Chapter 5

Worel and Charlie agreed to build a ship for a crew of eight: four humans and four Jimwor (Worel's race). She would be called Mars1.

The press was told that Mars1 would be a test platform for the systems necessary to travel to Mars. Her construction would take eighteen months. Four people would man her for a year in low Earth orbit.

SpaceX had a flight system called Falcon Heavy under development which would be capable of lifting 190,000 pounds to low Earth orbit. Worel designed Mars1 to weigh 190,000 pounds.

Worel designed a Thorium powered nuclear reactor. The unit would generate 55 megawatts of electric power and an equal amount of thermal energy. After a time in orbit, mission control would be told that the reactor's containment shielding had failed and the destruction of Mars1 would be faked.

"Worel," Charlie asked, "you have actually traveled in space. You've been to places I can only imagine. Let's assume that you are the captain. Tell me about our itinerary. Will we live on the ship or will we find some planetary body to make our base, maybe our home? And where do we find three members of your race?"

"The Jimwor have colonized six bodies about the size of Earth," Worel answered. "We have thirty-five outposts, each with approximately one thousand inhabitants. And all are in this galaxy, in the habitable zone. That equates to over forty locations where we can find Jimwor crewmen.

When in Warp drive, our ship will travel at a maximum speed equivalent to approximately 10,000 times C. We can be anywhere in the habitable zone in less than ten Earth years. Eight Jimworl outposts are less than a year distant and one planetary body is only thirty days away."

Charlie met with Elon Musk. "Elon, I am going to build a space station. This station will be a prototype of a ship we will be sending to Mars in the near future. Our plan is to operate it for one year in low Earth orbit, testing and refining all of its systems. I have entered into one hundred contracts for the various assemblies and we will do final construction at my factory in Texas. We should be ready to fly in eighteen months. I want to hire you to lift her into space."

"Charlie, you know that my dream is to colonize Mars. My people and I have even designed and developed habitation structures for living and working there. We would be willing to lift it for half price if I can have some input into its design."

Charlie could not let Elon be involved in any part of the design of the spaceship. He would quickly realize that the 'station' was more than a mere prototype.

"No Elon, this will be my baby. I am sorry but all the design will be mine. We will be using Carbon nano technology and we can't afford to have outsiders involved in our proprietary processes. The entire design will be mine. We will share all we learn at the end of a year in orbit."

Elon knew that something was being left unsaid. But, in the end, he agreed to provide the heavy lift rocket. And a day was marked on the SpaceX calendar: "Lift to lower Earth orbit, Charlie Smith."

Worel divided the engineering drawings for the warp drive into five parts, and five separate shops were hired to produce a segment. With the work divided in this fashion, no one shop would know the purpose of the final assembly.

The interstellar navigation system, the artificial gravity system, the xenon plasma weapons system, the ion beam weapons system, and the nuclear reactor/electric power generation systems were engineered in a similar fashion and produced by many shops.