A Three-Dimensional Future in Space
“Don’t ask for a lighter load, ask for a stronger back.”
Yesterday, we talked about the motivation behind climbing the highest mountain. From a personal perspective, climbing the mountain of Mars colonization might be a valuable endeavor for us from Crew Montes, however exploring space is more often than not dealt with public criticism. Why take the risk? And why spend millions of taxpayer dollars in space exploration? My favorite response to that is a short story from astronaut Soichi Noguchi:
I want you to imagine that you are an ant, and you are following a line on the ground. First, imagine that you are a one-dimensional ant who can only walk forward and backward on the line. Now, imagine that I put a stone there. Then, even if the one-dimensional ant wants to go forward, the one-dimensional ant can’t go forward because of the pebble. In other words, it’s the end of their world.
Then a 2D ant, who can go forward, backward, left and right, comes along. "No, you can’t go out", the one-dimensional ant tells them.
"Who decided that?" 2D ant looks at the pebble and says, "Just go sideways, it’s fine, see?" And the 2D Ant is able to go beyond the pebble and continue on. As he continues to walk, he comes across a stone wall. The ant is in trouble again. No matter how far he goes, forward, backward, left and right, he can’t get to the other side of the wall. For the 2D ant, it’s the end of their world. He doesn’t know what to do. Now, a 3D ant who can go forward, backward, left and right, and up and down arrives. Then 3D-ant looks at the wall and says, "No, that’s fine." Then the 3D-ant can overcome the walls that are connected horizontally and proceed to a new world.
On Sol 5, our crew explored the second and third dimensions in multiple ways. During our EVA today, Genie, Spy and I set out to Skyline Ridge, for all purposes an infinite wall of over 1,000 ft blocking our way forward. After a strenuous hike under a load that pounded our shoulders like ground beef, we arrived at Skyline Ridge’s intimidating beauty ready to face up. We successfully launched our DRONE to the third-dimension multiple times, allowing us to remotely explore the badlands covering its base to collect LIDAR measurements on its terrain. Spy also tested a remote hotspot connection to the DRONE that allowed us to collect data from the Raspberry Pi using our phones, making the process much more streamlined within the context of an EVA. This remarkable spot also graced us with rich data in its depths, where Genie explored the underworld’s magnetic properties by digging her instruments for data collection. This new understanding of the magnetic properties of soil can be used to counteract the effect of solar storms, for example, on the electrical grid of not only Mars, but also on Earth.
In the meantime, Messiah, Mr. Fix and Murph crafted their own version of the layers of Skyline Ridge by cooking a Montes Casserole that would leave any geologist digging for more. Murph also continued to explore the depths of the third dimension by optimizing the growth of mushrooms that thrive in the underground. This experiment promises to change the way we recycle materials in space and on Earth using the Mycoponics technology developed by her lab at Purdue.
After lunch, Messiah worked on the samples we collected from Skyline Ridge towards extracting iron and hematite content from the metal-rich soil. Our EVA led us to an astounding 100 grams of hematite, which can be refined together with the iron towards the creation of a 2D thin-film of semiconducting material. The final goal of this research is to prove the use of in-situ resources in solar panels, which are a clean source of energy that has been revolutionizing the way we obtain electricity.
Going back to Noguchi’s story, the moral is very simple. Going to the third dimension and achieving a different perspective, such as looking from above or below, allows us to come up with new solutions. Going into space doesn’t just mean going to a distant planet, but it also means we can look at the problems we’re currently facing on Earth from a new perspective and solve them. Hopefully, what we are doing here as Crew Montes will be remembered and used in the future for all mankind, in space and on Earth.
Hermit out.