Vaz eyed the drawing, “A liter of liquid water breaks down to produce 600 liters of oxygen gas and that’s enough to support a human for a day. I figured three liters per day for drinking. Those tanks could hold 4,000 liters which would last five people for 200 days or six and a half months. I think 800 liters for one month with a safety margin of 10 days is a lot more reasonable”
“And there’s enough space for five months of water with enough soda lime and food too?!”
He nodded, “But you wouldn’t be able to do five G’s if you loaded it that full. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to be in that little space for five months.” He shrugged, “Or wanting to do five G’s for that matter. Really, no one would want to be on board for even a month, but I thought it should always be stocked for at least a month to be conservative.”
Tiona exhaled a long breath, “Holy crap dad! Where would you be able to go in a month at one gravity of acceleration?”
He frowned, “You’d have to accelerate for half the time, then flip over and decelerate for half the time. With one day accelerating you’d go 23 million miles and then after one day decelerating, you’d be at 46 million miles which would be far enough to get you to Mars when it’s in the closer parts of its orbit. A six and a half day trip would take you 480 million miles, which is about the range to get to Jupiter. Nine days to Saturn, 13 days to Uranus, 16 days to Neptune.” He frowned, “It seems like Uranus would be the answer to your question since I assume you’d want to be able to go there and come back in your thirty days.” He frowned, “But, it would take twenty-six days for the trip there and back and you wouldn’t have much time to do anything after you got there.” He shrugged, “You wouldn’t have a very good safety margin either, so you definitely should fill some of that extra tankage.”
Tiona arched an eyebrow, “Pluto?”
“Eighteen days.” He frowned, “On average. Its orbit is very elliptical.”
Tiona got a distant look in her eye, “Wow, I’ve just been thinking of this as a way to test our hypotheses. I hadn’t been thinking of it as a way to explore our solar system. And in a flying saucer no less!”
Vaz blinked, “I looked up your ‘flying saucers.’ They’re fictional.” He looked a little irked, saying “fictional” like it was a dirty word.
Tiona’s eyes twinkled as she grinned at her father, “I know! But now you’re designing a real one!”
“Function drives design,” he said exasperatedly. “Circular membranes work a lot better so of course it’s circular.” He frowned distantly, “I’ve been thinking that maybe corners set up vortices in the dark matter or something,” he mused. His eyes re-focused on Tiona, “Anyway, corners sap the power so it’s much better if it’s circular!”
Tiona put a hand on his arm, “I know Dad. I know. Still, we are building a flying saucer. Maybe the little green men were constrained by the same physics when they built their flying saucers.”
Vaz frowned, “Little green men?”
Tiona waved the question away, not wanting to go there and get her dad irritated again. “Never mind Dad. Let’s finish looking at your design.”
Over the next couple of hours the two of them went back and forth through the drawings. Tiona didn’t contribute much other than some valves on the plumbing that closed in weightless conditions. She didn’t want stuff floating up out of the camping toilet, and since her dad had plumbed it so that it could be flushed to space, she didn’t want it flushing when the saucer wasn’t moving. She didn’t want that stuff exploding out into a little cloud around the saucer and sticking to the outside! She also pushed for separating the tankage into sections. “If we get a micro meteorite puncture, we sure as hell don’t want all of our water to disappear!”
Tiona watched in amazement as her dad worked with his AI and its CAD/CAM program to rapidly make changes in the design. He and his AI found off-the-shelf components and very quickly adapted the design to use them. Using off the shelf products would markedly reduce the amount of custom fabrication needed and thus the amount of time required to build the entire project. As she sat, watching him scroll back and forth through a cross-section of the entire project, she suddenly asked, “What about protection from space radiation? I mean, you’re shielding the passengers from the radiation produced by the fusion reactor, but what kind of protection are they getting from cosmic rays and solar events?”
Vaz stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her. “Um, mostly reduced exposure. I mean…” he paused, gathering thoughts, “because it goes fast, it doesn’t have to be in space for very long. Reducing hours of exposure can be a lot more effective than reducing the amount of radiation per hour.” He shrugged, “Since we don’t have to worry too much about weight the capsule is made out of steel and the walls are filled with polyethylene, both of which help. If you were going to be out for a really long time though, it would probably be worth trying to design some electromagnetic shielding since we have plenty of power.” He blinked, “I don’t think we should try to do that for this iteration though?”
Tiona shook her head, “No, you’re right, the length of exposure will be a lot less than current astronauts are getting.” She lifted her chin at him interrogatively, “How are you planning to navigate out in space?”
“Um, it wouldn’t be as critical as current space navigation since we have power to burn. Essentially, you could just point the saucer at the moon and apply thrust until you were halfway there, then flip over and slow down. It would be very inefficient and require lots of adjustments because the moon would have moved, etcetera, but with so much power and thrust available you’d still get there. I’ve installed laser range finders and small radar emitters so the AI can make sure we’re slowing down fast enough that it doesn’t crash into things. It’ll be able to use GPS when it’s near the earth and NASA’s SpaceNAV/X-NAV system when it’s far away, but I really haven’t been worrying too much about navigation. I thought we’d just take it up into space for a test flight or two and then sell it to someone.”
Tiona grinned at him, “Okay, we do a test flight to the moon and a test flight to Mars. Then we sell it.”
Vaz’s eyes widened, “I don’t think we should go that far! I don’t want to go that far.”
Tiona reached out and poked him, “Oh, come on. There aren’t any strangers out there to set you off!” Slyly she said, “Not like the Caribbean.”
Vaz stared at her for a moment; then directed the topic elsewhere. “Besides, um, the University is part owner of this technology. They might not want us flying off with it.” After a moment he continued earnestly, “We could just give it to NASA? They could figure out the navigation.”
Tiona laughed, “First I think you’re the one with the bold vision, then I find out you want someone else to be bold with your vision!”
Vaz looked a little embarrassed, “Let’s just build it. If it works, then we can figure out what to do next.”
“You’re really going to build this thing?”
Vaz frowned, “Why not?”
***
The airlock opened and Zack stepped in taking off his helmet. “How bad is it?”
Knowing that Zack was asking about the thrust, Ralph simply said, “311 Newtons.”
“Oh geez,” Zack practically moaned. “What is that, seventy percent?”
Ralph nodded, “A smidge less.”
“The mission fails if we get under what, fifty-eight percent?!”
Ralph nodded solemnly. Actually the “failure thrust” was a moving target which was slowly dropping because of the time they’d had thrust above the failure level already. But fifty-eight percent was close enough. Telling Zack that it was actually fifty-six percent would just piss him off.
Zack slammed down his helmet, “We’d just as well give up and start heading back! There’s no way we’re going to capture this rock with this little thrust. Have those idiots back in Houston figured out what’s wrong yet?”
Ralph slowly shook h
is head.
“I’m calling them and telling them that we’re going to bail then! They need to start calculating a burn to get us back.”
Ralph pursed his lips. Talking to Zack when he was in this kind of mood was always difficult. Giving him bad news when he was in this kind of mood was even worse, but he guessed it had to be done. “I’ve been running some numbers…” he paused, waiting for Zack to shift his attention.
Zack had just strapped himself to the command console seat preparatory to placing a call to Houston. He paused and turned. With a little dread in his voice, he asked, “What kind of numbers?”
“If Bellerphon’s engine suffers the same rate of deterioration burning the ice we’ve loaded into its tanks… we can’t make Earth orbit. Well, not before we run out of food.” They had a small system to purify water out of the ice on the asteroid so they wouldn’t run out of water. They could use the water to make oxygen and they had a Sabatier processor to remove CO2. Food would be their limit.
The light in Zack’s eyes dimmed for a moment as the air seemed to go out of him. “Have you talked to Houston about it?”
Ralph nodded, “They’re working on it.”
“Do they have a capsule that could rendezvous with us as we go by?”
Ralph shook his head.
“And the water purifier wouldn’t give us enough clean water for Bellerphon’s engines?”
“No, not and keep us alive too. I’ve emptied Bellerphon’s tank and started filling it with every drop of surplus water the purifier generates. It won’t be enough, but I figure that every drop of clean water will mean a little less of whatever impurity it is that gives the engines problems. We’ll refill the tank with the ice right before we leave.” He paused, “But it won’t be enough.”
Zack got a distant look in his eyes, “So we’re better staying here on the rock, hoping that Houston will figure out what’s wrong and come up with a solution?”
Ralph shrugged, “Yeah, for now. They’re also trying to run scenarios where they’d boost some clean fuel out to meet us on the way back. Then we could refill the tank before the engine deteriorated too much.”
“Are we sure Bellerphon’s engines will crap out using the ice?”
“No, the designs are a little different, so maybe not. But I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Well I’m calling Houston anyway,” Zack said turning back to the panel. “Somebody’s got to light a fire under those bastards,” he grumbled.
***
Eisner and Weitzel stepped into the technology development office at the University. Eisner felt grateful for once that the students were still on break. He wanted to figure out what the intellectual property issues would be before he had to talk to Tiona Gettnor again. When they arrived at the desk, the receptionist sent them right in to the conference room where their meeting had been set.
Alan Barker, the University’s attorney, drummed his fingers on the desk as he thought. “How many people did you say know about this?”
Eisner frowned as he thought, “Well, myself and Dr. Weitzel here. Obviously, Tiona Gettnor, and she says she’s explained it to her dad who’s an unemployed physicist. Apparently he has some lab equipment and has been helping her work on it over her Christmas break. My other grad student, Nolan Marlowe, might know something about it, I don’t know. He’s the one that came up with the process for precipitation of multilayer graphene.”
“Then why does this student’s father know about it? Don’t you have some kind of confidentiality agreement in your lab?”
“There’s kind of an understanding that you don’t go blabbing about your research to everyone so other lab groups don’t beat you to the punch with a publication. But unless we think there’s commercial value we don’t start signing confidentiality agreements.”
Barker sighed, “What’s done is done I guess. You think these ‘thrusters’ can be used for station keeping on satellites?”
Eisner and Weitzel both nodded.
The attorney frowned, “How do satellites keep station now?”
“They use little rockets. But eventually they run out of fuel, and of course refueling them is extremely expensive.”
“So this would be pretty valuable?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure just how much it would be worth, but the space industry should really want these things.”
“And this student’s dad… how much does he know about this?”
Eisner and Weitzel looked at one another, “Apparently quite a bit,” Eisner said.
Barker frowned again, “But he shouldn’t have any claim to the inventive process, right?”
Eisner gave a doubtful shrug, “I don’t know… to hear the daughter tell it, he might be the one who recognized that the phenomenon could be important.”
Barker drew his head back in astonishment, “You didn’t think it was important?!”
“I didn’t even know it existed. She hadn’t said anything to me about her membranes moving until she came to tell me that they were producing thrust.”
“But she’s just a student in your lab, right?”
Eisner nodded.
“And the father doesn’t even have a job?”
“Apparently not.”
The attorney sat forward as if he’d just come to a decision. “So here’s what we’ll do. As usual, the University gets sixty percent, with forty percent going to your department. The other forty percent goes to the inventors and I’d suggest sixty percent to you Dr. Eisner, thirty percent to Dr. Weitzel and ten percent to be split between this girl and her father.”
Eisner sank back in his chair. Sixty percent seemed like a lot more than his contribution had amounted to. Thirty percent was certainly a lot more than Weitzel had contributed, he’d come to this after-the-fact. For a moment Eisner thought about protesting that the Gettnors really should get the biggest share. But, the attorney had a lot of experience with this stuff. If he thought it should be divided that way…?
Eventually, Eisner said nothing and merely nodded. He felt guilty, but it was hard to say no to the kind of financial windfall this probably represented.
Barker nodded in return; then said, “I’ll shoot you the documents by email. All of you sign them and send them back to me. I’ll get the patent people started on getting us some protection. In the meantime,” he paused for emphasis, “keep this confidential!”
***
Tiona stared at the agreement that Dr. Eisner had forwarded to her. His message was cryptic, “I disclosed the thrusters to the University attorneys and they said we all (your dad included) needed to sign the attached agreement. They’re having their patent attorneys submit it for patent protection. The patent attorney would like any further description you have of the precipitation methods and the physical setup of the thrusters for their submission. You can send it to me, and I’ll forward it onward.”
Tiona hadn’t read any intellectual property disclosure forms before and found the process to be pretty interesting. However, she’d been stunned when she came to the section which assigned ownership. She had assumed that Dr. Eisner would get some ownership; it was his lab after all.
But Weitzel? She liked Dr. Weitzel, but he hadn’t had anything to do with the development of the idea.
For that matter, Dr. Eisner hadn’t had much to do with it other than for the fact that serendipity had struck in his laboratory. Tiona thought of her dad as having the most to do with recognizing that this could be important and then developing it.
Finding herself tense, she took a couple of deep breaths and tried to relax. I don’t know why I’m worried about it! It’s not like Dad needs the money or like he doesn’t give me plenty to spend!
She stretched a couple of times, took a few more relaxing breaths and then forwarded the email to her dad. Her comment was even more cryptic. “What do you think?”
Then she thought to herself, He’s oblivious. He not only won’t know if he’s being screwed, he won’t care!
She had just s
tarted to wonder whether she should try to figure out how to get some legal advice, when an email came back from her dad. “I don’t understand this kind of legal stuff, but I have a lawyer. She has me send all this kind of stuff to her and she gets back to me pretty quickly about whether it’s okay. I’ve sent it to her.”
***
Tiona stared out a window of her parent’s home. Though it was evening and the light was down, she could see that a U-Haul truck was pulled up in front of the Johnson’s house. Somebody’s moving in?! Do they have the wrong address, or does Dad not really own that house? She turned and headed downstairs. I’d better let him know.
Her dad wasn’t in the basement. Not in the old lab that he’d always used, nor in the big area that went over under Johnson’s house. She went up the stairs and heard her dad talking out in the garage. Talking might be a generous term; he was using very few words, like he usually did when speaking to a stranger. She walked out into the garage and felt the man’s eyes jump to her.
Mentally she grimaced to herself. She and Ronnie were supposed to go out to dinner and see if they could “work things out.” She was wearing a fairly short skirt, heels, and a silky blouse, determined to show Ronnie what he’d be giving up if he kept acting like a jerk. Of course, clothing like that was getting all the wrong kind of attention from the guy in the U-Haul. The clothes she wore to school kept this kind of crap from happening. Her dad turned towards her at the man’s glance and his eyebrows went up too. Well, he doesn’t have any eyebrows to go up, but his face made the muscular contractions for it. She felt a little embarrassed.
After a moment’s gawk, the man turned back to Vaz. “But Sir, I understand you’re having a lot of deliveries in the next couple of weeks. You know they can be delivered directly to you, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Having them delivered to us, then getting us to rent a U-Haul and deliver them after dark is going to cost you a fortune!”
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