Chapter 10

Annabelle had sent Robert a message that they would need the system controllers for the cargo hauler soon after the new year. The team said most of the modules had been written and were being tested independently, however when they began to integrate the modules into a master controller they would crash, especially when the propulsion system software was added. It seemed that some modules consumed so much interaction with the master controller that the master would take other systems off line. The module designers would try to make their modules more self contained and make more decisions on their own, but the information required for them to function properly was just too much for the master controller.

At one of the brain storming sessions, the master controller was the topic and no one seemed to have a solution. The one thought was some mega computer that would take up several compartments for the hardware and be a major power consumer. One of the new computer programmers fresh from university said it was too bad they had not perfected an artificial intelligence computer yet that could learn the requirements of each module and integrate the modules. If humans could read code fast enough, the input received and a decision could be made and returned to the module in nanoseconds at a minimum. In battle conditions decisions might require decisions in either picoseconds (10^-12) or femtoseconds (10^-15). Robert looked like he had been hit in the head with a club when there was a knock on the door that turned out to be Nancy. Her first question was what was wrong with Robert. One of the senior analysis from the original IT company said that Robert was in one of his phases when a brilliant ideas is about to surface.

Recovering, Robert asked Nancy at what speed a young AI could make decisions before becoming fully trained and developed. Nancy told him a young AI less than one hundred fifty years old could handle four to six billion inputs at a time, and a slow AI should be able to resolve any issue in one or two femtoseconds. The analysts and programmers around the table had their collective mouths open, and their brains were trying to comprehend what they had just been told. Nancy reminded them that that was slow compared to the human brain if it were fully used. Robert than began to explore the interfaces required for an AI. The interesting thing was that a bus would have to be created, that information bus that would have information dumped continually. A second information bus would have to be created that was more or less a real time bus that would be sending solutions and directives back to the attached devices. Each device would have to be assigned a priority level so that in some conditions they might not receive directives and have to make decisions without the aid of the AI. The highest three priority levels would be battle conditions, propulsion and bridge commands from the commanding officer, followed closely by life support.

Robert then asked the big question, hoping for a positive answer. Were there any young AI's aboard Nancy's ship that could be assigned to the new cargo ship and another for the deep space exploration spacecraft? Nancy said there was a very young AI, only one hundred twenty years old, that would fit well for the cargo ship. She had an offspring that had just completed the two hundred fiftieth training year at the top of the class, before being placed in an observation state. This AI had originally been slated to replace an ageing AI aboard a battle cruiser. The two AI's were to operate in parallel, with the young AI taking more responsibility as it became competent. When their world fell apart the young AI was attached to their ship in an observation position, hoping that some day a ship would be made available. In this state the AI would not age until it was placed in an operational mode. This meant that there was about twenty-five hundred years of useful life remaining for this AI.

One of the analysts asked how they would communicate with the AI, and what form it would take as the ships master controller. Nancy said that thanks to Robert, the AI would have the form of an android until the ship was ready with a permanent compartment. At that point only a few people would have access to it, and only through the ship's captain. More than likely one of the people of this group would be assigned to the spacecraft to work with the AI, with the approval of the ship's captain.

Robert thanked Nancy, telling her that the group had some major decisions to make and would be in touch with her soon. Robert told the group they should meet in his lab after lunch, and to have a big lunch as they may be working late. When Robert walked into his lab Vicky was at the capture computer, and all the people in his group had found seats. Robert went to the first white board and drew a square box and wrote AI inside. He then drew two highway looking objects projecting from each side of the box. He stood back and then erased the highway projection objects. Vicky projected an image on her screen of what looked like a person with a circle of green around it with arrows pointing to the person. Outside of that was a circle of blue with arrows pointing from the person to the circle. Looking, Robert said that is exactly what he was thinking about.

Turning to the group, he asked how many different system modules needed to report to the master controller. One of the women said there were presently eighteen hundred modules, and maybe twenty percent would require direct access to the master controller and another twenty to thirty percent would need access through their controllers. The remainder would be under the direction of sub controllers and should never need access to the master controller.

Robert said that all the sub controllers should have backup, and if all else fails, the master controller should be able to temporarily take over until repairs could be completed. The group was taking notes and you could see some design thoughts starting to flow. The new design engineer that had originally suggested the AI concept was on his third page of sketches, and Robert asked him to show everyone what he was thinking. Robert recognized Braden Silverstone, the young man they had brought into the community from Santiago, Chile. Braden began drawing showing a bus design, and then made changes. The changes he was making were new to everyone in the room except Marcy. The two had been working on the data bus since university and a class they had with Roger Callahan. When he finished, he turned to the group and began explaining the bus and the projected throughput. If the estimates were correct, this bus would be six to ten times faster than any data bus available today.

There was clapping from the rear of the room as Roger Callahan stepped next to Braden, telling him that he and Marcy were the only two in the class that even remotely began to understand the theory he had been trying to explain. Ed Cunningham and a couple of hardware designers had been watching as Braden explained the bus and its capabilities. The question was the hardware design and material required to build it. Marcy handed Ed a document with the material requirements and schematic layout. Turning to Roger, Ed said that this would put the new computer into the ten to twelve Pflops range and reduce the physical size. Roger just smiled and nodded his head.

Robert said this was all well and good in theory, but how long would it take to make a working bus that could be used for their application. Braden said that the prototype was already working in Marcy's lab, and a full scale bus could be ready in a maximum of sixty days as soon as the materials could be acquired. Ed said he recognized all materials except one item. Marcy said they had acquired the material from Nancy, and would have to request the amount needed from her if it was available. The two hardware designers and two designers from Robert's group asked Braden and Marcy if they could join them in completing the full buses for the two ships, it was agreed. Roger said this was great but they still had to develop the interface to the AI to complete the system.

Annabelle's propulsion team was developing two different propulsion systems. The first was the antimatter system that they had tested for thrust and the longevity required to launch to High Earth Orbit (HEO). The second propulsion system was the helium3 fuelled system. Both systems were up and running in prototype configurations, with much larger systems being built. The next major hurdle was to test the propulsion systems at full power for an extended period of time. The prototypes had been operating at full power for just over three months. The fuel quantity that had been initially used to start the test was checked on a monthly basis. The quantity was checked by weight in milligrams, and the amount of fuel used on either prototype was less than one thousandth of a milligram. Because the prototypes were about the size that would power a train locomotive and the load was set to be equal to a hundred cars with maximum weight in each car, the fuel consumption was lower than expectations. It was decided to triple the load for the next three months to see if the fuel consumption changed much.

Two propulsion engines for the cargo carrier were being built using both types of fuel. Since the propulsion engines were in the rear of the ship, the ability to change the entire engine module was engineered into the design. If things worked as designed, the propulsion module could be replaced in a day. The cargo carrier was designed very differently than the Deep Space Exploration Ship, as it was expected to launch and land in the Earth's atmosphere. This would require a tremendous amount of thrust to break out of the gravitational pull to reach HEO heights and then place the load at the proper speed to be geosynchronous with Campinas. The landing would be just as power consuming to slow the cargo carrier down enough to enter the Earth's atmosphere without burning to a crisp.

A downsized unmanned spacecraft was designed with the helium3 propulsion engine used, as that fuel was easier to obtain than antimatter, for atmospheric exit and entry test. Everyone was excited as the little craft rolled down the runway for takeoff. Because it was an unmanned craft, the flight technicians from the RQ-04 group were asked to be the land based pilots. There were so many volunteers that a bag of white marbles with three black marbles was used to pick the pilots, and then between the selected pilots they would decide the shifts.

On the day of the test, the entire research staff was at the airport to see the lift-off of their first spacecraft. Annabelle and her crew checked and rechecked the craft and ensured the propulsion plant was operating at low power. They then turned the spacecraft over to the pilots. The unmanned test spacecraft was much bigger than the RQ-04 they were used to flying. The on duty pilot sat at his console and taxied to the end of the runway. The brakes were set and the engine was pushed to full power. Annabelle, Martha and Alice watched the propulsion system read outs and saw all was good and the system was at ninety-eight percent. The pilot looked at the three ladies and was given the 'go for launch' nod. The craft sped down the runway and lifted off in text book fashion. The plan was to fly East at the Equator two times around the earth to build up speed, then head straight for HEO upper edges. That would mean that a speed of ten or twelve kilometres per second, or about Mach thirty-four, would be needed to reach escape velocity. As the spacecraft was coming around for the second time and reached forty-five degrees west latitude, the pilot noted that the craft was at mach thirty-one, or ten and a half kilometres per second. He pulled the stick back to point the nose to space. If all went as planned they would reach an altitude of forty thousand kilometres in just over an hour, travelling at thirty-seven thousand kilometres per hour. The flight so far was performing as expected. Finally the instruments indicated they had reached the geostationary area of the HEO at the forty thousand mile altitude.

The team then had the pilot return the spacecraft to an altitude of two hundred fifty kilometres altitude, and finally one hundred kilometres altitude. The tricky thing was to slow the craft enough to enter the Earth's atmosphere without becoming a fire ball. The reason that the earlier spacecraft had to have heat shields was they did not have the fuel on board to slow down enough to enter the Earth's atmosphere. The goal here was to reduce the speed of their spacecraft to about Mach 2, or just below twenty-five hundred Kilometres per hour, before attempting to enter the Earth's atmosphere. If the crew compartment started to heat up they would return to a higher altitude and slow down even more. The reverse thrusters were used to slow down, and they were doing fine until the pilot overestimated the time of reverse thrust and slowed to two thousand kilometres per hour. The cabin temperature started to drop and the pilot started his decent to forty thousand feet. As they begin to enter the mesosphere, the cabin temperature started to rise and reached forty degrees Celsius when they reached the stratosphere. They also slowed to fifteen hundred kilometres per hour. The cabin air conditioning kicked in and lowered the temperature to twenty-eight degrees Celsius. The descent into the troposphere at eleven thousand and two meters appeared good so far. They maintained the fifteen hundred kilometres per hour and headed for Campinas. They had used two of the pilots, who had shown they could operate under a lot of pressure.

As the spacecraft landed, there seemed to be a warp of the wings. As it rolled to the hanger Annabelle and Marion were looking at the wings and both decided something was definitely changed since the craft had left here several hours ago. The propulsion system was removed from the craft and the engineers took it apart. They discovered that both wings were stressed and had a seven degree upward warp from the original manufacture product. They begin to look at the design and then at the manufacturing process. The second investigation was what had caused the wings to warp. The data tapes were reviewed several times when Martha realized that when the craft left the two circumnavigation laps pulling up to space, the stress indicators were pegged at maximum and the true stress would never be known for sure. Martha went to her computer and started running computer models starting with the factual data they had. The models were still within acceptable limits until they reached mach 31, and the stress indicators were still not pegged. As the craft was pulled into the vertical climb to head for space the indicators pegged.

Martha then ran the theoretical models using the information available. What she found was that the stress was six times the designed factors for stress. The wings should have ripped off the craft at that time, but the time of maximum stress was less than two minutes before the indicators were returning to normal. Martha presented her findings to the design team and made two recommendations, the first was to redesign the air frame, and the wings struts would require a lot of reinforcement. The second recommendation was to change the climbing rate of the craft to a much slower change rate. She suggested an attitude change rate be no more than five degrees per minute from horizontal to vertical flight. That would mean eighteen minutes to achieve total vertical flight. The two recommendations should make the spacecraft totally safe for human flight.

A month later, with the redesigned air frame, they were ready for the next test flight. The same three pilots were used to flight test the spacecraft. As before, the two circumnavigations were completed and the craft started its attitude change to vertical climb. The spacecraft reached forty thousand kilometres and turned to come back, reaching the thermosphere as they slowed down to two thousand kilometres per hour. The transition through the mesosphere and stratosphere to the troposphere was smooth and uneventful.

After landing, the engineers again went over every millimetre of the craft and found everything was still at manufacturing process and records specifications. There were many flights over the next few weeks, with the last ones powered with the antimatter propulsion system. The power supplied by the antimatter system was magnitudes more efficient.

Annabelle had a group working on the Orbital Facility, ship build and repair facility. The main concern the group had was the size of this thing when completed. They knew they had two to three years to complete the first phase of the project, and that was the ship building and repair facility. The Orbital Facility could come later, as this area was not a hot spot for space travel. The team had begun to assemble the living quarters for those that would live part time at the facility. They had figured that there would be a requirement for a hundred workers. There were no accommodations for families, as Annabelle figured that the workers could rotate on intervals to coincide with the delivery of the cargo ship. The initial deliveries would have to leave the quarters unmanned, which would mean teams would assemble the shipment and then return. The cargo ship could carry four containers at a time, and it would take nine trips for the living spaces and warehouse and work spaces. The final containers would be the command module with power supply and life support container, which would allow the first people to remain at the Orbital Facility.

There would be thirty-six containers when the main section was completed. Twenty-four of the containers were completed and ready for delivery to orbit. That would be nine trips to deliver the complete shell of the living quarters. Most of the equipment that was stationary in the completed module would he secured to the container as it was built on Earth. As the modules were connected together there were walls and other barriers which would have to be removed that were used in shipping.

It was decided that when the final test on the cargo carrier was completed, they would begin placing the containers in orbit. Now all they had to do was get the carrier fully operational and tested. Most of the front pod construction was complete, and the major items to complete were the controls and the life support systems. The life support was ready for extended testing. The first test was for twenty-four hours and then for ten days.

The propulsion system was assembled and ready to be charged with fuel. The fuel of choice was helium3 for short flights less than one light year. The thoughts were that the propulsion module would be taken to an unpopulated area to test the system. The module was to be secured to withstand a thrust of five hundred fifty thousand foot-pounds, and the only way they felt that could be done was to use the wall of a mountain of granite. There was a quarry in the Itu area with enough open area to complete the test. There was even an open side for the exhaust to escape. Since there was no heat to be expelled, there would be no burnt forest or charred walls, just a lot of wind. The pod was delivered to the quarry and moved with a plate against the quarry wall to protect the module. They insured that the exhaust area was ninety degrees from the wall so that the module would press directly into the wall and not be skewed by the blast of the propulsion. The helium³ drive would take the cargo ship to the upper edge of the HEO, or Geosynchronous orbits area.

The helium³ engine performed better than expected, with an estimated thrust of seven hundred thousand foot-pounds of thrust. A diametric drive was all experimental, and when the throttle was advanced, the thrust was far above what was expected. A lot more testing would have to be done on this diametric drive to see how it would react in space. The propulsion module pushed a few meters into the granite and compressed the stone to an even greater hardness. The module was moved back to Campinas to the assembly area.

The next issue was the connecting superstructure between the command module and the propulsion module. The ideal was that the connecting superstructure should be collapsible. The designers looked at several methods for a collapsible superstructure, when one of the designers asked if any superstructure was required as long as they had a hard connection between the two modules. The idea was to make the containers the superstructure with a protected cable that could be retracted into the propulsion module. The idea was then shifted into locking mechanisms for both the containers and the two modules. It was decided that the control module would be the receptacle and the connecting module would be the plug-in. This would continue with each container receptacle to plug-in, to end at the propulsion module which was a plug-in. The design was solidified and the locking mechanisms were simple, similar to those used in railroad cars for over a century.

Annabelle asked for a design review of the Orbital Facility and final approval. Robert asked how much time Annabelle thought she would need for the presentation. She told Robert that the presentation would take the best part of a day and then whatever time was required for questions. Robert then asked if any of the material could be distributed prior to the presentation so that people could become familiar with the material. Annabelle thought about it and said it could, but might be more confusing without a lot of explanation, but if her speaker's notes were also distributed it might help. Annabelle gave Robert a document which she said she could reprint, telling him to review the document and if he thought it was OK she would release it to the provided list of the advisory council.

Robert began to review the document and was about ten pages into it when he realized he had no understanding of what was being discussed. He began at the first again and got about the same place when he was lost, and that was using Annabelle's speaker's notes to try and unravel the confusion. Robert called Annabelle and told her not to send the document out as he was lost early in the document, unless a person was very technical, with knowledge in that area, they would be lost. Robert said he would have Amy set the meeting for the first of next week.

At eight AM on Monday morning, Robert walked into the small auditorium to the podium and addressed the advisory council. He told those assembled they were to review the design of the Orbital Facility and approve the final design. He then introduced Annabelle as the head of all research and design, specializing in spacecraft design. He said that Annabelle was the first student to graduate with a PhD from the university headed by Michael Ward. Since she graduated, two more students have graduated with degrees as astrophysicists and were working on another project regarding deep space travel.