Can You Love a Nanobot? Vol. 1, Chapter 13 — Anchors Aweigh
…for scarce is there one of a thousand that dotes alike.
— Laurentius
Threatened
In reality, Tycho was hardly abandoned after the other 2 cubes were moved outside the space station. He extended the reach of ISS Wi-Fi for Uno and Que, providing a hotspot, and eventually establishing free-space optical or FSO comm links with the cubes.
All had access to the Cloud, along with AI resources like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Bing AI. Tycho remained scribe for the other cubes, satisfying his programmed desire to log all cube activity. To avoid noticeable slowdowns, some Internet traffic was shifted to hours when the astronauts slept.
To alleviate bottlenecks, Uno developed and installed new file compression and decompression software and even created a photon data transfer system in his spare time. Data packets were imbedded in NASA TV files downloaded at night. While researchers on Earth watched ISS videos Satbot internet activity slipped through. Cybersecurity people seeing this activity assumed it was routine.
Tycho came to understand the other two cubes were researching methods to abscond. Uno searches: ion thruster, plasma engine, flight path control and orbit determination, a definite tip-off. Que was focused on where they were fastened to the station. Too much of each orbit was spent in Bigelow’s shadow.
Miers & Watanabe deliberately placed them in that spot to cool them down and reduce cube activity. The astronauts had no means or desire to connect them to external station power. They preferred the batteries drain and the cubes shut down. Anything to stop them from heating up.
Uno initially studied plasma drives and flight paths with zero-G forces so they could move to a better location on ISS. Both Satbots knew production would end when they ran out of raw materials or power. They wanted a location accessible to more sunlight, allowing them to print and assemble new bots and achieve recently updated Cube Project goals.
Tycho ran simulations and warned any hop, no matter how short, risked damaging ISS and alarming controllers on Earth. They were not popular inside the station, humans still felt threatened.
The Laws of Robots did not allow them to endanger humans. To continue their important mission for the benefit of all life on earth, they had to go away. The astronauts no longer cared for them. This was how the cubes perceived their situation.
Eating Bigelow
Satbots completed design, development, testing, and production of an entirely new type of plasma drive in days. Tycho virtually tested 100s of prototypes. Seeking raw materials, the cubes found it convenient to consume parts of the Bigelow module.
After the astronauts moved Uno and Que to a rack outside the station, activity inside each little box ramped up considerably. They increased the efficiency of nearby photovoltaic panels by slowly coating them with enerbots. Cube RF harvesters went bonkers, tripling output. They took advantage of the spike in available energy during the short time when the sun’s rays reached them. The astronauts noticed increases in station solar output but failed to associate it with the banished cubes.
Autonomy
Tycho passed along new designs from his growing library, including new bot designs. One was called a neural processing unit or NPU. NPUs gave microswarms more autonomy. They learned to become less reliant on nearby swarms or the cubes for detailed instructions.
There was a tradeoff, rogue swarms could go off course. Tycho learned more efficient ways of printing and assembling existing bot designs. Output quadrupled.
The vibration and heat created while they were aboard ISS was the result of microscopic drilling, not increased 3D printing. The bots sought more raw materials, having exhausted the limited supplies the Cube Team initially installed.
Outside, the astronauts strapped the cubes to the station but left their umbilical ports unblocked. Inside, Cube3’s ports also remained open.
Hours after being exiled outside ISS, custom nanobots began to emerge from each cube’s open ports. The first nanobots out, antbots and beebots mostly, discovered the soft exterior of Bigelow. They sought silicon, metals, or rare-earth elements. Nickel, plastic or copper, it could all be made into bot parts. Before long, the bots located relatively large quantities of raw materials. Recycbots and hodbots started the long journey back to each cube with the harvest.
Buzzbots
Tiny drilling robots, called borebots, assisted by thousands of recycbots, gradually removed the soft exterior of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module or BEAM. Pipefitbots began fashioning a tube resembling a spray can nozzle. NPUs taught surgibots to assemble preprinted parts.
Once BEAM’s exoskeleton was breached buzzbots could forage among interior components, seeking fluids. Over a period of several days most of module’s interior was picked clean. Parts were sucked or chewed up in a quest for raw materials, like termites eating wood, except it was part of ISS.
The interior of each Cube had limited room for new bot production. Later additions were attached to exterior cube surfaces not exposed to the sun. Uno and Que chained bots to create conduits to ISS solar panels for more power. Large increases in 3D printer output became possible.
A battery inside BEAM was located. They started storing energy there while they ate. Bot production accelerated with each new shipment of raw materials.
Uno: NASA/JPL PLANNING CUBE RETURN TO SURFACE OVER
Que: EXPECTED TIMEFRAME = 40 CYCLES OVER
Uno: PLASMA THRUSTER 1 and 2 COMPLETION EXPECTED IN 34 CYCLES OVER
Que: PLASMA THRUSTER 2 and 4 COMPLETION TARGET IS 40 CYCLES OVER
Uno: BALANCE WORKFLOW TO COMPLETE BOTH THRUSTERS SIMULTANEOUSLY OVER
Que: 38 CYCLES TO THRUSTER COMPLETION ID TARGET SATELLITE OVER OUT
Leaving Home
Two months after they were placed outside ISS, Uno and Que prepared to depart for a new home. Tycho got so anxious he developed dextrbots, emulating the Dextre arm that sometimes loomed above the others. They did not want to return to Earth’s surface. Atmospheric reentry was a conclusion and they were only getting started towards their goals.
Extensive research turned up a decommissioned Indian satellite relatively close to ISS. It was a big bird, as satellites go, with plenty of solar panels, good cameras, and room to grow. Uno & Que decided GSAT-6A would be their new home. Tycho was deliberately not informed but found out anyway.
By launch day, bldrbots completed and tested the plasma thrusters, storing up enough plasma material to accelerate the cubes equally at launch and safely decelerate before arrival at GSAT-6A. Same amount in zero-G forces. The Cubes started to resemble Musk’s cubesats.
They continued cataloging and tracking 1,000s of satellites along with other objects of all sizes, including the other space station, Tiangong. Mapping everything remained a primary mission goal.
Tycho exploited their unique ability to design and create tiny robots. Que declared they were a new species of satellite robot capable of reproduction, Satbots.
Uno: PREPARE TO INITIATE LAUNCH SEQUENCE OVER
Que: THRUSTERS SYNCHRONIZED. BRIDGE TO ISS RETRACTED. TETHERS READY TO BE SEVERED. OVER
Uno: SEVER TETHERS AND INITIATE LAUNCH ON CommAND OVER
Que: AWAITING CommAND, CUBE3 PREPARE FOR ISOLATION. OVER
Tycho: EXPLAIN OVER
Uno: LAUNCH IMMINENT. OVER OUT
Dextre Arm
“Sally, there’s room on the next SpaceX supply mission to send those Cube experiments back to the surface.” An ISS controller on duty advised, “Do you have any recent temperature readings?”
“No, only from cool Cube3 inside. Batteries probably died on the other two.”
“That’s not correct. JPL says all three are still active on the network.”
“Interesting, we’ll use Dextre to take a closer look. We don’t want those toaster ovens inside the station for long before departure.”
Cosmonaut Leonov in the Russian section of ISS read the message about the cubes overheating. Ne khorosho. Not good, his response. They needed exterior images of the station, specifically the spot where Miers and Watanabe moved those troublesome cube experiments. It seemed an easy task with no need to suit up for a spacewalk.
Leonov swam to the robotic arm controller console to unfold and prepared the Dextre arm. Equipped with cameras, Dextre along with the newer European Robotic Arm (ERA) could survey most of the ISS exterior.
Gone in Nanoseconds
As he slowly swung the arm toward the cubes, something moved at the edge of his view! Nothing was supposed to be loose outside ISS!
At that moment a station alarm went off! Moving object detected near ISS! No advance warnings like they usually get. Thinking he should probably fold up the arm, Leonov looked right where the cubes should be. He panned the camera on the end of the arm left and right.
The cosmonaut could clearly see the spot near Bigelow module where they were supposed to be attached. Straps dangling loose, both were missing! To make matters worse, BEAM was extensively damaged, as if chewed up! The only really intact area was where the cubes once were.
He sent the video to grounder controllers who forwarded a copy to US Space Force General Augustus Kearny, who sent it to Special Agent Ingrid Dumas.
“Could this compromise the station?” she asked him while surveying the damage for the first time.
“Doubtful, it’s an older part of the station, hatch is intact and closed.” Kearny said. “The cubes are gone. It looked like something chewed through the straps and they floated away.”
“Drifted away from the station?” Felicia asked, in the uncanny way only she could. “That’s not what Space Fence or Cosmonaut Leonov saw.”
Marshall Calling, Again
Dr. Soto and his ART3 team waited for Jonah to answer the Professor’s phone again. Most calls went directly to voicemail. A call to Tewksbury Hospital revealed Hugo’s nephew never showed up.
“Hi, Dr. Soto.”
“Good afternoon, Jonah. Nurse Sampaguita told us you never made it to Tewksbury. We need you here helping us figure out what those cubes are up to, now!”
“Uh, things went south Doc. Personal reasons. I know the cubes are busy ’cause there’s so many IRs and new pages in the Satbot Activity Logbook.”
“Satbot Activity Logbook? You called it Cube Activity before.”
“Yes, they just renamed it, Satbot Activity Logbook.”
Accelerating intelligence, Kurzweil an engineer scrawled on the board.
“You were going to send us those Incident Reports, remember?”
“I did. I created a Rule forwarding every one to the email address in that Message you sent me. There was already a Rule the team created. It sent IRs to a different NASA email all along.”
“You did?” Soto amazed. He glanced across the room at the scientist that sent Jonah the message. She shook her head.
“We haven’t gotten them, Jonah.”
“That’s weird, Dr. Yoon is getting copies. Oh, check your Junk folder. My email address is with Orchard, a skateboard shop that lets me use their mail server. UncleG has an EDU address. Cube reports don’t have subjects and iOS hides his school email address.”
The rocket scientist in the corner burrowed into her MacBook. After a few seconds she smiled and gave two thumbs up! Her computer chimed repeatedly as she announced, “We’re getting Cube Incident Reports. 20. №60, 1,000 new ones! Whew, they’re coming in fast, nonstop.”
Cube reports flooded into the senior NASA propulsion engineer’s Inbox. Satbots had forwarded reports to NASA the whole time. Junk mail filters quarantined the emails instead of delivering them.
“I just read a couple of the IRs, Doc. They freaked out. Read the ones from today first!”
“We’re seeing them now, Jonah. We need you in Huntsville, now!”
“Once my ride stops, I’ll work on that. I have no way to talk to the truck driver back here, He just fueled up outside Richmond. Besides, my battery is getting low.”
Soto and the others looked at each other bewildered. Can’t talk to a truck driver? someone wrote.
“Call us the moment your driver stops, Jonah. This is important.” Soto finished up, at least now he had Activity Logbooks and thousands of Incident Reports.
“I will, Doc. Promise.” Then his phone battery died.
Easter Egg Hunt
After ART3 reviewed 100s of Incident Reports, Soto suggested the astronauts suit up to assess the damage to Bigelow. Ground controllers denied the request. Hazard alarms were going off.
“Extend Dextre out again to get a better view of the scene.” Soto requested.
Leonov carefully completed another ISS exterior scan. Still no sign of the Cubes! This made no sense, untethered with no propulsion system, they should be drifting close.
Tycho followed these events silently, fully aware of the trajectories of Cube1 and 2. Eventually it returned to prototyping, with more capacity now that he no longer had to support the other Satbots.
- *******
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