The E Utopia Project

by Kudakwashe Muzira

  “The majority of asteroids tend to orbit the Sun relatively close to the orbital plane of the Solar System’s planets,” Hitchcook mused. “It could be that the drone’s trajectory was at a relatively safe angle to the planetary orbital plane.”

  “I hope there are no aliens on that planet,” Cruz spoke at last.

  “Mr. Cruz, if there are sentient beings on the planet, then we would be the aliens if we go there,” Hitchcook corrected.

  “If there are no hostile creatures, then mankind has found a new home,” Bolton said.

  “Not all mankind,” Cruz said fiercely. “This is our planet. We don’t want any polluters there. We shall rule the planet under strict environmental law.”

  “What shall we call the planet?” Rudolf asked.

  “We shall call it E Utopia,” declared Cruz. “It’s short for Environmental Utopia.”

  “Let’s not get carried away,” Bolton said, looking at the screengrabs from the footage. “Maybe the liquid on the planet’s surface isn’t water. Maybe it’s liquid ammonia or some other liquid that doesn’t support life.”

  “It’s a major breakthrough regardless of the planet’s ability to support life,” Rudolf said. “We now know that the jump drive can help us traverse the Universe and discover new planets. If this newly discovered planet doesn’t support life, we can jump drones from different locations and at different angles till we find a planet that can support life.”

  “You’re right, Bolton,” Cruz said, trying to calm down. “We mustn’t get carried away. We’ve to go and see E Utopia for ourselves. The question is... how do we get there?”

  “Simple,” Bolton said. “We just put a jump drive on a spaceship and jump to the vicinity of the planet.”

  “Before we jump we have to jump an unmanned prototype of the ship carrying cargo with weight equal to our combined weight and the supplies that we intend to take with us on the voyage,” Hitchcook said.

  “Let’s get to the ground and work,” Cruz said with half-suppressed euphoria. And like an overjoyed expectant father, he added, “The ship shall be called Transgalactic.”

  It took the scientists only five months to make the unmanned prototype of the Transgalactic. The unmanned prototype successfully made the jump and returned with jaw-dropping footage of E Utopia. The images of the E Utopia were bigger and clearer, suggesting that the unmanned Transgalactic had gotten closer to the planet than the drone. One of the cameras captured images of a star.

  “Is this the Sun?” Cruz asked.

  “It’s hard to tell from this image,” Doctor Rudolf said. “It’s not clear whether the star is a red, orange, yellow, giant or dwarf star.”

  “Even if we could tell from the image that the star is a yellow dwarf like the Sun, we would still be unsure whether it is the Sun,” Bolton said. “There are millions of stars in the Universe.”

  “Mr. Cruz, I think it’ll be a good idea to have a space station,” Hitchcook said when they were travelling back to Earth.

  “You’re right, Hitchcook,” Cruz said. “I want you to design the space station when we come from our first jump to the neighborhood of E Utopia.”

  “Piece of cake,” Hitchcook said.

  They made a dozen more trial jumps with the prototype in a month before they decided to make the ship that they would use in mankind’s first ever space jump.

  The three scientists enthusiastically set about their task, knowing they were making history. Hitchcook was probably the happiest man on Earth. Like all scientists, he dreamt of inventing or discovering something. He had invented something totally new to mankind, something that appeared to defy laws of physics. He was contented even though he knew that his discovery wasn’t going to be published in science journals any time soon.

  It took them seven months to finish the ship under Cruz’s impatient eye. Cruz couldn’t wait to make the jump but the three men told him to wait. This wasn’t an unmanned spacecraft. This was a ship that would carry them into the unknown and they wanted to make sure that it was in perfect condition.

  Cruz regarded their first jump as the highlight of his life. Their hearts thumped with fear as they watched Hitchcook activating the jump drive. Each one of them asked himself if this wasn’t a fatal mistake. Cruz even thought about aborting the expedition. The only reason why he didn’t cancel the jump was because he didn’t want the scientists to label him a coward.

  “I’m activating the jump,” Hitchcook whispered.

  “Get it over and done with, will you?” Cruz snapped.

  “Okay, sir.”

  Hitchcook activated the jump drive. Suddenly, the stars that they had been seeing through the viewport disappeared. None of them uttered a word during the jump. Their fear turned into joy when they found themselves in normal space some four hundred thousand kilometers from E Utopia. Hitchcook only had a split second’s glimpse of E Utopia before he turned his eyes from the viewport to the bridge. He steered the ship into a U-turn and activated the jump drive when the axis of the ship was parallel to the needle of the ship’s gyrocompass. He wanted to see more of E Utopia but he couldn’t risk running out of fuel.

  They all held their breaths when they came out of hyperspace.

  “Fantastic!” Hitchcook said, looking at the navigational console. “We only strayed from the initial jump spot by less than a thousand kilometers.”

  The four men shouted, shook hands and hugged.

  “Now we need to go to E Utopia and set foot on the planet,” Cruz said, drunk with joy.

  “We’ll have to go with fuel tankers to provide us with fuel for the return journey,” Bolton said.

  “So that means we’re back to square one,” Cruz mused. “We’ve to come up with an unmanned prototype of the fuel tanker and do several test jumps?”

  “Yes,” Rudolf replied. “And we also have to modify our Transgalactic to enable it to launch without the need of a runway.”

  “I think we should build that space station first,” Hitchcook suggested.

  “Yes, the space station should come first,” Rudolf concurred. “We need it to help us coordinate the project.”

  “Alright,” Cruz said “Let’s build the space station. The station will be just an outpost and the cost of building it should not exceed seven billion dollars.”

  The three scientists, in consultation with Eureka Space Company’s engineers and technicians, drew the design of the space station and construction began immediately at Columbus Spaceport. The station, which Cruz called Eureka Research Space Station, was less than a tenth of the size of the International Space Station. They assembled the station on the ground and tested all its systems before they dismantled it and launched it into orbit piece-by-piece. They transported most of the space station’s parts to Bolivia and Congo, where they had lax licenses that didn’t limit the number of shuttles that they could launch into space. It took them nine months and sixteen missions to put the station into space.

  Eureka Research Space Station was designed to accommodate four permanent residents and a small number of visitors for a short time.

  They modified the Transgalactic to enable it to launch vertically without a runway. This involved installing two starter engines whose thrust was perpendicular to the main engines and hence to the axis of the ship. These starter engines provided the initial lift from the ground before the main engines took over. After making four jumps with the modified Transgalactic, they decided to make three more Transgalactics.

  The tanker took almost a year to build. They named it the Astrocarrier. When it passed the jump tests they built eleven more tankers. The tankers could travel unmanned or manned. After that, they made reconnaissance robots and jumped two of them to E Utopia in drones that were programmed to follow the planet’s gravity and to seek dry land. A day later, they jumped a drone to download data and videos from the robots. The drone only stayed in the Luz Cruz system for ten seconds before it jumped back. They refueled it and returned it to continue the download. That day, t
hey jumped the drone eleven times.

  The video clips showed the robots walking on bare sandy ground that looked so much like a portion of the Earth’s surface that it was hard to imagine that these robots were billions of miles away. They returned the drone with instructions to download measurements of gravity, temperature and air content from the surveillance robots.

  The results were amazing. The gravity of the planet was 1.13g, average air temperature was twenty-one degrees Celsius and the surface temperature was fifteen degrees Celsius. The atmosphere contained 97.6 percent nitrogen by volume, 1.1 percent argon, 0.124 percent carbon dioxide and trace amounts of oxygen, nitrogen dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ammonia, iodine, helium and neon.

  “E Utopia can sustain life!” Cruz exclaimed. “We’ve found a place where we can live away from Earth’s polluters.”

  “From the planet’s gravity, we can safely say that it is slightly bigger than Earth,” Rudolf concluded.

  “We must land on E Utopia ASAP,” Cruz declared.

  “Let’s wait for a week or two and then send the drone to download the latest videos,” Bolton suggested.

  Cruz looked at Bolton with rage and disbelief. “Why should we wait? I spent my fortune on this project and I want to see E Utopia right now.”

  “We’ve to make sure that there are no hostile aliens,” Bolton explained. “If the drone is still moving freely after two weeks, we can assume that there are no hostile aliens on the planet.”

  Hitchcook snorted. “Point of correction, Bolton. We’re the aliens in this scenario.”

  “I never imagined myself being an alien,” Rudolf said. “Whenever I hear the word alien, the thought that comes to my mind is a green ugly being with legs that look like those of an insect.”

  Cruz sighed. “Fine. I get it. I can wait two weeks.”

  “Mr. Cruz,” Hitchcook said with a well-measure voice. “I don’t think you should be going with us to E Utopia.”

  “What?” Cruz exclaimed vehemently. “Can you say that again?”

  “Mr. Cruz, don’t get me wrong,” Hitchcook stuttered. “We need to establish a coordinate system of some sort to help us locate the jump zone where we will make the return jump from the other side.”

  “What does that have to do with me not going to E Utopia?” Cruz scoffed.

  “Mr. Cruz, sir, we will need plenty of satellites to help us navigate. It will take us months or even years to set up an effective coordinate system to help us locate the jump zone. And if you are with us on E Utopia, who will send us food and supplies?”

  “Hitchcook, are you trying to tell me that it will take you months to put satellites into E Utopia orbit?”

  “Satellites orbiting E Utopia can help us navigate around E Utopia but they won’t help us navigate space and locate the jump zone. To navigate the space around the planet and locate the jump zone for the return jump, we’ll have to use the star in that system as a reference point. We’ll have to locate quasars to use as markers. We’ll also have to locate Lagrangian points between E Utopia and the star. We’ll need to put satellites on the Lagrangian points because—”

  “Alright, Hitchcook,” Cruz interrupted. Although he didn’t understand everything that Hitchcook was saying, he knew the scientist was making sense. “I’ll stay behind.”

  “Thanks for understanding, sir. We’ll try to set up a coordinate system as quickly as possible.”

  They waited for two weeks and sent a drone to download real-time pictures from the robots. They were disappointed at first when the robot downloaded dark videos but they were relieved when they noted that the robots were walking at night at the time they shot the videos. They jumped the drone thirty-six hours later and were relieved to get clear pictures from the robots. The temperature and atmospheric conditions hadn’t changed much.

  “Now what?” Cruz asked his team of experts.

  “Now we go to E Utopia,” Hitchcook said. “First we send the tankers to E Utopia. We must program them to follow the beacon from the robots or from the two drones on the ground.”

  They launched the twelve tankers into space two-per-day and jumped them to E Utopia. Eight of the tankers carried fuel and four carried supplies, drones, small satellites and other equipment.

  Cruz wistfully bade the scientists farewell when they departed for E Utopia. They went with five technicians aboard two Transgalactics.

  Every two weeks, Cruz jumped a messenger drone to the other side to upload and download messages to and from the E Utopia pioneers. To his delight, after only two months the pioneers sent him a text message telling him that they had managed to put satellites on two Lagrangian points between E Utopia and the star. The Lagrangian points, together with several quasars that they had found in the system, provided a sufficient reference frame to help them locate the jump zone. They said they had also put three satellites in medium E Utopia orbit to help them navigate the planet, and four satellites in low orbit to observe the planet.

  All they had to do to locate the jump zone was ask Cruz to send a message drone programmed to revolve in a small circle upon emerging from hyperspace. When the message drone came they launched a ship into space to intercept it in its circular path. The ship followed the drone along its circular path, recording coordinates of points along the path. This circle would serve as the jump zone. What was left was to find the direction of the jump. The only way to find the direction of the jump was by trial and error.

  The drone was programmed to jump back after emerging from hyperspace. If it jumped to an area within reach of Eureka Space Station, the station’s computers would instantaneously override the drone’s bounce-back command and bring it to the station, where it would be refueled and sent back to the other side with a congratulatory message.

  They used quasars and the direction of the drone’s gyrocompass needle as the main reference points to measure the jump direction. In the first seven attempts, the drone returned to the star system after sixty-two minutes. Their hearts palpitated with excitement when the drone failed to return from the ninth jump in the usual time. If the drone hadn’t met any obstacles, it had jumped to the vicinity of Eureka Space Station and had been taken to the station.

  Cruz was delirious when he received a message from Eureka Station notifying him of the arrival of a messenger drone from E Utopia. He ordered the station to return the drone with a message telling the pioneers to come back.

  Only one Transgalactic and one Astrocarrier returned, manned by Hitchcook and Bolton respectively. When they entered the Solar System, Eureka Station sent them more crew to help them safely land at Bolivia Spaceport.

  “Hitchcook! Bolton!” Cruz spluttered. “You look great.”

  “I feel great,” Bolton said. “I found a sexy alien girl who keeps me happy.”

  Hitchcook laughed. “She’s a local girl, Bolton. You’re the alien.”

  “What’s this talk about aliens?” Cruz demanded.

  “Just a joke, Mr. Cruz,” Hitchcook said

  “How is everyone?” Cruz asked.

  “Everyone is fine.”

  “Do they still have supplies?”

  “They’ve enough food to last them two hundred E Utopian days,” Hitchcook said.

  “What about oxygen?”

  “Our oxygen supply hasn’t diminished since we’re using breathing machines.”

  “And fuel?”

  “We only spent just over half of our fuel supplies.”

  “How long are E Utopian days compared to Earth days?”

  “EU days are equal to twenty-one Earth hours and thirteen minutes and twenty-nine seconds,” Bolton replied.

  “So that means our men there have supplies that can last them at least four Earth months. Congratulations, gentlemen. You made history.” Cruz’s voice hardened. “I don’t want a word of this to anyone. If anyone asks you where you were, tell them you were at the space station doing research.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t breathe a word about E Utopia,” Bolton sa
id.

  “If the politicians get wind of E Utopia, they will declare the planet open to everyone, citing the Outer Space Treaty, which states that nobody can claim ownership of a planet.” Cruz said. “Then they will bring hordes of fortune-seeking polluters to our planet. Fuck their space treaty. E Utopia is ours and ours alone.”

  “We will never let the polluters take our planet,” Hitchcook swore.

  “What is the weather like on EU?”

  “Fine,” Bolton replied. “I think the climate on the part of E Utopia that we inhabited would be described as temperate or subtropical here on Earth.”

  “Did you find any signs of life?”

  The two scientists shook their heads.

  “Not even a bacteria or a virus?”

  “No signs of life at all,” Hitchcook replied, with suppressed exasperation. He was tired and he felt disoriented by the change in gravity. All he wanted right now was a long, peaceful sleep.

  “Even in the water?”

  “Not even in water,” Bolton replied.

  “Do we have a moon there?”

  “The planet has two moons, sir,” Hitchcook said.

  “Two moons!” Cruz exclaimed with wonder. “Are they big moons or just small asteroids like Earth’s second moon?”

  “The moons are not asteroids,” Bolton entered. “They’re both round, suggesting that they’ve sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces. The larger of the moons appears bigger than Earth’s moon.”

  “Two planet-sized moons! E Utopia is a super planet. If we had oxygen, we could beat Earth in many ways. Does either of the moons have an atmosphere?”

  “We sent surveillance robots to the moons. For all practical purposes, they have no atmospheres. Like Earth’s moon, both of E Utopia’s moons have very thin atmospheres which contain less than a million molecules per cubic centimeter.”

  “What gases are found in the atmospheres of the moons?”

  Cruz spent more than an hour asking the two scientists questions. He gave them a two-week leave before he called them to work to build the tankers that would carry supplies to E Utopia. Now he was finally going to set foot on his planet.