The Thermodynamics of Permanence: Open Systems, Propellantless Propulsion, and the Physics of Persistence
Every system that carries its own fuel is a countdown. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation makes the mathematics explicit: the velocity change a spacecraft can achieve depends on the logarithm of its mass ratio. Doubling the desired velocity change requires the fuel mass to increase exponentially, causing the payload to shrink toward zero as ambition grows. This is not an engineering limitation; it is a thermodynamic boundary condition. This essay applies Ilya Prigogine’s framework of dissipative structures to two domains simultaneously: biological aging and orbital infrastructure. The central argument is that the same thermodynamic principle governs persistence at both scales—that the technologies emerging in both domains converge on the same solution: restoring thermodynamic openness to systems sliding toward equilibrium. ...