The Journey of Atlantis_Leaving Home

by jeff knoblauch

  “Thank you, Brad. I trust that you’ll continue to minimize the injuries to civilians while maximizing safety for your troops,” Hari stated.

  “It’s always a high priority in all of our mission,” the general replied, hiding his annoyance that he had to state the obvious.

  “If you’re ready, Cheng, we’ll hear from Logistics next,” Hari prompted.

  “Thank you very much, Hari,” Cheng Deng replied enthusiastically. Dr. Cheng Deng was a brilliant engineer by trade, but what he excelled in was logistics. He was a wizard when it came to getting things done. A master of handling people, timetables, and resources, Dr. Deng always found a way to maximize their potential and get a job completed on time. There was no one quite like him. He was originally asked to be chairman but declined because he thought his talents would be better utilized without all the extra politicking.

  “Good afternoon. Logistics continues ramping up to keep up with the high demand on resources. It has been difficult to keep schedules for raw materials, resources, and goods. There have been periodic attacks on supply convoys, and increased security has been effective. Spaceports are located south of Scottsdale Arizona, outside of Houston Texas, and the largest one takes up half of the western side of Florida as well as the Cape Canaveral facilities. Traditional chemical rockets are still used to shuttle passengers and some cargo, and three maglev launch platforms have also been completed at these facilities. Tremendous resources will be saved and increase the turnaround for launches by approximately a hundredfold. The maglev launchers will accommodate two types of transport vessels. Cargo ships will be designed to be remotely controlled, so they’ll be able to handle accelerations that humans cannot tolerate. Those ships will not use as much fuel to get to the construction site. Passenger ships are necessarily designed to accommodate humans and other delicate cargo that cannot take the Gs like cargo ships. They’ll use more fuel to reach the construction site because of slower takeoffs. The passenger ships would also be piloted by humans although they can be remotely piloted if desired. Logistics on this scale have never been done before, let alone in space. Now, dozens of vehicles are up at any one time, and traffic control is paramount. More spaceports are being built. Three in China, one in India, one in the Philippines, one in South Africa, two in Brazil, and two in Russia. To make our deadline and finish the Project, a launch will have to occur about every few minutes, to bring up all the material, support, and passengers to the construction site. We will get there one day at a time. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Cheng, you know that we all depend on you,” the chairman said. “And now we will hear from Construction. Malcolm, are you ready?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I’m ready,” Malcolm replied. Dr. Malcolm Montgomery still struggled sometimes to grasp the circumstances that he had found himself in. He tried to be constantly busy, so he did not have to dwell on the fact that a neutron star was barreling down like one of the horses of the apocalypse. Fortunately, the position he was in now kept him busy. He just had to do something about sleeping without the nightmares. “Good afternoon, all. Sit back and relax. I hope you all had a bathroom break recently because I have a lot to report. Manufacturing and construction go hand in hand, and dealing with both is a big task. Many specialized manufacturing and fabrication plants have sprung up all over the world in the last five or six years.

  “The ship was designed to be efficient for construction, give us optimum area for living space, and still get us where we’re going in one piece. That’s why the ship is cylindrical. Everything was designed to be modular. We’ll manufacture the modules and then put them together to make a ship approximately sixty-five miles long. Each ring will be one mile long and two and a half miles in diameter. The rings are made up of small interlocking pieces made in the fab plants and transported to the construction site. Most of the fab plants will spend decades on individual pieces. We are trying to automate the process wherever possible.

  “One of the unanticipated problems we faced initially was floating space junk. Thanks to a formerly secret American weapon, laser cannons have been mounted on top of the orbital facilities that oversee construction. They will be used for both neutralizing space junk and any attackers that might harm the Project, and are manned by Security. Working in space is a lot safer now, but hiring the sheer number of people needed for a project like this is daunting. Fatalities occur no matter how safe you make it. Space is dangerous. The learning curve for safely working in space is steep.

  “Construction and Logistics are slowly getting in step. Things are becoming more streamlined and efficient all the time. Unfortunately, we’re all learning as we go along. Security must oversee loading and unloading of materials since someone tried to sneak in an old-style nuclear bomb. They found it in one of the shipment containers. It was just dumb luck that it was leaking radiation and was picked up by the scanners. Stringent security checks and random interrogations are now normal. Security caught eight saboteurs on the platforms in the last twelve months. They were interrogated, judged to be guilty, a sample of the DNA taken, and then were jettisoned on a re-entry trajectory.

  “The whole construction site is situated in a stationary orbit on the sun side of the Earth. The project is safer from any gamma effects the neutron star might belch out or incoming projectiles like meteors and such. We may be susceptible to the sun’s moods, but it is the star we are the most familiar with. Earth also has early warning satellites and experts on solar weather to advise us of any problems. We have two rings completed and assembled. Ion drives are mounted on the outside to provide spin, and pressurizing can begin. As new rings come online, they will be pressurized then opened up and added. We need to find ways of moving faster. It has been difficult to make deadlines. One of our R and D plants is working on an autonomously trained robot that performs specific tasks, like assembling the rings. I hear they are nearly there. If we could have twenty-four-hour construction, we could move along nicely. As it is, workers can only work for four or five hours at a time before having to come in for refueling and recharging of their suits. It takes too long for us to go in and out of the airlocks. We’re barely making deadlines, and it’s just going to get harder as we go along. So, if anybody has a magic rabbit to pull out of your hat, I’ll take one now please!”

  “Thank you, Malcolm. I hope that the human race can pull the rabbit out of the hat,” Hari replied. “And now, I will update you on the P.A.M. (Plants, Animals, Minerals) section. All departments are continuing to adjust to the sheer scale of our responsibilities. It’s been a challenge, to say the least. We have worldwide projects in botany, biology (land, air, and sea), geology, zoology, and linguists to round it out. A good bit of support from security is needed to go to all these places and environments. As you know, my section is tasked with obtaining genetic samples of all plants and animals on the planet. All of them need to be stored, cataloged, and maintained until departure. We also need to collect and store samples of all the different minerals as well. The more useful the mineral, the more we will need to carry with us. It will be difficult since we must balance our payload. We have facilities all over the seven continents. One of our biggest hurdles has been the longevity of the Project itself. The Project will span many lifetimes of nearly all species. A good number of them do not do well in captivity. Plants can be carried as seeds. Some animals can be surrogate mothers for other species, but in the end, it will not be enough. We’re working on a good failsafe way of growing the fetus in vivo, outside of the womb, completely artificially. Even so, what will we do with the largest animals like whales and elephants? It’s a problem we need to solve. We may have to end up choosing a suitable environment that they can live in (an ocean for instance) and grow them right there in their new environment. We are developing protocols for these contingencies. It is imperative that we take all the genetic material that we can carry since we do not know what will thrive and what will not in our new home. We may get lucky, and there may be enough indigenous
life that can sustain us, but I would not bet the human race on it.

  “In the mineral department, it’s impossible to know how much our final payload will need to be. There are many unknowns. Some minerals are critical to the mission, both current and ongoing, like precious metals for electronics and construction. Then there are minerals that are necessary for life, like salt. Some minerals are less important. But you don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere and realize that OOPS, we forgot to pack X! We will no doubt invent things along the way for convenience or survival, and we want to make sure that the FAB plants have the raw materials. Once we arrive, the geologists will survey the planet and inventory the resources. The planet may be rich in edible proteins, which would make long-term survival possible. We won’t know that until we get there. We must come prepared for anything.

  “Because the U.S. and some other countries use widespread GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in their food supply, we will not be sampling much. However, the knowledge gained from modifying the genetic makeup of plants to be more resistant, hardier, or grow faster could come in handy on another planet. Fortunately, there are seed banks all over the world that will give us a head start. Norway’s seed bank alone has over 700,000 types of seeds, and there are many others. We’re determining the location of all the banks big and small and cross-referencing samples. We’re also getting started with animals from all over the world’s zoos to jump start sample collection.”

  Samantha asked, “how will we ever cram that much biological material, plus minerals into ANY sized ship, Hari?’

  “I’m glad you asked that Sam,” Hari replied, amused. We’re still working that one out. We need a shrink ray or something, I think. Seriously, we have about fifty or sixty years to develop some technology or stratagem. But until then, we need to keep making our collections and sampling. There are billions of samples we need to obtain, and you can’t do it at the last minute! Well, let’s break for today and reconvene tomorrow morning. Thank you all for your thoughts today.”

  Hari strolled over to Samantha and waited patiently for her conversation with the general to finish. “Hey Sam, you want to get a bite?”

  “Sure, is this a dinner kind of bite, or the coffee and cake kind of bite?” she inquired.

  “Oh, definitely a dinner kind of bite. I’m famished,” Hari replied.

  “Good, because I’m starving as well. What did you have in mind?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t get the chance to have sushi much. Always on the go, if you know what I mean. I’m doing good to eat anything during the day,” Hari lamented.

  “Yes, I do know what you mean,” Samantha said. “The demands on us are very high. People often think that we just sit around and pontificate, but that is far from the truth.”

  “It’s more like being the manager of a company that has about four billion unhappy employees. I talk to heads of state even, and I can tell you, that the Project is not always looked on with favor,” Hari said.

  Samantha was incredulous. “But they must know that the Earth is finished. To drag their heels and interfere with our schedules seems like lunacy. Do they think that they will somehow live through this event?”

  “Mostly, it’s their religions that tell them that it is the will of Allah or the will of God. It’s difficult to sway religious beliefs,” Hari replied.

  “Well, let’s not stand here any longer, point me to that sushi place, and we can continue this discussion later, I’m starving!” Samantha implored.

  “Fine with me,” Hari agreed. They walked out and down the street to a little place that Hari knew. He had not seen Sam in quite a while. Their paths just didn’t intersect, except at these meetings. He was quite fond of her, and he thought that it was reciprocated. He hoped that a nice dinner and good conversation was not all that would happen tonight.

  The next morning, Hari, having a little extra spring in his step (he hoped Samantha did too), called the meeting to order. “Good morning to everyone. After we finish with the reports, we can break up into individual meetings and discussions using the assigned offices outside this conference room and to the right and left. So, if you’re ready Raj, we’ll continue with Resources.”

  “Thanks, Hari,” Rajesh Mahmud replied. Raj, as his friends called him, was a scrounger from way back. Growing up in the backwaters of India, you had to be a good scrounger just to get by. He was quite clever and mechanically inclined. He managed to arrange a loan for a year in college, thinking he would scrounge up the rest. One of his teachers noticed how bright he was, and spoke on his behalf for a big scholarship. It was a full ride which also paid his first-year loan as well. He excelled in geology and mining and ended up with a Ph.D. in Mining and Earth Systems Engineering from the University of Calcutta. He helped reform many mining practices in India and abroad. He also understood the employers’ need to spend less on these reforms. He found ways to make those reforms and do it in the way that employers could swallow. In this way, he became known as a champion of both the workers in the mines and the employers.

  “Hello again everyone,” Raj announced. “The need for raw materials is beginning to outpace our ability to drag them out of the ground. The mining facilities that were already present were all expanded where possible. There were a few secret mining facilities that have also been ramped up. We are pressing Logistics to deliver the product. I’m working with Logistics and Security to streamline the process of getting the product out of the ground and getting it to the manufacturing and FAB plants for production while keeping our workers safe. The lifting of previous environmental restrictions is helpful. We still try not to pollute the water or the air when we can. New techniques and technologies are being developed to improve turnaround. One possibility that we are ready to try involves using the cargo launch vehicles. We would bring the product to the nearest spaceport and launch the cargo vessel with the product into a very low Earth orbit. The cargo would then land at another spaceport, be offloaded, and the cargo transported to a nearby facility. With the building of more spaceports, this technique will be more efficient. This can be used to help catch up on schedules or for running urgent materials."

  “Sabotage and attacks on mining and facility camps are going down since Security has stepped up its presence. We have mounted some lower watt laser cannons at high-security facilities as well as land mines and booby traps to deter people from sneaking into the compounds. We expect this kind of problem to escalate, how quickly we do not know. Security expects that new protocols, technology, and weapons will be needed as time goes by.”

  “On the manufacturing front, large complexes all around the world are being converted to FAB plants. FAB plants are manufacturing plants that utilize what was originally called 3D printers. The technology has been enhanced by vastly increasing the throughput, and is also able to utilize a large array of materials. Because of this evolution, people started calling them fabricators. Fabricators can use materials ranging from plastic, metal, and glass to concrete, electronic circuits, and human tissue. They use much less energy and output less pollution. We are looking to improve them further to be able to utilize more and more raw material. If we could cut out the middleman by just feeding in the ore, sand, or metal directly into the device, instead of having to create the printing material or substrate first, this would greatly streamline production and manufacturing. We have many people working in this area. We know that the manufacturing step is the rate-limiting step. So, any improvements we can make there, the more we can speed up the Project.”

  “Thank you, Raj,” said the chairman. “We all know that you are doing your best. I hope some of the technology your section is working on pays off. It’s very exciting stuff. Now, if you’re ready, Admiral, we will hear from the Navy.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” said Admiral Montgomery Amberson. Admiral Amberson was appointed as the leader of the first space Navy about five years ago. “Good morning,” said the admiral. “First, I just want to personally thank
each one of you for all of the hard work that you do every day. All that miracle work goes into making my ultimate responsibilities possible. All right then, I’d like to start off by saying that the Navy is in dire need of pilots. We’re doing well with captains and crew of ocean-going transportation, but space pilots are a different story! We need pilots in all phases of the Project. Fighter pilots from all over the world have been our best candidates, which has left a bit of a vacuum for the Air Force. Manufacturing has been busy making more cargo, and some passenger vehicles. They are also making our test vehicles and probes that we hope will make the difference in our mission.

  “We’re directing other areas to bring up new technologies for propulsion and protection of the ship itself. The Project is constructing rings without regard to how we are going to push the ship down the road right now. We know we will come up with something later. That later may come sooner than we think, thanks to some secret technology that came from a country I can’t name, from a source I can’t name either. Protection of the ship will come in the form of layers of radiation slowing and stopping materials. The parts that make up the rings have in them about an inch of lead and layers of a hydrocarbon-rich polymer that will also slow things down. There’s also a layer of material that is a liquid until exposed to air or vacuum. When there is a puncture say, from a micrometeorite, the air rushing out will solidify the material and seal the breach in seconds. And finally, the design will include a jacket of water that will be used in the recycling of water waste for our passengers. It is the best protection we can come up with. That amounts to about a 99% reduction in all sources of radiation that we can expect to experience in the intra and interstellar space. Even so, the longer we are out there, the more radiation will take its toll on our precious cargo. Some materials are very sensitive to radiation, and they may not survive the trip. So, the quicker we can get where we’re going the better.”