The Battle of Titan

by Sudipto Majumdar

  The atmosphere of Titan is extremely dense. Despite its gravity being only 14% of the gravity of earth, it has a denser atmosphere than earth. In fact the atmospheric pressure on Titan’s surface is 50% more than that of earth. The atmosphere is almost completely nitrogen, 98.4% to be exact, most of the rest is methane.

  It is these methane fog that permeates the entire moon, forming such a thick shroud that almost nothing can peer through it to have a look at the surface from orbit. If you need to survey the landscape below, the only way to do it is by the old fashioned way of flying over land.

  Fortunately the remote probe had already made detailed survey with photos and topographical survey. They had already identified the base location as well as the location of the nuclear reactor at the rim in a small niche close to the top of the caldera. Still the engineers weren’t fully satisfied till the shuttle made a low and slow flying pass over the site.

  The nuclear power plant installation went without any major unforeseen problems, and the teams from USS Friendship and Charles Martell descended to start construction of the habitats, which would be their homes.

  Progress was slow but steady initially as they had to bootstrap their operations. As soon as one habitat would come up, more people could descend to build as shelter space increased on surface. Outside exposure time was limited to 5 hours, although the suits were rated to last nearly 8 hours, as a measure of ample precaution.

  They needed the refuge of a habitat after every outside shift to recharge their suits and rest out of them. The nuclear power plant assembly and the first habitat hut had been tough on the assemblers, since they had to do it without a habitat, taking turns in resting and recharging out of the shuttle.

  The only hitch in their plans had been the unforeseen delay in the arrival of the Chinese ship. It was originally scheduled to arrive 24 hours after Charles Martell, running hard and burning more fuel.

  However somewhere in the last part of the journey, their mission control had calculated that the original run would leave Jiānjué dangerously low on fuel for the return journey, if it had to do more maneuvers on Titan, as they now feared due to the disappearance of the alien ship.

  The Chinese mission control had undertaken a last minute change in the flight plan of the ship. The maneuver was tricky, especially done as a last minute change on such a long journey. The Jiānjué was to use a powered reverse gravity assist maneuver to slow down using the gravity of Saturn.

  It is an old trick used by human space craft for 90 years, as far back as the Viking space probe in the 1970s. If you swung by a large body like Saturn with substantial gravity, behind the planet’s line of motion, you could steal some of its velocity.

  The loss of velocity for such a large body as Saturn was infinitesimal and could not even be measured, but by the laws of conservation of momentum, the gain in velocity for a small body like a space craft was huge.

  One could also use the reverse effect to slow down without burning fuel. Instead of passing from behind the line of motion of a body, if you passed in front of the body, you could impart a large part of the ship’s momentum to the body.

  By the same law of conservation of momentum, the large body sucked out a huge amount of velocity from the tiny space craft, without any measureable change in its on velocity due to its huge size.

  What the Jiānjué was trying was a variation of the technique called the ‘powered gravity assist’. Instead of simply coasting and let Saturn bleed your momentum, you also powered up the thrusters at a specific point in the flyby.

  The calculations were further complicated by the fact that you are decelerating and need to get the thrust just right to be captured into orbit and not dragged into the planet or thrown out of orbit.

  It took the Jiānjué two extra days to reach orbit around Titan. What irritated the US and the ESA-ISRO team further was that despite them uploading all the scans of Titan to Jiānjué, the Chinese insisted on doing their own scanning for 18 hours in orbit around Titan before they proceeded to begin launching their shuttles. It seemed that the Chinese did not trust the other two teams, which was not a good sign for the human mission.

  Chapter 21

  First Contact

  The human camp was a buzz of activity. The camp had not been fully deployed. Many of the habitat modules were yet to be unpacked and assembled. There was equipment to be unloaded and set up. There were million things to be done. This was not what was however creating the buzz.

  It was not even the fact that they were on the surface of Titan, first humans to do so in this surreal, beautiful yet deadly place. It is strange what human mind can get used to in a few hours. They casually passed by the ice lava now without giving it a glance, which just a few days ago they would look in amazement.

  What was creating a buzz was the upcoming prospect of First Contact! This is what science had been fantasizing for two hundred years. You meet up with the little green men, and you exchange greetings, and they say “We come in peace. Take me to your leader.” Well it may not turn out exactly that way, but any variation on that theme would be a most welcome outcome.

  This was going on in the mind of Capt. Alex Parkinson as he started out of the airlock of the hut that he was bunking in, towards the only habitat module that was fully functional in the camp yet. It was acting as their headquarters and the control room. It was the largest enclosed space they had yet. The other habitat modules were in various stages of assembly and would become functional in the next few days.

  The habitat modules themselves were a marvel of modern engineering. Alex did not understand how most of it worked, but knew that such a habitat would not have been possible even 20 years ago. Much of the credit for the habitats had to be given to ESA-ISRO missions to Mars.

  While NASA had also built habitats in Mars, it was nothing compared to the capability and sophistication of these modules. He should know, he had endured 21 days in the US habitat on Mars in the last NASA mission. These habitats were luxurious in comparison. It was almost bearable living in these for a long duration.

  While the US concentrated on making faster and stronger warships and the Chinese even more so, ESA-ISRO missions were all about living in space and on planets. They had concentrated on making it more comfortable and safe to live on planets, and Alex was now thankful they had done so.

  Most of the design for the habitats were taken from ESA-ISRO Mars habitats, but there had been certain modifications done specifically for this mission. The base of the habitats in Mars also had a set of metal rods, which would be sunk into the ground.

  The tips of those rods would then open up inside and provide a firm anchor for the relatively light habitat. This was done in Mars to provide protection against the occasional storms that rage on Mars. It had been field proven on Mars. The habitats had withstood many dust storms without getting blown over.

  This aspect of the habitat required modification here on Titan. The base rods had become thicker and longer and morphed into stilts. This was required because of the place they were building. In the middle of a cryo-volcano with ice lava flowing.

  There was no danger to the habitat from the lava itself, after all it was just ice. It was the lateral pressure the lava would put on the habitat that would be a problem. It could damage or literally wash away the habitat, so they had to put it on stilts, and let the lava flow underneath.

  There hadn’t been too many other fundamental modifications required. While the outside temperature on Titan was a lot lower than Mars, but due to the fact that they were building inside the caldera of a cryo-volcano, the ambient temperature was almost the same as Mars.

  If anything the temperature was a few degrees higher. The storms in Titan were slower but stronger than Mars owing to the thicker atmosphere. They were however inside a bowl shaped caldera, which protected it from the worst of Titan’s storms, but they had strengthened the stilts anyway.

  The air filter had to be designed specifically for Titan. While the habitats wer
e airtight, gas exchange between the outside and inside was inevitable through micro cracks and the airlock. Air needed to be filtered constantly to ensure no poisonous gasses lingered inside.

  Mars did have carbon mono-oxide in its atmosphere which was poisonous to humans, but it was not in such high concentration that a small leak inside would be immediately fatal. However Titan had a lethal cocktail of poisonous gasses in its atmosphere not least of which are cyanides, which are one of the fastest acting poisons. Air filters had been given special attention for this mission.

  Alex could see these Engineering minutiae at work as he passed engineers, technicians, scientist and soldiers all laboring to set up the camp and its supporting infrastructure. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate it, but right now there were more profound things on his mind. Like the future of humanity.

  More precisely what direction it would take after this First contact with aliens. Would it turn towards a glorious direction of accelerated development, or would it lead to a path of extinction? It wasn’t certain either way. What was certain was that the path would change, it could not stay on the same course humanity has been all these millennia.

  He wasn’t a hopeless romantic like the Greens, but he secretly hoped like most of humanity, that this encounter would do us some good. It was his job however to be prepared for the worst. That is the reason he was worried.

  There were some serious bleeding heart liberals in the camp, especially amongst the Europeans, who didn’t believe in the smallest modicum of prudence. Every militarily prudent step to them looked like an affront or an insult to the aliens, arguing sometimes that they may take it as a sign of aggression.

  Thankfully the pragmatic Asian kept them in check. Basically the Chinese who were bordering on the belligerent when it came to their attitude towards the aliens, and the Indians whose voices the Europeans were forced to listen being partners in this venture.

  Still decisions taken under the liberal camp’ influence could turn out to be big strategic or tactical mistakes and endanger the entire mission. He was worried about that and was determined to fight it tooth and nail.

  Once the situation had changed, with the disappearance of the alien ship and confirmation of the alien habitat below, it was decided to make first contact with them on the ground. It had been part of the mission planning process to land on Titan and make contact on ground. It had just not been the most likely situation.

  Even if they had to make First contact on the surface, it was thought there would be the alien ship above assisting in the process. Those assumptions have now been thrown out of the airlock now. Surface was going to be their only means of contact.

  Mission control for each of the three teams had initially gone into a tizzy and then into a huddle figuring out what modification need to be made to the first contact protocol. Then they had debated and argued, as is usual amongst nations.

  Thankfully there was not much time available to make a decision, so the arguments had not gone on interminably. In the end it was decided that all the three teams would contact jointly as one human delegation. According to Alex this was one of those rare sensible decisions that politicians took.

  As per protocol decided by earth, they were to approach for first contact only after all three teams had made landing, and as soon as possible after the last team had made landing. The Chinese had been delayed as it is in reaching Titan, and to add to that they had rescanned the entire surface for 18 hours collecting the same data which USS Friendship or Charles Martell could have provided.

  Somehow the Chinese carried their mistrusts all the way to Titan. It had been almost 6 hours since the landing of the Chinese team. By now they would be expected to have reasonably settled down. They shouldn’t need as much time to settle down anyway, since the other two teams had already set up much of the common infrastructure that would be needed.

  Alex entered the habitat to notice that everyone except the Chinese, who probably were still scrambling to set up, were here. There was his NASA leadership team of 5 people, which was essentially a US team consisting of himself as the leader.

  Dr. Jorge Sterner the famous Astrophysicist and discoverer of the Shaitans, his wife and considered one of the leading experts in Shaitans and their psychology Dr. Mischa Sterner, next to her was the co-discoverer of the Shaitans and uber-geek of their team Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan.

  When the time came to communicate with the aliens, it would be his computer skill that would be required the most. The aliens are unlikely to be speaking English. The last person of their team was Dr. Yusuke Matsumoto, a planetary geologist and NASA’s leading expert on Titan.

  The ESA-ISRO team was led by a middle aged lady talking to Ramesh and having a heated conversation. She was Marie de la Fontaine, a French politician and an obnoxious character. She was the only politician in the entire human contingent and the least popular person in the camp, which was an amazing trait for a politician, since they have to get elected.

  The second most senior leader of the team was Major Hideo Takamori. In a way he was here because of political considerations, but he was the most respected person in the human camp by everyone, himself included. When you needed to talk to someone in authority in the ESA-ISRO team, you went to Major Takamori not la Fontaine.

  The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) were usually allied with NASA and contributed to NASA programs. The Zeus program had been fully funded and operated by the US themselves.

  So while JAXA was collaborating with NASA on many other space programs, they were missing a piece of the action on Mars in particular and many new spacecraft and habitat manufacturing technologies in general. This was unacceptable to the large corporations of Japan eyeing lucrative future space construction contracts and their technological spinoffs on earth.

  Hence for the last five years JAXA had been contributing heavily to ESA-ISRO Mars effort. The two perpetually underfunded agencies had welcomed JAXA with open arms. The funding and the additional research efforts contributed heavily to the large strides the ESA-ISRO team had made in catching up with NASA on many fronts.

  Unfortunately when it came to representation of Japanese personnel in the team, it had already been too late. The current ESA-ISRO team had been selected and training for almost six years. Each person had a backup, and the backups had their own backups, all of whom had been training for six years.

  Japanese personnel would be accommodated for sure in future missions, but for this mission it was too late. After a lot of backroom maneuvering, the politicians came to a compromise as usual. They would accommodate one extra passenger on board Charles Martell who would be the head of the military contingent when not on board the ship, because on ship the captain is always the leader.

  On ground the civilian head was la Fontaine and Takamori reported to her, but he was the head of the soldiers in the contingent. Typical as you would expect politician deals to be, no one considered the command structure. How would a foreign commander be expected to lead an essentially European fighting unit?

  To Major Takamori’s credit he has slipped into the command role very well and is unconditionally accepted by all his immediate officers. As a military man himself, Alex knew that was no mean feat to achieve in a shortened period of training time that Takamori had. He must be a very good leader and officer.

  Next to Takamori sat the hottest woman he had ever seen and the coldest woman he had ever met. It wasn’t like Dr. Violet Manning said anything wrong or mean, it was what she didn’t say… not a single word of social niceties. Even her hellos were unwelcoming.

  Her mannerisms with men who were not even trying to come on to her, was screaming ‘don’t even come near’ in that clipped patrician British accent of hers. It was a pity Alex thought, but so be it. She was however not just a leading micro-biologist, but one of the leading experts on extremophiles, which made her the closest to an alien biology expert as one could get.

  Next to her was Mr. Sarvesh Gupta a material sciences
genius who had designed and developed many of the materials out of which the implements they were currently using were made. He was the silent types, and one rarely heard him speak. He was supposed to be the inveterate tinkerer types, who made up for his reticence with his penchant for coming up with new inventions.

  It seems he was already working on a problem the mission planners had not anticipated, that of micro punctures they have been noticing in many environmental suits. At 57 he was the oldest person in the camp, well above the mean age of even the leadership group. He wasn’t even supposed to be in space let alone here on this mission. His being here was one of those amazing turns of fate that makes interesting coffee time conversation.

  The last person of group was his most favorite person of the group. Actually she was probably his most favorite person on Titan, and then maybe a bit more. She was in every way as alluring to Alex as Violet Manning was not.

  She talked hard and straight like a soldier that she was, yet there was something feminine about it. She would say things in a matter of fact manner, and yet they would sound so enticing to him that he just wanted to carry on the conversation. Lt. Leanna McGraw was everything that her compatriot Dr. Violet Manning wasn’t.

  Leanna was fair looking with a pleasant face, average height and a fit body as any soldier. She had a prominent middle class Scottish accent, indicating she came from a fairly ordinary background, but to Alex she was an extra-ordinary woman.

  Just as he had finished eyeing the entire group and nodding his greetings, the Chinese team entered one by one through the airlock. The Chinese leadership team consisted of only two people. Major Dewei Cheng and his deputy Lt. Cuifen Ma both of the PLA.

  The reason why the Chinese had only two people in the leadership team was that they were the smallest team and the entire team was military, so they had a strict and well set chain of command. They didn’t need democratic consultations to come to a decision.