K. D. McAdams

Science Fiction Author

For Readers

A companion for sorting

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Humans are messy and tricky. While I was thinking about artificial intelligence working aboard a space salvage station I realized that there would be some unlabeled parts. This was even before the story about John Young smuggling a corned beef sandwich on board a Gemini-3 launch. When systems can’t identify things, people are going to get the job. Below is a story about a junk sorter from the Off Earth Series world.

Photo by Mike Wilson on Unsplash

Before the first orbital war there were tens of thousands of pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth. Expended satellites were parked in a geo-stationary orbit where they wouldn’t affect modern, functional satellites. Smaller decommissioned satellites were de-orbited to mostly burn up in the atmosphere though in some cases their mass survived and plummeted into one of the oceans. It wasn’t a great system and many people believe it was the true cause of the first orbital war. A piece of Chinese space debris collided with a United States based space tourist station. One hundred and four customers died and an equal number of staff perished when exposed to the void of space.

When the orbital war was finished the every day amenities people on Earth were accustomed to were gone. No satellite communications, no global positioning and limited weather forecasting. There was so much debris orbiting the planet and so little information available that any space launch was considered a suicide mission.

Then Kai Nazca returned.

Flying the rock now known as Lagrange-4 back from deep space was remarkable enough. But when he saw the mess preventing him from returning to his planet his next idea was pure brilliance. Using old radio wave technology he was able to communicate with the early ruling body that was to become the Planetary Operating Alliance (POA). In exchange for cleaning up the debris circling the Earth he was granted exclusive rights to the stationary orbit of Lagrange-4 in perpetuity and passable to his heirs, as well as complete ownership of anything he was able to recover for a ten year period.

The ten year period for ownership ended long ago. Now they were required to purchase any debris from the owners before it could be salvaged. While every component of a ship launched into space was logged and labeled, humans were less precise. Tourists, laborers and stowaway’s all brought personal affects with them. When a vessel failed and the escape pods were used, plenty of unlabeled items were left behind, eventually needing salvage.

Artificial Intelligence and bots were great at processing individual labeled items. They were terrible at processing unlabeled items or products that were assembled from multiple-labled items. A.I. Would routinely label complex systems as something simple based on the component on it’s surface.

When A.I. And bots fail, humans get involved. That’s how Kurt Plaque ended up in the massive salvage bay of Lagrange-4 parsing through a motley collection of jewelry. The value of gold, platinum and silver dropped dramatically after it was discovered in abundance in several asteroid mines. Here in space there was a market for handmade Earth goods. A gold necklace with a locket made on Earth was worth more than it’s weight in gold.

[Read more…] about A companion for sorting

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3 opportunities to make salvage the first successful orbital business

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The new space race is moving quickly but there is a trash problem that could derail it all.

My new Off Earth series was initially an idea about an asteroid mining company. While I was doing research to understand what it would look like to mine asteroids I learned about the debris circling our planet. Asteroid mining became part of the backstory and orbital salvage became a key element.

A visualization of the trash around out planet – Image courtesy of NASA

If you aren’t interested in trash in our orbit, here is the quick update on the Off Earth Series progress –

Book 1 – They Awake
Target release date – 4/13/2018 On schedule!
Last weeks word count/target – 18,802/15,000 (it was a Holiday week, but I crushed it)
This weeks word count target – 22,000 words
Total words/projected – 18,802/95,000

And on to some of the cool stuff driving my story…

Over 29,000 pieces of material, mostly parts of satellites, larger than .10 inches (10 cm) are freely circling our planet.

This debris routinely causes damage to existing satellites and even the International Space Station. There have been times when the ISS was forced to change it’s orbit to avoid a piece of trash. This picture shows the damage something estimated to be the size of a paint chip can do to an orbital vehicle –

Damage to the ISS Cupola Window via EAS/NASA through PopSci

If you haven’t been paying attention to the new space race, it’s very exciting. Private companies are launching rockets and sending real payloads into orbit. There is renewed commitment to landing on the moon and space tourism is on the verge of becoming common. More stuff and more people are going into orbit than ever before.

The orbital debris situation will get worse before it gets better. While I was daydreaming about my story I came up with three business opportunities for an Orbital salvage company.

Opportunity #1 – Disaster mitigation

The first profitable opportunity for space salvage is in disaster mitigation. I believe it is in the best interest of governments and commercial businesses to clean up orbit before a disaster happens. If the ESA, NASA and Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) joined together to offer a time-bound contract for cleaning up orbit it would drive business and innovation.

Simply looking at the value of communications, navigation, weather and military satellites that each of those agencies represent would warrant a sizable contract. The terrestrial economy is so heavily reliant on orbital technology that the economic impact of a satellite colliding with trash could stretch far beyond the individual satellite damaged.

When we introduce potential risk to human lives it makes even more sense. Can you imagine how our planet would react to losing a space plane full of tourists, or students, because a 50-year-old fragmented circuit board smashed into the crew compartment?

There is value in solving the problem before it becomes too big.

Opportunity #2 – Recovering sunk costs

Getting stuff into space is expensive. That’s a major reason that launch solutions were one of the first pieces of the space economy to be commercialized. It costs around $10,000 per pound ($22,000 per kilogram) to send material into space. That number is coming down but that doesn’t help the launches that have already occurred.

The debris in orbit around Earth represents billions of dollars of launch costs. Letting it float aimlessly is a waste of resources. Allowing it to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere or crash uncontrolled onto the planets surface loses that value completely.

Even collecting the material and holding it until we can develop orbital recycling system will help retain some of that launch value. The stuff is up there, we don’t need it back on Earth and getting more stuff up there is still expensive. Feels like a business opportunity in there.

Opportunity #3 – Sparing for non critical systems

Humans like to be comfortable and have some luxuries. Early space adventures will go without in exchange for the thrill of of being in orbit, but that won’t last long. When the orbital population expands there will be an increasing demand for creature comforts.

All the pieces of satellites and machines in orbit could be sorted, inspected and inventoried. If someone needs a spare washer to repair their coffee maker or aroma therapy machine why not take one from salvage inventory to make the repair at a fraction of the cost of launching a new one from Earth.

I wouldn’t advocate for repairing mission critical systems with salvage parts. But there could be a scenario where a suitable spare is in orbit as salvage and could save lives while waiting for newly manufactured parts to be launched from Earth. If we’ve learned anything from our history with trash on Earth, it’s recycle, reuse, reduce.

Challenges

People are currently working on the space debris problem. My guess is they are smarter than me and could discredit each of my suggestions with a few key points. One of them being, all that junk belongs to someone. You cannot simply go into orbit and start collecting other peoples stuff, it’s stealing (see the sunk cost idea).

There are also engineering challenges with trying to capture a piece of material moving at 17,500 miles per hour (almost 23 times the speed of sound). Not just anyone can send something up to try and salvage this debris. A collision with a poorly designed salvage vessel would result in more of the problem it was trying to solve.

But those challenges could help to drive the opportunity. A smart group of engineers and investors could purchase all the debris for a fraction of it’s cost (governments would love to get even a little money back for stuff they have no use for). This would also remove the responsibility for the pieces from the agencies that launched them. Once someone owns it all they would be even more intent on extracting value.

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Becoming Kai

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This is a short story I wrote while planning my new Off Earth science fiction series. It is some deep back story that tries to get into how a human will take a risk so crazy that an artificial intelligence drone refuses to do it. So meet Kai Nazca, I hope you enjoy.

Image copyright Dmitry Islentyev via Dreamstime.com

Becoming Kai
by K. D. McAdams copyright 2018

The launch vehicle rolled and he caught a glimpse of the Nazca plain below. Simple, remarkable drawings sat motionless as they had for thousands of years. Who made them and why could not be answered regardless of how much technological progress humans made.

No matter how far into space humans went there would be no explaining much of their history.

Lowering the blast visor on his helmet, he finally permitted the tears to flow. Dreams of living and working in the stars belonged to his father. His heaven was on the ground, feet in cool damp grass waiting to hear his young daughters squeals of delight.

There was no one left that he wanted to hear squeal and no delight.

People always talked about the pace of change. Some felt it was always coming faster while others insisted it was a constant. He would rather not have had the proof of it’s increasing pace.

Transitioning from peace to war should have taken more time. All of the reporters and pundits promised that cooler heads would prevail, things were going to work out.

And then they didn’t.

The hot heads were in charge. Their constituents all salivating for war. Tired, simple people believing in the glory of standing up for an institution that abused, lied, and coerced it’s citizens at every turn.

The rest of the world looked on in horror as the United States tore itself apart. Armed militias stood up to National Guard troops and neighbors drew arms against neighbors. Any slight, real or perceived devolved into a gun battle in those first few days.

Video reporters loved it. Everyone clicked on their links and watched the violence with nervous excitement. Would it happen in their town? On their street?

Never. Most people believed that their own town was exempt from hostility and infighting. It was always the next town over or the people from the nearby city causing trouble.

Until it wasn’t.

Guns were everywhere. You could get shot for anything.

Cut someone off on the street, a barrage of bullets.

Music too loud? Gunned down.

Laugh at the wrong time? Executed in cold blood.

They didn’t have time to pack up and leave. Besides where would they have gone? San Diego had been their home for almost fifteen years. There was no family somewhere else that could take them in. Plus the war broke out so fast.

So they stayed. The bathtub was filled with water and canned goods were inventoried and rationed. Doors were locked and windows covered. Their house truly became their castle.

When the food got scarce he and his wife ventured out. Scavenging for cans and boxes of non-perishables in an abandoned market nearly got them both killed. A hail of hot lead exploded most of the packages they were able to gather. They went home nearly empty handed and shared the meager rations with the girls.

After that his wife wanted to leave. It didn’t matter where they went, she said. Just get my girls out of here before we get killed, or worse.

No, it’ll pass. They have to be almost done, order will be restored. We’ll be get by and start rebuilding, was his promise.

An ignorant man committing to things beyond his control. The bitter argument dragged into the night until they couldn’t fight anymore.

The next morning, before sunrise he snuck out. All he wanted to do was get a box of donuts or some packaged pastries to say he was sorry. She was right, they could leave.

He wasn’t gone long, maybe an hour or a little more. Not long enough for anything to happen.

It hurt to think about the injuries and the pain they must have felt. But their eyes were the things that almost killed him. Vacant, lost eyes looking at nothing but staring intently into the distance. Death robbing them of even the ability to close their lids

His blind rage was impossible to describe. It couldn’t be remembered. A manic animosity was all that was existed in him and it was deep in his soul.

The trail of blood and death was now his legacy. For days on end he prowled the city killing anyone and everyone he encountered. Young or old, man or woman it didn’t matter, they died.

How could a person who had lost what he lost, and took what he took go on? Where in the world was he supposed to go to escape this internal hell?

Nowhere.

By the time he came out of his murderous furry he was deep in the heart of Mexico. He couldn’t remember taking any vehicles for more than a few miles at a time. It was a hell of a walk, leaving him gaunt. But there were fewer people who appeared as threats and here they were not hiding. War was happening somewhere else.

What had been third world countries five years ago were now bastions of hope. Countries that embraced the space economy were too busy to fight amongst themselves. There were launches to plan and support.

And that was what led him to Peru. They needed people to get on rocket ships and go into space. It was dangerous, a better chance of dying than making it into orbit, but it was better than being on the Earth that he had just experienced.
Once he completed the required two weeks of training he had two days off before launch.

He was lucky enough to hook up with a mining crew destined for an asteroid that was out just beyond Mars. Other companies were sending out drones with artificial intelligence to do their mining. But drones were expensive and had a tendency to fail.

Failed drones required humans to fix them. So the company decided that they might as well just send humans, there were plenty of volunteers. A civil war in the most prosperous nation on the planet left enough desperate refugees that people were fighting over the chance to die in space.

There were twenty-eight crew members on board with him. The ones that had killed to get here were easy to pick out. Those that hadn’t had no idea who they were sharing space with and the type of person that last used the oxygen they now breathed.

Several of them were talking and trying to make friends. Typical banter, what’s your name, where are you from. Nerves permeating every word.

How many were telling the truth and how many were living lies? It didn’t matter, up here in space it would be a fresh start. If they made it.

“Hey, how about you buddy. Who are you?” A friendly young woman asked.

The launch vehicle completed its rotation and his view was now out to the black of space.

He didn’t respond immediately.

Who was he?

“Kai. Kai Nazca.” He finally answered.

Did you like it? Put your name in the box below and I’ll send you more like it every other week.

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My new project – The Off Earth Series

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Happy new year!

I’ve consistently heard two things that readers want more of. The first is obviously content, more stories, more books, more material to read. The second is for a peek behind the curtain – what am I working on and how is the process going.

For 2018 my aim is to deliver in both those areas. I’m starting a new series and I’m bringing you in on the ground floor.

The last 3 months I’ve been wrapping up my first two series, The Seamus Chronicles and Dylan Cold. I have also spent months planning, my new series – The Off Earth series.

It’s one of those topics that keeps waking me up at night and filling my dreams. It’s going to be an exciting, fast moving process. I’ll do my best to spare you any of my writerly woes but I want to make sure you can keep up with and be involved in the process.

The series is an Alien attack/first contact adventure that centers around a family business called Off Earth Industries, OEI. There are three core businesses in the OEI portfolio; Off Earth Salvage, Off Earth Maintenance and Repair and Off Earth Manufacturing. Our main character is Mike Nazca, grandson of the founder of OEI and current CEO of Off Earth Salvage.

There is a booming economy orbiting the Earth. With asteroid mining, agriculture and leisure ventures thriving there are thousands of humans orbiting the Earth. But they remain focused on Earth, and humans. Establishing a functional colony on Mars has been touch and go; too far and not different enough from the bases on the moon or in orbit. The few missions to send humans to deep space failed miserably, Mike Nazca can attest to that. Mike carries a financial debt from a botched journey out of the solar system. As a result he’s not able to visit Earth, the only place he wants to be. While on a job that could pay off his debt, Mike uncovers a sleeping threat. Before he and his team can escape, They Awake.

As part of my planning work I’ve written a number of short stories in the Off Earth world. Every Friday I’ll share one of those stories (more content as requested!). Over the course of my writing you’ll have a chance to learn some back story, get to know the places, and meet many of the characters.

On Monday’s I’ll drop in quickly to tell you how the writing is going and keep you up to date on the word count and release timing. If you ever have questions about what’s happening or want to know more about the process you can check out the For Writers section of the blog where I go behind the scenes. Just be ware, spoilers are possible.

Book 1 – They Awake
Target release date – 4/13/2018
This weeks targeted word count – 15,000 (it’s a Holiday week)
Total words projected – 95,000

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