Part 2

Two days later our YouTube watch count was over 10 million. We three had been busy doing research about Apollo 16. I had decided to document the entire site. I had been spending time rewiring my controller unit to give me more delicate control, and allow me to operate upside down, reversing my normal thrust.

The plan was to launch straight up, turn 180 degrees, and then reverse thrust, using the remote controlled camera Ted would film the various activities, while I piloted, and Anne directed my movements, the camera, and kept track of everything. The radiation was beginning to degrade the electronics, so this would likely be our last time to use the cameras on my first thruster probe. Once this stage was done we would point it at Earth and live stream the video until the electronics died.

This particular video would not get posted immediately. I would have it delivered by courier to SpaceX headquarters. It would include a note and invitation to email me. To weed out the spam, I would request that he included the header ‘Elon loves Frogs, not Dogs.’ It would also inform him that the video he was sent would be posted to YouTube in one week.

We spent a marathon 8 hours filming the tracks and all the left behind equipment. We showed the dig sites, the dropped hammers, the dropped color guide that broke. The very dusty Rover with the broken fender. The damaged experiment because one of the explorers tripped over a cable. We showed house rock, and the everlasting shadow.

It was incredible to see so much history, preserved so well in the airless vacuum of space. When we were done we had a ton of raw footage. I piloted to several miles up to video the entire site, then spun, and headed to as close to the center of the Moon as I could find, mare vaporum. I wanted a large flat empty area, so that the shadow cast by my first experimental craft would be visible by telescope from Earth.

We filmed the final landing using still photos, taken by Ted, showing the site of descent near the middle of the large open plain that was mare vaporum. The collection of pictures was beautiful, and now my lunar exploration event was documented.

Anne had been building a website presence for us on Facebook. It would go live when the final video went live. I was reluctant to create a standalone website because I was worried about traffic, hacking, and general maintenance required.

I had considered adding a mail server to my Romanian internet connection, but decided I didn’t want my source of access to also be a visible presence on the web. Anna agreed, and suggested that we lease web server space if we ever decide to do a full website.

Ted still wanted to collect Moon samples, so was building an airtight box with gloves for handling equipment. His plan was to place our end of the micro gate on the Moon probe in an airtight box, remove the plug, and the glass, then reach through with something to try to collect a very small sample. Once collected he would then place the gate in a smaller sealed box, bottle the recovered Moon rock, and then break the seal to retrieve.

I was working on experimenting with larger size rings. There were two barriers that were difficult, it was harder to produce a large enough volume of BEC to create them, and it was more difficult to keep such large rings cold enough. The largest ring I had managed so far had an inner diameter of only about 1.5 inches. That was still more than doubling the volume that could pass through but was frustrating. I was imagining that I could eventually make giant person sized gates, and completely destroy the airline industry. So far that wasn’t happening.

In my last production run I had discovered that there was a relationship between the volume of BEC and the creation of a micro gate. The larger size ring showed that this ratio was logarithmic in nature, increasing the size of the ring diameter by 50% had increased the required BEC by 500%.

Making smaller rings was not a problem, and I had ordered an additional 500 rings of only a tenth of an inch. They would be ideal for fiber optic transmission devices. The best news from my experimentation was that I could not conceive of any way to reverse engineer the process from examining a micro gate. A finished gate was indistinguishable from a normal superconducting ring, except the ring was no longer superconducting, and it had a wormhole of sorts inside it.

I was also noticing a tug when the larger gate was created. It was an odd pull towards the bright flash that accompanied creation of a micro gate. Originally I thought it had been creating a vacuum, but now I seemed to have stumbled on a very brief but strong pulling force. I wasn’t about to claim I’d created a gravity pulse, but it kind of felt like I had.

I had built a much larger working chamber for production of micro gates. I was trying to increase my production of BEC by creating several batches, then bringing them together, it was a very long and time consuming process. I had not had any success with a 2 inch ring as the strength of the magnet was not enough to hold the BEC in place. I had wrapped the magnets in copper wire to increase their magnetic strength, but they​ distorted the field and the BEC​ was not stable enough to be coaxed transparent, a very necessary part of the process.

I had cut the power to the copper wire when I had a thought. If I used smaller rings maybe I could use them to support the BEC in magnetic levitation. Once the BEC was close to the correct stage, I could move the smaller rings away. So I tried it.

Just as the smaller rings got close to the BEC​ there was a very big bang and flash of light. My reinforced containment chamber was a crumpled wreck, but I seemed to be ok.

Ted came downstairs to check on me, but saw I was ok with my manic mad inventor grin on. Something new had happened, and I need to figure out what. I disassembled my containment chamber as carefully as I could.

Inside I found a 2 inch micro gate pair. The smaller gates were gone, as was the BEC, and the copper, and everything else that had been in the chamber. Something had happened, and the new gate had eaten everything else.

I shivered, very glad I had not installed gloves in the containment box, but used external manipulators. It would take a least a day to build a new containment chamber, but if it was the total mass that had to be increased to create the micro gate, and anything would suffice, I might be able to use much smaller amounts of BEC.

I brought the new rings out to show the crew. They were impressed by the size, and Ted joked that he knew exactly what to do with a 2 inch ring as he winked suggestively at his wife. She handed the ring back to me, and rolled her eyes.

Taking the ring to the basement, I carefully coated it in a sealant to help strengthen the ring. Once coated I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It was big enough to run a water hose thru. I set it to the side, and started work on my next project for the day. I was finalizing the second thruster probe design.

To build my next probe, I had purchased some components that were​ radiation hardened, a few cameras, g meters, and an attitude sensor. They were all components designed for a cubesat. I also had two new 3D remote controlled cameras. It would provide 360 rotation, and 360 degree pan, making it much easier to focus on any direction, plus it’s double camera produced a stereo optic image. I also still had the remote controlled telescope.

The design of Probe 2 placed a central transparent section to hold the telescope and the gyro controllers a double powered thruster on each end, capped top and bottom with a clear ball dome holding the 3d cameras. My stationary cameras would go around the outside to provide 360 video, and one at each end for a forward and reverse view. I also included a single micro gate attached to each camera, so I could point the laser range finder at whatever I was looking at to get a distance measurement.

The final addition was a cargo compartment that could release a couple small antennas with magnets on the bottom. The antennas were from a WiFi router. The antennas went thru micro gates, and magnets were attached to the micro gates. The result was a WiFi signal that could be taken to space, but not have any electronics exposed to radiation that would fry them.

Once assembled they were then coated in UV protecting spray, then the entire assembly was coated in a rhino coat polymer. When the rhino coat dried I coated them in a second layer of UV protection. The final antennas were about an inch and a half wide, and about 8 inches long. I had used heavy duty​ high powered replacement antennas.

I realized I now had a use for my 2 inch micro gate. I would use it as a delivery system. If I built an arm I could even reach thru and place the magnetic WiFi antennas by hand, and use it for sample collection on the surface of the Moon.

I showed the design to Ted, and he got excited. He would use his existing box as a template for the second larger airlock box. He had some ideas on how to build a mechanical arm, but I told him not to worry about it. He came up with the great idea of operating the cargo compartment doors on Probe 2 through the micro gate. I sketched out a design for a simple locking door opener, similar to what a school bus uses.

For the mechanical arm there was only one option, and that was a private purchase from a guy at the makerspace. I knew if he didn’t have what we needed he would have something close enough, and that he would modify it as needed. He made biomechanical replicas as a hobby, he said he was building the ultimate android.

I called him, and he agreed to meet. Anne drove me to his house. I explained that it needed to have full natural arm control, but be able to extend up to 15 feet on a rigid pole, and be able to slide into a 2” pipe for storage. He showed me his workshop, pointed out 3 possibilities and had me pick. I picked the one that had a simple but effective controller, and connected via a thin cable to the actual arm. It would be the easiest to adapt to a pole mount.

With it purchased I returned home. When I got home I had a nice surprise, I had an email from Elon Musk. He said he wanted a meeting and invited me to Hawthorne California. I celebrated with champagne. So did Anne and Ted.

I asked which was coming with me, Anne said they would wrestle for it and winked at Ted. I wasn’t going to ask again, at least until tomorrow. We emailed back letting him know I’d meet him at his office in 2 days.

In the meantime I had to decide what I was going to bring. Did I bring a thruster schematic? A small thruster? Just myself? I micro gate for him to play with? With his engineering team I’m sure that my Mark 2 thruster probe would be greatly enhanced, but I was really enjoying building it. I had tomorrow to decide, so it could wait.

Then again, it really wouldn’t take much time to build 1 micro thruster. Even if they disassembled it, they could understand it, but not make one, sort of like dissecting an elephant. Then I remembered how the barge landing video live stream kept losing signal on landings because of the satellite connection. I’d just bring a suitcase with a little bit of everything, and see how the conversation went.

With time to burn I started work on a tiny thruster. Once it was finished, I assembled 2 pairs of RTMSQE devices, a type 1 and a type 2. Then I sat with Ted and we retrieved a couple moon rocks from Probe 1’s landing spot. I signed paperwork with him attesting that we had retrieved it from the Moon ourselves, at our own expense, and that as the legal owners had the right to give or sell the rock. Signed and dated, and attached a print out of a picture of each of the 3 rocks.

I then signed a document giving the rock to Ted, one to Bob, and finally one to Elon. There was only one thing I wanted from the Moon​, it was a lunar rover. If it had been Mars, I would have kept one rock for myself.

The following day I rebuilt my containment chamber, again larger than before, and I built a secondary chamber for general production of the standard 1 inch gates. I left both idle for now.

Anne informed me she had won and was driving me to SpaceX the next morning. She said she wanted to leave at 6 am, so we could stop for lunch before we arrived for our 1pm meeting. Ted would stay here and guard the equipment. Anne had built a microphone and speakers into a tiny micro gate, and had it in her ear. Ted had the opposite end, and would monitor us remotely.

The morning we left our YouTube view count was over 100 million. I spent most of the ride in the back seat working on my laptop, and reviewing the construction plans for the trading office, and the trading server. Everything seemed to be going well. Bob had good control over spending, and had hired some office staff. He had even hired a hotshot mathematician from a trading firm who wanted to work for a percentage of the company. I authorized the same vestment terms as Frank had, which is what Bob had requested.

On the vehicle front, I had ordered a custom armored vehicle to replace the one we were currently renting from the security company. Ted and Anne were actually my employees, but the security firm acted as an​ on call backup provider for them, as well as handling all employees payroll and insurance. They were also fitting out the new vehicle to my specifications, and then renting me space in their secure vehicle shop for any modifications I wanted to make.

The RV bus conversion was coming along nicely. The vehicle had left the body shop and was on its way to the the custom fitters for build out. I had signed off on the final drawings, and Ted had been involved in adding security features and weapon rack storage.

Anne took me to a McDonald’s drive thru for breakfast, but we stopped at a nice Applebee’s for lunch. She was good company, but teased me about not getting her a moon rock. I promised her one, and that it would be bigger than Ted’s. Finally we arrived at the SpaceX headquarters. There is an awesome rocket on display out front.

I identified myself as space citizen 1, and that I had a meeting scheduled. Anne and I were quickly whisked back to a conference room. Elon came in soon after, shaking our hands and holding the DVD I’d sent him. I kept a tight hold of my case, and sat when invited to at a large conference table.

“Ok. I’m impressed by your video. Based on the research I’ve done, and current broadcast of Earth from the Moon my people think it’s real. What proof do you have?” Elon began.

I handed him the documents and the tiny ¾ inch Moon rock. “These were retrieved from the Moon two days ago. That is the first legal privately owned moonrock, and it’s yours to keep.

“I’m here because I think you see the big picture better than most. That rock and a few other items I brought to share with you are the result of one amazing discovery that I still don’t fully understand, but it’s the enabling technology in all of them.”

“You have my attention. Let’s assume I’m convinced, show me what you’ve got.”

I nodded at Anne, and she slid over a non-disclosure agreement. Elon recognized the law firm, scanned thru the pages, and signed, sliding it back to Anne.

“Ok first of all, my name is Tim Booker. This is my personal assistant Anne. First I want to show you a device that transmits information wirelessly at faster than light speed.”

I slid a RTMSQE type 1 over to him, and set it’s mate on the table.

“I suggest you get your network engineer to test this. Easiest way is to take one into a shielded room, connect both up to a couple of laptops, and test the connection between them.”

“Not necessary, I’ll do it myself.” he said. He stepped out of the room and returned with 2 laptops. He disabled the WiFi, and connected the network cable to each. Then he turned them on, and activate some sort of video conferencing software.

“We use a private conference and communication software. It’s custom and secure, but only connects to others on the same network.”

He set it up so we could see him on the screen, and he could see us. Then he picked up the laptop, and with the RTMSQE in hand he walked out of the room. We watched as he went down a couple corridors, a set of stairs, and finally spotted an access card to enter a locked room.

He looked at the screen and gave us a big grin. “It works as predicted.” He commented. I nodded, then told him, “Ping the computer here.”

He set the laptop on a table, and made a few clicks and typed a bit. Then his focus returned to the screen. “ .02 ms?”

“Anywhere on Earth the ping time is the same.”

“And to the Moon?”

“Still the same. If there is a distance limit I’ve not found it yet. Why don’t you come back, there is more.”

The screen blinked off​ as he closed the lid on the laptop. A moment later he walked into the room, carrying only the RTMSQE.

I grinned at him. “if you need a drink, now might be the time. There has barely been enough beers in the universe since I made this discovery. I understand,”

He nodded mutely.

“Oh and the next demonstration needs a charging cable for the laptop.”

He walked from the room. I turned to Anne and grinned. She gave me a big grin back. “I’m expecting this next demo to make him go pale.” I told her, she nodded in agreement.

He returned in a moment with a bottle of Jack Daniels and three glasses. “I don’t drink alone.” he said by way of explanation as he poured us all a shot.

He clinked glasses and he downed his.

“Will you explain how?”

“Perhaps.” I replied. “It depends on how well this next demonstration leaves you.”

He handed me the power cord to the laptop on the table. I pulled out my type 2 device and plugged the laptop in. Then I handed him the other side.

“In addition to data, power can also be transmitted.” I explained.

It didn’t quite sink in, as he turned around and plugged it in. As he plugged it in the laptop dinged to signal it had been plugged in.

He stiffened as he realized what had happened. I slid the laptop to him across the table, picked up the bottle of jack, and poured him a shot. He was pale, and wobbled to his seat. As he sat I put the glass in his hand and he downed it.

I turned the laptop toward him, so he could see the bright charging light on the laptop. He looked at it, he looked at us, he looked at the laptop, his glass, then downed the remainder.

“My biggest worry is that you would have a heart attack at this point.” I told him.

“No heart attack yet. But I have questions.”

“Same distance limitations as the data version. This version includes both power and data together. The data only version is yours to use on your drone ships. I’m tired of the satellite video feed cutting out and making me miss the live barge landings.”

“Cost to produce the power version?” he asked.

“Both versions are about the same cost, call it 3500 for a pair.”

He had a notepad out making notes while asking questions, his strength rapidly and visibly returning. “Any limit on amount it can carry?”

“Of course. Carrying amperage is dependent on wire size. The basic material can carry the voltage of a wire about an inch thick. Larger​ is possible, but it is much more expensive. This size seems to be the best compromise between utility and cost.”

He kept nodding. “You called the data version wireless transmission, but it’s not wireless is it?”

“Technically no it is not. No form of detectable energy leaves or is received by either device, the method of transmission is all internal. RTMSQE stands for ‘room temperature macro scale quantum entanglement.’ It’s a big acronym for a rather opaque description, purposely so.

“The actual discovery I don’t think is reverse engineerable. I’ve been brainstorming uses, and building prototypes. It breaks accepted limits on possible physics. It was one of these limits that let me fly by hand a remote vehicle to the Moon.”

“I’m still trying wrap my head around these first two but I can’t see how that gets you to the Moon.”

“It’s because of this.” I said handing him the mini thruster I had built. “This produces thrust, in one direction. It does so without expelling anything, and is powered by 120v 20 amp ac current.” I handed him a control box with a power plug, and a single knob. He plugged the box in, and held the thruster in his hand.

“It’s about a 4 to 1 ratio of thrust. As long as it has power, it will thrust. This model is based on my newest designs. The Moon craft had a 2 to 1 ratio. Which means it could lift twice what it weighed. The switch on the control box is your on switch and a simple speed controller.”

“So the arrow points in the direction of travel?”

I nodded as he set it on the conference table. It stood about 3 inches wide, and 8 inches tall. He clicked the controller past the off button and slowly turned it up. There was only a slight hum, and it slowly lifted off the table. He tried to adjust the power so it would hover, but it mostly just bobbed up and down. After playing with it a bit he lowered it down.

“Very stable didn’t wiggle or wobble”, he commented.

“Conservation of momentum of the internal thrust components, much like a gyroscope.” I explained. I pulled out a small digital scale, setting it on the table. I turned it on so it would zero out. Then I set the thruster on it, but pointed down. I nodded at him, and he turned it on, slowly ramping up power. It went from 3 pounds to 12. He turned it off, and the weight went back to 3 again.

“This is a demonstration model, more toy than anything else.” I told him.

“Still damn useful for satellite control or orbital changes.”, he replied.

“Considering the first demonstration, how much need for satellite communications are there going to be in 20 years?”

He stopped and closed his eyes. “Right, space is going to be people, equipment, and observation and science platforms. This will do to satellite TV what the internet did to the radio. I don’t think that there is a radio station out there not also available online, in a clearer broadcast, if you have net access.”

“Are you ready to see the enabling technology?”

“I’m ready. I know it’s got to be small.”

I pulled 2 rings out of my pocket, and set them on the table. They were gold plated on one side, and silver plated on the other. I smiled as he picked them up.

“The gold and silver plating is to help disguise the material composition. It’s also useful when using the pair so things line up properly.”

“Lighter than expected. I’m guessing all the steel is to disguise weight and prevent tampering?”

“To a point, there is a safety issue. When one ring gets broken its mate tends to explode vigorously.”

He was playing with them soon realizing that he could stick a finger thru them and have it come out the other side.

“I see why you don’t think it can be reverse engineered, no moving parts.” he said.

“My original thought was that you would want them to transfer fuel to a vehicle in orbit. That was before I figured out the thruster application. They can pass liquids just as easily as fingers or electricity.” He looked through them, but didn’t see anything but the expected other side.

I noticed and explained. “The effect seems to require some sort of mass in the gateway. Light, radiation, energy waves don’t pass thru unless they are carried by some sort of mass, such as a fiber optic cable, or wire.

“I used these for control and video transmission on the Moon craft as well as providing power. I used epoxy to seal the holes to keep from losing atmosphere thru the control runs. Anne here figured out that I was also letting in a bit of radiation I had forgotten to account for, and now they are also sealed in lead boxes. It works well.”

He nodded. Then a light came on behind his eyes. He started to ask a question, but I held up a hand.

“I’m sure you’re going to be coming up with all sorts of solutions, uses and applications. There are two applications I want to know if you are interested in.” He nodded and waved me to go ahead, so I continued, “I’m setting up a stock trading company. We will be able to determine and make trades faster than anyone else, and because we can achieve 1ms or better connection speeds with the world’s stock markets, and we can trade on a global scale in a way that has never been possible before. I’d like to invite you to a stake in the company, and a seat on the board.

“Second, I know you have been critical of solar power satellite technology being used for Earth based consumption before, but this little technology eliminates every valid objection you have previously stated. Imagine being able to sell a Tesla that was self powered from a sun based solar satellite, and that when not driving could provide power to the grid. It would be very attractive.”

He grinned in reply, “I’m interested in both. And a host of other uses. What really had me grinning is that this just solved every supply hurdle for a Mars colony.” I nodded in agreement, and Anne just beamed a big smile.

“In an emergency all they might get is a nutrient paste, or a Slim Jim, but they would not starve, or run out of air or water.” I told him agreeingly.

I gave him Bob’s contact info, and mine as well. I told him that we would talk again soon. I retrieved the pair of micro gate rings, but I asked him to keep the devices I had brought for now. I also asked him to pick a couple of trusted engineers to review the devices and brainstorm. Finally I left him a CD that had the plans for the next prototype Moon explorer. He suggested I take one of the RTMSQE devices so that we could have secure communication, and offered me a copy of his communication software. I handed him a small Ethernet plug with a tiny dongle on the end, and explained that I had already made arrangements for secure communications, but liked his software.

He grinned realizing that the RTMSQE boxes were largely misdirection in size and function. We shook hands and departed the facility, after a tour by one of his staff. I wasn’t going to come all this way and not see the SpaceX headquarters!

Anne and I got home late, and basically crashed into our respective beds. Ted had successfully monitored the conversation from home so didn’t need to have our trip described. The drive home had included several emails from Bob about the trading company. He had agreed with Elon to sell him a 10% stake for 100 million. I would sell him 5%, and Bob would sell him 5%, half the funds would go to funding our personal trading activity, we would bank the remainder. This gave new company a valuation of 1 billion dollars, and my personal 70% stake a 700 million dollar valuation. We both were pleased.

Elon’s software was pretty surprising. It refused to connect beyond a local network into the internet, and was purely peer to peer. It was able to populate an address book of all currently connected people, as well as to connect for voice, video, chat, screen sharing, and whiteboard collaboration, all while being heavily encrypted, despite the secure network provision. It could handle conference calls, call waiting, and even request the caller to leave a message that it would store locally for later playback. It could also broadcast announcements to all connected users. I was impressed, and so was Anne.

The next day she took our Facebook presence live, and we posted the Apollo 16 landing site video. Elon went to our Facebook site, posted a picture of his moon rock and thanked us for giving him a piece of the Moon. The internet went crazy, and the world of journalism went nuts too.

Nobody had any information, Elon was refusing interviews, saying he was bound by a non disclosure agreement. We had a contact from PBS who wanted to take our raw film, and merge it with audio commentary and interviews with the two astronauts that had been on site, and the guy stuck orbiting the Moon while they were out playing.

I thought it was a great idea, as all three guys were still alive, if in their eighties. Ted Fed-Ex’d the raw footage, including portions that had not been put on YouTube plus every picture taken with the DSLR on the Moon, along with a release prepared by my lawyers. The extra footage was to prove the bona fide source, and we used the lawyers to provide a contact cut out, but still allow communication. News of PBS being given the raw footage for a documentary made the nightly national news.

NASA was threatening to take Elon’s Moon rock, they weren’t sure if it was because they were claiming it was a fraud, or stolen from them, but, were generally decrying the hoopla involved, and were sure that it was all fake. This was hilarious to the late night comics who thought it was great that NASA was claiming someone was performing a Moon​ landing hoax on their Moon landing site. One comic wondered if they were convinced it was a hoax because we had both used the same Hollywood sets.

I got a message from Elon that the President had called him to ask if it was real, and he had assured him it was. Elon thought the President would use this to rip NASA apart, but didn’t think that it would necessarily be a bad thing. I wasn’t so sure, yes it was bureaucratic and lumbering, but it had some really good parts. He joked that if the President dismantled it, we would buy the parts that were worth keeping.