The Space Journey

by Christer Fuglesang

  CHRISTER FUGLESANG

  THE SPACE JOURNEY

  Markus and Mariana’s adventures

  with Uncle Albert

  Translated by Emma Ulvaeus

  and Styrbjörn Wahlquist

  Illustrations by Alvaro Tapia

  FRI TANKE

  For Malin and Denise

  Fri Tanke förlag

  www.fritanke.se

  info@fritanke.se

  © Text: Christer Fuglesang 2010

  © Illustrations: Alvaro Tapia 2010

  © Translation (fictional story): Emma Ulvaeus 2012

  © Translation (“Fact and fantasy”): Styrbjörn Wahlquist 2012

  Pictures pages 92, 96, 98, 101 and 104 © NASA

  Editor: P C Jersild

  Graphic design and production: Maria Svedberg/Happy Book

  Prepared for ebook: eBokNorden as

  ISBN (e-book) 978-91-86061-71-5

  FOREWORD

  Like many other parents I read my children goodnight stories when they were little. The main characters in the stories were two siblings: Markus and Mariana. This began when I was working at CERN, the particle physics laboratory outside Geneva, twenty years ago. Malin was three years old and Denise had just been born. As often as possible, I would incorporate some physics and other things I was working on in the stories.

  One day my wife Lisa came home with a book she had borrowed in CERN’s library: “The Time and Space of Uncle Albert” by Russell Stannard. It was a popular science book about relativity theory in which a girl in high school gets her “Uncle Albert” and a space ship to help her with a physics project. This inspired me to give Markus and Mariana their own “Uncle Albert” with whom they made many trips, into space as well as above and below the surface of the Earth.

  Lisa suggested on a couple of occasions that I should write the stories down, but it never happened – until now. I hope that this story can entertain and fascinate other children as it once enthralled our own. If the book stimulates some curiosity and thirst for knowledge about how our world works, I would be even happier.

  I think that you can say anything with stories and that it is good to let your imagination run wild, but it is also important to let children know what really is possible and what is pure fiction. The stories are none the worse for it. That is why I have included an appendix which I call “fact and fantasy”, where I try to explain what is – or at least what could be – real, and what is not. References to the appendix are marked with asterisks in the text.

  Happy reading!

  Christer Fuglesang, June 2010

  1

  Markus and Mariana live in a Swedish town, much like any other. They live with their mother and father and little sister Lillan. The family also has a dog, Rufus, who thinks of himself as the smartest member of the household.

  Markus and Mariana have just got back from their summer holiday. The family has a small house in the archipelago where they spend most of the summer. As soon as the children have taken their bags up to their room they begin rifling through the post that has collected over the summer. They don’t find any letters or postcards addressed to them, but at the bottom of the pile they find a small red paper with writing scribbled in black felt marker: “Come see me! Albert”.

  As the children read the note their stomachs fill with butterflies. Uncle Albert always has something new to show them! But they have to be careful not to worry their mother and father.

  ”Hey Markus, let’s not mention the note,” whispers Mariana.

  “Yes, maybe that’s best. But let’s go and see Uncle Albert right away! I am so curious.”

  ”Me too. Let’s go tell Mum.”

  The children find their mother in the garage where she is getting the last of the luggage from the car. The mother eyes her children suspiciously as they tell her they want to go visit Uncle Albert.

  ”Uncle Albert?! Why are you going over there again? He always comes up with such mischief.”

  ”But Mum, we haven’t seen him all summer.”

  ”No, and thank goodness for that. That’s why we had such a nice and calm vacation.”

  ”But Mum, we promise, we won’t do anything foolish.”

  ”No, I’m sure you won’t, but there’s no telling what crazy schemes Albert will come up with. What about the time he built a submarine and planned to dive into the deepest crevice in the sea to look for undiscovered animals? And he planned to bring you along to help. And then that giant squid came and almost squeezed the submarine into a thousand pieces. You barely survived. And then there’s that time he brought you with him beneath the surface of the Earth through a volcano crater and it ended with a volcanic eruption. It was a miracle that you survived that time.”

  ”Okay, okay, but we learned lots of new stuff and it wasn’t as dangerous as you make it out to be. Anyway, we were just going to swing by and say Hi!, you know, after the summer. We promise we’ll be back by dinner. And we’ll bring Rufus, please?”

  After solemnly promising to be back by supper Markus and Mariana are finally on their way to Uncle Albert.

  2

  A few blocks away, at the outskirts of town where the forest begins, lives Uncle Albert. He lives alone in a big old dilapidated mansion with a high tower. Uncle Albert is in some way related to the children’s mother, but they are unsure how. Maybe they are cousins; either way Markus and Mariana call Albert their uncle even if he isn’t their real uncle.

  Rufus happily trots alongside the children. The dog knows that exciting things are bound to happen in that big, strange house.

  “It will be fun to see Uncle Albert again,” says Mariana.

  “Sure. Do you know how old he is?”

  ”No, actually I don’t. He looks pretty old with his grey moustache and his big unkempt hair standing straight up… but he sounds so cheery when he talks and he moves in a way that makes you think he’s not even a grown-up yet.”

  ”And he looks so funny with those goggly glasses on his potato nose… Strange that they don’t fall off.”

  ”Yes, very strange that they didn’t when we were thrown out of the volcano – THAT was a shaky ride.

  ”Woof, woof” says Rufus in agreement.

  Rufus was also on board the ”volcano-submarine” and didn’t think it was much fun. But now he happily wags his tail as they walk through the gate to Uncle Albert’s garden. It looks as though Uncle Albert hasn’t mowed the lawn all summer and big, untrimmed bushes make it hard for the children to make their way up to the house.

  “Markus, doesn’t it look like Uncle Albert has rebuilt the tower? Isn’t it even higher now?”

  ”Yes, maybe he needed to repair the roof at the top? But that isn’t usually the kind of thing he gets up to. He has his inventions, he doesn’t care much about the state of the house.”

  ”No, it mostly seems like all he does is count and calculate, although there aren’t many numbers on those papers he scatters around. Just letters and other weird signs.”

  ”Some are Greek letters. He told me once.”

  ”’It is so much fun to count’, he says, and it was fun when he helped us calculate how many balloons we needed to get Miss Arvidsson’s bike to fly.”

  Miss Arvidsson always rides to school on a bicycle that looks like it’s even older than her. She had, at some point, said that she could bike to the moon on that bicycle. So the children had decided to play a joke on her and one day when she was teaching Mariana’s class on the second floor, Markus and his classmates had tied all the balloons needed onto the bike and let it fly up past her classroom window. It had taken a while for Miss Arvidsson to appreciate the humour of the prank.

  “I agree with Uncle Albert,” says Markus. “I like math’s too, like
when I add up how much money Dad owes me.”

  They ring the doorbell and soon hear Uncle Albert’s cheerful but dull voice:

  ”Come in, come in! Markus and Mariana, I presume?”

  “Hi Uncle Albert” the children call in unison.

  ”Well, hello to you both. So happy that you came and what fun to see you again after the summer. I have something I have to show you and I need your help with something.”

  ”Typical Uncle Albert. It is so nice to not have to hear ’Ooohhh, how you’ve grown! You’re soooo big!’” Markus whispers to Mariana as they follow Uncle Albert down the cellar stairs.

  Suddenly Mariana starts to giggle. She pulls Markus’ sleeve and points to Uncle Albert’s feet. Markus doesn’t understand at first, but then he starts to chuckle as well.

  Uncle Albert turns around and gives them a surprised look as they enter a big room.

  “This is an exciting construction that I’ve made” he says and points to something resembling a giant train track on stilts, “but I don’t understand what’s so funny about it…?

  Markus and Mariana explode in a fit of laughter and struggle to catch their breath when they speak:

  ”But…ha-ha-ha…one of your…ho-ho-ho… SOCKS!

  Uncle Albert, now even more confused, looks down at his shoes and feet.

  ”Oh,” he says thoughtfully, ”Hmm, yes now I know. When I was getting dressed this morning I was thinking of a problem and a possible solution appeared. I scurried after pen and paper and did some equations. And you know, it WAS the right solution. I was so happy! Except I must have forgotten one sock. Now, do you know what THIS is?” Uncle Albert asks, proudly pointing at the train track.

  Markus and Mariana dry the tears of laughter from their eyes and take a closer look at what appears to be Albert’s latest invention.

  “Hmm, looks like a race track?”

  “Something’s spinning around in the pipes… but what are those iron lumps?”

  ”Teeny tiny particles from atomic cores are flying around in the pipes,” Uncle Albert explains, pleased with himself. “And the iron lumps are actually magnets to direct the particles, or protons, as they are called.”

  ”Pootons?” giggles Markus.

  ”No silly, protons. Our teacher has actually talked about them once at school,” says Mariana.

  ”Everything around us is built of tiny balls called atoms. The atom’s nucleus consists of two kinds of particles: protons and neutrons,” explains Uncle Albert. “The difference between them is that the proton is electrically charged while the neutron is not charged.”

  “But what about electrons?” asks Markus sourly. “I’ve heard of those.”

  ”Well, there are as many electrons as protons. But electrons have the opposite charge of the protons which is why almost all things are uncharged, or neutral – which is good, otherwise we would get electric shocks.”*1

  “But why are you driving around the pruto-protons in the pipes? You can hardly see them,” says Markus, thinking of his racecourse – the fun part was watching the cars drive around.

  ”Protons are so small you can’t see them anyway, but the pipes are there because there must be a vacuum. Otherwise the protons would collide with the air and lose their speed.”

  “How fast are they going?”

  ”Basically they travel at the speed of light, three hundred thousand kilometres per second. That’s like going seven laps around the Earth in one second. And that is so they will get enough energy that when they do collide over there,” Uncle Albert points at what looks like a gear where a piece of pipe branches out from the track, “new particles are formed. But mostly I want to make antiprotons.”

  Markus begins to giggle again.

  “What’s so funny now?” Mariana asks impatiently.

  ”Antipootons,” says Markus and bursts into laughter, ”Are they anti something in particular?” Ha-ha-ha…

  “Oh you are so silly,” says his sister.

  Uncle Albert smiles and nods:

  “Antiprotons are like the opposite particles to the protons. They are alike in every way, except that they have an opposite charge. And if they meet a giant explosion occurs – giant in proportion to the protons, that is – the particles destroy each other and a lot of energy is released. It’s the best rocket fuel there is.*2

  ”Rocket fuel!?” the children wonder.

  ”Yes, rocket fuel,” says Uncle Albert and sounds as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Did you not see the rocket tower as you arrived?”

  ”Uuumm, I thought you had repaired the roof,” says Markus and feels a bit foolish.

  ”No, no” laughs Uncle Albert. “Come, let me show you.”

  3

  Markus and Mariana follow Uncle Albert up and down the stairs and through winding corridors in the big strange house. Even though they’ve been there so many times it always seems as though there are new rooms and places to explore. Rufus hops around them and is just as excited as they are, with all the new scents and sounds. He perks his ears and begins to sniff. With a bark he sets off toward the far corner of the room they have just entered. A terrified “peep” is heard.

  ”Rufus!” calls Mariana. ”What are you doing?”

  Rufus comes to a halt at the corner and starts barking at the wall. As Markus and Mariana get closer they understand Rufus’ strange behaviour. A small brown mouse is standing on its hind legs on a shelf looking petrified.

  “Poor little mouse,” says Markus. “Rufus, it’s just a nice little mouse! You don’t have to bark at it!”

  Rufus is not convinced that the mouse is nice, but stops barking all the same. He glares angrily at the shelf.

  ”Oh, has that mouse gotten in here again…” Uncle Albert is not altogether pleased. “I don’t know what that mouse finds in my house, but I have seen him scurrying about here all summer. Sometimes I have caught him and released him in the forest, but he always seems to find his way back.”

  ”Maybe he likes you,” says Markus.

  ”Hmm, I doubt it, and anyway it’s not mutual. Come on, this is the last door.”

  Uncle Albert struggles to open a big, heavy steel door.

  ”Wooaaow,” gasps Mariana.

  ”Cool!” says Markus.

  ”Woof!” adds Rufus.

  It is definitely a rocket, but it doesn’t look very big for a rocket. Only seven or eight meters high. The rockets that Markus and Mariana have seen on TV have been at least 50 meters high. But standing next to Uncle Albert’s rocket it is still quite impressive.

  ”I have named her the Moona-Lisa,” says Uncle Albert proudly.

  ”Where are you going to send it?” asks Mariana, fascinated.

  “All the way to the moon, perhaps?” Markus suggests.

  ”Further than that. And you are coming, aren’t you? I’m not sure everything works as it should and it’s always good to have a couple of extra hands on board.”

  “What? This rocket is for people?” Mariana asks.

  ”Of course we want to come,” says Markus. ”But persuading Mum and Dad may be tricky,” he adds and casts a doubtful look at Mariana.

  ”I’m sure it will be,” she sighs. “But if we’re wellbehaved and whine about it for a couple of weeks, it may work.”

  ”Uumm,” Uncle Albert squirms. ”The Moona-Lisa is fully fuelled and can’t wait that long… hm… it could be dangerous for it to stand here filled with fuel… I thought… we actually have to leave at once.”

  ”What! Now? But, but, we promised to be back by dinner at six. On the dot.”

  Mariana looks sadly at the clock in Uncle Albert’s rocket room. It shows twenty minutes to five.

  “We can’t just leave right away.”

  “Oh, it will be alright. We can be back here in an hour,” declares Uncle Albert confidently. “At least if my calculations are correct,” he adds quietly.

  “How?” mutters Markus. “You said we were going further away than the moon!”

&n
bsp; Uncle Albert explains that with an antiproton engine they can travel at virtually the speed of light. Then time will stand still and you can travel far into space. The problem is that when they get back here several thousand years will have passed on Earth.*3

  “Thousands of years!” shouts Markus aghast and whispers to his sister: “Now Uncle Albert really has gone mad! Just as we suspected would happen.”

  Uncle Albert rambles on without hearing Markus:

  ”Time passes at different speeds depending on how fast you are moving. It is a known fact. Mr. Einstein *4 proved that over a hundred years ago. But I believe that I have figured out a way to travel backwards in time by going through a black hole on the way back. It will be hard to navigate, but it will work. Shall we be off?” he concludes happily.

  Markus and Mariana look at each other, at the rocket, at Uncle Albert and at each other again. How tempting to go with him. It would be letting Uncle Albert down not to. How many times have they not helped him in the past? And it has always gone well, at least in the end. But they promised their parents…

  “Could we at least take a look inside the Moona-Lisa?” says Mariana hopefully.

  ”It will be alright,” says Markus. “Take things as they come, and what will be will be,” he continues philosophically with one of Uncle Albert’s favourite expressions.

  ”Sure, think positive!” Mariana adds with another of Uncle Albert’s usual catchphrases.

  ”Okay, let’s go,” says Uncle Albert as they climb into the rocket.

  But when Rufus tries to climb in, Uncle Albert looks troubled.

  “Sorry, kids, but Rufus can’t come this time.”

  “No? But, but… he’s always been allowed to come before.”

  ”Yes, but there is neither space or spacesuit for him. I wasn’t thinking about that. You’ll have to tell him to wait here or go home alone.”