copyright © 2009 by Anthony Zuppero 1 of 417 copyright © 2009 by Anthony Zuppero inhabit 20091203_1405.doc 12/3/2009 2:37:32 PM copyright © 2009 by Anthony Zuppero CHAPTER 1 The neo solar system The Exodus Path, My Struggle. and Jupiter, Saturn. Although I really did find a way to power the rockets to take hundreds of us throughout the solar system, the only product of my Water in space turned out to be everywhere, from the planet entire career struggle working in so-called "rocket science," was Mercury in its the forever dark craters, in the moon, and in that people wanted to hear the story. mostly everything to way past at least Pluto, As the "Featured Evening Speaker", again and again, they would Long ago, when people landed on the moon and when Star keep me long after I was finished talking, asking me questions. Trek inspired us, we thought we could just go there, to space, to What was so captivating? Was it the stories about how we can the moon, to other planets like Mars or Mercury. But at every actually leave the Earth? Or was it just that I was telling them turn, we discovered another bad thing to stop us. stories and entertaining them? Or was it my struggle against the real world and reality? I can't tell, so I am telling the story We did not find what we needed to live, like water. Our rocket ships were too feeble, too huge, too expensive, and blew up too The struggle to make a Vision come alive, a kind of Exodus Path often. Low gravity in space would float poop, snot and vomit in to Leave Earth, became intense, compelling, overpowering, and the air, stinking up the ship and forcing us to breathe it. Low took on a single purpose at the moment when I first found out there gravity drained our bones of calcium and disabled our lymph was water in space. I knew immediately I could use it. system. Space was more radioactive than sitting on pile of old fallout from an atomic bomb. Mars had a little bit of a poison, At the end of that career, after I "retired" and started another, I had carbon monoxide, in its carbon dioxide air. Mars would be a discovered comparatively simple ways to do it: poison planet. • to use the water objects and ice comets in neospace as gas stations, So, we gave up. No one even went back to the moon. • to use nuclear-heated steam rockets to move us, to travel the solar system, Mother Nature only tricked me a little, but she did it again and • maybe to live on ice moons of the Sun System, again. A new problem would suddenly appear just when an old • maybe to use giant, ice-igloo, hollow wheels as space problem was solved. ships, • to move killer asteroids and comets out of the way Mother Nature fooled me. She showed me how it seems there is without atomic bombs. enough water for us to start leaving Earth. She teased me to think we could be explorers who could inhabit what we explore. We would inhabit, occupy, move minor planets and other celestial objects. But, she knew I won't get to go there. I am old already. And the world went broke. After all the effort, all the Visions, I got old instead of making it happen. More annoying: Mama Nature told us clearly that we were the wrong species for space and she would not let us have the "clear This is no science lesson. This autobiographic story describes my profit" we would need to start The Exodus. She seemed to point struggle, about US government laboratories where I worked, about to her bulging stomach, pregnant with the new species, her digi- how I found, and how I tried to tell but was too autistic to tell sapiens children, cyborgs, robots, androids. effectively. I have Asperger's syndrome. And then I got too old, too soon. ------------- It's about the water I had become excited because everything we would need to inhabit the "neospace", the places between here and the edge of the Solar More than anything, we needed to have water in space. Every System, had just become known. Some was already there and time we looked, we would not see any water. telescopes and space probes just revealed it. Some was just developed because of the failed efforts to develop manned Mars We simply could not afford to launch the Gulf of Mexico into missions. space. We could not even launch a small fishing lake into space. But that was what we needed. Everything we do to live our lives This is not sci-fi. The names are real and the stories happened. requires not just water but a lot of it. Nature seduced me with the excitement. She let my colleagues and We needed Warp Drive. Instead, all we got were feeble toys, me discover water objects in the space near Earth, in "neospace", little rockets that could barely shove a porta-potty space-can to the space almost near enough for us to get to and use, between here the moon and back. 2 of 417 copyright © 2009 by Anthony Zuppero inhabit 20091203_1405.doc 12/3/2009 2:37:32 PM copyright © 2009 by Anthony Zuppero The other places seemed to be giant oceans with no surface, just We needed strong legs and powerful wings, so to speak. Instead, gas, poison gas, that got thicker and thicker and thicker, and with we were oozing and sliming like snails and clams. Our space ships hyper-hurricanes the size of the world, and lightning everywhere. needed to be more like ocean cruise ships and aircraft carriers, not That's Jupiter, Saturn and such. like NASA's space jails. Nothing seemed to work. We would be stuck here with the Everything in space was mostly too far apart. Whatever rocks, terrorists and tax collectors, forever. Instead of space travel, we moons or planets were there, were so far apart that a very short trip, would be stuck here with the Liberals fighting Creationists, all like to the Moon, would take many days, not hours like an airplane fighting beheaders and rogue atomic bombers, with high trip. A quick trip to Mars would take 6 months or longer. A trip to unemployment, inflation, a Carbon Usage Tax, and Global Jupiter or Saturn would take years. Warming. I thought the 14 hour plane trip to Australia was a very long ride, in And it was all about the water. a cramped seat, rubber cardboard food, kids running up and down the aisle, engine noise, white knuckle fear of flying. I should have quit, but it was too exciting. Most places in neospace seemed to be barren rock-deserts, harder I don't know of anyone who put it all together. That is why I am than sidewalks and as dry as a fireplace. telling my part of the story. I put it all together. --- Autistic, Like Mongoloids and other Weird People I was also recently diagnosed to be born with a common and syndrome, or Tourette's syndrome, or with other types of autism peculiar form of autism: Asperger's syndrome. My genetic breed of that favor intelligence. Mongoloids (Down's people) can human focuses hyper-intensely and takes people literally. We are sometimes figure big prime numbers in their heads. I can't to that. sometimes called "Aspies". I will sometimes go too fast. I will sometimes say things that are Most of us Aspies are a bit like Spock, of Start Trek. It makes us a simply not supposed to be said that way. Because I am an Aspie, bit difficult to work with or understand. Often we blurt out what's I can't see what's wrong with doing these things at all. If I went on our mind and interrupt you. We often act inappropriately when too fast or confused you, tell me and I will try to fix it. Maybe we do and say things. not. Some Aspies can not look you in the eye. Not me. I stare, deep. I If I use inappropriate language or say things that are too graphic will hit on pretty ladies and stare deep into their eyes every chance I and just not proper in mixed company, or that are insulting or too get. I only do that if their person is totally captivating, and not mean, necessarily for neurotypical reasons. too bad. One of my psychologists said he never met an Aspie with less than I'm an Aspie. 130 IQ. This weird combination of inappropriate behavior, smarts and focus makes me and Aspies like me sometimes hard to follow. You are supposed to treat me nice, like we treat mongoloids and More than sometimes. In that aspect, we are like those with Downs other weird people. 3 of 417 copyright © 2009 by Anthony Zuppero inhabit 20091203_1405.doc 12/3/2009 2:37:32 PM copyright © 2009 by Anthony Zuppero CHAPTER 2 • 1968 physics grad student and Dyson Starship Someone Inspired Me Physics Graduate Student, Anxious for Escape The rocket science part of my career was a like a fanciful journey ".... take a town the size Princeton New Jersey by someone too naive to know the difference. I started on this to the nearest star ..... cattle and livestock ..... " journey when I was a graduate student in physics and read the words in a physics trade journal: The article described a starship propelled by nuclear explosions, atomic bombs.