Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe

by Fabricio Simoes

  The countdown continued, the gravity around the ship increased, and, a few minutes later, the wormhole would be created. While Frank and Russell attempted to save the lives of those on board, Allison started to worry about the data. It would be such a shame, after witnessing and discovering so much, to not make it home to share all of it with the world.

  The light began to become distorted. All they could see through the window was a huge blur. The green light on the accelerator dashboard lit up. They had jumped again. This time, they didn’t need to check any of the images. It was obvious that they had successfully jumped. The surroundings visible through the ship’s windows were completely different from their previous location. The acceleration that they had felt before, a product of the gravity exerted by the black hole, had disappeared. Everything was dark. There wasn’t anything outside, not even a star. Nothing but full and absolute darkness.

  They all experienced a feeling of relief.

  Then, the squeaking noise came back, reverberating inside the ship. The sound of vibrating metal told them that something had gone wrong on the exterior of the Orion-II... and they couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  Image 10 – Orion-II confronting a black hole.

  (credits and details on the final page)

  Chapter 12

  “We have to figure out what’s wrong with the ship. We can’t jump again until we know what happened,” said Russell to Frank.

  “Okay, here’s our situation: we escaped from a huge black hole, which might be at the center of a galaxy. And, although we were able to escape, we sped up a lot while we were there, and we’ve continued at that speed until now, even if we might not be able to perceive it. That means that performing another jump could possibly take us to another, even more bizarre place. And, to make matters worse, we only have enough energy left for four more jumps. If we assume that we have a 50% chance of jumping successfully, that’s only two actual jumps. That’s it.”

  Russell and Allison looked at each other as if bored with Frank’s speech.

  “And as if that weren’t enough,” he continued, “we’re apparently, and literally, in the middle of nowhere. If you look out the window, the only thing you can see is a galaxy on the horizon, who knows how many light years away from Earth. We’re not even in a galaxy; we’re in the middle of a void, far away from any star or planet. We won’t be able to capture any solar energy here, which means we only have eight more hours before the Orion-II’s systems run out of power and shut down.”

  “And don’t forget that there’s something loose on the outside of the ship that we need to fix,” added Russell, smiling.

  “Yeah, that, too. We have to fix the ship. It’s as if we were in a tiny boat, in the middle of the ocean, with no light at all, not even from the stars, with no waves, no form of communication, and no map! We’re...”

  “Frank, calm down,” said Allison, intervening and putting an end to her colleague’s panic attack. “Based on similarities with the database, the computer has identified the system we can see through the window as one of 23 possible galaxies. The closest one to Earth is about five million light years away. In other words, we’re really far away, but we may know where we are.”

  “How is that supposed to calm me down?”

  “Let me finish,” she continued. “I think that we’re currently traveling in the opposite direction than before. On this “other side” of space, we’re moving away from the black hole, so, the next jump could possibly put us somewhere safer than where we just came from.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Russell.

  “I think that black hole, apparently at center of the galaxy we were just in, is the same black hole at the center of that galaxy we can see through the window. And given the data I’ve been able to collect so far, we’re moving away from it. But it’s just a guess,” Allison responded.

  Frank seemed to calm down. Russell listened attentively to Allison.

  “Let’s see what’s going on outside the ship and fix whatever needs to be fixed. Then, we’ll start up the accelerators and create a new wormhole, which will take us back to where we were before, close to the black hole. With any luck, we’ll be far away enough to activate the engines and steer the ship somewhere else. I can compare the position of the stars and get us close to our arrival point, where we can activate the accelerator again and jump back to Draco. Finally, in Draco, we’ll correct our position, activate the accelerator once more, and return to our solar system,” said the astronomer in closing.

  “Sounds like a good plan.” said Russell. “But we’ll have to get really lucky. So far, we haven’t been able to pinpoint our location in space and thus jump back to the place we came from even once. With this plan, we have to assume that the next three jumps would be different.”

  “We also have to assume that the damage to the exterior of the ship isn’t anything serious, nothing that could compromise the structure,” Frank added.

  “Exactly. But the only thing that really worries me,” continued Russell, “is that we need three jumps for this plan to work. We have enough energy for four, but we know that half of those are going to fail... and that only leaves us with enough energy for two actual jumps, as Frank said earlier.”

  “We have to try,” she insisted.

  At that moment, once more, a loud creak echoed inside the capsule. It wasn’t a random sound; it was heard at regular intervals. Russell was convinced that something was loose and exposed on the outside of the ship.

  After discussing the problem, Frank started to put on his suit for an EVA (extra vehicular activity). Russell helped him get dressed. Allison also started putting her suit on.

  Before opening the door, Frank checked the radiation levels. They were at the high end of the scale. He calculated that he would only be able to stay exposed to that space radiation for fifteen minutes at the most before his suit would start to break down.

  By that point, Russell was dressed, as well. He wouldn’t exit the ship, but he needed to be in his suit for when Frank left, which would cause the capsule to become depressurized.

  And so they opened the door. Frank quickly threw himself out of the ship. As the door closed, Allison secured him to the side with cables.

  The door closed and the interior pressure returned to standard levels. Frank was so rushed to get out of the ship as fast as possible and keep the Orion-II’s interior pressure from decreasing too much that he let go and started floating through the empty space around him.

  For a few seconds, Frank found himself adrift. He was totally free in space, spinning around out of control. He watched the Orion-II get farther and farther away, before he finally felt a firm jolt. Fortunately, he was tied to the ship. With his left arm, Frank grabbed the cable and started to pull, gradually bringing himself closer to the ship.

  Both Russell as Allison watched and spoke with their colleague through the ship’s cameras and radio. They were surprised that Frank had let go of the ship and, for a few seconds, floated freely through space.

  Outside, the lone astronaut climbed toward the top of the Orion-II. He stopped for a moment to observe his surroundings. There was nothing but complete and utter darkness. The only reason he was able to see the ship was because its external lights were turned on. There weren’t even any stars in the space around him. However, right past that space was the spectacular image of a giant galaxy which covered the scenery. It looked like a painting, in which the immense and empty space was only there to highlight the beauty of that view.

  Frank paused for a second and turned his head. He spent a few moments observing the richness of that view, so splendid and fascinating.

  He reached the top of the Orion-II, took one look at the casing, and saw that it was the worst-case scenario. Not only had the fragment that had crashed into the ship in Draco created a small hole in the upper part of the body of the ship; it had also caused one of the three main parachutes, designed to open during landing, to come loose.

 
; By the time they had arrived near the black hole, before jumping to their current location, the parachute had unrolled even more. The acceleration caused by the gravity of that singularity had caused the parachute to open up, so much so that it had gotten caught on one of the rings.

  Frank analyzed the situation. First of all, he would need to free the part of the parachute that was trapped in the ring. However, in order to reach that spot, he would have to detach himself from the cable that secured him to the Orion-II and throw himself toward the part of the structure where the parachute was stuck.

  “You can do it! You can do it!” the astronaut repeated to himself. Slowly, with his right hand, he unfastened his safety cable and attached it to the body of the ship. By doing that, he was able to get as close as possible to the point he would jump from. The ring, which encircled the ship, was about 50 feet away. It would be a long jump. He would have to line up perfectly before pushing off, because if he missed the target and went through the ring, he would end up floating in space, this time without a cable to keep him latched onto the ship.

  “What are you doing, Frank? How’s it going out there? We can’t see you,” said Russell.

  “Hold on a second,” Frank responded.

  The engineer took a deep breath and pushed off. In an instant, he was floating in space. As he got closer to his target, he stretched out his arms, finally reaching the ring. He grabbed on to the metallic structure with one hand, then immediately removed the part of the parachute stuck on the ring. “Okay, getting back is going to be easier,” he repeated to himself.

  Frank wouldn’t need to jump again to get back to the main module of the Orion-II. He was now holding onto the parachute, which was attached to the ship. So, by pulling on the parachute, he was able to use it as a guide to get back, which made for a much less risky situation. He was sweating, in part because of the intense radiation around him, and in part because of the stress of that moment. His breathing was rapid, as was his heartbeat.

  “Guys, things look ugly up here. Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first?” he asked.

  “What was it, Frank? How’s the ship?”

  “The good news is that it’s easy to fix. I had a little adventure, but I was already able to free one part. Now, I just have to remove a few screws and the loose piece will no longer be attached to the ship. I’m doing that right now.”

  “So, what’s the bad news?” asked Allison.

  “The loose piece is one of our reentry parachutes... one of the main parachutes,” he responded.

  Russell stared at Allison. They knew they were in serious trouble now. Even if they were able to get back to where they started, they wouldn’t be able to get to Earth.

  “Frank, you only have two more minutes,” said Russell, “you have to hurry.”

  “I’m almost done.”

  “Frank, just one minute left!”

  “I’m going,” he said. “I’m coming down right now. Allison, can you open the door?”

  Allison quickly unlocked the latches and opened the door to the spacecraft.

  “Congratulations, Frank! You’re officially the first human to walk through space millions of light years away from Earth,” said Allison, trying to calm the tension.

  She helped Frank get back inside the capsule. After they closed the door and the pressure returned to normal, they all started to take off their suits.

  Russell and Allison notice that Frank looks tired, sweaty, and out of breath. He takes a sip of water and a deep breath, trying to calm down. Russell asks if he’s okay, and the engineer nods. He then tells his colleagues in detail about everything that happened.

  Russell goes back to the discussion of what they should do next, putting everyone on the same page:

  “Okay, even if we were able to successfully follow through with Allison’s plan, we wouldn’t be able to reenter. The ship has three parachutes, but we’ve lost one of those. There’s no way to reenter with just two parachutes, not to mention the fact that there are probably other defects that could keep those two from opening.”

  After a brief moment of silence, Frank checked the computer and told Russell that he could now initiate the jump sequence. He did so immediately, and the countdown from ten began again.

  “If we get lucky and manage to return to our solar system, we’ll have to travel to the Space Station. There’s no way for us to reenter. We’ll have to go to the station and then wait for NASA to come rescue us,” Russell informed his colleagues.

  “That makes sense,” said Frank. “There’s an Orion mounted on the ISS in case of an eventual evacuation. We could use that to get back.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. But the people at NASA are the ones who will decide what we have to do. The lesser of two evils, being at the space station would be like being at home,” said the commander.

  Once again, silence took hold of the ship. They all counted down to the jump. Russell pensively looked out onto the horizon. He knew without a doubt that the challenge he faced in that moment was the greatest of his career up until that point. In fact, it was the greatest challenge any astronaut had ever faced.

  He knew that he had been chosen for this mission precisely because of his ability to find solutions to unexpected problems, such as being hit by an asteroid fragment. Russell was fast enough to configure the ship’s automatic stabilization feature before losing consciousness when it began to spin. Now, he would have to find a way to get the ship back to Earth. He would have to bring his crew home alive.

  The team on the Orion-II experienced a number of emotions: Allison was concerned about losing the huge amount of data and images that they had captured; for her, “not going back” wasn’t an option.

  Frank worried about his family, but the possibility that he might not be able to tell his children about this adventure and the marvelous things he had seen, or that he might simply never see them again, was something he avoided even thinking about.

  Russell, in turn, felt pressured to find a way to get back. The experienced pilot wasn’t worried about what science would miss out on, or about the family members that he would leave behind—though he didn’t have many—but he was concerned with finishing the mission successfully and bringing everyone home alive.

  Russell had spent two years aboard the Orion on the first mission to Mars. Unlike this one, that mission had involved a long trip through space. It had taken them six months to get to the red planet, after which they had spent two months on the ground, and then another nine months traveling home.

  The Mars mission, though complex, had been much more predictable. He was only required to make minor adjustments to the route. The flight plan for the entire period had already been mapped out. He hardly had to improvise, and he hardly encountered any uncertainties. Additionally, the Orion that traveled to Mars had included the Habitat Module, where the crew was able to enjoy a certain degree of privacy and had more space to move around. The trip to Mars hadn’t involved any black holes, or any wormholes, and he hadn’t had to fix any problems that NASA hadn’t even imagined; plus, there had been constant and active communication between him and the control center in Houston, a luxury that they had to go without on their current mission.

  Nonetheless, Russell’s crew included two of the most outstanding present-day astronomers. They made a perfect team for this challenge: the most experienced pilot, who had also commanded the first human mission to another planet; the most knowledgeable astronomer regarding not only the technology on the ship, but also the majority of the regions they were traveling through; the most technologically advanced ship known to humanity; and, finally, Frank, who wasn’t the best at anything, but that very aspect made him special, and helped to give the mission a human component.

  “Thirty seconds until the jump. Prepare yourselves, because depending on where we end up, I may have to turn on the engines,” Russell alerted them, fearing that they might find themselves facing the same black hole they had seen earlier.<
br />
  Those ten minutes flew by this time. It was “ten minutes of reflection,” where the only thing they could do was wait for the countdown to be over and for the ship to jump through the wormhole. By now, they had gotten used to the process.

  This time, there was no light distortion on the horizon, because they couldn’t see a single star outside of the ship.

  Suddenly, the green light on the accelerator dashboard lights up. The immense black hole appears before them again. A strong acceleration takes over the ship. The jump was successful... but they were back near the same black hole as before.

  Image 11 – Astronaut Frank Wood on his EVA to remove the damaged parachute from the Orion-II. Unidentified galaxy in the background.

  (credits and details on the final page)

  Chapter 13

  “We’re back with the black hole,” said Allison. “I’m collecting data to see exactly where we are, and where we need to go.”

  The crew was tired. The initial plan for this mission had been simple: travel far away from Earth, jump to the Draco Galaxy, send out the probe, capture data, jump back to the solar system, and travel back to Earth. But they had deviated from that plan long ago. Each crew member’s talents, as well as their ability to find real-time solution to real-time problems, were now crucial for a successful return.

  “Allison, how much longer?” asked Russell.

  “Twelve minutes, maybe less...”

  The acceleration was much stronger than before. It was clear that they were now closer to the black hole than the first time they had arrived there, contrary to what Allison had predicted. They had no idea how fast they were moving, or if there were other objects, maybe asteroids or even planets, also being pulled by the singularity.

  Russell checked the cameras, trying to identify any possible threats, while Allison cross-referenced screens and screens of data.

  Frank, anticipating the worst, decided to write a final entry in his diary while Allison continued to calculate their exact position: