First Contact – II
With every new understanding in physics, further understanding of the laws of the universe was achieved and then when they scientists thought to be at least partially understood, it was realised that they didn’t make much sense after all.
That didn’t mean the discoveries were useless and the latest understanding of quantum physics allowed the laws of relativity to be sort-of-bypassed using the jump-drive. The laws allowed an object that was powered by a jump-drive to move through space instantaneously (sort of).
Constructed in lunar orbit, the Gagarin was equipped with the latest in jump-drives, it could manage jumps of 1.2 Gigametres, nearly equal to the diameter of the sun, even so, over 6,000 jumps were required to make the journey to the outer edge of the solar system and with a recharge period of 20 minutes between jumps, the journey would take nearly four months. The crew of the Gagarin would be away from Earth for nearly a year.
The crew were ferried into orbit and from the ISS2, they were transferred to the lunar shuttle and from there they were taken on the short trip to the Gagarin.
It was beautiful, Connor thought as he stared through the quartz window at the spacecraft. This would be its maiden voyage, and once it returned to Earth, it would start the job that it had originally been built for – the construction of a Mars base.
Perhaps, when he returned, he would get a trip to Mars. He didn’t want to emigrate though; he liked living in Ireland, best place in the world.
There were several big problems with long space voyages. The first was food, a large amount of supplies needed to be taken but these requirements were partially offset by the small greenhouse where fresh fruit and vegetables could be grown. The second problem was oxygen, the plants helped with that, even so, a sophisticated CO2 recycling plant was required. The third problem was power, but fusion using He3 mined from the moon solved that one.
The new antimatter drive was still a long way off, because the inevitable problem of what would happen if there was a catastrophic power failure was never resolved. Answer: a huge explosion.
The biggest problems though were proper toilet facilities and the problems encountered when ten disparate people, who would not normally choose to live together, were confined to a small area for several months. Friction was inevitable.
Therefore they each had their own room, which was sacrosanct. It was big enough for a bunk, four changes of clothes and the small amount of personal possessions they were allowed to bring aboard. And small did not include guitars, much to Connor’s annoyance.
After a week, of familiarisation of the systems and bedding down the routines that would serve them for their voyage, it was time for the launch. There was none of the countdown or spectacular launches that had marked the early days of space exploration, so just over six months after Connor had volunteered, there was the gradual slow acceleration away from moon orbit, towards the outer Solar System and slightly above the plane of the ecliptic to where Hades currently was.
They all made speeches to the assembled press corps gathered in Houston as they left. Then they wished their families well, not that Connor had many people on Earth to wish well.
Connor watched from a view-screen as the Earth grew imperceptibly smaller.
“I wonder what we’ll find out there?” he asked nobody in particular.
“Probably nothing,” Vanessa replied.
“Or perhaps we’ll make history,” Shen added. “Because whatever Hades is, it is unusual.”
Then with nothing much happening on board, the fickle attention of Earth drifted off onto more mundane things and the crew of the Gagarin started their long and historic and incredibly boring journey to beyond Neptune.
After three days of acceleration and when the Earth and the Moon had become small points in the distance, it was time for the first jump.
All the crew had to know the jump procedure, and to be fair it wasn’t difficult. Alan as Commander had the honour of programming the first jump, a small one that moved them imperceptibly towards their goal.
Pavel was next, then Lian and Connor had drawn the short straw, he got to go last. To be fair he didn’t make an arse of it, but then he did get the feeling that the more experienced of the crew, which was everyone really, thought he shouldn’t be there. Even Carmen, Iku and Shen the other space-virgins had been on astronaut / cosmonaut / taikonaut training prior to the announcement.
The two people who would give him the time of day were Carmen, his fellow European and Vanessa, and after the spacewalk training Vanessa seemed to quite like Connor and he quite liked her as well.
The ten people on the Gagarin were split into five shifts of six hours, with two people on each shift. Though everyone was swapped about, so they all got to spend time with each other.
The first and most important shift was on the bridge; monitoring the equipment, organising the jumps and making sure they didn’t hit any unknown bits of rock.
Not that there was much chance of there being any problems, flying out of the plane of the ecliptic, they would miss most rocks, but space was dangerous and there were lots of uncharted pieces of rock and ice floating about, so it was a critical job.
Those on duty were never lonely, as often, other crewmembers would sit in the bridge to keep those on duty company. It wasn’t as if there was much to do during rest times.
Shift two was two people who would be available immediately if problems were encountered, when not on the bridge, their time was spent checking other areas of the ship, such as the engines, life-support and maintaining the food in the greenhouse.
Shifts three and four were four hours a day which was to be spent exercising and eight sleeping, well four hours were supposed to be exercising, that was one regime that wasn’t monitored as strictly as it should after the first month.
And then the rest of the time was spent relaxing, such as watching media files transmitted from Earth or even just meditating. Connor liked to spend time in the greenhouse. He liked spending time with the plants, they were green and humans needed the colour green according to psychologists. Plus he liked spending time alone, he had always been a loner, so space travel was perfect for him.
English was the official language of the space service, with Russian and Mandarin secondary languages. Everyone who went into space was expected to be fluent in the first and to try and learn the basics of the other two. When Connor was on duty with Pavel or Kateryna he tried to pick up the basics of Russian, and when paired with Lian or Shen, the basics of Mandarin. Shen wasn’t too forthcoming, and that was when Connor learnt that Cantonese was his native language and Shen sort of resented the way Mandarin had become China’s sole official language.
It was when he was on duty with Carmen that Connor first tried to pick up some Spanish. After three shifts of learning the basics, he surprised Vanessa with a ‘buenos noches’, and a ‘como estas’.
“I didn’t know you could speak Spanish,” she said. “And it’s ‘buenas noches’.”
“I always get that wrong. I’ve been learning it from Carmen. It is something to do when we’re on duty together. Programming the jumps gets boring and well we don’t want to mess around with them so you have to keep your mind alert. And it was five days ago when anyone last detected any uncharted rocks.”
“So you want to pick up las señoritas?”
“Well, not out in space, but I suppose it is a useful language to learn. When we get back there will be tours, they always have astronauts going on tours trying to drum up support and money for more missions. Lots of Spanish speaking countries to visit and if I can say more than hola, then people might appreciate it.”
“I thought Russian and Mandarin were encouraged?”
“They are, but Pavel doesn’t seem that keen. He can be a bit …”
“Up himself? Well Kateryna would be keen to teach you.”
“Yes, she’s fine. But learning languages was something to do to pass the time, not because I have to do it.”
“Not do any at school?”
“Irish and French, but again neither are much use in space.”
“What about Japanese? I’d imagine Iku and Saita, would be helpful.”
“Listen, one oriental language is enough.”
She laughed. “Well when we’re on duty together feel free to practise.”
“Does Alan speak Spanish? He’s American after all.”
“Gosh no, he’s from that school of thought that thinks everyone in the US should speak English and only English. I think he might get quite annoyed if you spoke Spanish to him.”
“I’ll save it for special occasions then. But listen, anything important – in English.”
Like English, there were differences between the American and the European versions of the language, and as the weeks past and Connor learnt more and he found himself adapting his speech depending on whether he was speaking to Carmen or Vanessa.
That didn’t mean the discoveries were useless and the latest understanding of quantum physics allowed the laws of relativity to be sort-of-bypassed using the jump-drive. The laws allowed an object that was powered by a jump-drive to move through space instantaneously (sort of).
Constructed in lunar orbit, the Gagarin was equipped with the latest in jump-drives, it could manage jumps of 1.2 Gigametres, nearly equal to the diameter of the sun, even so, over 6,000 jumps were required to make the journey to the outer edge of the solar system and with a recharge period of 20 minutes between jumps, the journey would take nearly four months. The crew of the Gagarin would be away from Earth for nearly a year.
The crew were ferried into orbit and from the ISS2, they were transferred to the lunar shuttle and from there they were taken on the short trip to the Gagarin.
It was beautiful, Connor thought as he stared through the quartz window at the spacecraft. This would be its maiden voyage, and once it returned to Earth, it would start the job that it had originally been built for – the construction of a Mars base.
Perhaps, when he returned, he would get a trip to Mars. He didn’t want to emigrate though; he liked living in Ireland, best place in the world.
There were several big problems with long space voyages. The first was food, a large amount of supplies needed to be taken but these requirements were partially offset by the small greenhouse where fresh fruit and vegetables could be grown. The second problem was oxygen, the plants helped with that, even so, a sophisticated CO2 recycling plant was required. The third problem was power, but fusion using He3 mined from the moon solved that one.
The new antimatter drive was still a long way off, because the inevitable problem of what would happen if there was a catastrophic power failure was never resolved. Answer: a huge explosion.
The biggest problems though were proper toilet facilities and the problems encountered when ten disparate people, who would not normally choose to live together, were confined to a small area for several months. Friction was inevitable.
Therefore they each had their own room, which was sacrosanct. It was big enough for a bunk, four changes of clothes and the small amount of personal possessions they were allowed to bring aboard. And small did not include guitars, much to Connor’s annoyance.
After a week, of familiarisation of the systems and bedding down the routines that would serve them for their voyage, it was time for the launch. There was none of the countdown or spectacular launches that had marked the early days of space exploration, so just over six months after Connor had volunteered, there was the gradual slow acceleration away from moon orbit, towards the outer Solar System and slightly above the plane of the ecliptic to where Hades currently was.
They all made speeches to the assembled press corps gathered in Houston as they left. Then they wished their families well, not that Connor had many people on Earth to wish well.
Connor watched from a view-screen as the Earth grew imperceptibly smaller.
“I wonder what we’ll find out there?” he asked nobody in particular.
“Probably nothing,” Vanessa replied.
“Or perhaps we’ll make history,” Shen added. “Because whatever Hades is, it is unusual.”
Then with nothing much happening on board, the fickle attention of Earth drifted off onto more mundane things and the crew of the Gagarin started their long and historic and incredibly boring journey to beyond Neptune.
After three days of acceleration and when the Earth and the Moon had become small points in the distance, it was time for the first jump.
All the crew had to know the jump procedure, and to be fair it wasn’t difficult. Alan as Commander had the honour of programming the first jump, a small one that moved them imperceptibly towards their goal.
Pavel was next, then Lian and Connor had drawn the short straw, he got to go last. To be fair he didn’t make an arse of it, but then he did get the feeling that the more experienced of the crew, which was everyone really, thought he shouldn’t be there. Even Carmen, Iku and Shen the other space-virgins had been on astronaut / cosmonaut / taikonaut training prior to the announcement.
The two people who would give him the time of day were Carmen, his fellow European and Vanessa, and after the spacewalk training Vanessa seemed to quite like Connor and he quite liked her as well.
The ten people on the Gagarin were split into five shifts of six hours, with two people on each shift. Though everyone was swapped about, so they all got to spend time with each other.
The first and most important shift was on the bridge; monitoring the equipment, organising the jumps and making sure they didn’t hit any unknown bits of rock.
Not that there was much chance of there being any problems, flying out of the plane of the ecliptic, they would miss most rocks, but space was dangerous and there were lots of uncharted pieces of rock and ice floating about, so it was a critical job.
Those on duty were never lonely, as often, other crewmembers would sit in the bridge to keep those on duty company. It wasn’t as if there was much to do during rest times.
Shift two was two people who would be available immediately if problems were encountered, when not on the bridge, their time was spent checking other areas of the ship, such as the engines, life-support and maintaining the food in the greenhouse.
Shifts three and four were four hours a day which was to be spent exercising and eight sleeping, well four hours were supposed to be exercising, that was one regime that wasn’t monitored as strictly as it should after the first month.
And then the rest of the time was spent relaxing, such as watching media files transmitted from Earth or even just meditating. Connor liked to spend time in the greenhouse. He liked spending time with the plants, they were green and humans needed the colour green according to psychologists. Plus he liked spending time alone, he had always been a loner, so space travel was perfect for him.
English was the official language of the space service, with Russian and Mandarin secondary languages. Everyone who went into space was expected to be fluent in the first and to try and learn the basics of the other two. When Connor was on duty with Pavel or Kateryna he tried to pick up the basics of Russian, and when paired with Lian or Shen, the basics of Mandarin. Shen wasn’t too forthcoming, and that was when Connor learnt that Cantonese was his native language and Shen sort of resented the way Mandarin had become China’s sole official language.
It was when he was on duty with Carmen that Connor first tried to pick up some Spanish. After three shifts of learning the basics, he surprised Vanessa with a ‘buenos noches’, and a ‘como estas’.
“I didn’t know you could speak Spanish,” she said. “And it’s ‘buenas noches’.”
“I always get that wrong. I’ve been learning it from Carmen. It is something to do when we’re on duty together. Programming the jumps gets boring and well we don’t want to mess around with them so you have to keep your mind alert. And it was five days ago when anyone last detected any uncharted rocks.”
“So you want to pick up las señoritas?”
“Well, not out in space, but I suppose it is a useful language to learn. When we get back there will be tours, they always have astronauts going on tours trying to drum up support and money for more missions. Lots of Spanish speaking countries to visit and if I can say more than hola, then people might appreciate it.”
“I thought Russian and Mandarin were encouraged?”
“They are, but Pavel doesn’t seem that keen. He can be a bit …”
“Up himself? Well Kateryna would be keen to teach you.”
“Yes, she’s fine. But learning languages was something to do to pass the time, not because I have to do it.”
“Not do any at school?”
“Irish and French, but again neither are much use in space.”
“What about Japanese? I’d imagine Iku and Saita, would be helpful.”
“Listen, one oriental language is enough.”
She laughed. “Well when we’re on duty together feel free to practise.”
“Does Alan speak Spanish? He’s American after all.”
“Gosh no, he’s from that school of thought that thinks everyone in the US should speak English and only English. I think he might get quite annoyed if you spoke Spanish to him.”
“I’ll save it for special occasions then. But listen, anything important – in English.”
Like English, there were differences between the American and the European versions of the language, and as the weeks past and Connor learnt more and he found himself adapting his speech depending on whether he was speaking to Carmen or Vanessa.
Connor and Iku were on duty at the J-party, the point when they passed the orbit of Jupiter, not that Jupiter was anywhere near them at the time, it was just an excuse for a party. Connor was pleased, because that meant he would not be on duty at the S-party, the U-party or the N-party.
When Connor ended up on duty with Vanessa during the S-party, he was quite annoyed. He keyed in the commands for the next jump as Vanessa scanned for any debris in their target area and tried to console him.
“It’s just the way the shifts have fallen,” she said.
“It might be how the shifts fell but it’s not how the party fell, if you hadn’t noticed, we actually passed Saturn’s orbit last night when Alan and Pavel were on duty.”
“It’s a difficult thing to mark because the orbit is elliptical.”
“Vanessa don’t patronise me.” Connor stopped to double check their jump-destination. He was annoyed and that was when mistakes could be made. “Nothing there,” he said. “You can carry on. One annoying American is enough. So can you tell me why didn’t Alan not get to go to the party then? And just watch the next two parties.”
“Speak to him about it.”
“Are you joking? I can’t see that working out well.”
“I’ll have a word with him. I promise.”
Connor wasn’t meant to, but he sort-of overheard the conversation between Vanessa and Alan, but then they did have it outside his room.
“I don’t care,” Alan replied. “He’s not a proper astronaut. His space should have been given to a more experienced person.”
“This is Iku’s, Shen’s and Carmen’s first mission as well.”
“But they’re good at their job. And they have been trained. What a stupid way to choose who goes into space, it should go to the most competent, not some lottery.
“Carmen was chosen the same way.”
“But she was already in training. He had none before that stupid show. Choosing on the basis of country?”
“We’re all chosen because of country. If you hadn’t noticed there are two of us and two Russians …”
“And there should have been two Europeans who were in some way competent.”
“And why is Connor bad at his job?”
“He’s had no training.”
“He passed all the tests, some of them very well. Okay he’s a new recruit, but everyone has to have their first trip into space sometime. And has he ever made a mistake when on shift? Because I’ve never noticed one. Lighten up. And if you gave him a chance you would realise that he is in fact, good at his job.”
“Just because you’ve got the hots for a bit of Irish.”
There was a pause and Connor wondered if Vanessa would actually slap Alan but she didn’t. She replied with “Is that what this is about. You’re jealous, because I prefer his company to yours. Alan act like a competent commander, make sure that Connor is not on duty at the U-party or at the N-party.”
“And what will Connor be able to do once we reach Hades?”
“What will any of us do? There’s an object waiting for us that is very unknown. What can any of us do? If you weren’t aware, this is all unexplored territory. Perhaps Connor will be the one who makes the discovery of a lifetime, because I don’t know who it will be.”
“I’ll make a bet with you. One hundred dollars, that Connor doesn’t make an important discovery.”
“What sort of bet is that, it’s not a fifty-fifty. But I’ll tell you what, if anyone other than Connor or I make the big discovery, I’ll say you won. If I make the discovery of a lifetime or Connor does, then I win.”
“Done.”
And then the two members of team US, as the media still annoyingly called them, went their separate ways.
And Connor liked Vanessa even more than he had done previously. He also promised himself to try and make a discovery or have an insight or anything, just so Vanessa could win her bet.
When Connor ended up on duty with Vanessa during the S-party, he was quite annoyed. He keyed in the commands for the next jump as Vanessa scanned for any debris in their target area and tried to console him.
“It’s just the way the shifts have fallen,” she said.
“It might be how the shifts fell but it’s not how the party fell, if you hadn’t noticed, we actually passed Saturn’s orbit last night when Alan and Pavel were on duty.”
“It’s a difficult thing to mark because the orbit is elliptical.”
“Vanessa don’t patronise me.” Connor stopped to double check their jump-destination. He was annoyed and that was when mistakes could be made. “Nothing there,” he said. “You can carry on. One annoying American is enough. So can you tell me why didn’t Alan not get to go to the party then? And just watch the next two parties.”
“Speak to him about it.”
“Are you joking? I can’t see that working out well.”
“I’ll have a word with him. I promise.”
Connor wasn’t meant to, but he sort-of overheard the conversation between Vanessa and Alan, but then they did have it outside his room.
“I don’t care,” Alan replied. “He’s not a proper astronaut. His space should have been given to a more experienced person.”
“This is Iku’s, Shen’s and Carmen’s first mission as well.”
“But they’re good at their job. And they have been trained. What a stupid way to choose who goes into space, it should go to the most competent, not some lottery.
“Carmen was chosen the same way.”
“But she was already in training. He had none before that stupid show. Choosing on the basis of country?”
“We’re all chosen because of country. If you hadn’t noticed there are two of us and two Russians …”
“And there should have been two Europeans who were in some way competent.”
“And why is Connor bad at his job?”
“He’s had no training.”
“He passed all the tests, some of them very well. Okay he’s a new recruit, but everyone has to have their first trip into space sometime. And has he ever made a mistake when on shift? Because I’ve never noticed one. Lighten up. And if you gave him a chance you would realise that he is in fact, good at his job.”
“Just because you’ve got the hots for a bit of Irish.”
There was a pause and Connor wondered if Vanessa would actually slap Alan but she didn’t. She replied with “Is that what this is about. You’re jealous, because I prefer his company to yours. Alan act like a competent commander, make sure that Connor is not on duty at the U-party or at the N-party.”
“And what will Connor be able to do once we reach Hades?”
“What will any of us do? There’s an object waiting for us that is very unknown. What can any of us do? If you weren’t aware, this is all unexplored territory. Perhaps Connor will be the one who makes the discovery of a lifetime, because I don’t know who it will be.”
“I’ll make a bet with you. One hundred dollars, that Connor doesn’t make an important discovery.”
“What sort of bet is that, it’s not a fifty-fifty. But I’ll tell you what, if anyone other than Connor or I make the big discovery, I’ll say you won. If I make the discovery of a lifetime or Connor does, then I win.”
“Done.”
And then the two members of team US, as the media still annoyingly called them, went their separate ways.
And Connor liked Vanessa even more than he had done previously. He also promised himself to try and make a discovery or have an insight or anything, just so Vanessa could win her bet.