Chapter 5
April 2074 ~ Somewhere in Arizona
The hangar was open on one side, facing east toward the airfield. The morning sun still sat low on the horizon and lit the interior where a group of people, obviously figures of authority, a few uniformed, most civilians, was gathered on a raised podium. As Maria Solis entered the hangar, a man in a dark suit stepped forward to the microphone, tapped it lightly, and started speaking.
“Everybody, come closer. You all need to hear this.” There were a couple of hundred gathered in front of the podium, and they all stepped forward a bit. Maria stayed back, but followed. A blonde girl her age smiled at her.
“Hey,” the girl whispered. “You know what this is all about?” Maria shook her head, and the girl continued.
“My high school principal came and took me out of class just the other day. He said he didn’t know anything, but he had orders to get me to the airport as soon as possible. Guess it’s something special, with all the suits up there.” She grinned with the whitest smile Maria had ever seen.
“I’m Geena, by the way.”
“Maria here,” she said. Then they quieted down as the man began speaking again.
“I’m Daniel Shaw, director of the Exodus Project, as it is known. Actually, it’s more of a program, with many projects going on simultaneously, but somebody, somewhere decided to call it a project, so what the heck. The details of the project will be revealed to you gradually as it evolves, but I’m here today to welcome you all. You are to be part of a selection process for a space mission.” There were gasps and surprised whispers that were quickly subdued by Shaw’s raised hand.
“Hear me out, please.” He paused and looked out over the audience.
“Now, to most of you the idea of a space mission will sound absurd. You are lawyers, business people, soldiers, librarians, high school students, dentists, and so on. That will all be explained to you later. But let me tell you this. In two weeks there will be about ten thousand others, give or take, with just as diverse backgrounds, gathered on this site. All of you will have been chosen for some reason, and there will be others with similar backgrounds as yours.” Maria looked around her, and now she saw others that looked like they could be in high school too. She wondered what would be the reason for taking kids out of school like this. She would miss so many classes; there had to be something really serious going on.
“At first you will be placed among others like yourselves, so that the instructors can compare you more easily. In the time to come, some will drop out and some will be cut from the process. You will be taught a variety of subjects, and you will be given tasks to complete, alone and in groups. And at all times there will be instructors around who will assess your performance. I cannot say how long you will be here, or how many will make it in the end.” He paused, looked down at his notes, and bit his lip. He spoke clearly and authoritatively, but Maria thought he looked nervous as he fiddled with his papers.
“Some of you will think this is a load of crap, and I assure you it is not. This is about as serious as it gets, and although I’m not at liberty to reveal any details to you, all I can say is that you have been given an opportunity most people could only dream about. And when you know the whole truth of this, you will know why you must make every effort, use every skill you have, and learn as much as you can. Thank you for your attention, and good luck to all of you.” He turned and walked back to the others, and then walked down from the podium and through a door in the back. A bald, mustached man in uniform took his place, turned off the microphone, and just stood there for a second. Then he spoke, in a gruff voice, loud and clear.
“Listen up,” he called out.
“I’m Colonel Harris, and I’m in charge of all day-to-day operations at this site. You will see me and hear me, but you will not speak to me unless spoken to. Are we clear?” He seemed to look right at her for a second, even though she stood as far back as she could get, and thought she looked as anonymous as anyone. He pointed to the southern end of the hangar.
“On that wall there are lists with all your names on them, in alphabetical order. To the right of your name you will find a number. That is the number of your group. You will also find a capital letter after your number. That is the building where you will be staying. Throughout this compound there are a number of buildings, so you will also be given a map of the area. Now, when you get to where your group will stay, get to know each other well. You will need to. As the director told you, you will have about two weeks until everybody has arrived, so there is plenty of time for that.” He paused for a moment, then gave the audience that see-through-them stare again.
“Now, I could wish you good luck, as the director did. But my task here is to make sure we get the very best of you, and that everyone else is weeded out, so I’m not going to wish you any luck at all. What I wish is for everyone to do their best, pay attention, learn, and then perform. That’s it. And then, if you do that, you might have a chance to stand out, and get through the selection process. Those of you who do that will be on my final list, and that’s really all you should wish for.” Then, surprisingly, he smiled broadly, as if he’d said something funny.
“Welcome to Project Exodus.”
May 2074 ~ Los Angeles, California
The Consortium had been through this discussion many times already, but the time had come to make a decision. Out west, the selection of candidates for the starship had already begun, construction of hab and cargo modules were already under way, and the scientists were already conducting human testing of cryo techniques that would be used during interstellar flight. It was time to decide on the means of propulsion, how to get from Earth orbit to the new world. They were sitting in a conference room in the Pasadena offices of JPL, and on the furthest wall there was a screen where President Andrews, the science advisor, and George Havelar followed the discussion from their seats in the White House, and sometimes interjected comments or questions. Dr. Amanda Shearing of JPL started by summing up the discussion so far.
“Back in the early days of space flight, there were a few options, but none was sufficient for reasonable interstellar flight. Chemical propulsion could theoretically get a starship from Earth to Alpha Centauri, just 4.3 light years away, which is closer than any other star system, in a little less than eight millennia.” She paused, grinning wryly.
“Which, of course, would be out of the question. With nuclear fission, the time would be reduced drastically. In principle, with nuclear fission we could generate an exhaust velocity of 4 percent of light speed, and using a gravity assist, such as that of Jupiter or the sun, we would be able to achieve 8 percent of light speed. That would enable the journey to Alpha Centauri to take fifty-four years, although one critical factor needs to be accounted for: deceleration. Using nuclear fission for deceleration would increase transit time to 108 years. Of course, with a magnetic sail for deceleration, which is certainly doable, we would be able to utilize the entire exhaust velocity for acceleration, so 8 percent is probably the number to keep in mind here. But remember that these speed estimates are theoretical possibilities. In the real world, we’d probably not be able to achieve much more than 2 or 3 percent of light speed with fission.
“Also, let’s not forget that it’s unlikely that we’re going to find the planet we seek at the shortest possible distance. My guess is that we’ll have to be looking at the stars further out, such as Gliese 581, at a little more than twenty light years away, or 55 Cancri, which is about forty-one light years away. Not much further though. I guess there will be a limit somewhere around fifty to eighty light years away though, and we’ll plan accordingly. But even so, at twenty light years, fission is also impractical.” They all nodded; they’d been through this before, so this first session was mainly to bring their White House attendees up to speed, although Ramon silently felt better getting the condensed facts this way, since sometimes these discussions seemed to go way over his head. Now, having patiently present
ed the pros and cons of the impractical options, Dr. Shearing turned to the more realistic options as to the prospect of being able to bring the starship from A to B.
“Now, a deuterium and helium-3 fusion rocket may be able to produce an exhaust velocity of 5 percent of light speed. With gravity assist and efficient engineering, this could be increased to 10 percent. That would give us a transit time to Alpha Centauri of approximately forty-three years, or eighty-six years if we also use this method for deceleration. For distances of twenty light years or more, it’s still a bit on the slow side, but the technology is within reach. It can be done.
“Another option is solar sails. This was already in the works when NASA was disbanded, and the Europeans have already used solar sails for unmanned probes for more than a decade. Although the purely solar-powered sails the Europeans are using are too slow for star flight, with a theoretical maximum speed of little more than 1 percent of light speed, we could increase the speed dramatically by giving the sails a decent push. What we need then is a high-energy laser lens. We’re talking about a 250-meter-wide lens, a huge engineering project by itself, but possible, given the resources we’re willing to spend here. But the energy consumption is dramatic. The power needed would be more than 25 percent of the entire world’s energy consumption for about four months, fission probably. It is a practical issue, really. The lens would have to be constructed in space, and in addition to the fission-powered laser, it would consist of a chemical rocket that would push it out of Earth orbit, and then trail the starship. Then it would point the laser at the starship’s sail for four months, until the starship reached a cruise velocity of about 25 percent of light speed. This option would be devastating to our world economy, and it’s not something that would have been considered under normal circumstances. But this is hardly a normal circumstance now, is it?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have some serious doubts that such a project could be finished on time.” That was Eric Sloan, also of JPL, speaking. Throughout the previous meetings, he’d continuously referred to the engineering issues, and while admitting that solar sails seemed the best option when speed was concerned, his insight into low earth orbit engineering and its difficulties led him to oppose the addition of a high-energy laser lens.
“I just don’t see how we’re going to have the manpower for two immense construction projects at the same time. Remember, we only have about five to seven years to do this. A smaller laser, yes, that could be possible, but the sheer size we’re talking about here simply demands more time. And that’s time we don’t have. If we had enough qualified construction personnel, it would be possible, but we don’t have the time to train these people, and the energy still has to be produced, which is an immense challenge. And let’s not forget the solar sails themselves. The construction of such micro-thin materials would also have to be done in space, and that’s after we develop a new way of constructing them. The European model would be useless for interstellar travel, and again the scarce resource is time. So in my view, we should go for simpler, meaning a slower starship and longer transit time.”
“So what do you think we should do?” the president asked. Sloan thought for a moment before he replied.
“I believe fusion is our best option, since the technology is already in place, or close enough. The Deuterium and Helium-3 fusion rocket will give us 10 percent of light speed, and I simply cannot see any other option that will be possible, given the time at our disposal. The solar sail option has the upside of giving us great speed, if it could be finished in time, if all R&D is successful, and if we can get the power needed. That’s a lot of ifs, and the consequences of even a small setback could topple the entire project. So if I’m to have a say in this, I’d go for fusion.” Several of the others nodded, and even Dr. Shearing seemed to agree. Ramon could certainly see the advantages of solar sails, but Dr. Sloan did have a point. There were too many what-ifs. He’d rather place his bet on a starship that would be using a simpler technology, even though it meant sacrificing speed. It was then that Dr. Grant, having said nothing since the meeting started, decided to join in the conversation. He leaned forward and spoke, while at the same time checking something on his tablet.
“I might have something here, just a second … Damn, there’s too little openness in the world …” he muttered to himself, earning sideways glances from some of the others.
“It seems there was an interesting discovery by ESA a while back … It’s been kept secret, probably due to some scientists wanting to make sure they’ve got the facts straight. Damn fools, still more concerned about their publications than sharing knowledge … It’s a friend of mine at ESA, saying that some of his colleagues found something about 0.3 light years out. Wait …” He then typed something on his tablet, waited for a few seconds, eyes widening when he got the reply. A wide grin spread across his face.
“He says that they finally found definite proof of the existence of Nemesis.”
“What’s Nemesis?” the president asked, furrowing his brows, and tightening his lips at the new information that seemed to come out of nowhere.
“Well, it’s a star, sort of,” Grant replied, smiling as he laid his tablet down on the table. “There is a theory that the mass extinctions we’ve seen in the past, such as the dinosaurs, were caused by comets released from their relatively stable orbits out in the Oort Cloud by the gravitational influence of a star locked in an orbit that brings it as close to the sun as 0.1 light years every twenty-six million years. Now, the supporting evidence for this theory is the mass extinctions themselves, of course, but also the fact that there are gravitational forces out there that cannot be accounted for, and that suggests that currently undetected objects may actually exist in near solar space.” He checked his tablet again, then raised his eyebrows, and smiled knowingly.
“Seems the theory was wrong on a few important points though, which is to our advantage. The orbit is a lot closer than first assumed, although it never gets any closer than 0.1 light years …. Hmm, yes. All right, this is it. Nemesis is a brown dwarf. No wonder we haven’t detected it before, I’m surprised they even managed to find it. Brown dwarves are proto stars that never ignited, so they are very hard to detect because they emit very little heat and light. So … Ah … Nemesis, with a mass twenty times that of Jupiter, is locked in an orbit that takes about thirteen million years to circle the sun, and that explains the mass extinctions. Seems it only releases the devastating comets every other round, for some reason. At its aphelion, meaning its furthest distance from the sun, it will be about 1.8 light years away, while its perihelion, that is the closest it gets, is located at 0.11 light years from the sun. Its current position is 0.3 light years out, and it will stay at that approximate distance a long time after the starship has passed.” He looked up from his tablet again, grinning from ear to ear, and from the expression on Sloan’s face, he had also seen what this meant. Ramon was fascinated, although he still didn’t see the relevance of all this. Grant shook his head, still smiling, and now Shearing also chimed in.
“That opens up a whole new range of options for us, don’t you think?” She looked at Sloan, who was punching at his own tablet like crazy, crunching the numbers. He nodded fiercely.
“This is fantastic. You know, using the Deuterium and Helium-3 fusion rocket, with a maximum gravity assisted velocity of 10 percent of light speed it would take us three years to reach Nemesis, ignoring acceleration time. With acceleration and gravity assist from the sun, we’re talking five to six years. I’ll have to do the math on that … Now, with a second gravity assist from Nemesis, we can easily obtain a speed of 25 to 35 percent of light speed. That’s just … staggering …”
“He he, the timing couldn’t have been better, right?” Grant said.
“Say, six years to Nemesis, then a gravity assist that gives us a little more than 25 percent of light speed, sixteen years to Alpha Centauri, then three years of braking. We’re talking twenty-five years here. And that
’s a conservative estimate.” Dr. Shearing, as the authority on the issue, then spoke directly to the president.
“Of course, we need to check all the facts, and make sure there is absolutely no possibility that the Europeans have made a mistake. Barring that, I’d say we have a recommendation.” The president just nodded, with a satisfied expression on his face. Havelar, always onto the practical details, looked up at the scientist.
“How soon before you can be absolutely certain? We need to get production started, whatever decision we come to.” Shearing, skeptical toward Havelar’s involvement, as she’d voiced, although carefully, several times, looked at Grant, who answered.
“Give us three weeks. Usually we’d need more, a lot more, but it seems the Europeans have been onto this for years, so it should be just a matter of talking to them and looking at the figures ourselves. Then we’ll be ready.”