone, I broke out laughing. It looked like a dick.

Of course the phallic shape follows from the design constraints. Up front is a hemispherical shield that ablates to protect us from super-luminal matter. Behind that a long, slightly more narrow cylinder of cargo and living modules. And at the end a series of slightly larger spherical tanks for reaction-mass and consumables. The structural framework only adds to the whole erect-organ effect. To add insult to injury the loop drive itself is a ring: a ring about the same circumference as the length of the ship, set about two-thirds of the way back. A yoni for the thrusting lingam.

Sperm probably aren't packed so close together. The 56 of us spent the entire trip crammed into a space about as big as a school bus. It was crisscrossed with handholds which allowed spaces to be divided with curtains, but frankly there was no place to get away from anyone. So my experience has been that space travel involves progressively smaller and smaller, stuffier and stuffier spaces. Fortunately the interstellar voyage was relatively short, but that doesn't mean it was less eventful.

Day 68 - Roses by Any Name; Do We Fear the Thorns or Love the Scent?

Let me make something totally clear: I respect Dr. yi-Rangapoor. We collaborated remotely over a period of about eight months designing the research program here, and Sid is a consummate professional and a really nice man. He has -- hands down -- done the very best work on the DAF to date, and I could not be where I am today without his efforts.

Some wonder why I am not using his term. He called the DAF of Sigma 957 the Ticho, which roughly means "Silent Ones" for their apparent lack of language. While Dr. yi-Rangapoor never used it in published papers (he always preferred the probe's designation "lifeform AA01"), I have heard it used by members of this expedition and it always set my teeth on edge.

First of all it belies tradition. It used to be, on Earth, the discoverer of a new species had the priviledge of naming it. Of course that doesn't work on other worlds. The probe itself is technically the discoverer, and when a probe returns its data gets pumped out into the global Roam where it's impossible to say which human eyes first saw a specific organism. So technical designations are used until people actually visit the new ecosystem, and even then there are clear rules about who is allowed to assign names. By tradition that's me, not Sid (and certainly not Gregol).

But that's not the main reason. The problem I have with Ticho is that it focuses on a negative -- the thing that we as non-stop gabblers feel is missing from these graceful and highly successful creatures. They don't talk. They've harnessed fire, they settle in complex comunities, they make tools and textiles and pottery, and yet in our minds they are not complete. They have no language. That makes them different or lesser, or just -- alien. So we give them a name (in our language!) that signifies their stigma.

Sid's work really speaks for itself. He described them as a very successful species with remarkable survival skills, and eschewed anthropomorphising the ways that we are similar, and any revulsion about the ways we are different. The name he used casually does not reflect his science. I want to pick a name that expresses what they are, not what they are not. There is something extraordinarily beautiful about these creatures -- they deserve a name that speaks to their uniqueness, not our fears or predjudices.

Day 64 - Hacking my Dot Matrix Hairbrush

I decided to take some time today and experiment with hairbrush designs. The problem is that my hair doesn't do well in this humidity, and I've been breaking the bristles on my brush. The campus printers were huge, fast and accurate so I'm used to just making a new one when I lose too many bristles, but my printer takes a day and a half. And the ones I make here break too often.

The main problem is the 0.02 error rate. It doesn't sound like much but it means that in a cubic millimeter of solid matrix there are 20 or more dots missing or out of place. Blue dots are 100 micron cubes studded with polymer fingers. In a warm ion solution under gentle UV illumination the fingers straighten out and the solid form dissolves into a slurry. The print head deposits them into a matrix for the desired form, and then cooling and flushing cause them to mesh together. The dots align with their neighbors, the fingers close on each other, and the result is a rigid solid.

The problem is that errors propagate through the cubic crystalline structure. A few dots out of place push their neighbors out of skew as well and make fault planes. You can see them as reflective surfaces inside the otherwise semi-translucent plastic with the familiar blueish tint. Since the solid is rigid, the flexible bristles of my favorite hairbrush design are made by putting a spring system of interlocking 3D zizzags at the bottom of each spine. Using the micro-PSI scanner I can see that the tiny springs are riddled with fracture planes. No wonder they snap off when they encounter even a mild knot.

I'm trying a helical screw design for the bristle spring. That was part of the shock system in the mounting brackets and seems to have done really well in the field so far. I examined one and it looked like the fracture planes were such that they never cut across the entire width of the screw. That may have to do with the orientation relative to the matrix, or it might be due to the relative largeness of the screw compared to the old spring design.

I used to dabble in mechanical hacking like this back in high school, but I gave it up once everyone who did it seriously was so much better than I was. I showed some other kid in the dorm a micro-solenoid I built and he rolled his eyes at me. It's been a fun distraction, but if it still fails (I'll know in about 28 hours) I'll just look up a competent design once the Roam comes online.