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Type 3 Superconductors: In late summer 2014, the first Type 3 superconductor compound was discovered by accident at a weapons research facility in Livermore California. While looking for the next generation of high explosives, the research team at Sandia National Laboratories knew they were onto something when several micrograms of the material detonated prematurely. The explosion severely injured one person while destroying the high-pressure oven they were using to cure the sample. They quickly learned that the material must be isolated from the atmosphere. A few weeks later a junior scientist among them was fleshing out the property tables on the new explosive when she tried to obtain the resistivity of the material. At first, she thought her equipment was malfunctioning until she realized she was measuring superconductivity. Zero resistance. Before the day was out, she had determined this new material had a transition temperature of a remarkable 307°K or 92°F. They had stumbled upon one of sciences holy grails, a true high temperature superconductor. I know this story is true because that junior scientist was my grandmother.
The complexity of the manufacturing process required to obtain Type 3 superconductors and the shear number of ingredients in the recipe translated into twenty-two years of intensive research before an acceptable theory emerged that described what was occurring within the material. But that didn’t stop anyone from using the new discovery, jumping on the bandwagon long before the inherent dangers were identified and dealt with. What followed was a series of blunders that killed or injured many innocent people. It was not long before the public had decided that the new superconductor was more trouble than it was worth.
The military community named it SuperX and it soon replaced RDX, a high explosive historically used in attack rockets, land mines, shape charges and a wide assortment of military projectiles. Where RDX demonstrated a high degree of stability in storage, SuperX detonated when exposed to gaseous oxygen. However, the tremendous increase in potential energy more than made up for its flakey nature. Pound for pound, it was the most powerful chemical explosive ever devised by man.
Because of the risky nature of the material, by the end of the 2020s most research on Type 3 superconductors was occurring on the moon or in orbit, isolating it from the public and driving a burgeoning off-world economy. On January 4, 2036, a research team working at the Bohr High Energy Collider (BHEC) in conjunction with the University of Luna at Aldrin Station released the results of seven years of experimentation. With the report, they unveiled Calconn, a Type 3 superconductor having the highest transition temperature of any yet found (413°K, 284°F, 140°C). They got around the extremely explosive nature of Type 3 materials when exposed to air by cladding the cables and wires with a proprietary polymer, itself a marvel of materials science and engineering. This coating provides a self-sealing shield around the unstable material inside, yet allows workers and technicians to install the cable in both commercial and residential applications.
Needless to say, Calconn was rigorously tested by the world’s laboratories. The cable proved itself against fire, physical abuse, and virtually all types of chemical attack the terrestrial scientists could dream up without a single failure. Within a year, the first Calconn refinery began delivering cable to an energy starved Earth. Yet it took nearly ten more years before the public fully accepted it. By then Calconn was synonymous with Type 3 superconductors in the minds of the average citizen. Many still do not realize that other formulations exist.
Of note, in 2046 China established the Institute of Advanced Materials, a front for them to develop their own Type 3 superconductor without interrupting the flow of material from Luna. They did not feel comfortable depending on a non-Chinese source for a commodity that had become so critical to their economy, a sentiment shared by many other nations. Three years after coming online, the plant met its end in a spectacular explosion that could be heard over a hundred miles away and left a crater almost a half mile wide, effectively signaling the end of serious efforts to compete with Lunarian made Calconn. China never reported how many were hurt or killed that day, but the incident effectively ended any serious challenge to Lunarian Calconn. The world grudgingly accepted Luna for the exclusive manufacturing of the volatile superconductor. Over the intervening decades, the Lunarians always made sure Calconn prices were kept low, carefully cultivating Earth’s dependence.
A half century later, an average of forty giant spindles of Calconn superconductor cable are produced in Lunarian refineries every day, along with a vast assortment of smaller gage wire and other specialty items. Each spindle forms the core payload of a Product Delivery Module or PDM as the locals call them. The outer shell of a PDM is dual purpose, serving as both mass-driver projectile and later, as the atmospheric reentry vehicle. To begin their journey, PDM’s are catapulted into lunar orbit using a mass-driver whose key components are made of Calconn. Once in orbit, they are caught and herded into transports by robotic tugs employing powerful electromagnet fields and propelled through space by magnetoplasma thrusters, both technologies heavily reliant upon Calconn. About every two weeks, a heavily loaded transport breaks orbit and delivers its accumulated cargo to one of three LEO stations, each with its own mass-driver, a twin of the machine that launched it off the moon. At the appropriate time, the mass-driver decelerates each PDM, plunging them through Earth’s atmosphere using the original packaging as the reentry heat shield. A large synthetic silk parachute softens final touchdown, itself sold for a small fortune in the markets of Earth.
Besides its high Tc, Type 3 superconductors have other advantages over Types 1 and 2. Type 3 never reaches current saturation, maintaining its superconductivity at extremely high amperes instead of breaking down like the others, their resistance going from zero to infinity in a blink of an eye. What actually does happen within the molecular structure of a Type 3 superconductor as more and more current is pumped through it is the subject of leading edge research as the end of the 21st century approaches. Space itself distorts under the stress of the incredible energies contained in such a small volume. Today our scientists are only just beginning to obtain a glimpse of future possibilities, but just as before, it doesn’t stop them from exploiting these discoveries.
For many years Type 2 superconducting electromagnetic coils were used to accelerate particles in the world’s supercollider’s such as those at Fermilab outside Chicago, CERN in Switzerland, BHEC outside Aldrin Station, and many other smaller units supported by various universities and governments. The highest energy facilities were constructed in tunnels shaped in gigantic rings and could push the velocities of their particles to within a hairs breadth of the speed of light. But these were enormous machines that required the power of a small city to reach these energy levels. Calconn greatly reduced both power consumption and size of the resulting particle accelerator. The scientists studying high-energy physics suddenly had a new toy to play with, one that even the humblest university could afford. As the 22nd century approaches, this is the new horizon that promises the stars and more.
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