Timeline

2076-Multiple groups are working on blueprints for the third-generation fusion reactors. The closest group feels they are a decade away.

2079-Miniaturization of the second-generation fusion reactors ends in failure. The engineers working on this begin working on miniaturizing prototypes of third-generation reactors. The initial attempts appear promising.

2082-Third generation fusion reactors are produced. They produced more energy with virtually no radioactive waste and do so far more efficiently. The last remaining fossil fuel power plant in America is shut down. Plans to eliminate nuclear fission plants are drafted and should be phased out by 2150.

2085-The third-generation fusion reactors are successfully miniaturized. This results in the first proper interstellar drive. It reduces travel times to Mars to be between one to four weeks depending on the orientation of the two planets. Habitat production on mars is increased substantially.

2090-Mars petitions the UN to slow down emigration to it due to lack of space and concerns with food production. The UN reluctantly agrees. They divert additional resources to Mars at no cost to increase their production capabilities.

2091-An asteroid is claimed by no less than 23 individuals and 4 countries. The asteroid is thought to contain $8 trillion worth of platinum group metals.

2092-First batch of high-speed probes are launched towards the Alpha Centauri, Ivaline and Epsilon Eridani systems. The probes were the fastest man-made objects ever topping out just under 7% the speed of light. They science packages installed on them activate by the end of the year and begin transmitting data back to earth.

2095-The case of the super-rich asteroid is resolved. It cost nearly $250 billion to litigate but a single man prevailed and was awarded its mineral rights. The asteroid turned out to only have just under a ton of platinum that was recovered. The man commits suicide shortly thereafter.

2096-A group of scientists were tasked with creating a better and more durable material to use in its spaceships. The working theory is that a ceramic metal would be more durable, lightweight and stronger than they currently employ.

2097-Habitable planets were confirmed in the Alpha Centauri system.

2098-Research outpost on Pluto is founded. Plans for sleeper ships are being designed but are on hold until the ceramite project is completed.

2100-Ceramite is created. The first batch of 500 pounds cost $28 million to produce, excluding research costs. The problem with the discovery is that it is prohibitively expensive and wouldn’t scale upwards due to the unique nature in how it’s created.

2100-An industrial magnate receives the ceramite formula and orders one of his zero-g smelting facilities in the asteroid belt. He was able to produce 500 pounds for under $1 million. He informs the US government of his finding when he files a patent for the unique smelting process he had come up with.

New Hotness—Plans for Third Generation Fusion Reactors

The main issue with first- and second-generation fusion reactors was the reactor containers themselves get moderately irradiated in use. While it was easy to now move radioactive waste off world, the powers at be wanted new reactors that didn’t have this problem. The initial blueprints were conceived, then constructed and true to form the new reactors didn’t produce any radioactivity.

The designs were reviewed, overhauled and eventually there were three types of fusion reactors produced. Terran reactors were designed for use on Earth and were all the same size, but you could run multiple reactor units in parallel allowing you to scale up how much power generation was necessary.

Void reactors were designed to work in environments with extremely thin or no atmosphere. These were roughly half the size of terrestrial reactors. They were also self-enclosed units. All you had to do was connect the reactor to the grid and flick a switch.

Modular reactors were designed for much smaller power use and typically used in a research role. An array of these could be built to give similar power output as the Terran versions. In poorer regions of the world this was typically done as they could start a reactor with a few units then scale up as money became available.

The real goal here was the miniaturization of these reactors. Just three years after the first production units went into service was the miniaturized core was produced. A trip from Earth to Mars would take between seven and twenty-eight days depending on the location of the two planets. It made helium mining around Saturn a profitable venture.

This resulted in a modern-day gold rush. Hundreds of cargo vessels were built, sold and shot out toward the asteroid belt. Massive factory ships would head out to the belt, broke the asteroid into small bits and smelted all the precious metals out of them.

Plea for Help

Demand for living space on Mars had grown exponentially in the years following the first established colony. Nine other city states with allegiances to power blocs on Earth were formed. But each one suffered from the same thing. They were dangerously near the limits on the number of people they could support. Requests for immigration began being delayed or outride denied.

Mars pleaded to the UN and its city state sponsors to slow immigration and provided additional resources to build out more livable space. Great Britain, Canada, Australia and America all agreed to pool their resources and sent massive amounts of building materials. Void factories were also sent into the asteroid belt to produce additional material for their colonies.

Worldwide aid for the city states sponsored by the Arabic Union, United African League, and Hispanic Alliance did come close to meeting the expected needs. But the assistance that was received was welcome, nonetheless. Those groups slowed immigration only to those that could truly afford it. The European Union and Japanese City states fair better, but trade arrangements made with the big four allowed them to rent the void factories to produce goods for them.

The Asteroid 23G5Z1 Folly

A super dense asteroid was discovered with a larger than expected amount of platinum group metals exposed on its craggy face was located. Twenty-seven mining claims were submitted. Four countries, sixteen corporations and twenty-three individuals filed for mineral rights.

Naturally in a case like this, hundreds of lawyers were involved. Hundreds of thousands of billable hours were charged to the chaotic and unruly group that all wanted to mine the asteroid. The initial legal salvo resulted in one country, Belarus, along with two rich oligarchs from the former state of Russia and an industrial corporate firm to withdraw their claims.

A late entry to the case was a man from Idaho named Patrick Roehr. Patrick had made a name for himself in recent years as a bit of a copyright troll. When the cargo freighters began having the new drives installed on them, he began filing for mineral claims on numerous asteroids with little luck.

In a fit of luck or general happenstance he thought he had in filed for mineral rights on the asteroid before everyone else. But getting anyone, including a judge or even his own lawyers, to listen to him was nearly impossible. Eventually he fired his attorney after racking up about $15 million in fees.

Patrick then resorted to a new tactic in the courtroom, which other lawyers would argue were unprofessional and overly belligerent. He began attacking everyone, including the judge. It was the only way he could be heard.

Almost four years later the judge, thoroughly annoyed and wanting nothing more to do with this case, awards the mineral rights to Patrick as he was the only one with any documented proof that mineral rights were sold to him. The irony here is the mineral that he purchased mineral rights on was misidentified and he shouldn’t have prevailed, but this fact wouldn’t be found out for many years after this debacle.

Confident of the potential multi trillion-dollar haul in front of him he leveraged everything he could. He was also able to get dozens of loans from banks around him. He was able to raise $125 million in funds, which would be just enough to rent a mobile refinery to smelt the asteroid down into its raw materials.

In Patrick’s rush to a payday, he neglected to get a mineralogist to test the asteroid to see if it was full of platinum group metals as everyone assumed it was. Unfortunately, its density wasn’t because of platinum group metals, but rather lead.

When all was said and done Patrick was left with $32 million worth of platinum group metals. He lost $4 for every dollar he had made. His next actions caused no shortage of grief and pain for hundreds of people. He paid off in full his friends and family that lent him money. Then paid off the mobile factory and small banks he used to fund this boondoggle.

After the money had been settled, he wrote a note to everyone else indicating he would be defaulting on the rest of his notes and that there were no assets to be recovered. He walked to one of the mobile reactors airlocks and overrode the safety locks and jettisoned himself into the void.

Patrick’s story is still told to prospectors in the current time. Conducting mineralogy tests on asteroids before submitted a claim for rights became an absolute must. It was always wise practice to start, but now it was almost unheard of to try something like that again.

The Final Frontier

Probes were sent to the nearest systems with the newest engines and became the fastest machines humanity had built up to that point. Each probe was able to reach just over 7% the speed of light. They were packed with scanning and observational tools with the primary goal of searching the nearby solar systems to see if they could get any more details on habitable worlds in nearby solar systems.

A science station was founded on Pluto. There didn’t seem to be any good reason for this other than to say we did this. The location morphed into a weird curiosity that space tourists desperately wanted to visit. In the end it became a hybrid science and recreational facility.

It only took two years but a pair of Earth like worlds were found in the Alpha Centauri system. There were several moons that could be as well but additional time observing them was necessary. The world rejoiced at the news. But it would be another five years before the first image of an extrasolar planet was taken that allowed the viewer to see mountains and oceans on a planet outside of our solar system.

Plans for an extrasolar transport vessel to send colonists to these new worlds began being drawn. There were numerous problems, well beyond the standard relativistic challenges they faced. The main issue the designers of the ship found was that the ship was simply too heavy, and it would take many centuries, not decades to arrive at the new world.

Enter Ceramite

This led engineers to try and design a material that could be light, incredibly strong, dense and durable. Combinations that were somewhat contradictory. They pressed on with multiple failures, but each failure moved the project closer towards success. In the end it took four years for them to synthesize the first cubic centimeter of the new alloy.

Several cubes were made, at horrific cost given the amount that was produced, and sent out for durability and other testing. The tests largely confirmed everything they originally had hoped. The alloy was highly resistant to cracking. Impacts merely shoved the material around rather than having chunks blown off.

Problems arose when they tried to scale up production for the alloy. They eventually discovered that you weren’t able to create batches that exceeded 500 pounds. This was a disappointing blow to the engineers and scientists that had created this amazing alloy. Additional low blows were delivered when the costs of producing these minimal amounts were calculated.

All of that changed when an enterprising industrial magnate from Texas managed to acquire the recipe to ceramite. How he got the recipe was and still is up for debate at the current time. But he ordered one of his void smelters to try and produce a run of ceramite that was larger than 500 pounds.

Within two months they were able to pour a 20-ton ingot of the alloy. He loaded the fifteen large ingots he had produced and brought them to a military facility on Luna. He entered the negotiation room wearing cowboy boots, jeans and a cowboy hat. He was also smoking a cigar which was absolutely not allowed there. What the military brass saw in his cargo hold though let them bend the rules for him.

He had already submitted a patent for a unique way of smelting the alloy. He would charge only minimal fees for the military and other ship building companies should they purchase ceramite from his companies only for the next fifty years. There would be a ten percent fee for the cost of production. Should anyone else want to produce ceramite he’d license the process for a reasonable fee. The UN did not want a monopoly on this alloy to happen, but they agreed to it being time locked. This was justified because he only requested a fifty-year lock on his monopoly and that the new alloy was desperately needed.