by Eric Klein
While I was on the massage table, Fay had made arrangements for our guests. I didn’t even know we could invite guests onboard, let alone to dinner. (Could anyone do it, or is it a case of Rank Hath Its Privileges?)
As agreed, Fay and I are waiting near the airlock at 18:00 to welcome Holly and Jeff aboard. They surprise me with big, warm hugs.
Fay grins. “As we have about half an hour before we can be seated, how about a short tour of the ship?”
As we show them the public areas, they have what feels like thousands of questions that neither of us can answer. Fay has plotted a course around the ship that ends at the dining room. For the first time, the dining room is empty when we enter. We have an enjoyable meal in which we don’t talk technology, and then follow it with drinks at Callahan’s, where the Captain joins us. After about five minutes the three of them are talking in technical terms that I can’t follow. Catching Fay’s eye, I signal towards ‘our’ table. Leaving them, with their heads practically touching over a wristpad projection, we head over to ‘our’ table and cuddle a little while sipping our Bushmills.
Shortly after I sit down for breakfast, two delicate hands come at me from behind and turn my head. A lovely brunette plants a big kiss on me. Before I can react, she says, “Thank you for saving my life,” and walks away.
I look perplexed at Fay and the rest of the table, and Madame Sul-Te-Wan comes to my rescue. “Yesterday, while we were doing the pageant broadcast in the Bats’ Cave, her wings malfunctioned near the roof. As she was falling, she was caught in a net by a manually controlled drone. The young man controlling it explained that it was a prototype of an idea you had after you saved someone who lost a wing. He was testing a rough prototype that had been provided before they build more and teach the AIs how to do it automatically. Your idea may have saved her life. As it was, it made the pageant broadcast more exciting. Yesterday morning we weren’t trending at all, and now we are the top story across the solar system.”
After a big breakfast, we set off to see the Tranquility Base Museum. The entry to Luna is almost identical to that of the previous day, and I start to wonder if they were trying to encourage people to stay in local accommodation rather than back on the ship. At the information booth, the same girl directs us to head into Luna City and then transfer to the tube for Tycho Under. I ask her about the customs and immigrations procedures and if they are encouraging people to stay in local hotels. She explains that they don’t have that many accommodations available.
“For those who come and stay between ships we only have an additional twenty or thirty rooms for visitors. We are not set up to support a ship as big as yours.”
Figure 3 Transport map of Luna
As we are leaving, she calls out, “Be sure that you take a local train, as the express does not stop at the Tranquility Base station.”
On the tube, Fay asks, “So why is it that you have always been so interested in visiting the Tranquility Base Museum? Was it your relative that landed there?”
“I’ve always wanted to see it because my grandfather always spoke about how proud the family was of Neil and what he had accomplished. My grandmother used to tell how Neil’s first date with his second wife involved chopping down her cherry tree.”
“Wait, I thought that it was George Washington with the cherry tree.”
“I cannot tell a lie – that was a different cherry tree.” Seeing her grimace and the question in her eyes, I answer, “You see, Neil met his second wife at a fundraiser, and when he called her two weeks later and asked what she was doing, her response was ‘cutting down a cherry tree in my backyard.’ So he went over and helped.”
We are the only ones getting off at the museum stop. We climb the ramp up to the underground entrance. As we enter, we are greeted with an original recording and a plaque with this transcript:
“Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the United States but men of peace of all nations, and with interests and the curiosity and with the vision for the future. It’s an honor for us to be able to participate here today.”
– Commander Neil Armstrong on first interplanetary telephone call with President Richard M. Nixon, during the first walk on the surface of the Moon; transcript of Apollo 11 moon landing, 20 July 1969
Passing the plaque, we startle a man polishing the faceplate of a display. “I was not expecting anyone to show up today. We usually only get one group per ship. I’m Mr. Ambrose, the caretaker. Would you like a guided tour of the museum? It should be easier to see everything than yesterday, without all of the engineers and students standing around the lander and staring at it reverently as if they were on a pilgrimage to a holy site.”
“That would be lovely.”
“What I’m polishing is the original suit worn by Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr., known to everyone by his nickname, Buzz. He got that name as a child when one of his sisters mispronounced brother. He was the second man to step on Earth’s Moon, after Commander Neil Armstrong. And here on the wall is a piece of the Clan Armstrong tartan that was carried by Neil during the mission.”
“Is that your family tartan too?” Fay asks me. “You see, he is also an Armstrong,” she explains to Ambrose.
“Sorry, we did not get to introduce ourselves. This is Fay, and I’m BJ, BJ Armstrong. And, yes, Neil was a distant relative of my grandfather’s.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong. It is not often that we get family to visit us here. Would you like to go up and see the actual the landing site?” Without waiting for an answer, he starts to lead the way. “Just follow me.”
He climbs a ramp that ends with an airlock. “Just through here. The lock is required as a safety measure in case the dome is breached.” He opens the first door and steps in, beckoning us to join him.
He is inside before we can correct him about our marital status; we follow him into the airlock. As the pressure is the same on both sides, all that’s required is to close one door before the other can be opened. But when he opens the other door there is a strong odor like spent gunpowder or burnt charcoal. We step out onto a metal walkway and our breath is taken away by the moonscape, visible through a high dome. The walkway goes around the landing site, and we can see the lander base, right where it was left when the Eagle returned to lunar orbit. Walking around, Mr. Ambrose points out the flag with lots of footprints around it. “The original was knocked down when they took off, and it was lost to the Luna conditions, but the flagpole was left. Based on its location and the original photos we were able to restore it to where Neil originally placed it.” Near the lander, there are two Portable Life Support System (PLSS) backpacks, two pairs of lunar overshoes, one Hasselblad camera, the EVA motion camera, and other equipment lying on the ground where it was discarded to reduce launch weight.
We approach the actual lander and Ambrose points out a plaque attached to one of the landing struts.
Figure 4 Apollo 11 Plaque, Courtesy of NASA
Fay points to the bottom, where the signatures of the three crew members of Apollo 11 and US President Richard Nixon are reproduced. “This is what your relative, Neil Armstrong’s signature looks like.” She slips her hand into mine, and we stand a moment in silence to look.
After the tour, Fay asks Mr. Ambrose if there a place, that won’t be full of tourists, where we can get some lunch.
“If you take the tube into Tycho Under, there is a nice steak restaurant near the tube stop. You can’t miss it; it’s called ‘Over the Moon.’ Good food, reasonable prices. It is mostly a lunch place that caters to the United Solar Nations headquarters staff.”
We thank him and head off to catch the next tube.
Arriving in Tycho Under, I spot a large black monolith next to the entrance to what looks like a bar. The sign over the door reads TMA-1. I look inside. It is full of armed men in dirty work clothe
s. They look like extras out of an old western set in the gold rush era. Not the kind of guys I would want to get into an argument with.
Someone pushes past us, saying, “Excuse me,” as he enters. It takes a second, but then I realize that it is Mr. Laidlaw, even taller than he looked on holo. His arrival is promptly followed by someone wearing a Che Guevara in a space suit t-shirt being tossed out the door and bouncing until he slides up against the far wall.
We walk on, until I spot the recommended restaurant by its sign, a cow not quite making it over the moon. Ambrose was right, the beef negimaki and chop suey were both a great deal for the price.
On the way back to the tube station to catch the express, we bump into Jackie. For the whole of the short ride, she explains that she is coming back from Shackleton crater, where she was signing the initial letter of intent to start the ownership paperwork.
Unlike the times before, the customs and immigration people are checking and scanning everyone before they can board the ship. Once aboard, we go and freshen up for a pre-launch dinner
We spend a late night of music and camaraderie at Callahan’s. This time I remember bringing Fay to our room, unwrapping her, and our going to bed. Originally, I planned to watch the liftoff scheduled for the early morning (03:00), as we are swinging around the Earth. But we were too busy to notice takeoff.
Chapter 10
“However, viewed in a different way, the problem with Venus is merely that the ground level is too far below the one atmosphere level. At cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet.”
Geoffrey A. Landis of NASA’s Glenn Research Center
After breakfast, Fay and I are waiting with eight others in the lobby for our chance to tour the engine room. At exactly 10:30 Engineer Galloway exits the crew elevator. “I’m glad that all of you could make it. There are a number of differences in this ship from its predecessors. Over the next hour, I will be pointing some of them out to you. So, if you could all enter this elevator we can head down to the main engine room.”
After the elevator doors close behind him, he continues. “You may recall from the safety lecture that there are twenty emergency escape craft on the Venture. What was not explained is that we combine the main engine with regular thrust from each of those escape craft to help increase our speed and steer the ship. This way they are not just dead weight to be used only in an emergency. Now, all of these engines are the new Shawyer – or Em - drives that don’t require us to carry propulsion. The technology was first proposed Roger J. Shawyer in 2001. The concept of an EmDrive is that electromagnetic microwave cavities provide for the direct conversion of electrical energy to thrust without the need for propulsion material.” The elevator stops and his wristpad is approved before the doors open. He continues, “This is the main engine room.”
I can see control panel lights flashing slightly distorted through the clear cubes in the center of the room. Walking up to the closest one he asks, “Does anyone know what these are?”
A pale woman speaks up. “Kid Wagner from Luna University. Those appear to be diamond batteries.”
Engineer Galloway smiles. “That is correct, Ms. Wagner. What the rest of you may not know is that these one-meter cubes are actually radioactive diamonds. It was discovered that diamond will generate an electric current if placed in a radioactive field. In 2017 they made the first synthetic diamond from radioactive carbon taken from the Chernobyl reactor. These diamonds created their own radioactive field and thus were generating low levels of electricity. Following this pattern, each of these cubes were artificially created using the waste graphite from fission reactors. Each is then coated with a few molecules of non-radioactive diamond to make it safe to handle. Now if you will follow me down one level.” He turns and moves towards a downward ramp.
There is a glint of light from the brightly polished truncated cones sticking out of the floor. Walking over to the truncated cones, he continues. “These are the actual drive chambers. By using the diamonds to power microwave generators inside each of these, we develop enough thrust to move the ship. Since we are not required to carry reaction mass we can continue to power them for the whole trip, thus cutting down the travel time as compared to previous spaceships.”
Kid Wagner raises her hand and at his nod asks, “But if you are thrusting all the way as a constant boost, how do we slow down?”
“Good question, Ms. Wagner. The advantage of constant boost is that we can reach higher speeds, but as you noticed that means we need to slow down more. In our case, we use what is called a skew flip. We accelerate at full power at all times, but at the halfway point we flip the ship around and use the same force to slow us down.” Seeing Kid start to raise her hand, “And before you ask, we flip by using the emergency craft engines. We reduce the thrust of some and use the others to flip the ship. This is again an advantage of the Shawyer drive. The drive does not need to warm up; you just power it on or off, or reduce the power to adjust the flow. In fact, we run all of the engines at only forty percent strength for this trip. Thus, even if half stopped working or needed maintenance we would still be able to keep our schedule. Now, feel free to look around for a little bit, but I need to take you back up in ten minutes, before the next tour of the day.”
After the tour, we spend the rest of the morning down by the swimming pool, where we take a training session for rebreathers.
“Each unit is able to support you indefinitely by collecting oxygen from the surrounding water or in an atmosphere like the one on Mars. They also store approximately ten minutes of oxygen for use while charging in those situations. As these models are full face covering; they have been equipped with ultraviolet communication systems, so you can talk with each other while in the pool, and can receive any important announcements if the need arises.”
After the instruction, we are allowed into the pressure lock for the pool. It is odd not having up or down. I take the rebreather out of my mouth and blow a bubble. It just stays there until some current makes it float away. There are already areas around the water inlets that are very cloudy from all the air bubbles. After an hour of underwater play, rather than speaking on the common channel, Fay taps my foot and points towards one of the exits.
Popping out of the pressure lock, Fay kisses my nose and says to come to the ballroom at 15:00. She then disappears into the spa. With nothing else to do, I go back to my room to take a sonic shower, and then go get a late lunch.
Showing up at the ballroom just before 15:00, I’m warmly greeted by Dodge. “Glad you could make it to the plenary. Do you have your badge and seat yet?”
As soon as she finishes asking the question, as if by magic, the Maître d’ steps behind her. “Mr. Armstrong, I have your badge and a seat reserved for you.” Tapping his hat, “Miss Dodge, I believe your mother was looking for you by the podium. She mentioned something about a gift for the plenary speaker.”
As Dodge takes off to help her mother, I turn to the Maître d’. “We are going to be seeing a lot of each other over the rest of the month. Please call me BJ. Mr. Armstrong makes me think my father is behind me.”
He smiles back at me. “OK, BJ. I’m Bill Fisher.” We shake hands and he drapes a lanyard over my head, “Now, here is your badge.”
Once I’m badged and seated next to an empty seat in the front row, Bill turns and says, “Fay asked me to tell you that you will see her soon,” and then he heads back out.
I look around the room. What last night was an open space and dance floor is now filled with more than a hundred chairs in an arc around a raised circular stage. Curiosity getting the better of me, I look under my seat and see that each chair comes up out of a slot in the floor and there are different patterns of unused slots to enable them to rearrange things automatically.
Shortly, the room lights fade and Carroll Dunning comes out onto the stage. “Good afternoon and welcome. Just a few bits of administrative items befo
re we begin. The symposium will be in session each full day that we are underway, taking breaks when we are in port. As if we could keep any of you from going ashore,” she adds with a smile, to the audience’s laughter. “Now, each of these days will be split into two sessions. The morning session will be three hours of lectures and, on the return leg, group discussions. Then after lunch, we will break out to have three hours of working groups. Feel free to sign up and change between groups. Before breaking for lunch, individual topics and rooms will be announced. As we have plenty of time, if there is a topic that you feel should be covered please come see Frank or me, or you can talk to my daughter, Dodge, and we will see when we can add it to the schedule, as we have a full month of travel and plenty of free time after our scheduled program. There is nothing worse than lots of free time when you are cooped up in a shiny metal box, even one as nicely equipped as the Venture.”
“To start us off, we have asked Captain Englehorn to give a brief state-of-the-field review. The Captain has a distinguished record as a hero, rescuing the Ceres Colony from a catastrophic blowout. His years as a ship’s captain are recognized by his commanding the maiden voyage of the L.S.S. Venture. However, possibly unknown to many of you is the fact that he is also an astro-engineer (or you could call him an old-fashioned rocket scientist) and he led the project to design the L.S.S. Venture in which we are traveling. I present Captain Englehorn.”
The captain steps to the center of the stage to polite applause. “Thank you, Chief Engineer Dunning. I doubt that she needs an introduction, and I know that she wouldn’t have mentioned it herself, but Carroll is the Chief Engineer responsible for the current phase in the terraforming of Mars. Two hundred years ago, Collier’s editor Gordon Manning brought together Wernher von Braun,” (a holo image of von Braun appears), “then technical director of the Army Ordnance Guided Missile Development Group; Fred L. Whipple, chairman of astronomy at Harvard University; Joseph Kaplan, professor of physics at UCLA; Heinz Haber of the US. Air Force Department of Space Medicine; and Willy Ley, an authority on space travel and rocketry, to investigate the feasibility of space travel in the near future.