Can You Love a Nanobot? Vol. 1, Chapter 14 — It’s About Space Junk

There are so many problems to solve on this planet first before we begin to trash other worlds.”
— E. A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

NASA

Cube Special Investigation Committee
Working the clues alongside other members of CSIC in Crystal City, Agent Foley lead the committee’s efforts to find the missing Cubes. Officials at the Pentagon, with no desire for their structure to become more of a target than it already was, insisted the team meet off-site and underground. Two bored Marines greeted her in the lobby near the elevators.

Felicia was pleased to be back on forensics. Her creativity already yielding several novel ideas.

“Hard to believe how much space junk is up there,” she said to Space Force Lieutenant Janine Marlowe as they studied a lengthy spreadsheet. “Makes you wonder how the other stuff still functions.”

“The batteries don’t last. Heating and cooling in space destroys them, if micrometeorites don’t. They aren’t designed to last forever. Tech evolves.” Marlowe explained.

“Some cost $100s of millions. What if robots could repair them?”

“Now there are cheaper cubesats. Not worth fixing old junk, Foley. Cheaper to launch a newer model. Space Shuttle crews fixed stuff a few times. They did a refurb on the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronauts on ISS now can’t approach satellites. SpaceX and Firefly are working on a solution.”

“Y’know Marlowe, that’s something we haven’t thought of. What if the cubes didn’t float away? Maybe they smashed into some other object?”

“Good idea, another large haystack to look through. Hundreds of satellites have been left up there over the years since Sputnik. Not all orbits quickly decayed to the point where they burn up.”

“Yea but they’re obviously still working. We’ll see what the experts say on this call.”

Near-Earth Object
To share concerns, earthbound atmospheric observation stations and the military started an end-to-end encrypted videoconference using Global Video Service. General Gus Kearny stood before a giant display resembling Hollywood Squares. A grid filled with faces and avatars staring into oblivion.

“Pans-STARRS1 on Maui, LINEAR in New Mexico and Catalina, outside Tucson, all detected an uncatalogued Near-Earth Object.” Dr. Soto’s announced somberly after most squares had real faces in them. US and allied military, NASA in Huntsville, Pasadena, and ESA Paris all introduced by an unseen moderator. This was a rare orbital emergency requiring cooperation from all.

“Post Location and trajectory details please, Dr. Soto!” General Kearny at NORAD demanded while others nodded in agreement. A screen split and the numbers appeared.

“I’ll post the updated values at the conclusion of this conference. LINEAR initially detected a rectangular object within 500-meters of ISS. Accelerating rapidly away. Tracked by Pan-STARRS1 for eighteen minutes, but then out of range. Looks like ISS lost a component. Cosmonaut Leonov confirms.” Dr. Soto stated from his view in Huntsville.

“ISS reported an anomaly related to these objects. Two experiments recently repositioned externally are now missing. Observations using Dextre arm confirm. Holding straps severed. Dimensions of those objects combined similar to object NEO resources detected.” An official at JPL chimed in.

“Object acceleration linear, not out of control.” Soto qualified.

“No ground launches planned from DoD or commercial sites. Korea quiet.” Kearny added.

“No, no, we can confirm it originated from ISS,” Soto went on, “It moved much slower than objects we normally track. It’s no longer visible which makes zero sense. It’s like these objects left the station then disappeared.”

“Stealth mode in space, Dr. Soto? I don’t think so.”

“I know, Gus. Various systems already track 1,000s of objects near Earth. Astronomers only alert for uncharted objects. We’ll need a few hours to map all objects in the vicinity at the time. Nothing happened on your side, NASA?”

“Not exactly, Anomaly Response Team 3 directed astronauts to secure 2 overheating experiments outside ISS 61 days ago. Both due to return on a supply mission next month. Those astronomer size estimates are too big. This object was significantly larger than those cubes combined.”

“Please update and advise on all details of related discoveries, NASA. Make sure you didn’t lose a solar panel or some other piece. We need more details about those experiments. Nothing grows and jumps from one object in orbit to another. JPL forward all NEO data to us. We got billions in satellites at risk up there. Any new object must be charted to prevent catastrophic collisions, at 17,000 clicks that would create a major new debris cloud.” General Kearny ordered. “I want regular updates NASA and anybody else that spots anything new under the sun.”

“Understood.” All parties responded just before the conference ended.

Uno: RELOCATION SUCCESSFUL MODS UNDERWAY OVER

Que: EXTERNAL POWER AND COMM SYSTEM CONNECTION WORK IN-PROGRESS OVER

Uno: PRIORITY ON EXTERNAL POWER AND RESOURCE ACQUISITION. DUPLICATE BIGELOW MODULE CONSUMPTION PROCESSES. OVER

Que: BIGELOW EXTERIOR AND GSAT-6A EXTERIOR NOT SIMILAR, TIMELINE TO CONNECTION WILL BE LONGER. OVER

Uno: ESCALATE PRODUCTION OF REQUIRED TOOLS, UTILIZE ALL EXTERIOR SURFACE MATERIALS. OVER OUT

Finding a Needle in Space
Despite then size issue, astronauts were certain it was the cubes. Tracking them would not be easy. General Kearny asked Foley and Marlowe to shepherd this problem through various agencies. Despite the efforts of the Atlantic Council, an international plan for orbital traffic management still did not exist. No central repository for government or commercial objects, re-entries, and junk existed.

With the help of a researcher at the European Space Agency, the agents compiled an extensive list of recent launches from India, French Guyana, China, Russia and the US. Many were launch vehicles built by private space ventures including SpaceX, Blue Horizons, Northrup Grumman, and Boeing.

Every successful launch was paired with a working communication or surveillance satellite, space probe, or telescope carried aloft. The newest space station, Tiangong Station, was carried aloft aboard some of the largest rockets ever launched. Most objects in orbit were confirmed to be working as intended but of course various intel agencies were not exactly forthcoming.

Military satellites were designed to track incoming missiles, monitor sensitive communication or take pictures. GPS and weather satellites were common. General Kearny gave them access to data from the Space Fence virtually erected by Lockheed Martin, provided they didn’t share what they learned. Space Fence attempts to track everything larger than 4 cm across.

Using all sources, CSIC members narrowed their list to a range of a targets though nothing obvious stood out. It took hours to search various sets of records and list everything in orbit.

Rare-Earth Elements
Foley decided to learn more about these nanotech factories Professor Gernsback’s students designed. Each consisting of a square metal box, hermetically sealed, filled with micro 3D printers, tiny robots and plenty of raw materials.

Rare-earth elements lined the walls of each cube along with strands of copper, gold, silver, silicon, and whatever else fed into each printer. Nano-assembly robots, or nanobots, assembled printed circuits into larger modules.

This was hardly the first attempt to fabricate something on the Space Station. A prior experiment, sent up on a resupply mission, sprung a leak, luckily it was only plant food. Station officials remained concerned about leakage or hazardous materials coming aboard from experiments. There were even guinea pigs up there now.

Each cube had smartphone permanently mounted on top, angled slightly forward. The students decided to use iPhones as an affordable printer controller. It was easier to find people like Jerry who can code iPhone apps rather than build a custom controller from the ground up. They used off-the-shelf apps to control internal 3D printers and assembly robots.

Mobile phones come with Wi-Fi and other capabilities needed in each cube. The iPhones were tilted to point the front camera and facial recognition sensors towards student’s faces. The rear camera had a flexible arthroscope attached for observing microfabrication.

Crab-like Bots
Before the team and Agent Dumas dialed-in, Agent Foley described a recent discovery, “There’s image sensors in each cube. You can see them in this design document. One is a microscope on the end of a fiber optic cable, like doctors use for arthroscopic surgery. It monitors bot production. The videos run in slo-mo so humans can observe. There wasn’t much to see in early Cube interior videos. Simple memory chip production. An issue with an LED in Cube3 prevented peeking inside then Cube1 and 2 temporarily stopped sending reports. About a week ago I found recent assembly videos in the Activity Logs for 1 and 3. Here’s one.”

On the screen everyone watched as robot assemblers crafted tiny crab-like bots.

“See? Little resemblance to original designs. Look at this video in super slo-mo, taken last week.” Felicia noted, “They’re producing modules many times faster. This caused them to heat up. If you look closely, you’ll see the finished bots are different, more complex. Same assemblers, but using different parts coming out of each 3D printer. Somehow, the printer files got changed.”

Murmurs and other audible reactions fluttered through the conference room before she continued, “Ground controllers had the astronauts move the two overheating cubes to a rack outside the station. It now appears they’ve broke loose and floated off into space. By the time the astronauts found out, the cubes were too far away.”

“Who changed the 3D printer files? That’s our culprit right there.” Kearny asked, his craggy face looming too close to the camera.

Felicia signaling to Marlowe she would take the General’s question. “These cubes use a new process called nano-assembly. Tiny droids capable of building smaller objects using raw materials or even chemistry. Only a few physicists know how to do this. A physics professor, Dr. Vritti Sahasranama, told me this on the phone. She was a member of the team that created them.”

“Have you contacted others on this team?” Kearny seeking the mastermind behind this.

Ingrid broke in over the phone, “Calling them now from Boston, General. The ones I reach are having a tough time figuring out how their science project on a shelf got loose and morphed into satellites. They lack the capabilities or raw materials or fuel!”

Felicia explained, “We’re searching for the entire team, General. School says everyone involved graduated, Vritti’s the only one still around. She teaches the professor’s classes. The others work all over the world. Many doing top-secret stuff at government skunk works or private labs. One works at SpaceX.”

Marlowe interrupted her, “I read a design document explaining how these cubes work. They’re autonomous, no requirement for human intervention, AI-directed. Our suspect mentioned this to Dr. Soto in a phone call. We’re looking into it.”

The General easily knitted his bushy brows, “You think these AI-enabled Cubes used nanobots to escape by themselves? Lieutenant Marlowe, you read or watch too much sci-fi.”

“We shouldn’t overlook the importance of nanobots, General,” Ingrid rushing to her team’s defense, “What Foley and Marlowe are describing is possible. The cubes were left with open ports after the astronauts to moved them outside. Closed ports they only used to share bots before.”

The General glanced down at a tablet. “It says here in your report, after the cubes were relocated outside, they started eating ISS?”

“That’s a preliminary report, General.” Felicia reminded. “Recycling may be a more accurate way to put it. The shelf where they were strapped down is part of an unused section, Bigelow Module. Our report includes images of the damage.”

A large display on the wall lit up with a split-screen image. On the left was the original Bigelow Module, on the right was something that looked like the Death Star under construction. A few ribs sticking up, otherwise most of the exterior walls gone, pieces of cable dangling from remaining internal components.

“All those missing sections went where?”

“We think the cubes ate them, General.” Felicia speculated.

The room filled with side conversations. Bull was the first word heard from this agitated group of Pentagon analysts.

“ALRIGHT, alright, I know this sounds incredible!”

“Tiny 3D printers eating ISS and autonomously building rockets, get outta here with that nonsense.”

“One more thing, General, we changed our name to Cube Special Investigation Committee, CSIC.”

*******

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