Metallic Hydrogen | Teen Ink

Metallic Hydrogen

January 21, 2018
By Anonymous

Author's note:

My creative writing teacher inspired me to write this and its the first creative thing I've ever written.

The author's comments:

This is mainly just an outline and very incomplete.

Starts out with a news broadcast covering the first full test of the new revolutionary metallic hydrogen based engines.  The broadcaster goes into some history about Deep Space Propulsion ltd. and it’s past achievements like efficient deep space propulsion.  The company Deep Space Propulsion ltd. has created an efficient Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster system.  The magnetoplasmadynamic thruster system is like the marathon runner of space propulsion systems.  These work by having solar panels or a nuclear reactor that store large amounts of energy, this energy is then used to ionize a gas such as xenon, neon, argon, hydrogen, hydrazine, and lithium.  This brings the company a great deal of wealth as several developed nations and commercial space companies buy several large orders of the engines to power their space endeavours.  However, the company's profits are quickly slashed by the costliness of putting their revolutionary engines in orbit for many reasons.  The engines are large, the nuclear reactors needed to produce the electrical energy needed to power the engines are heavy and require extra shielding during launch, and the gas used to power the engines is bulky.  The engines are also only really good for interplanetary hops and are ineffective at landing anything on planets.  Probes and manned missions are also held back by their inability to take off from large planets once they land on them.  Metallic hydrogen is the steroids that make an athlete perform extreme feats with ease.  The company develops a large diamond anvil capable of producing 25 kg. of fuel per day.  The company uses the same technology behind a miniature diamond anvil but increases the area so that it can produce a larger sample in the same amount of time.  (A diamond anvil cell works by first taking two synthetic diamonds.  The diamonds are typically ⅛ to ⅓ of a carat and are cut with 16 facets.  The diamonds are then smoothed with a high energy ionizing laser that eliminates any surface imperfections.  If you were to run your finger over the edge, it would feel as if you were touching nothing as your finger slid effortlessly over the frictionless surface.  The tips are then ground and polished into level hexadecagons so that when the two diamonds are pushed together the force is evenly distributed.  The diamond is then finally coated in a thin layer of alumina.  A gasket is then created to trap the sample by crushing a thin piece of sheet metal with the anvil, then drilling out the divot created by the diamond tip.  The two diamonds are then placed in a pressurizing mechanism which forces them against each other.  Extreme amounts of force are then applied to one side by a simple machine like a hydraulic piston, lever, or screw).  The first trial of the metallic hydrogen is a smashing success!  The observes of the first critical launch recall how the exhaust was so hot that it was a blindingly bright light, almost brighter than the sun.  The rocket generates 10 times the lift of any other rocket ever created and quickly sends its payload into a steady polar orbit demonstrating the raw power of the new fuel.  The increased density of the fuel also allows for a large payload as the rocket is smaller than many other rockets of the time.  The rocket is also able to land under its own power similar to Falcon 9 (develop rocket concept based off of Falcon model).  Establishes and breaks several world records like the fastest time to achieve an orbit, LEO, most thrust of a rocket, and smashing several in atmosphere speed records.  The company experiences a flood in capital as investors rush to buy into the company, the company is again slammed by orders of the metallic hydrogen powered rockets and their precious fuel.  The company takes their prototype diamond anvil cell and begin to construct several more to deal with the increased demand of metallic hydrogen.  Once the company has met the initial demand by constructing a new metallic hydrogen factory consisting of 25 of these prototype diamond anvil cells the company begins to go into production of the next generation of diamond anvil cells.  The old factory is situated at Cape Canaveral in order for the metallic hydrogen to be readily available to the launch facilities.  The fuel is constructed on site also because transporting the metallic hydrogen would be extremely dangerous if there were an accident and it would be very costly to safely transport the volatile, explosive fuel.  Maybe this old facility with all of the generation 1 diamond anvils is attacked by terrorists and destroyed which motivates the company to move the new operation underground.  During this attack the project leader freezes up during the extreme situation as he lacks leadership skills and one of the other researchers takes charge.  This results in it taking longer for the authorities to respond and results in the prototypes being destroyed and the death of three of his fellow researchers at the hands of the terrorists.  Domestic sponsored terrorism is suspected by the creators of the prototype diamond anvil cell because the terrorists were able to sneak into Cape Canaveral without being suspected.  The only way they would have been able to break into such a secure military facility is with help from the inside or the resources of a foreign government that could provide the necessary support needed for a successful operation.  The terrorists took all of the scientists and military personnel hostage.  They then systematically placed C-4 charges on each of the prototypes to properly destroy them.  The terrorists then fled the facility.  Some of his fellow researchers tried to disable the C-4 charges in order to save the prototypes; however, they were unsuccessful and were killed when the terrorists detonate the charges.  They move to a new facility to protect from corporate espionage as the founders suspect that foreign agents or domestic agents were involved in the terrorist plot in order to become the new primary producer of the extremely valuable metallic hydrogen. The researchers suspect foreign agents because this would undermine the security of the U.S economy and its position as the leader in the deep space race.  They suspect domestic agents because the U.S. government would like to take control of the potentially world altering resource.  The U.S. could use sales of extremely expensive metallic hydrogen or diamond anvil cells to pay off the enormous U.S. national debt.  Their main challenges were creating even larger flawless diamonds needed to crush the hydrogen gas.  The second problem the company came across was creating a machine capable of exerting enough force on the hydrogen gas samples to convert the samples from hydrogen gas to metallic hydrogen.  The final issue the company had to overcome was a stable supply of pure hydrogen gas.  To overcome this final obstacle the company built a system of large nuclear powered electrolytic converter to separate pure hydrogen out of seawater (An electrolytic converter runs a high voltage through seawater which splits water molecules into pure hydrogen and oxygen gas).  The company has spent two years working on overcoming all of their major challenges and it’s time for the company to finally test their new and improved diamond anvil cell.  The new diamond cell prototype is the older brother, more powerful, bigger, and more efficient, while the older diamond anvil cell is the younger brother, wimpish, struggles, and doesn’t have enough capacity.  The company’s factory is located in a remote section of the New Mexican desert.  The entrance to the company’s facility is one of the new massive diamonds hanging over the road way as if it is prepared to crush the cars into a new material as it does with metallic hydrogen.  Once someone makes it down the long private driveway and into the compound which is surrounded by three layers of tall barb wire topped fences.  There is also the company’s private security which protects the surface entrance to the large underground compound where the company produces metallic hydrogen.  Above ground is a small fortified building that stores the all of the guards equipment and protects the tops of the elevator shafts that lead down into the lab area.  There are three large 25 person elevators that are used for moving the labs staff from the surface to the underground facility a quarter mile below the surface buried in the new mexican bedrock.  The security building also houses three behemoth freight elevators capable to lowering a 747 into the bowels of the earth.  The freight elevators need this capacity to move the new massive diamonds, diamond anvil cell frames, and pressurizing mechanisms.  The facility is also located near the Pecos river so that it can divert a small amount of the water for electrolysis to be turned into pure hydrogen to be processed into metallic hydrogen.  The underground facility is larger than several large hangers, allowing for a high tech laboratory in which the scientists can conduct small scale environment, an office complex for the project managers, housing accommodations for the entire staff, room for several full scale new diamond anvils, and the large storage tanks that house the metallic hydrogen produced.  The staff rotates in week rotations with 2 crews so that while one crew is resting the other crew is working hard.  The company tests its final massive diamond anvil cell in a massive test chamber that is isolated from the rest of the facility.  The test facility is kept immaculately and all of the surfaces have been coated with a protective layer so that there is no contamination from the rocks of the chamber.  The chamber also uses liquid oxygen to lower the temperature of the chamber as less pressure is required as the chamber is colder.  This also helps to alleviate the massive amount of heat created by concentrating so much energy on such a small area.  The chamber is then sealed with 2 foot thick reinforced steel blast doors designed to withstand a nuclear blast.  This is just a precaution in case the metallic hydrogen were to suddenly detonate.  The scientists can control the experiments from within a small control room located near the blast doors.  The control room is carved out of the rock for the room and is again built with heavily reinforced materials including 2 foot thick reinforced steel walls, with 3 foot thick composite clear windows aluminum infused silica glass (same stuff used on the space shuttle).  The company continues with its experiments and once it has built and perfected the new massive diamond anvil cell mechanically it then strives to optimize it’s process to produce the most metallic hydrogen per cycle.  This means pumping in the correct amount of hydrogen to achieve the highest efficiency with the highest amount of gas to produce the highest possible yield.  If too much gas is pumped in the compresses will be unable to generate enough force to create the metallic hydrogen and will be left with easily created, high unstable liquid hydrogen.  If there is too little hydrogen gas pumped in then the process is inefficient and the company is not operating at its maximum efficiency.  In the most efficient stages the company won’t have 100% efficiency rate and there will always be some liquid hydrogen created, but that liquid hydrogen can easily by recaptured and reused in a future cycle. In the final stages of optimization the company believes that it has come up with the most efficient volume of gas to pump in to produce the most metallic hydrogen possible per cycle.  This new optimized process is capable of producing nearly a metric tonne or 1,000 kg of metallic hydrogen per cycle.  During the shift to the new facility the project leader begins to undergo leadership training in order to be a more efficient manager.  The shift to the new facility helps him develop his new leadership skills as the project develops.  The shift to the new facility also lessens the guilt he feels for the deaths of his fellow researchers.  All of the scientists are called in to witness what is being called the final test before the new diamond anvil cell goes into production.  The scientists watch with anticipation as the air within the test chamber grows foggy and the windows begin to fog up.  The diamond anvil cell then slowly descends upon the sample and everyone crowds around the computer to witness the computer readings. Everything looks good as the force of compression slowly increases from 101,325 pascal all the way up to 80,000,000,000 pascals over the the course of two hours.  This absolutely mind blowing amount of force would feel like you had about 31 empire state buildings stacked on top of you.  Right as the computer reads 80,000,000,000 pascals the scientists let the sample sit for 10 minutes at the extreme pressure, then begin to slowly begin decompressing the sample as rapidly releasing so much force would obliterate the prototype massive diamond anvil cell.  However, the top half of the anvil wasn’t lifting as it should have been. The anvil appeared stuck, the lead scientist begins to groan and complain to the other scientist complaining how dammit bryan we spent 3 years on this project and you had destroy it all in two minutes.  The team then carefully sends out a team of engineers to carefully inspect the rig and figure out what had failed and made it impossible to raise the nearly 5 ton top half of the diamond.  After combing over the rig for what seemed like forever the army of engineers and mechanics were unable to find anything wrong.  However as they were working around the new anvil they felt a strange pull towards the machine as if there were a gentle breeze within the massive chamber pulling them all towards the center of the monstrosity.  A mechanic had set a few loose screws on the ground and strangely they had all rolled to align with the heads pointing towards the center of the machine.  He thought nothing of it and continued his inspection.  The scientists then began to hear the massive diamond anvil cell emit strange groaning noises as if the system were under immense strain.  All the scientists then promptly evacuated the testing chamber and sealed the blast doors fearing an impending explosion of metallic hydrogen that would send them and half of the complex to the grave if it exploded.  They thought that a metallic hydrogen explosion was the worst imaginable consequence of a fault in their new process, of how wrong they were.  The scientists couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong and decided that the best thing to do would be to sleep on it and try to figure out what had happened the next morning.  All of the scientists went to and woke up the next day reporting several strange groaning noises like they had previously heard the prior evening.  The scientists began the day by cooking up ideas about what had gone wrong, while the room began to grow thick with the aroma of the cooking bacon.
The chief mechanical engineer claimed, “I think it was something faulty with the new code you guys uploaded before the test.”
The lead programmer responded by saying “Are you sure that you guys correctly set up the pistons because our code worked in all of the tests.  I think that one of the circuits blew a fuse.”
The lead programer fires back, “Sure blame electrical for all of your woes, at least we haven’t delayed this project like either of you.”  The room is set up like a powder keg with everyone ready to explode at one another. 
Suddenly, the project leader interjects, “SHUT UP!  It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, all that matters is that we fix.  Does anyone else have anything CONSTRUCTIVE they’d like to contribute to the discussion?”
One of the mechanical engineers jokes, “Maybe we created a black hole and that’s what’s holding the clamp closed?”  At the mention of such a ludicrous idea the entire group bursts into uncontrolled laughter at the the thought of having created a black hole and that was causing all of their problems.  The project leader privately thanked the mechanical engineer later for lightening the very tense mood.
The team sat down for breakfast the next day and began throwing out ideas about what had caused the issue ranging from faulty control software to a hydraulic piston malfunction to the ludicrousness of creating a black hole.  At the mention of the last theory everyone in the room, but the young researcher who had proposed the idea, burst into laughter.  All of a sudden there was a thunderous boom that startled all of the scientists and seemed to shake the entire facility.  The scientists feared that something had gone wrong with the metallic hydrogen storage and that it had detonated.  The project leader is galvanized into action by his dreams haunted by the faces of his dead colleagues.  He organizes everyone and makes sure that everyone is quickly and efficiently evacuated from the facility.  The scientists quickly evacuated the facility and rushed to the surface.  Once there the security team locked down the facility and all air vents leading into the facility in order to starve a potential fire; however, none of the smoke detectors had been triggered.  The team then began to flip through the security cameras and could find nothing wrong.  Everything looked fine, the metallic hydrogen containers were intact, the kitchen looked the same as when the scientists had evacuated, and the test chamber looked empty except for a little camera smudge.  The security team was puzzled where the scientists had placed the new diamond anvil cell that they believed the scientists had been testing the previous day.  All of the scientists were dumbfounded and claimed that the rig was still set up.  The scientists were adamant until they saw the video feed.  Everyone quickly rushed back into the facility fearing that the prototype had been stolen.  The scientists looked in through the blast proof windows and were astounded to see that the test chamber appeared to be entirely empty. 
The scientists breathlessly stumbled out of the elevator after running as fast as they could in order to get to the elevators and escape the facility.  The project leader pants to the security chief, “check the security systems, I think the metallic hydrogen somehow destabilized and exploded.”
The security chief barks to one of his lieutenant’s, “Review the security footage and see if you can contain any blazes happening in the facility and close off the air vents.”  He then begins a headcount and is thankful that the entire scientific team was able to evacuate the facility.  The security chief calls over the radio, “I need everyone currently on break to report to the mess hall to support the scientific team, this is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill.  I want the project leader, mechanical, programming, and electrical leaders to follow me to the security operations center.”  The group of five climb into one of the security trucks and ride over to the security operations center to look over the CCTV footage of the explosion. 
Suddenly the lieutenant calls the head of security over the radio, “Sir I can report that there appears to be no damage to the facility; however there is one mystery.”
The chief asks, “What do you mean?”
The lieutenant replies, “It will be easier to explain once you get here?”
The chief walks in and asks, “What’s the mystery?”
The lieutenant replies, “Nothing appears to be out of place except I can’t find the prototype.”
The project lead interjects in disbelief, “What do you mean you can’t find the prototype?”
The lieutenant replies, “Look for yourself, all of the cameras are still functioning properly.”  The scientific team quickly gathers around the computer monitor and flip through every camera feed unable to find anything wrong except for the missing prototype.
The project lead wonders, “how can a 60 ton prototype disappear just like that?”
The chief of security tells the lieutenant, “pull up the footage until you can find where the prototype disappears.”  The lieutenant finds the spot, but the prototype is in one frame, but then gone the next.
The chief of security ponders, “How could this happen?”
The project leader replies, “I have no idea, but in order to figure this out we need to be down there to investigate.
They then checked the blast doors computer which showed that no one had opened the vault since it had been closed the previous night.  The scientists were determined to get to the bottom of this mystery and charged into the room they all felt a strange force that none of them could quite explain.  To the scientists it felt as if something were lightly pulling against them, directing them towards the center of the room.  The chief engineer lead the pack and charged right up to the now empty space that the massive machine used to occupy.  The room seemed somewhat strange too as if the lights were slightly dimmed.  All of the scientists were baffled, how could the 50 ton machine have just disappeared as if it had never existed.  The chief mechanic threw his papers into the are as he was just dumbfounded by how his masterpiece could’ve disappeared without him knowing how or why.  Rather than falling back to the ground in a mess the papers began to float up as if there was an updraft in the room.  The papers reached nearly 20 feet above the ground before they crumpled into a ball and disappeared.  Everyone was astounded what had just happened?  Then the mechanical engineer called “out maybe a black hole wasn’t so improbable as you all thought.”  At that point all hell broke loose half of the scientists ran out of the room and the other half stayed in the room yearning to learn more about the mysterious object.  All of a sudden one of the security guards pulled his rifle to bear and fired severals rounds in the direction of the mysterious anomaly.  The bullets flew through the air and several of them shot in strange directions because of the black hole, but one orbited around the black hole at just the right distance to fly back at the guard.  The bullet punched a clean hole right between his eyes and he dropped to the ground dead.  After that everyone fled the test chamber trying to escape the horrible tragedy they had just witnessed.  The scientists after regrouping for several hours decide they need to inspect the black hole to understand how it works better and how to destroy it.  The scientists bring out a high powered laser that they use to determine whether or not the hydrogen samples are pure through using lift spectroscopy.  They decided to aim the 25 kilowatt laser at the black hole in attempt to see if it is possible to destabilize it through exposing to extremely high levels of concentrated energy.  The scientists decided to set up the laser to point directly at the black hole for an hour and study the conditions around the black hole to see what happens.  After nearly an hour of exposure to the high energy light bombardment the scientists observe that the black hole seems to have grown and appears even more stable than ever.  The project leader decided that he needed to make the responsible decision and ask for help.  As much as he would have liked to have solved the potentially world ending problem, he knew that he would be unable to solve it.  The scientists decide that maybe they don’t have all of the ideas and maybe it’s time to call in the government to see what they can do to help.  As soon as the call is made an army quarantine zone is set up around the entrance to the lab in an effort to contain everyone.  As the army arrives the chief scientist incharge of the laser experiment walks into the test chamber and is sucked into and shredded by the black hole as his colleagues watch on in horror.  Everyone poured out of the room in terror, accidentally leaving the powerful laser running.  In a panic one of the scientists ordered the blast doors to close not realizing that he had permanently closed the door as the black hole would hold the mammoth doors closed.  Everyone then evacuated the facility fearful of what was going to happen.  The black hole continued to grow for several more hours increasing rapidly in size as the laser fed it energy to grow.  Soon the black hole was pulling heavily on the thousands of ton of earth contained in the ceiling above it.  When the black hole reached the size of nearly a basketball the blast doors failed.  The laser sucked in everything within the underground facility quickly swelling to the size of a car.  As the black hole pulled on the tanks of metallic hydrogen they failed detonating a massive explosion that felt as if it were 5.0 magnitude earthquake to the soldiers manning the military quarantine.  The massive explosion and collapse of the roof lead to the black hole being fed massive amounts of energy and swelled to the size of a large house.  The entire surface facility was swallowed by the black hole resulting in a hole quarter mile acoss and a quarter mile deep.  Half of the scientific team had made it to the safety while the other half were swallowed by the pit.  The scientists many of whom were unable to find a solution that would destroy the black hole before it consumed the earth jumped into the pit.  Instead of falling down they were sucked to the center of the pit and consumed by the monstrous black hole.  That was still growing.  The president was freaking out about this supposed and science experiment gone wrong and immediately scrambled ten B-2 Stealth Bombers to obliterate.  All ten bombers released their devastating cargo at the same time and the smart atomic bombs guided them all to target where they struck the black hole directly within seconds.  Those who were stranded near the black hole experienced a deafeningly loud noise that sounded as if someone had just smashed a hammer against their head.  The deafening acoustic blast died nearly as soon as it began as the air and thus the sound waves were absorbed by the black hole.  The pilots were astounded by a lack of an explosion as the the initial flame burst immediately collapsed on itself and was absorbed into the black hole.  The black hole instantly tripled in size as a result of the massive amounts of energy contributed by the atomic energy bursts.  To all of those near the site of the black hole it appeared a if the day was growing brighter as the black hole began to attract photons directing all of the light into the tear in the universe.  The world appeared to be ending as anything and everything loose near the black hole began to be attracted to it as its force rivaled the force of gravity.  Cars, people, and houses were pulled from where they were into the crater formed by the black hole.  The black hole absorbs as much matter as it can thats nearby until it stops growing at the size of nearly a stadium.  The lack of growth in the black hole gives world leaders a temporary reprieve that allow them to develop some solution that will destroy the black hole.  The world's great scientific minds meet in Washington D.C. to discuss potential solutions and come upon the only solution that could possibly save humanity: an antimatter black hole.  The smashing of a matter black hole with an antimatter black hole should collapse both black holes and save humanity.  The world dedicates all of its resources to the development of this antimatter black hole as a failure to do so will result in the death of all of humanity.  Scientists worked round the clock to develop a system of efficient particle accelerators to smash enough hydrogen together to create enough antimatter hydrogen to create an antimatter black hole that will collapse the black hole.  They are able to develop an efficient process within a month and have created enough antimatter to match the mass of the black hole.  All of the equipment is transferred to New Mexican desert where a copy of the prototype diamond anvil cell is used to compress the antimatter enough to create a black hole.  The scientists form the antimatter black hole at exactly the right distance so that the event horizons interact when they have the same mass.  Once the antimatter black hole forms the scientists begin to feed it antimatter.  The whole process takes nearly a whole to grow the antimatter black hole so that it matches the black hole.  The entire world watched eyes bulging out of their sockets as the gap shrank from a foot wide to  a knife blade wide and all the way until it appeared as if they were touching.  Everyone in the world is glued to their T.V.’s as they watch the two event horizons meet.  Suddenly the feed cuts out and the entire world begins to shake.  The collision of the matter and antimatter causes a massive explosion that literally shakes the planet to the core and splits the tectonic plates into small fragments like a dropped piece of china.  The worst though is yet to come as the extremely concentrated burst of energy collapses on itself to form a new even more massive black hole.  The Earth and all life on it is quickly extinguished as the entire planet is swallowed by the planet sized black hole.  All life on Earth is extinguished by a simple science experiment gone wrong.  The black hole the swallowed humanity continues to grow swallowing the moon, then Mars, and eventually the whole solar system until all that is left is an all consuming infinitely dense mass.  The black hole continues to grow for billions of years until everything in the universe has been swallowed into one supermassive black hole.  The black hole then slowly disintegrates as a result of hawking radiation which slowly strips away all of its mass until the Universe is no more.



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