Amrita Tuladhar
“Bring stone—Bring brick.”
We all have heard the tale of Akbar and Birbal where Birbal decides to build a palace in sky for Akbar. Because it was Birbal who was going to build a palace, we can guess how the story might have ended; however, a team of six students from St.Xavier’s College has designed a city inside a spaceship, huge enough to hold every human population from Earth, as a next habitat for human being in space. For their project entitled “Harmony Space Settlement”, they are awarded the second prize under grade 12 category in NASA Ames Space Settlement Contest. Team leader Kiran Adhikari along with his friends Kshitij Singh, Manish Baral, Jeevan Kshetri, Lalit Singh and Krishna Panthi will be invited for attending ISDC Conference – 2015 from May 20-24 at Ontario, Canada.
JOURNEY UPTO NASA:
It was two years ago when Kiran Adhikari discussed about this competition with his friends. “We had no specific engineering ideas. We did not even know if it could be possible. Our first three months spent only on designing the shape of spaceship (spherical, toroid, cylindrical, or other), and ideas on generating artificial gravity,” says Harmony team,” but soon our work took rapid progress. We researched on every life factor possible, and gave suitable alternative for surviving in space.”
Team leader Kiran had chosen his every member very carefully. Lalit Singh and Manish Baral, who were good at Physics, had the job of designing internal and external structures of Harmony spaceship while Kshitij Singh, Jeevan Kshetri and Krishna Panthi, who were good at biology, had the job of maintaining ecosystems and other life factors like agriculture, atmosphere, and so on inside the ship. For instance, agriculture systems like Hydroponics, and Aeroponics were designed for growing crops without soil inside the ship.
“We had so many challenges. Lack of enough research materials frequently compelled us to doubt our own theories. Load shedding was a serious problem too; it slowed our work. Even though we had sufficient time, lack of resources was a real challenge. In spite of those problems, we have solved several burning problems on Space colonization future, and have given different innovative ideas for the space colonization campaign. Finally, we have prepared a report of more than 150 pages on “Harmony Space Settlement”. I personally, and from the side of my team, strongly want to encourage Nepalese students and teachers to participate in NASA Ames Space Settlement Contest. You will surely have a different view on how our society, science and technology are running while building a next home for human being. Last but not the least, we are really grateful for St.Xavier’s college and RevoScience Media without which our project would be incomplete.” says Kiran Adhikari.
Usually, a team with history wins the competition. India and United States who have frequently participated in this competition have won several prizes in the past, and United States won the first prize this time too. Because Nepal is participating for the first time, second prize is also a great satisfactory achievement, and this achievement has unlocked the key for future generation for bringing several achievements in Space Science to home.
WHY SPACE A NEXT HOME?
“Even though the size of our Earth appears enormous when we gaze standing on the edge of the ocean or top of mountain, Earth may not be our home forever. We already have seven billion populations and every 4.8 days we add more 1 million. With this increasing population, we are receiving more threats. If we carefully evaluate the pattern of human population, then we can see out that human population is increasing more rapidly than ever recorded in history. This directly raises the question, Are we reaching our Earth’s carrying capacity?” says group leader Kiran Adhikari, “If this over-population is unchecked, this unparalleled progression will give rise to a stage
when there will be no longer resources available for human population to thrive which might bring a category of risks called existential risks that have crushing severity with pan-generational scope. These risks possess the capacity to destroy entire human kind which un-fortunately is also one form of Malthusian catastrophic events. Two world wars, famine in British India, war in Middle-East and South East Asia, 1931 China Floods, Black deaths in Europe and so on represent some of the deadliest Malthusian Catastrophic we have faced and signalize the possibility of existential risk that might happen in Earth during Zero growth phase.”
Solution by Harmony:
Several studies indicate that we may reach our carrying capacity by 2170s. Therefore, in order to prevent humanity from possible catastrophic events that will happen during the zero growth phase, space colonization becomes one promising solution. It will become better for us to leave our Earth than try to prevent it from degrading because, at that stage, we will be in the condition when we can’t save ourselves, and it is almost impossible to think about the better Earth.
– Harmony Space Settlement with the promise to give home to every human will be activated by 2170. Harmony Space Settlement has following motives:
– Harmony Space Settlement will be launched in order to save humanity from Malthusian Catastrophic events, and will give a new home for every human to thrive.
– Harmony Space Settlement will be the home for every human because it is immoral leaving someone on earth when earth is getting destroyed.
– Harmony Space Settlement is the home of social equality with no discrimination on any bases. Our only war will be against Malthusian Catastrophic events.
– Scientists of Harmony Space Settlement will research on more aspects of Space Colonization, and will also attempt to return back the greenery of Earth.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF HARMONY SPACE SETTLEMENT:
Harmony space settlement is a three-phase operation designed particularly to preserve eternal humanity. Considering the very fact that home planet is not free from cosmic danger and internal hazards, next step to deep space becomes a promising solution. During a transition phase of human population pattern from Log phase to Stationary phase in Sigmoid Curve (a period of mass destruction), Harmony is operated.
OPERATION PHASE-I:
The principle issue raised by Harmony project is that Harmony space settlement should be a next home for every human being because it sounds too unnatural and immoral leaving someone when the earth is getting destroyed. A modern economic revolution equating all communities will be launched on earth. In order to bring global attention for this mega project, 8 construction sites will be located in eight different parts of the earth; however the launching site will be single.
The number 8 plays a significant role in Harmony. Most of the engineering allocation is based upon this number like there are 8 blocks in single toroid named “Sa”, “Re”, “Ga”, “Ma”, “Pa”, “Da”, “Ni”, ”Saa”. Firstly, the number 8 means “Law of Octaves” i.e. “Law of Harmony”. Secondly, the number 8 possesses a unique symmetry i.e. 4 on left and 4 on right. So, the number 8 has simply become a key to discover space and Harmony itself.
Energy is harvested from usual solar energy and Fusion reactor. However, Harmony team members have proposed some technologies for antimatter harvest from Mother Nature, instead of direct antimatter energy production artificially.
Since, Harmony is a future project, the physics and technologies of Harmony must, more or less, matches with future technologies as it will affect the daily life of habitants significantly. So, the technology of Harmony is defined as per the demand of future Era.
OPERATION PHASE-II:
Everything has a limitation and Harmony can never be an exception. With increase in population, a time will come when the carrying capacity of Harmony will be exceeded and we may have to leave it like we left our earth. Respecting this unavoidable situation, Harmony team members have proposed a next alternative in deep space with the same principles of Harmony. This operation-phase is an application of the theory of general relativity in space-time fabric for the generation of pseudo gravity. With the application of dense positive and dense negative energy in space-time, a gravitational well can be created and a settlement can be constructed. This operation is just our hypothesis, and may not be completely scientifically accurate.
OPERATION PHASE-III:
Though the harmony space project may become a successful project providing a huge space for colony, habitants will never decrease their responsibility towards Mother Earth. A large number of programs for enhancing the status of earth will be launched and will once again be made livable. Then, a referendum will be held on whether to return back to earth or not.
