Communications of the ACM

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P O S E D A N D P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y W I L L I A M S I M S B A I N B R I D G E I N E V E O N L I N E

thize, wanting to make things better, worrying about making things worse, and marginally between with nervous hidden nodes.” Getting no help from Tobor, I did as my managers had ordered, and the ISS splashed safely into the Pacific. My idea of saving the space station had been only a brief fantasy, while my far more fundamental challenge would take months to develop.

I had received an unexpected mes-
sage from an old online friend, Ar-
nold Touring, whom I had actually
never met in person but with whom
“Well sir,” Tobor said, “using rule-
based reasoning we see four options:
( 1) If you do nothing, the ISS will fall
a few weeks later at a random loca-
tion within a band from 51. 64 degrees
north of the equator to 51. 64 south;
( 2) If you follow your orders, then the
human attempt to inhabit the cosmos
will end; ( 3) If you boost it to a higher
orbit, then the future will become to-
tally uncertain; or ( 4) If you intention-
ally aim it at a city, you will need to
select one, and I have no criteria for
making such a selection.”
I waved my hand in a way Tobor
was programmed to recognize, guid-
ing him to shift to his neural-net mo-
dality, wringing his android hands as
he mumbled, “Well I kind of sympa-

I WAS NASA’S chief orbital technician, as the agency was changing its name to NAIA, the National Artificial Intelligence Administration, responsible for de-orbiting the International Space Station. The ISS name itself was a misnomer, coined when the space program was sliding from dream toward delusion. By definition, space stations are orbital facilities where astronauts transfer from Earth-launch vehicles to interplanetary ships intended for, say, the first human expedition to Mars, which indeed never took place. Having accomplished little worthwhile scientific research since its 1998 launch, the ISS was primarily a propaganda tool, pretending the technologically advanced nations of the world had become partners and that humanity had a glorious future in outer space.

After decades of indecision, the alternatives now were to find a new purpose for the ISS and boost it to a higher orbit or crash it back to Earth at a safe location in the vast Pacific Ocean. Allowing the orbit to degrade naturally could have flattened part of a city, with great loss of life and national prestige. So I was ordered to program the precise instructions into the small thrusters that controlled its orientation, then fire a retrorocket that had recently been added, to drop it to its ocean target zone far from any ships. I secretly pondered violating my orders, however, lofting it instead to a higher orbit so it would survive until the spaceflight social movement could convince politicians to revive the program.