Chapter 2: Background

UNSEC had formed back in 2050, by the current Earth calendar.

This national body was required because Dr Chin Rih and his team based in China had developed a space drive called the Rih Space Drive (RSD). This drive used an alloy made of rare Earth elements called Rihlite to provide the core of the apparatus used to power the drive. While the engines didn’t go faster than light, they did cut a considerable amount of time off the trips to other planets in our solar system.

Around this time, German scientists had perfected what they called EG Cells that provided the best compact power storage cells to be developed so far. As a result, liquid fuels that were needed for power generation and propulsion for spaceships were significantly reduced.

An Australian based team of metallurgists had also developed a product called Ozlium. This material was stronger than titanium even when produced in relatively thin sheets and was lightweight similar to aluminium. Ozlium had high radiation and thermal reflection capabilities and was able to withstand extreme high-velocity impacts.

The production of Ozlium was a boon to the Australian economy. Due to its numerous uses, it was in high demand. The fact all of the minerals required could be mined in the country, and the metal was smelted and formed before shipment provided much-needed jobs.

When the Ozlium sheets were coated with another Aussie invention, a spray-on ceramic type material called Cermafix, it was perfect for the exterior of spaceships. The treated material was suitable for many other applications where extreme temperatures and radiation were issues.

Another team from New Zealand who had been working with the Australians produced a material called Oznglass. Curved partitions of Oznglass were formed into Environmental Domes for spaceships and planetary settlements.

In low to moderate light levels, it appeared transparent. As the light radiation increased, it darkened to reflect the excess light. When designed as multiple thin convex layers, it also reflected most other undesirable forms of radiation.

Solar and heat exchange panels were built into the hulls of the spaceships. They utilised a concave variant of the Oznglass which reflected the light and heat into the panels to be converted into electricity. However, this design but still blocked excess radiation that was harmful to humans.

The panels kept the banks of GE cells topped up when the ships were able to absorb solar radiation. Solar sails could also be deployed when the ship was orbiting a planetoid and in range of a sun.

Probably the most significant development as far as the crew was concerned was the GIC (Gravity and Inertia Compensators) units by a team of American scientists. The systems were computer-controlled to react to forces exerted on the inner shells of the transporters or spaceships and in buildings and other vehicles used off of Earth.

The GIC units provide a steady downward force of 1g standard, no matter which way the transporter or spaceship faced or what speed it was doing. A GIC system did, however, have limitations if the change in gravity or inertia was very sudden or they fluctuated greatly.

Transporters or shuttles and small starships had at least one primary Rih drive at each end. They didn’t have to flip in space to decelerate unless the drive on that end had been damaged. They also had four small Ionic drives offset at ninety degrees to each other, towards each end. The cones on the Ionic engines pivoted to provide manoeuvrability and course correction.

An exotic particle shield generator (EP shield) had been developed by India. The shield provided protection against space dust and items smaller than a basketball when the ships were travelling at higher speeds. Space items that were larger than this still had to be negotiated around.

In 2065, full colonisation of the Moon took place. The Americans remodelled the compensators so they could be placed in the populated areas and even in vehicles. They provide sufficient force that felt for all intent the same as Earth gravity and allowed correct body functions to occur.

During the following ten years, sufficient resources were found on the moon to build the first deep-space exploration ships and orbital docking stations. These ships were not designed to enter atmospheres. The bigger vessels and most transporters docked on the UNSEC ran Armstrong Space Station.

During this period of expansion further experimentation with the Rih, Drives found that a battery of four drives could get a bigger ship up to 0.4c (light speed), but it took several weeks to obtain this speed and the same again to return from it.

In 2075, an extraordinary event happened. The ship, Expedition 7, with its crew of twelve, had just spent three months exploring around Pluto. They were returning to the Moon. The ship’s speed was 0.01c, and she was coasting along nicely. They planned for a slower trip back of about three weeks as they were going to track an asteroid for a while.

They were due to shut down the Aft Rih Drive and start decelerating. An engineer Donald Brawn had been running some routine maintenance checks on the Fore Ionic Drives. He had been in a hurry. He was on a promise, for some extracurricular activities with a hotty from the helm crew.

He inadvertently ran a by-pass routine, which activated the four, Fore Ionic Drives for a full-powered five-second burst. When the drives activated simultaneously, they had been pointing to the centre point of the EP shield. The sudden reverse thrust caused the main drive to increase to compensate and to maintain the speed set by the computers.

This propelled the ship through the small wormhole that had been created. The crew felt the ship shudder. It took the compensators several seconds before they could react correctly. The ship’s gravity fluctuated wildly due to the sudden changes in speed and the altered gravitational effects.

The crew was tossed around as they felt the crushing and then lightening effects. Three crew members suffered fractured bones, everyone else suffered from multiple cuts and bruises, and several people lost consciousness. When the navigator recovered enough to check the ship’s position, he found that they had overshot the Moon.

Fortunately, they weren’t aimed at the sun or anything else. At their speed, they wouldn’t have been able to turn or slow sufficiently to miss an obstacle. The Captain immediately had the Aft Rih Drive shut down. A full system check was required, and the engineer’s mistake became known. The Captain ordered a more sedate return to the moon.

The resulting investigation back on Earth determined that the ship had ‘jumped’, from Pluto to the Moon. For the people on the ship and those on Earth, only a couple of seconds had passed, when the ship dropped through the tunnel in space and then reappeared at the other end.

Travel to other solar systems in relative time had just become a reality.

The Explorer class starship, Fortune, was going to the Delta Pavonis Star system.

Delta is approximately twenty light-years from Earth. It was discovered in 2047 to have possibly five planets. It had been mostly ignored until that time, as there were closer star systems that could be explored with the technology they had.

Delta Pavonis’ sun is older than Earth’s, but slightly larger and had has a similar luminosity of our own sun. People believed that a planetoid identified in 2048 dubbed Delta3 was in the magical terrestrial orbit. It might support carbon life, as we know it.

For the current journey, it would take Fortune approximately four weeks to get up to the 0.4c required for the first jump of four light-years. They had learnt that the speed of the ship when it jumped, would determine the time and the distance covered when the ship navigated the warp tunnel that was created.

Each of these big jumps would take approximately four minutes of relative time to complete. Twenty-four ship hours were then allocated between jumps. This was for the cartographers and astronomers to re-plot the Delta Pavonis star system again.

After all, when they emerged after the first jump, their eyes would see the stars were now located where they would appear in four years if you were on Earth. It would be just as odd when they plotted to go back. Initially, they would perceive the light from Sol as being from twenty years in their past. You would always be jumping into the future even if you could see the past.

The navigators could then make course corrections, before the next jump. They would jump until they were within four light-years of their destination. The ship would then begin slowing down to more manoeuvrable and orbital speeds. The Fortune would then do micro jumps into the system depending on what planets and anomalies they found.

The scientists estimated that this would take another ten to fifteen weeks before they would eventually be in orbit around Delta3. The ship would also drop off navigation beacons on the way in and out, to assist with the return navigation. Eight weeks had been allocated for the more direct return trip.

Observation and exploration of Delta3 and any other celestial bodies they found, would use up the rest of the time on the trip. The scientists hoped to make several landings. They would erect the habitat dome they had in the hold to use as a base on the most hospitable planetoid they found.

Their primary objective was to find a hospitable uninhabited planet for Earth to use as a settlement. Should the trip turn out a bust, the Fortune could return to Earth sooner than the two years. A bust was that the planet had a poisonous atmosphere, the gravity was too extreme (either high or lower than tolerable) or the unthinkable, it was already inhabited by sentient life.

Approximately every three months, they would send a drone back reporting on their finds.

One hundred people would be going to Delta Pavonis Star System.

The personnel boarding the Fortune consisted of fifty-five males and forty-five females. They were grouped as Helm, Engineering, Army, Support and the Scientific Contingency. Each group had their own colours and leader.

Captain Nick Clark was ultimately responsible for getting them to the star system and then home again. He had a helm crew of nine under his direct control. The helm crew wore a dark blue and red jumpsuit and operated in three, eight-hour shifts of two or three people.