Space Pirates!

Currently under US Constitution, Congress can still issue Letters of Marque.  These letters authorized private merchant ships to pirate enemy ships during times of war.  These privateers were used by many powers in the 1600s through 1800s.  The practice largely ended with the Crimean War when the Great Powers in Europe signed the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law.  The US never signed the declaration but has nevertheless abided by its terms.  It would not be clear if the US could effectively agree since letters of marque are in the Constitution so in theory any treaty that goes against the Constitution would be null as far as US law is concerned.  But as an aside, many regulators try this type of policy laundering to impose international rules onto US law.  Anyways, that is for the lawyers to argue. 

The same principle can be seen in future space warfare.  Treaties for use of Outer Space have been signed restricting nation-states to use of space for "peaceful purposes."  Each nation-state is responsible for "activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies..."  But there may be room for a loophole so-to-speak.  The government is responsible for the activities of its private citizens' activities but the nation-state itself (i.e. government) can only use space for peaceful purposes.  However, it may be that a nation-state could authorize space privateers by Letters of Marque to fight on behalf of that nation-state in a space war.  In such way, that government would be responsible via "authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty."  But that government itself would be using space for peaceful purposes, wink wink smile :).  So one day we may have space privateers and mercenaries fighting proxy wars in space as part of on-Earth conflicts.  In a farther future, privateers could be authorized (I use this term loosely) to take over asteroids being mined by enemy-flagged mining rigs or privateers invading and taking over whole colonies.  A nation-state could very well exercise 'responsible supervision' by telling its own space mercs to bomb enemy space installations.  In a war between 2 space-faring nations, these loophole violations of the Treaty would most likely be conveniently ignored.   In the case of an Earth nation conflict against an independent or break-away space-colony "nation" (presumably not a willing party to the Treaty), such violations would certainly be ignored as space (interplanetary) warfare would be the primary way in which such a war would be prosecuted.   

1st Law of Space Warfare

It's been stated as a rule-of-thumb and a pretty good one, that warfare is 90% logistics.  As far as space warfare is concerned, I would posit a law (and by law I mean a total S.W.A.G. unproven theory on my part)  that war in or from orbit is 99% logistics.  Interplanetary warfare would be 99.9% logistics and interstellar warfare would be 99.99% or more logistics.  It could be off by several factors but the main argument is that space warfare would be almost entirely mostly fighting for survival against the environment and not an 'enemy.'  Thus surviving longer than one's enemy is 'winning.'  This theory also has other implications politically concerning space colonization and eventual weaponization.   As the "logistics" part of space warfare would pretty much look exactly like its civilian use-of-space logistics, then space colonization IS space weaponization or close enough to make weaponization inevitable.  

  

High Frequency Trading across the 'Verse

Just read story about Michael Lewis' expose of HFT in his new book Flash Boys.  Interesting how times change but some things remain the same.  Such as stock brokers gaming investors for their own gain via front-running or in this case high frequency trading.  From what I can gather on the subject, traders use very fast computers to trade thousands of trade per second to reap a fraction of cents on each trade.  The brokerages even put their computers as close to the exchange as possible to gain and edge.  They even try to get the fastest methods to communicate futures prices from Chicago exchanges to the New York exchanges via line-of-sight microwave relays.  Not that it is all bad.  It can be argued that HFT creates liquidity and thereby keeps bid-ask spreads small.

But what of trading across the planets?

I'm sure in some future colony on Mars, there will be brokers there trying the same things.  But arbitraging price differences across the minutes it would take for interplanetary comms would almost certainly be impossible in context of high frequency trading.  But trading houses could take advantage by having outposts in the middle between the two planets.  Brokerages with outposts closer would have information before other brokers without outposts.  So in theory one would place the exchange itself in the middle to mediate trade of paper instruments, though these days of course these paper instruments are only 1 and 0s recorded in ledgers in the Cloud.  It would be in the middle or close to it (Lagrange points) as no doubt brokers would game interplanetary distance differences from both Earth-side and Mars-side.  So traders would put in orders which would route through relays on the Interplanetary Internet.   I suppose future space brokers would find some creative ways to fleece future colonists out of their hard-earned Marscoin. 

Où suis-je?

“Où suis-je?”  thought the patient.                                                                         

"Sure went sideways didn't it?" replied the General.

“Where is Marie?” 

“She got out on the latest ship, she is still in stasis and will be for another few days.  We got the printer working again.  It’s hard to get the right materials in this backwater. “ 

 “How long have I been out?”

“About one local orbit, or ‘year’ as these locals call it.” 

“So what went wrong exactly?” the patient asked.

“Well, the social scientists are working on it.  Consensus is that local technology development has shifted the ability of our Psy Ops to control the locals.  Their ability to get information to wider audiences has greatly improved these last couple hundred years.”

“You got that right!” 

“Well, in this case, these new ideas being spread around got a little ahead of us.  We are still assessing the consequences.”  the General stated.

“Has this been reported to High Command?” the patient intoned.   

“Yes, but as you know, the signal won’t reach them for another hundred years.  And then we won’t hear the response for another hundred after that.  That’s why High Command commissioned this study in the first place a decllenium ago.  We have to learn as we go along.  The paradigm was working for quite awhile now, but now there is something interesting happening here.  From this experiment, High Command hopes to learn better ways to administer the Dominion.” 

“So what now?”

“No need to worry,  Psy Ops is coming  up with something.  The admiral running that outfit has some clever ideas.  She has a theory that instead of fighting the technological development of the locals, we should co-opt it and seek to control that way and other ways.  She thinks we can play one nation off another but on a massive scale.  We will control critical thought by creating fear of an outsider bogeyman in order to maintain our infiltrated leadership cadres.  A clever fellow under her, an economist, I believe, has a few other ideas to try.  Something about replacing silver coins with paper currency and thereby creating unwitting debt-serfs.”

“Is that what happened to me?  There was no outside bogeyman to pin the blame on for the population’s anger?” the patient inquired.

“More or less.  Good thing we got there in time to recover your remains.  Otherwise, you may have wound up pickled in a jar somewhere.  That information-theoretic death is no joke.   We had to get you in stasis quick.  Finding the right materials took time which is why we had you in stasis for so long.”  

“Sure could use a glass of wine right about now.  I miss that, it was the best down there.” the patient wondered.

“Soon enough, but you have to wait a few more days.  The medics are still printing out your new body as we speak.  Once we reattach your head, then we can have a drink.” 

“Yeah, I hate having to go through the process.  It is so ‘incorporeal’ if you may pardon the pun.  Being awake for these pre-surgery diagnostics is just plain weird.”

“Well, we all go through it.  It’s just part of life.”

"Do I have a new assignment yet?”

 “Yes, that is all being worked out.  You’ll be good as new in a few days.  But rest a bit before we get into details.  You’ll need to get a new language implant, English, I believe.   You will test this new theory by ‘fighting’ against our agent already in place.  A good fellow, name is Napoleon” the General said. 

“I’ll have the medics call you when I’m ready for that drink.  Thanks for getting me outta there.  It was my first decapitation.  I don’t think I want to go through that again.” said the patient.

“Yeah, had a couple of those myself going back a couple hundred years.  Back in my operator days.    Definitely an unforgettable experience.  Lou,  by the way, how was Versailles?”

Copyright © 2014

3D Printing in Space and Patents

Currently, there is no overarching intellectual property law that is enforceable in space.  Or strike that, it is sort of in flux.  As far as US patent law, there is some enforce-ability if a patent is infringed on a US controlled (35 U.S.C. § 105) objects.  But even that has exceptions.  Here is a paper on the subject and a more "layman-accessible" article (by same author) on the subject of patents in space.  As space gets more commercialized, this area would get more interesting situations for technology development in space.
An area which is being actively researched is 3D printing in space.  It used to be that the argument could be made that patent infringement could be alleged for making a component on the ground in a country where the part was made.  Now with 3D printing in space, with existing patent law, actors will most likely be able to infringe because there would be no existing "space patent" to infringe.  Patents are territorial in which one holding the patent can bar someone else from making, using or selling that infringing component within the territory wherein the patent is issued.  With actors in space, there would be no "territory" except the ships or equipment that would be registered under a flag of a country.  But as in commercial shipping, most ships that sail on Earth's seas aren't flagged under G-8 nations, but under less "restrictive" flags.  The same thing could happen in space.  Another matter is for colonization of the Moon and Mars and other celestial objects.  Territory definitely does not extend to these objects (Outer Space Treaty).  Thus someone printing out objects on the Moon would not be infringing any patents.
As colonizing the Moon and outer space just might be a technologically intensive activity (in which new and useful inventions would be made in situ to solve local problems), some sort of patent regime is needed for space (orbit and cislunar) and outer space.
On one hand, "space patents" would incentivize invention for outer space problem solving, but on the other having no enforceable patents lets those in space make use or sell any invention, which also might be desirable by not disincentiviziing space commercialization.  Imagine floating around in your spacesuit and getting a  demand-letter from a space-patent troll.  :)  
I imagine some sort of space patent treaty as part of new space agreements would come into place.  It might be another "country" that is designated under a PCT patent filing.
But in the future when the Moon and other colonies get functioning governments, then they would come up with their own territorial patent law such as Lunar Republic patent law, etc.

Frankenstein on Kepler-22b

One if the challenges of human travel to other stars is the amount of time needed to travel.  Even at near luminal speed, travel-time would be years, at least from the point of view of an outside observer.  One solution as put forth in many science fiction is development of hypersleep or suspended animation of the travelers.  Such ability to suspend animation has yet to be proven practicable.  Much research has been done in the field of cryonics, mainly to freeze people that have died of terminal diseases with the hope of reanimating them at some future time when their lives can be extended with future medical advances.  Cryonically freezing interstellar travelers may offer a way to get to the stars, especially since interstellar space is already cold (2.7 Kelvin) so one would not need to maintain cryogenic fluids.  Assuming shielding can be developed to mitigate cosmic and gamma radiation, then the time to travel can be expanded to some maximal amount.  As entropy increases over time in the travelers' bodies and brains over a certain threshold the ability to reanimate would decrease.  The extreme cold would slow this entropy perhaps enough to keep the travelers viable for reanimation for several millennia.

Another technology which may have applications for interstellar travel is biological tissue and organ 3D printing.  

Ongoing research in this area will eventually obviate the need for organ donation, or that is the hope.  Scientists are researching the possibility of using a patient's own stem-cells to grow or print out spare organs.  Extrapolating this, one may speculate that one day, whole bodies can be "printed out."  Such printing out sidesteps many ethical issues of human cloning for spare parts.  

Speculating even further, one can envision a future where people getting on in age would have a new body from the neck down printed out and have a head transplant to switch their heads to younger (stem cell-wise) bodies.  Would an ostensibly young body rejuvenate an old head?  A 10 out of 10 on the Frankenstein creepiness scale no doubt.    

So back to implications for interstellar travel.  Logistically, freezing just the heads of the travelers would make travel to stars faster given less mass would accelerate a ship faster per thrust.  Thus after a long journey, the ship would use a sample of the traveler's stem cells to grow and print out a body from molecules taken from planets orbiting other stars.  

Discover of 700+ new Exoplanets

Yesterday, NASA announced discovery of over 700 more planets orbiting other stars. In the far, far future, humanity won't have any lack of places to explore.