Earth to Centauri: The First Journey (Captain Anara - Antariksh Book 1)

by Kumar L

  ‘We believe that all the data on hand clearly indicates the signal was artificially generated and sent from approx. 4 LY away. Proxima Centauri is the only system within that range and it does have one known possibly habitable planet. We know that planet as Proxima B.’

  ‘That sounds interesting,’ said Dr. Subramanian, ‘but are you absolutely certain the signal generated at Centauri? It’s not merely some sort of reflection of a signal sent from Earth itself?’

  ‘Yes Sir, I’m certain. That was one of the first things we checked for. You see, one key reason for our belief is the lack of phase difference. Any signal sent from Earth and reflected back would have subtle changes in the frequency as it travelled out of the atmosphere. We did not find any such shift. Further, if this was from one of our own satellites or say the station on Pluto, there would be a record of it kept here on Earth and the band would be different. We have not found either of these. Sir, the wavelength is one which can be used to transmit over extremely long distances - I’m talking about light years here. Also, it was literally in the same band as white noise. No, doubt about it Sir, the signal is extra-terrestrial.’

  Dr. Subramanian nodded his understanding. ‘So, we can accept that a signal was sent from a distant star system using Earth codes. Another similar signal indicates the location of its origin in terms of coordinates we are able to understand. This can only be from another intelligent civilization at least as advanced as ours. But my question is - how did they learn our language? All our other contact programmes in the last so many decades have not been successful. There have been zero responses to all the signals that we have beamed into space. What’s changed this time?’

  ‘Sir, we may have a possible explanation for that. As you know besides sending out signals through radio telescopes, we have been doing one more activity - sending probes into space carrying sophisticated instruments and data. We believe that one of our probes sent in the late 20th century may be the ones responsible,’ said Srinivas.

  He went on to explain the Voyager 1 & 2 journey and specifically about the golden records. ‘We have not been able to determine if the codes were part of the messages on Voyager but it’s probable. Most of the records of that time are missing or simply insufficient. The technology of using gold plated discs itself is primitive but durable. To uncover this detail, I need your help in talking to NASA and the US Government to get more information on this.’

  ‘Understood Srinivas.’ The Prime Minister was a fast learner and had already moved on to the next steps. Not for anything he was known for his decisiveness and ability to grasp at the core of issues. ‘So, is the background clear?’ he asked those assembled and they all nodded one by one. ‘Then what is your proposal on how we respond? You should be aware, there are many possible responses we have already evaluated, but I want to hear your thoughts as well.’

  ‘Thank you, Prime Minister,’ replied Srini. Now was the chance for him and ISC to really play the role they had been waiting many years for - lead the world in finding a way to reach outer space. ‘I would like to propose three possible courses of action to you. One, approval to send back a focused signal to Proxima system, acknowledging this code. Second, opening up the defence communications setup to work with GMRT on faster than light transmission. We have the ability to send signals FTL over short distances but most of the technology is still classified. Last, preparations for a manned mission to go to Centauri system and establish personal contact with whoever sent the signal.’

  ‘Hold you horses, Srinivas,’ interrupted the Defence Minister, ‘Even we do approve all the requests, the question remains – we know nothing about these .. these aliens. What are their intentions? How do we know they will be peaceful and not looking to go to war with us? Prime Minister, you mentioned it a while back and I would like to draw your attention to our briefing on the Blue Book – approaching alien civilizations. Till such time they are deemed peaceful, we are to avoid all contact. Those people a hundred years ago sent out those damn probes and have put us unknowingly in danger today’

  ‘With all due respect Sir, that is neither probable nor likely that anyone is waiting at Centauri. It's only in science fiction what we find alien races bent on destruction of Earth and humans,’ said Srinivas.

  ‘I agree with Srinivas, Minister,’ said Dr. Priya. ‘We must understand that whether we are alone in the Universe or not, is as much a question for other intelligent species as it is for the people of Earth. I imagine the people on Proxima B might be having a similar conversation.’

  ‘However, unlike them we have not received a golden record giving us information about them,’ Dr. Subramanian spoke in her support. ‘For all we know there is a Centauri probe floating toward us as we speak. We’ve just not found it so far. Anyway, our record clearly set out our peaceful intentions and our knowledge of science. And if the aliens’ intention is to go to war, why give us a notice?’

  ‘Nevertheless, the possibility remains and I must push for caution,’ said the Defence Minister. ‘I urge you Sir, to consider our response militarily. If we agree to a manned mission then it must be controlled by the military and not by civilians.’

  ‘But, that will accomplish nothing except may be prompting a similar response from the aliens!’ protested Srinivas. ‘This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make contact with intelligent beings from another planet. We cannot handle it with force!’

  ‘I must agree with Srinivas, Balraj,’ said the Minister for Space. ‘We are committed to explore the unknown and this is the first time we have an opportunity and a destination outside our own solar system. Just look at the progress mankind has made to come over its base instinct for making war. We are today still divided by borders but peace prevails. Let’s not lose that and start making war in space.’

  The Defence Minister was clearly not convinced. Having fought several conflicts and having known the fear of losing people in the battlefield he was wary of the promises made by technocrats. But the faces nodding around the table told him that this was one battle he would not win. That may be so but he was already formulating a plan to keep his beloved country and by extension Earth itself, safe.

  The Prime Minister had made his decision even before the briefing had begun. This was a defining moment not just for India but for all humanity. The fact that the signal had been deciphered by an Indian facility, filled him with pride. Maybe it was time to brief the rest of the gathering on the work done on making FTL manned flights a reality at Indian Space Centre. The work stated over 80 year ago in making the country a superpower in space with Chandrayaan in 2009 was now ready to bear real fruit. He smiled at Srinivas.

  ‘I tend to agree, Balraj. Let us keep conflict out of the domain for the moment until fresh information about the threat is obtained. In the meantime, Dr. Srinivas the three requests are conditionally approved. The response signal may be sent immediately. I will speak later today with the Security Council and also update the leaders of ‘8’ on this development. Even as India leads the mission, sooner or later everyone needs to know and this news will bring joy to entire humanity. On the technical aspects, I will let you and the Minister for Space take the call along with the Defence Minister. Please thank your team for the hard work they have put in so far into this project.’

  26th April 2117

  The Jump

  Manisha was looking forward to the next Jump. She enjoyed the time alone in her cocoon, being one with the ship with only Narada for company. She always used the time to catch up on her reading. She was trying to get into advanced training at ISC to change tracks from technical to command and was looking forward to the day when she would be able to lead the next generation of star explorers as a captain.

  For most other people, the Jump brought in a feeling of claustrophobia in the dome, but for her being alone in Ops was exciting. The wide windows provided a grand view of the stars around her and she could convert any of them to a viewing screen to get more details. Most of the functions we
re anyway handled by Narada and her presence was necessary only to take over in case of critical errors or unforeseen circumstances. The course had been plotted much before the ship had left for its journey and no manual inputs were required. But if necessary she could pilot the ship in cruise mode manually.

  Meanwhile, the crew had assembled in the dome and they entering their respective capsules. A headcount had been performed and confirmed by Narada - all present and accounted for. The lights dimmed as the capsules closed one by one and the crew entered suspended animation. The cocoon was energized and the dome entered isolation state. Lights were automatically dimmed across the ship and all life-support systems went offline. Power was now only being used for four critical areas - navigation and propulsion, the dome, the hull and Ops. This was necessary because the Jump used up more energy in 8 hours than many days of cruising or travelling at sub-light speeds.

  Manisha received confirmation of readiness through various green symbols across her station and confirmed the status manually.

  ‘Narada,’ she addressed the AI, ‘the ship is ready for the Jump. She’s all yours.’

  ‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ acknowledged Narada. ‘Now activating.’

  The ship accelerated perceptibly and this continued for the next few minutes as it passed light speed and became invisible to any casual observer. The details of the quantum mechanics behind the Jump had been part of her engineering studies for Manisha but somehow, she still could not put her head around the fact that during the Jump the ship would actually be present at multiple locations in the vicinity of the start point. In fact, there was no navigation possible during this phase. Any attempt to force a course change would immediately tear the ship into pieces. The Jump could be performed only in a straight clear line. It could be stopped in case of an emergency but the ship would face extreme strain.

  Limitations in navigation and the extreme power requirements meant the ship could only perform FTL travel in stages. Sensors, radars and other instruments in the bow probed ahead for millions of kilometers to identify anomalies and foreign objects and find a straight line avoiding them. These instruments would be active throughout the Jump to scan for anomalies but their effectiveness would be limited.

  As Antariksh reached terminal velocity, the view outside changed for Manisha as the observer. The space became dark as the light from nearby stars could not reach the ship in time enough for her to see it. The windows engaged time-delay circuits to allow limited visibility. But the ship was essentially flying blind.

  The terminus for the jump was displayed as a bright blue dot in the holo-image in the centre of the room and the ship's position relative to Earth and the destination was shown with a green facsimile of Antariksh. Nearby objects which could be a threat to the flight path were showing red with their last measured velocity and position indicated alongside. Attempts to identify and classify such objects would have been made in the background and stored for use if required.

  Interstellar dust and minor objects would not be detected but instead taken care by the front shielding. The four-layer shield consisted of outermost laser array which sent out a continuous ray of high intensity beams to form a barrier hundreds of miles ahead of the ship to blast any large particles out of the ship's path. A large object impacting the ship at FTL speeds would likely drill a large hole and stop it in its tracks if not destroy it completely. The second layer was a magnetic screen to repel smaller space dust and other particles. Larger non-magnetic objects would bounce off against the secondary shield which physically projected a few meters in front of the bow and would absorb the impact and deflect the object. Finally, the outermost part of the hull consisted of multi-layered composites which could be regenerated if damaged. None of the defences could entirely prevent collision with a large object and that was the reason the path was carefully plotted in advance.

  Manisha stretched against her safety restraints. It was going to be a long shift. Her display shifted to remain in her field of vision showing various parameters of the ship’s subsystems. She activated her personal screen with a flick of her finger and started finishing the letter to her mother. Having grown up in a small town in the eastern part of India, her elevation to this position had only been possible because of her mother’s determination and her own hard work.

  Her father had been a bio-engineer working on the MG 1 colony on the Moon trying to grow food crops. She had travelled with him to the Moon and marvelled at the sight of the stars unencumbered by the space debris around Earth. His death in a freak accident during a routine mission on the Moon had not reduced her zeal for space travel and she aspired to go further into space than her father had.

  Her entrance to the space academy on top of the merit list had created waves in her town. Her subsequent move to the mega-city of Delhi-Chandigarh had been uneventful but the 4 years at the academy had honed her passion and turned her grit into passion and her degree in quantum mechanical engineering had prepared her well for her entry into the space cadet program of the ISC. At ISC Manisha had continued to excel in the exacting requirements of becoming an astronaut and had preferred the engineering and mechanics stream rather than the command stream for her major. Graduating just 3 years before the program she had been selected for the first Earth mission to deep space.

  She believed she had the perfect mentor in the Captain. Anara’s width of experience and ability to build strong teams had attracted the best of people towards her command. The three-year training programme preparing the team for Antariksh had been exhausting. Yet the day of the launch had seen the fifty-five people come on board eager for the challenge of entering deep space in a new ship. Over the last few weeks she had steadily built her credibility in the team, so much so, the captain had allowed her to oversee the last three Jumps from the control room alone instead of Commander Ryan.

  Her letter complete, she marked it for inclusion in the next transmission to be sent to Earth. He ran her eyes over the numbers projecting in front of her then dismissed the screen with a wave of her hand. The central hologram showed the steady progress of Antariksh against the terminus. In a couple of hours, the ship would be exiting the Jump and it would be time to wake up the crew and catch up on her own sleep. After that she planned to work with Madhavan in engineering to trace the source of the power leaks. They had not yet managed to isolate the reason for the leak despite having checked nearly every system remotely. She was looking forward to programming a separate drone to carry out physical checks without arousing suspicion.

  ‘Lt. Manisha, all systems are normal and we are 1.55 hours from the terminus,’ piped in Narada.

  ‘Yeah, I concur,’ she replied. This Jump had been as routine as the earlier ones.

  ‘However, I am detecting one anomalous object reading,’ continued Narada. ‘Object marked M2575 has changed trajectory twice since we started monitoring it. The changes were extreme enough to be flagged by the navigation computer.’

  Manisha sat up a little straighter in her chair. In the last many weeks, this was the only time an object had been classified to be mildly dangerous for the ship. ‘What do we know about it Narada?’ she asked the AI.

  ‘Very little I am afraid. The last full scale reading was taken before the Jump and the current data points are only approximations with time delay built in. The course change is confirmed but I have no further information.’

  ‘Understood. I suggest we mark this as priority 1 for now and ensure the scanners track it immediately once we reach the terminus.’

  ‘Noted for action, Lt.’ confirmed Narada as Manisha watched M2575 seemingly frozen in the hologram image but with three new readings below it indicating the changes.

  Jan 25th, 2110

  Antariksh

  Director Srinivas sat brooding in his vehicle on way to office. The autonomous car took the main turn out of his house and joined the line-up on the highway to ISC main campus. The train of cars lined up end to end. Individual pods disconnected and moved off as th
ey reached their respective destinations while other new ones linked up so the ‘train’ kept moving. The only differentiation between the mass of pods comprising the train was the colour of individual pods. With the adoption of standardization, transportation pods were now a commodity available at low cost. Since they could essentially soar through air, there was no more need for hard roads even though pathways were still defined and controlled. The Director did not even own a pod like most people, he just hailed one whenever required. As he looked upon the ‘train’ his thoughts drifted to the meeting with the PM the previous day.

  What the PM had left unsaid was that the ISC had already tested a prototype space vehicle which could reach FTL velocities. Tests carried out in secret at the outer rim of the solar system, away from prying eyes, had demonstrated the capability of the vehicle to carry loads far out into the universe. Of course they still had to find a way of keeping the crew alive during the Jumps as the new FTL travel was called. The combination of quantum mechanics, FTL travel effects including acceleration were guaranteed to rip any bio-matter to shreds.

  A few years ago, a breakthrough had been reported at the ISC transportation lab using something called a dome. Scientists believed that it was possible to create a cocoon within a FTL transport. This cocoon could be isolated from all external references and still be connected to the ship, allowing it to house a group of astronauts as the ship travelled at FTL speeds. The construction of the dome and validation in trials would take some time and Srini needed that time to construct the largest space faring vessel ever built on Earth.