by Paul Reaver
“Well, I guess it’s not only a good thing we brought these drones, but also that we brought extra ones,” she said. “I guess there’s a little bitty drone crater on the Moon now. Bob, please release drone two.”
“Drone released,” said Bob.
Joanne maneuvered the second drone to the place in front of the ship where the previous drone had been staged. “Drone two set to use the Sun’s gravity; drone gravity setting is 0.000002,” she said. “This extremely low setting should prevent any problems.”
“Roger,” said Bob.
“Engaging drone gravity engine,” said Joanne, as before. Once again, as she pressed the appropriate button on the console she watched the drone. After she pressed the button, it sat there, unmoving. She knew that wasn’t true. If there were any gravity force applied to the drone, it would move. It had to move. Apparently, the drone was moving so slowly so as not to be noticeable. “Increasing drone gravity setting to 0.00002.”
“Roger on drone gravity setting changed to 0.00002,” said Bob.
Joanne pressed the appropriate button to initiate the change, never taking her eyes off the drone. Now it noticeably moved, but slowly, about the speed a person would leisurely walk. Joanne sighed. Finally! The drone was moving, but they hadn’t lost it. Now she had a good starting point. She had installed controls on the console so that she could set the gravity force to increase automatically. She could also set how fast the increased force was applied. She prepared to activate the automatic control. “Switching drone gravity force to automatic. Initial force 0.00002, maximum 0.0001, increment .00005, interval 5 seconds,” she said.
“Confirmed on force and switch to automatic control for the drone,” said Bob.
She activated the automatic procedure and watched the speed and acceleration gauges. The drone began to move out of sight, moving continuously faster. Soon it was no longer visible. They had to determine what the ideal strength of the gravity force needed to be. A continuous acceleration was the goal, providing they would reach the speed they wanted, which was at a maximum of 100,000 kilometers per hour. The assumption was that the journey was long enough to reach that speed at a continuous acceleration; of course, even if they did reach that speed, they had to slow the probe down by the time it reached the Moon. If necessary, they would increase the acceleration to get it to the Moon more quickly.
The drone had reached the 0.0007 mark, and she modified the acceleration to remain at this level. The speed the drone was traveling was 35,935 miles per hour. Joanne wanted to get it up to 60,000 mph. She bumped the gravity force again to 0.0005, and now the drone was flying at 69,147 mph. Joanne smiled to herself. They had done it! They had achieved a speed that was close to the ideal speed that they wanted with the drone. Of course, the ship would be a whole new ball game, but she saw this as a good sign. At that speed, it would take them less than 3 hours to get to the Moon, which was approximately 238,000 miles away. In reality, it would take longer than that because they not only needed to slow their velocity before reaching the Moon; they had to achieve orbit. Once in orbit, they could plan their descent. But this was still a fraction of the three or four days that it had taken the Apollo missions to reach the Moon.
After two and one-half hours, Joanne set the controls to modify the performance of the gravity engine on the drone, this time reversing its gravitational thrust to use the Sun’s gravity to slow it down. She was glad she had developed the gravity engine to use gravity from a source such as the Sun from one angle, yet use the force to drive the object from a different angle. So if the Sun was to their left, so to speak, she could harness and use the gravity power of it to drive an object at a completely different angle. That’s what she was doing now.
“Activating automatic deceleration on the drone,” said Joanne.
“Roger drone automatic deceleration,” said Bob.
Joanne activated the control. Again, within half an hour, the automatic procedure was complete. The drone’s speed was now 29,767 mph. Its distance from the Moon was approximately 10,000 miles. “Reactivating manual deceleration on the drone,” said Joanne.
“Roger manual drone deceleration,” said Bob.
Once again, Joanne activated the manual controls. In less than half an hour, the process would be complete. Once the time had passed, she saw that the speed of the drone was about 4,970 mph. The drone had almost reached the Moon. Their plan called for them to achieve an orbit of one-half mile above the Moon, which would require a speed of 4,250 mph. They needed to simulate this with the drone.
“Adjusting speed and trajectory for the drone to acquire Moon orbit,” said Joanne. “Bob, please come and look over my shoulder.”
“Sure thing,” said Bob. Steve came over, too. Both of Alexandra’s engineers on board had space flight experience; both had worked for NASA. Joanne probably didn’t need any help, but it was good to have a second set of eyes on the control panel, especially since she had never done this before. Together they slowed the drone’s speed to 4,250 miles per hour, and adjusted its trajectory to achieve a Moon orbit. In a few minutes, they accomplished that goal.
“It’s there,” said Joanne. “The drone is in orbit.” Applause filled the cabin.
“I’m glad we accomplished our goal with the drone. Now it’s our turn,” she said. “Everyone, please find a seat and strap in.” She, Bob, and Steve did the same in their places at the console. She had learned a lot from the drone’s successful flight, but she planned to tread much more carefully with the ship. She and the engineers would work together on this part of the mission. They discussed a few things about the flight, and agreed that even though the power was too low to move the drone, they would set the gravity engine’s initial value to 0.000002 for the ship. Joanne set the digital rheostat dial to increase the engine’s gravity output by 0.000002 per click.
“Ok, Bob,” she said, “I’m going to initiate.”
“Sounds good,” said Bob. “Here we go.”
Joanne pressed the button that allowed her to control the gravity strength manually with the dial. She initiated the gravity engine at 0.000002 and pressed the button. She felt nothing and did not see the stars moving past the window. They needed a little more oomph. She turned the dial one click. Still nothing. Gradually she dialed it up to ten. Still, there was no response.
“I am going to set the engine power to 0.00002. Are you good with that?” asked Joanne.
“Yes, and I think that will get us moving,” said Bob.
“Agreed,” said Steve.
Joanne made the change, and sure enough, the ship began to move slowly. She had reset the dial so that each click moved the gravity power up by 0.00001. She made the first click. There was a small but noticeable physical movement in the ship, and their speed increased slightly. She made another click, and again there was a slight movement, and their velocity increased. When she had reached ten on the dial, the maximum it would go, she reset the engine power to 0.00003 and reset the dial to move up from zero to ten there.
This painstaking process took them an hour. After the first two repetitions, Joanne set the control to increase automatically. When it was on automatic, the dial moved smoothly, and there were no jerks as the ship increased speed.
After the process was complete, they were moving at 70,000 mph. Their destination was less than an hour-and-a-half away. Joanne and Bob began to plan their trajectory for achieving Moon orbit. Once the computer had calculated their course, they set it to make the necessary flight corrections automatically. This would put them into orbit around the Moon. They would circle the Moon a few times until they decided on where they wanted to land. As part of the process, they stored the information for the drone’s flight and the flight of the ship for later review. This would help them with future missions.
Once they were close to the Moon, the computer started to initiate the gravity changes necessary to achieve a Moon orbit trajectory. After a few minutes, they had achieved orbit, and every single person was looking ou
t the nearest window to get a view of the Moon.
“Let’s activate the camera under the ship and monitor the Moon’s surface to determine a good landing spot,” said Steve.
“It’s activated,” said Joanne. The image appeared directly in front of them on the large cockpit window, which doubled as a digital view screen. On the large display, the picture was breathtaking, albeit barren. John and Alexandra walked over to assess the landscape below. Joanne checked to make sure the invisibility mode was still on; it had hidden them for their entire trip and would continue to protect the ship once it had landed. Even the drones had it – they needed it too. Joanne would make sure the invisibility engine was also activated on the Moon buggy before they left the ship. As they completed the first orbit, the five of them commented on possible landing spots, and Steve entered notes as to their location. After a second orbit was complete, they had chosen a spot. As they approached it, Joanne took over the controls and guided them to make a smooth landing. She found that it was utterly different performing the landing on the Moon than landing on Earth, but they made it with barely a bump. The Moon’s lower gravity helped the arrival to be a smooth one.
Once Joanne had shut down the gravity drive, except for maintaining Earth-level gravity on the ship, everyone began to don their spacesuits. In pairs, the crew checked each other’s helmet and glove seals. Everyone had green lights inside their helmets upon completion. Seals were good, oxygen was good. Mark opened the bulkhead door that separated the main cabin from the cargo area. There sat the lunar vehicle they would use to explore the Moon’s surface. Everyone felt excited about what was going to happen. Max and John were holding their breath; Max’s cold fusion engine powered the rover. If it didn’t work, they would fall back to the hydrogen engine using hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells. Roberta closed the front bulkhead door and turned toward the rear door controls. The rear doors were where the Moon buggy would exit the ship.
“Depressurizing,” she said. The process was a bit slow, but soon the doors were opened. Everyone climbed aboard the vehicle and strapped themselves into a seat. Bob was going to drive the buggy; he had the most experience with practicing this during the simulations back on Earth.
“Everyone ready?” he asked. Each person replied in the affirmative. Bob activated the vehicle’s engine, and it started up immediately with no issues. Max breathed a sigh of relief. Bob backed the rover down the ramp. Once the buggy was outside the ship, everyone was mesmerized, even Bob. He tore his attention away from the view and began to drive the vehicle. At first, he drove in a straight line, and then did some right and left turns to get the feel of the controls. Once he had the hang of it, he turned the buggy toward a shallow crater that they had seen from above. Their presence here was the perfect opportunity to explore. The buggy crested the lip at the edge of the crater and began the descent down the side.
He drove around the perimeter of the crater; it was almost featureless. After a few more minutes, he drove up and out of the crater. They spent the next hour exploring the Moon’s surface, never leaving the sight of the ship. There was not a lot to see; the surface was mostly smooth. Bob stopped the buggy and said, “Does anyone want to go for a walk?” Everyone did, of course. They dismounted from the buggy and began to walk around. Everyone could tell that the gravity was less than Earth’s; most knew that the Moon’s gravity was one-sixth of Earth’s. So, moving around felt, well, weird. And once they had dismounted from the rover, they found that walking was fun but challenging at times. The one-sixth gravity was almost not enough to give them gravitational “feedback” to be positively sure how to move around. Regardless, everyone tried running, jumping, and so forth to take advantage of the reduced gravity and have a little fun. They all had worked long and hard to reach the point where they could make this mission happen, and now they could reap the benefits of what they had sowed.
John’s voice came over the group’s helmet radios. “Ok, everyone, we’ve used our allotted amount of oxygen. Let’s get back to the ship.”
The crew mounted the buggy and strapped in. Bob headed back to the ship. As they approached it, he activated a control on the buggy’s console to open the cargo bay doors. As the doors opened, the top raised up, and the bottom opened downwards to provide the ramp on which the rover could enter the ship. Bob drove up and into the cargo bay and pressed the control on his panel to shut the doors.
Everyone dismounted from the Moon rover and waited for the cargo bay to re-pressurize. Once that was complete, each of them began to remove their suits. Again, they paired off and helped each other. The suits were somewhat bulky and awkward to remove, just as they were to put on. Everyone was talking at once as they removed their suits. And who could blame them? They’d had an adventure that few human beings had ever experienced, or ever would experience. Gradually the conversations waned, and the crew headed back into the cabin.
While the rest of the crew continued talking, but in more muted tones now that the initial excitement had settled down quite a bit, Joanne was working with Steve and Bob to calculate their escape from the Moon’s orbit and their trajectory for the trip back to Earth. Using the computer made it relatively easy and straightforward. Steve and Bob, as engineers, made sure they verified all of the computer output for the proposed return-to-Earth program. For the trip back, they were going to use computer control for the ship. Everything looked good. Joanne, Steve, and Bob had learned a lot about the amount of gravity that was necessary at different stages during their trip to the Moon and when they needed to make changes. They used this experience and their recorded information to help program the computer to make gravity strength adjustments for the gravity engine when it was appropriate for the trip back. According to their calculations, once they were in orbit, they still had to complete about one-third of a trip more around the Moon before they left their orbit. This put the ship in the right spot to make the most efficient trip back to Earth.
“Everyone strap in, please,” said Joanne. “We’ll be leaving shortly.” To Steve and Bob, she said, “Everything looks good to me. What do you guys think?”
“I’m with you,” said Bob. “We’ll be monitoring everything as it happens anyhow. And we don’t have any weird or any out-of-the-ordinary changes in the program.”
“Likewise,” said Steve. “I say we go.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said Joanne, and she pressed the button to activate the Moon-to-Earth return program. The ship began the process of entering Moon orbit.
Once it did, and at the appropriate point in their flight, the computer activated the gravity engine with its output aimed to achieve the trajectory that they had calculated, and they left orbit. Immediately they felt a shift in the ship’s movement. They were on their way home!
Bob, Steve, and Joanne were ready to watch each point where the computer would make gravity power adjustments to the gravity engine, and also each point where it made trajectory changes. If anything did not look right, they would make manual adjustments to keep the ship on course. The computer almost immediately made a change in the gravity engine power. They could not feel it, as the computer was programmed to increase the force on a gradual basis. But the gauges showed that their speed was increasing steadily.
After approximately half an hour, their speed was 78,000 mph; this was exactly what they had programmed the ship to do. Their arrival at Earth was only about two hours away. The fact that the trip from the Earth to the Moon or vice versa took them less than three hours bode well for the Mars mission.
Everything went under computer control until they were approaching Earth. They had to make slight manual changes to both the trajectory and speed to achieve Earth orbit, but once they had made the changes, everything went without incident. Joanne switched the controls to manual and took over as pilot. She knew how to land the ship from orbit now.
Approximately forty-five minutes later, they were on the ground. Everyone disembarked, and John assembled the teams in a conference room with
Alexandra’s assistance.
“Ok, everyone,” he said. “Let’s use this time for our debriefing. We’ll go around the room and get everyone’s feedback.”
He started with Mark, who was seated to his left and worked his way from person to person until the attention was on Joanne, who sat to his immediate right. Most of the people did not have a lot to say; they had simply been along for the ride and to monitor their personal equipment.
Mark said, “I don’t have a lot of input for this mission. From a pilot’s point of view, I’d say everything worked well; for the foreseeable future, each flight will be a learning experience for us.”
“Sounds good,” said John. “What about you, Abigail?”
“The shielding worked as expected. It not only kept the ship from being seen on its entire mission, but it also kept the crew from being exposed to any radiation. As far as the ship being seen, with the number of telescopes being used on Earth or in orbit or anywhere else at any given time, it has to always be invisible. Likewise, we must protect it from radar.”
“Ok, another notch in our belt,” said John. “Good work! Jose, I know we’ve only tested the teleportation once from Earth to orbit and back, but it worked as we had planned. I also know that the first time you used it, you required equipment both on the ship and on the ground to complete the process. When we are on a mission, we won’t have the equipment on a planet we’ve never been to before. Can all of the necessary equipment be installed on the ship?”
Jose said, “Yes, that’s what I’ve been working on. I knew that teleportation would be extremely useful even if we required equipment on the ground. But I also knew that it would be much, much more useful if everything were self-contained on the ship, and we’ve already discussed that we can’t depend on a destination landing pad for our teleportation; it’s not practical. With a little more time, I expect to have it complete and fully tested.”
