Fuel from space debris

 In the sci-fi thriller "Gravity" (2013), an American astronaut finds himself in outer space after the destruction of the ship due to the fact that Russia explodes a spy satellite with a rocket and creates a rapidly expanding cloud of space debris. Ironically, this scenario has recently been repeated in reality, when Russia shot down an old Soviet satellite, as part of tests of an anti-satellite missile. The probability that debris from space debris can penetrate a spacesuit during a spacewalk is usually 1 in 2700, but Russian tests have increased this risk by 7%.

Space debris is a danger to active satellites and spacecraft. Presumably, Earth's orbit will become impassable when the risk of collision is too high. Today, when most of the space debris is cataloged, there is no particular problem with this so far. All the world's space powers scan outer space for the presence of debris, of which there is a lot in low orbits: idle satellites, upper stages and spacecraft debris. It is very difficult to solve the problem of space debris quickly because of financial and political problems. Old satellites that have served their time should either be introduced into the Earth's atmosphere for disposal at the "spaceship cemetery" in the Pacific Ocean, or put into a "burial orbit" if the device is far from Earth.

Scientists have asked the question: why not develop a spacecraft that will dispose of space debris directly in space? And there is a prototype of such a device. The idea of creating a spacecraft for the disposal of space debris is based on the processing of space debris into fuel.

Not to litter will not work

Space debris is non-functioning artificial objects in near-Earth orbit that no longer perform a useful function. These include non-functional spacecraft and launch vehicle stages, as well as ih debris, color spots, solidified liquids ejected from the spacecraft, and unburned particles around solid-fuel rocket engines. NASA has announced 20,000 artificial objects in orbit above the Earth, including 2,218 active satellites. As of January 2019, there were 128,000,000 pieces of debris smaller than 1 cm in orbit, about 900,000 pieces between 1 and 10 cm in size, and about 34,000 pieces larger than 10 cm. Meteoroids in Earth orbit should also be added to artificial debris, which can be grouped with artificial debris and increase the risk of collision. This poses a danger to spacecraft: even the smallest objects cause damage, especially to solar panels, telescope optics and star trackers, which cannot be easily protected by a ballistic shield.

Over the years, the Earth's orbit has become more and more littered. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), humanity has launched 12,170 satellites since the beginning of the space age in 1957, and 7,630 around them remain in orbit today, but only about 4,700 are still operational. This means that almost 3,000 non-functional spacecraft are flying around the Earth at great speed along with other large and dangerous debris. For example, the orbital speed at an altitude of 400 kilometers (the altitude at which the ISS operates) is 27,500 km/h. At such speeds, even tiny fragments of debris can cause serious damage to the spacecraft. According to ESA estimates, there are at least 36,500 debris larger than 10 cm wide, 1 million objects from 1 to 10 cm across and more than 300 million objects from 1 mm to 1 cm in size in the near-Earth orbit.

The "cascade effect" (Kessler syndrome), which in the long term may arise from the collision of objects and particles of space debris, can be considered to be already making itself felt, although the cataclysm of the scale of "Gravity" is still far away. Evidence of this may be the collision of two satellites with each other. The most famous such incident occurred in February 2009, when the non-functioning Russian satellite Kosmos-2251 crashed into the operational communications ship Iridium-33, forming over 2,000 fragments.

Under the existing conditions of clogging of low Earth orbits, when measures to reduce man-made space clogging remain only theoretical, the cascade effect can lead to a catastrophic increase in the amount of space debris in low orbit, and as a consequence, to the practical impossibility of further space exploration.

General cleaning

As the problem escalates, organizations around the world are trying to find solutions - from magnets to "space claws" and harpoons. There are different ways to counteract space debris: crushing of large space debris, removal of debris from orbit or removal of a spacecraft from the orbit of debris, knocking down debris with a laser or processing it into fuel. It is not possible to use only one counteraction method for all types of garbage. For example, it is impossible to catch small space debris with a net, and it is useless to stop large space debris with gas.

Basically , there are two directions for combating space debris:

crushing of space debris directly in orbit;

deceleration and removal of large space debris from low orbits for subsequent combustion in the atmosphere or removal of space debris from geostationary orbit to a burial orbit.

Moreover, both methods have disadvantages associated with the formation of fragments of a smaller fraction, the fall of unburned debris to the Ground and the clogging of higher orbits.

The easiest way to clean up outer space is to suspend space activities for a decade until the Earth's gravity does its job, but then humanity will stop developing. If nothing is done, then at the current rate of growth of space activity, soon we will simply not be able to launch spacecraft due to debris in orbit and will also stop developing.

The American company Cislunar Industries is developing a space "foundry" for melting debris into homogeneous metal rods. And the propulsion system from Neumann Space can use these metal rods as fuel — their system ionizes metal, which then creates thrust to move in orbit. It's like making a gas station in space. The SCM processes garbage into fuel, which allows the spacecraft to gradually ascend to higher orbits, up to the burial orbit (over 40 thousand km), clearing outer space.

Most space propulsion systems use gas as fuel. Even in liquid form, fuel takes up a lot of space and is not suitable for space travel. And if there is a problem, as happened with the mission of the Challenger spacecraft, the results can be disastrous. It is better if the propulsion system will run on solid fuel, which is much safer than explosive liquid or gas.

Electricity is applied to metals such as titanium or magnesium, or to any solid conductive fuel rod, to produce plasma and burn the charged gas through the rear of the engine, creating thrust.

Simplified scheme of the Neumann engine

Paddy Neuman himself

The author of the project, Dr. Paddy Neuman, as a student, participated in a project on plasma diagnostics, which consisted in diagnosing how hot it is, how dense it is, how fast it moves, etc. Analyzing his results, he was able to determine the average effective plasma velocity, which was 23 km/s. He said that you can make a rocket out of it.

One of the efficiency metrics that engineers like to talk about in this field is called specific impulse. The specific impulse is, in fact, the amount of push that can be obtained from a given fuel weight. Thus, a higher specific impulse means that the fuel is used more efficiently. This is just one element that should be taken into account when developing a space engine. In addition, since it is very expensive to put something into orbit, it is very convenient to have fuel that allows you to do this with a smaller mass or volume. The specific impulse is measured in seconds. When Dr. Neuman began testing his engine, the existing ion engines produced 3,500 seconds of specific impulse. NASA's HiPEP experimental system can work a little better, 10,000 seconds. After testing several different fuels, Dr. Neuman published his results: magnesium as fuel and had a specific impulse of 11,000 seconds. So, three times better than what is used today.

Although the Neumann engine will not be able to compete with chemical-fueled internal combustion engines to take the ship into space, it can be installed on smaller ships or satellites to keep them in orbit. The Moon and the Sun will always pull the satellites a little behind them, so a small engine will be needed to keep them in the correct orbit.

Last year, Neumann Space received $2 million in seed funding from government grants. They say they plan to test the Neumann engine in space in the near future.

Now a kind of ecosystem is emerging in near-Earth outer space. In this ecosystem, as in any other, there are "creatures" that "live", "feed", perform their functions and, "dying", give food to other creatures. And the creatures that "feed on carrion" can and should become space debris collectors in the broadest sense of the word.

Taiwan's Problem: Why has the worldwide microchip workshop become problematic?

 The year 2020 has hit humanity not only with the Covid-19 epidemic. The global economy, as well as consumers of electronic devices, has been shaken by the microchip crisis. They became desperately lacking, prices rushed to unknown distances. Once publicly available — just pay! - the devices suddenly turned out to be a shortage, which we have to chase and which we have to "get". Just like in the old Soviet times.

The reasons are generally quite simple. The need for microchips and processors has already continued to grow over the past years — but the pace was approximately understandable, and production could be increased smoothly. The coronavirus pandemic has made the growth in demand for electronic devices that allow remote work, entertainment and communication explosive and unprecedented.

Production was increased in all possible ways, especially since it became possible to earn much more on this — but a problem arose. Microchip manufacturing plants are the most expensive, complex, demanding production personnel and equipment of all currently existing in the global economy. You can't stick them in quickly and anywhere, like a toy assembly shop or tailoring, or even an oil refinery. It takes at least three years and billions of US dollars to build, launch and reach normal capacities of new chip production from scratch, even under the most favorable conditions. So there was a gap in supply and demand for microchips, which turned out to be impossible to close quickly and simply. By the beginning of 2021, the shortage of chips on the world market was about 30%.

The situation has been aggravated by politics — and the importance of this factor may in the coming years turn out to be such that the current crisis of chips for production and consumer reasons will turn out to be a minor misunderstanding against the background of a full-fledged global catastrophe.

In 2020, the United States and China finally and clearly entered the political clinch, escalating into Cold War 2.0. The economic and trade war of the two most powerful economies is already in full swing — and also hits the chip market. Back in the summer of 2020, the United States banned Chinese Huawei from outsourcing chip development to Taiwanese TSMC: the absolute global leader in this field. Other sanctions measures followed.

TSMC was caught between two fires. The company's management chose the US side. The problem for the entire global economy — and politics — turned out to be that most of TSMC's production facilities are located in Taiwan: an island off the coast of mainland China. Now more than 50% of the world's products are produced there, and the most advanced and advanced - even under 90%.

TSMC chips, mainly made in Taiwan, are present in almost everything: smartphones, high-performance computing platforms, PCs, tablets, servers, base stations and game consoles, IoT devices, digital consumer electronics, cars and almost all weapons systems built in the twenty-first century. For decades, this suited everyone - but before our eyes, the situation has changed dramatically. New factories in Taiwan - despite the acute shortage and the ideal infrastructure for them on the island — are not even planned.

Officially, even from the point of view of the United States, Taiwan is part of the PRC. However, the island still has its own political system, the "Republic of China", which does not obey Beijing and dates back to the anti-communist forces that evacuated to the island in 1949. The mood of its residents for the second decade has been moving further away from the idea of reunification with the mainland, which was popular by the 90s - especially after the "tightening of the screws" in China and the defeat of protests in Hong Kong. Residents of Taiwan now prefer the traditional patronage of Washington and cooperation with Tokyo.

Beijing, on the background of its confrontation with the United States and neighbors from India to Japan, increasingly wants to subdue the "diamond" of global microelectronics that is eluding "reunification". He is spurred on by the realization that the factors that provided the Chinese economic miracle are already in the past, growth is declining, citizens demand freedoms instead of tightening the screws, and plans for domination in the XXI century may turn out to be as impossible a dream as the world communist revolution for the USSR. There are more and more competitors standing in the way of unrestrained economic expansion, as well as political opposition from the United States and other countries.

Therefore, now the PRC is strengthening its military power, especially the fleet, and unequivocally hints at the possibility of a forceful solution to the issue with the "rebellious island" through a rapid amphibious operation. Taiwan is no less clearly demonstrating its readiness to repel the invasion. He is supported in this by the United States, Japan, and other opponents of Beijing with its ambitions of domination in the "south seas" and the global economy.

Not only the war, but even a serious aggravation around Taiwan can put supplies from the island of microchip semiconductors that are critical for the modern world at risk, fraught with a worldwide economic crisis of a huge scale. The United States has already deployed a contingent of military advisers on the island, which is reported loudly and publicly. Washington and its allies are clearly determined to prevent a situation in which the flagship of global chip production will be in the hands of China and President Xi. It is quite possible to assume a situation in which — in the event of war and invasion - TSMC plants will be destroyed quite deliberately and purposefully.

Secondly, the island has been hit by a changing climate.

Taiwan is considered an extremely humid place, it is flooded with monsoon rains and typhoons. However, in 2020-21, Taiwan experienced the worst drought not seen in more than half a century. The 2020 monsoon simply did not come. By the spring of 2021, rivers began to dry up on the island and water reserves in reservoirs were coming to an end. And plants for the production of modern semiconductors for microchips require huge volumes of ultrapure water. It used to be enough - now not so much.

It got to the point that by the summer of 2021, the authorities had to take radical steps: throw the remaining water supplies to semiconductor factories, cutting off its issuance to citizens and even farmers - despite the fact that agricultural production on the island was on the brink of disaster. Only these draconian measures prevented the decline in the production of semiconductors, from the lack of which the world microelectronics is already suffocating.

The monsoon of 2021 turned out to be more decent, and somewhat eased the situation — but no one will give accurate forecasts for the next years. The climate becomes very unpredictable with a general tendency to increase aridity. And there are simply no powerful rivers that allow organizing an uninterrupted supply of water even in dry times on a small island.

Therefore, TSMC has already announced the construction of a new plant for the production of the latest minimum-dimensional chips in Arizona in addition to the existing one in Washington state. The Americans themselves are going to deploy a program of subsidizing the semiconductor industry on their territory — but so far the amounts for this look conservative and modest relative to the scale of the problem, only a few hundred billion US dollars. And the production facilities in the USA are still mostly lagging behind the Taiwanese ones in terms of the quality and dimension of the chips.

The Europeans also do not stay away from the problem of microchips. In the summer of 2021, EU countries announced a goal to double their share in the global microchip market by 2030. Intel is going to build a new semiconductor plant in Europe worth $20 billion, and is considering Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium as potential production sites. The EU's problem is that their capacities are very outdated. The best factory in Europe is Intel's enterprise in Ireland, which collects 14-nm chips, whereas in Taiwan they are already making 3 nm, and Samsung and IBM just yesterday announced a technological breakthrough and overcoming the threshold of 1 nm.

The PRC's plans are also by no means limited to the idea of achieving the subordination of Taiwan. In addition to the two TSMC plants in the country, which are facing increasing problems, in 2021 Beijing decided to allocate one and a half trillion US dollars for the deployment of its own production and import substitution of technologies by the efforts of Hauwei, Alibaba, SenseTime companies instead of increasingly inaccessible solutions from IBM, Oracle, EMC. There is a campaign to lure TSMC engineers, who are promised a two- or three-fold increase in salaries on the continent — to which the Taiwanese company itself responded with a sharp increase in employee salaries, and the government of the Republic of China banned the publication of vacancies in the PRC.

We decided to make a breakthrough in the field of chip production in South Korea — where previously Samsung and other chaebols preferred purchases from the same TSMC. Now Seoul wants to deploy a full production cycle in the country in the coming years. However, South Korea is also located near the PRC, and in the north it is threatened by nuclear missiles of northern cousins friendly with Beijing.

The government of India, which has its own powerful IT sphere, also decided to take care of competition with its Himalayan neighbors - relations with which New Delhi is getting worse, and clashes on the border are becoming more frequent. Just this week, India announced the allocation of $ 11 billion to attract chip manufacturers to the country.

However, many economists question the distribution of microchip production outside Taiwan. In their opinion, if — which is still more likely - the military crisis around the island does not happen, the enormous forces and resources of many countries will be thrown to the wind, and when the chip market normalizes again, it will already come to excess supply.

Time will tell who is right in this dispute. But still, the idea of not putting eggs in one basket, especially lying in a fire-hazardous building, seems wiser.