Mike sat back and whistled. “We need to have a probe standing by to study it as it goes through our solar system. It will be amazing to actually study a planet from another star system that close up. It may be centuries before we can manage a probe to another star and you and I will sure not be around to see it. I will have to get David to squeeze some money out of the budget for a probe. We could technically call it an asteroid spotting probe or something like that so Congress would approve the request. We could just make sure it happened to pass close by the planet as it looked for errant asteroids.”
“Actually, that may not be necessary Mike. You may want to ask for something other than a small probe. We are probably going to want a fully instrumented orbiter to study this planet.”
“I doubt that will be possible,” said Mike. “With all the other money being spent on the space stations and the asteroid defense systems, there is not much to spare. Since the planet will only be passing through our system, we would lose contact with an orbiter in a year or two anyway.”
“Not exactly,” grinned Peter. He pulled out his laptop from his briefcase and started the simulation he had prepared. He then pushed the laptop over to Mike.
Mike looked it over and looked at Peter incredulously. “How the hell do you discover all this stuff first?”
“Well,” laughed Peter, “The first time with the Dwarf was an accident. This time it was not really me, but the Brown Dwarf team that made the discovery. Also, remember that we have every major observatory on the planet sending us data. I am just the messenger. I thought you would want this news first.”
“Mike ran and watched the simulation again and said, “So, there is ninety eight percent confidence in this data?”
“Yep, and that will probably firm up in the next couple of months. Now you see why I think we need an orbiter prepared. The guys at over at NASA and Space Force are going to go crazy over this. It looks like we are trading two gas giants from our solar system with associated moons and stuff for a planet from another solar system,” said Peter.
“Damn, I think you are absolutely right. Everyone is going to go crazy over this one, especially when they see the projected orbit. Damn Peter, you really have a way of stirring the pot,” exclaimed Mike. “Well, we might as well get a plane ready to go to Washington.”
“Why me?” asked Peter. “I am just the messenger.”
“Because,” said Mike, “Peter’s Star is going to leave us a little present as it passes through the solar system is why. Since it is your star, you should be the one to brief everyone,” he said as he picked up the phone.
Chapter 31
February 24th, 2025
Washington, DC
“Alright guys,” Donald Masterfield said. “Every time you guys want to see the President, it is all doom and gloom and I just can’t stand any more at the moment. With all the fallout from the vaccine thing and the issues with E-Day planning, my job is getting very old. How they talked me into staying over as scientific advisor for this administration, I will never know.”
“Because,” said David Honstein, “You already knew everything going on with the preparations for E-Day and beyond and it allowed a level of continuity as the administration changed. That is the same reason I agreed not to retire for another year.”
“Ok, Ok, just give it to me straight,” moaned Donald. “Let me guess, the Dwarf is inhabited by aliens that have an appetite for bipedal primates or something like that right?”
“How did you guess?” asked Mike. “Peter, you cheated and told him already!”
“Come on guys, cut the crap, why did the three of you fly up here?”
“We need to brief the President on an important development about the Brown Dwarf,” said David Honstein.
“Not until you tell me first. This President is a real stickler about his schedule and does not like adhoc meetings thrown in without good cause.”
“That will ruin the surprise,” kidded Mike.
“I don’t care. I have had enough surprises to last me a life time now, and this President definitely does not like surprises. So, if you think you need to brief the President, you brief me first if it is a scientific matter.”
David sighed and motioned for Peter to speak.
“Well, you are aware of the planet that is orbiting the Brown Dwarf, right Doctor Masterfield?” When Donald nodded yes, Peter continued. “We have determined that when the Brown Dwarf leaves our solar system, the planet is going to stay behind.”
“Please don’t tell me it is going to hit the Earth or something like that,” groaned Donald.
“Actually, no. The sun is going to capture it and it is probably going to settle in to an orbit slightly better than the one that Earth is going to end up in. Because of the very elliptical orbit it has around the Dwarf, the planet is going to swing very close to the orbit of Venus and be captured by the Suns gravity. Computer simulations show that after several orbits, due to all the varied gravity fields interacting with the planet, it will settle into an orbit that is about ten million miles closer to the sun at its closest approach, and slightly farther out than what Earth’s orbit is now.”
“Ok, you have my attention, what does that mean for us?” asked Donald.
“It means that we are going to have a very close planetary neighbor that just might be marginally habitable,” Peter replied.
“So, is this supposed to be good news?”
David answered. “It is potentially the most important thing to happen to the human race, after the Dwarf that is.”
“Ok, said Donald, you convinced me. Wait in the Situation Briefing Room and I will try and convince Marius, the new Chief of Staff, the President needs to hear this.”
“That was fun,” said Mike as they had a seat in the Situation room. “Peter, I want you to brief the President. You need experience doing these meetings and besides, this is good news. Maybe he will not have you shot,” said David.
After about twenty minutes, Donald Masterfield opened the door of the Situation room and announced, “Gentleman, the President.” President Bailey entered and took his seat, motioning everyone else to stay seated.
“I understand that you are the young man who discovered the nemesis that is coming our way,” the President said as he extended his hand and shook Peter’s. “Doctor Masterfield informs me that you have more momentous news for the world, and I cannot help but cringe before I even hear what it is. It seems only bad news is broken in this room and never good news. I can understand why President Montgomery used to call it the “Room from Hell”. This time, however, I am told the news is a little more on the positive side,” said the President. “I believe I already know Doctor Banscott and Doctor Honstein, so someone fill me in on what you discovered.”
“I can do that Mr. President,” replied Peter after getting the nod from Mike. “You probably are aware that we have discovered that the Brown Dwarf has a planet in orbit around it.”
“I do, and from what I have been told in the past this planet is no real threat to us, I hope that information has not changed,” said the President.
“No sir. The planet is not a threat to us here on Earth, or to any other planet in the Solar system. We have been studying this planet as well as we can for some time now. It is still quite distant so our information on its composition and atmosphere is still rather sketchy. We have been able to do some more accurate calculations on its orbit and what the planet is going to do as it comes near the gravitation influence of our sun. Those calculations and some other information we have are why we wanted to brief you. This information could have a tremendous impact on humanity and needs to be considered when any future Space Force planning takes place. I have some diagrams to show you that will help explain.”
“Planet X, sorry for the name, but we are just calling it that as a nickname at the moment until it is named, is in a very large and elliptical orbit around the Dwarf as you can see here. Because of this, it is believed that the planet was capture
d by the Brown Dwarf as it passed through or near another star system thousands of years ago. The planet has such a loose gravitational association with the Dwarf it is quite remarkable it was captured at all and not thrown out into space as Jupiter is going to be. When the Dwarf passes through our solar system, this planet X is going to be so far away from it in its orbit that it will actually pass on the opposite side of our sun than the dwarf is. The Brown Dwarf will lose the planet at that time. The really interesting part is that our sun is going to capture the planet and it will settle into an orbit in our suns habitable zone very close to what the Earth’s is now.”
“Just a minute,” interjected the President. “If it is in nearly in the same orbit as Earth then there will be a very big risk of Earth and this planet eventually colliding with each other, right? That is not good news, in my opinion.”
“It is going to have a very similar orbit but with one big difference,” explained Peter. “You see, with the exception of Pluto, almost all of the planets in our solar system are aligned in the same plane or the ecliptically aligned orbit plane. This is like a flat disk of orbits similar to the rings on Saturn. This new planet did not form around our sun so its orbit is wildly different. It is going to settle into an orbit that is greater than eighty degrees off, or above the ecliptic. The planet’s closest approach to our sun is going to be about eight to ten million miles closer than what Earth’s is right now. It’s farthest point will be about five to six million miles farther than ours is right now. Computer projections show that the closest it will ever get to Earth in the future will be about ten million miles. This will cause some higher tides at certain times, but nothing catastrophic. It will be easily visible from Earth, roughly about five percent the size of the full moon during closest approach. That closest approach will happen about every three hundred and twenty-one years, but every eleven years it will be well within twenty million miles from us. That is approximately one third the distance to Mars.”
“This raises some interesting questions for us. The rough spectrographic data we have on the planet shows it has substantial water, in the form of ice at the moment. At one time it probably had a Nitrogen/Carbon Dioxide atmosphere with some Oxygen mixed in. Right now, the atmosphere is frozen and lying as snow and ice on the surface. That will rapidly change as the planet approaches the sun. The planets first pass around the sun will take it as close to the sun as the orbit of Venus. The frozen gases will vaporize giving it an atmosphere that will hold in the heat and start melting the water ice. Weather patterns will form and the planet will eventually reach equilibrium, although that may take quite a few years to stabilize. It will most likely be a warm planet like ours, with an appreciable amount of water present. We feel sure it will be much more hospitable than Mars is at present.”
“Let me get this straight,” said the President thoughtfully. “This planet X, as you are calling it, is going to be in our solar system in the near future and we will be able to live on it?”
“Yes and maybe,” said Peter. “We are about ninety nine percent sure of the fact that it will settle into orbit as we described. It is however, still too early to determine whether it will be inhabitable by humans, or even life as we know it. It has been frozen solid for at least thousands of years. If it ever had any life forms on it, is very unlikely that they could have survived. The planet is roughly eighty percent the size of Earth and the gravity is probably about two thirds that of Earths. We know it has some water on it, and it may possibly have an atmosphere that is similar to Earth’s. We still do not know what its atmospheric composition will be or how thick that atmosphere will be. We will need to determine that as it warms up. We are requesting funding to develop a probe to put into orbit around it as soon as we can. We need a scientific probe to study it and answer these questions. The best time for launching the probe would be before it passes around the sun the first time.”
The President held up his hands. “I am going to be very honest here. Our nation is about broke. Every spare dime we have is being spent on the populace relocation efforts and getting ready for the arrival of your Dwarf. The Space Force is sucking up huge amounts of the nation’s income. The rest of the world is contributing nothing to the effort to help shield the world from the rain of asteroids and meteors that you astronomers are predicting. I just do not see how we can afford another multi-billion dollar probe to study this planet right now.”
“Mr. President,” David Honstein leaned forward as he spoke. “We are not asking just for a robotic probe. We feel it is most prudent to put a manned mission in orbit around the newcomer and launch some robot probes to its surface. These could be controlled by tele-robotic communications from the crew in orbit. It would be the next best thing to actually landing. We have no information on what to expect on this planet so it would be wiser to have someone with real time control be able to direct robotic probes rather than controlling them from Earth.”
“There is no way we can afford that, it is out of the question,” said the President.
“Mr. President, let me put this into perspective,” reasoned David. “We are the only nation that is really going to have any sort of space capability left for some time into the future after E-Day. The world is counting on us to keep a dinosaur killer sized asteroid from doing the same to humanity. We already have, or will have in the near future, the technology to do this. Let me put it this way. There will be a whole new world there, it may or may not be of use to us, but the United States will have a big head start on the rest of the world in getting to it. That could prove to be very beneficial. We could use a slightly modified version of the Inter-Mars Transfer ship that is launching in about five months.”
“Tell me Doctor Honstein, why you are so insistent on this mission to study the new planet so soon?” inquired the President. “Why not wait until after the Dwarf Star has passed us by?”
“Mr. President, NASA and the Space Force are doing everything they can to get the Earth Asteroid Defense System set up. There are going to be some hiccups in that process as we have seen already. I am worried that if a really big rock comes barreling in from the Oort cloud that we might not be able to keep it from hitting Earth. If there is a chance that we could set up a colony on this planet it would maybe ensure that all our eggs are not in one basket so to speak. I know we are looking at doing the same thing on Mars, but Mars is a lot colder and much farther away. This opportunity is something we really need to look into as soon as we can.”
The President sat back deep in thought. “Doctor Honstein, I cannot authorize another space ship without approval from Congress. However, if NASA and Space Force...let’s say, pre-staged some repair and replacement parts for the Inter-Mars Ships that someday could be assembled quickly into another ship with a different purpose, then I believe most people would not question that. It would need to be done under present budget constraints. I understand your concerns and I will discuss the Space Force Budget more with the appropriations committee and certain congressional leaders. That is all I can advise you to do at the moment. I will see if I can get Congress to at least free up some funding for an unmanned probe to the planet but I cannot guarantee success. Thank you for briefing me and if you will excuse me, I have a million other urgent matters to attend to, or so my Chief of Staff tells me.” They all stood while the President left the room.
“Well, that went better than I expected,” said Mike. “You did well, Peter.”
David nodded his agreement. “You may have a future rubbing noses with the politicians after all Peter. You better get used to it. Now, we need to figure out how to appropriate and store these spare parts the President spoke of and get them into orbit. Getting them up there is not the real problem. Purchasing them without the bean counters catching on is the real challenge. This should be right up your alley, Mike.”
“And if I get caught?” asked Mike.
“Then we all deny we even know you and let them stake you out at low tide for the crabs to chew on as the tid
e comes in,” joked David.
“It’s good to know you have my back,” grinned Mike.
Chapter 32
April 1st, 2028
Interplanetary Space, Somewhere Between Mars and Earth
“Alpha Control, this is Space Force Interdictor One, we have a slight problem here,” Colonel Mike Pierce released his mike button as he waited for the thirty second delay for his message to reach Space Station Alpha and then the return delay for their response. They were seven million miles from Earth as the space crow flies, so it took that long for the radio messages to travel back and forth. He looked over at his co-pilot Major Hank Jenkins. “Makes you sort of miss the milk runs to Lunar One doesn’t it?”
Hank was watching the four hundred meter diameter asteroid that was rapidly tumbling in an erratic pattern in front of their ship. They were floating, parked in space, about a thousand meters from the irregularly shaped asteroid. The interdictor class of space ship was a four man ship designed for intercepting and managing smaller sized asteroids that were on a trajectory to hit Earth. This particular asteroid, AP-EF2019, was not a threat to Earth, but it had been chosen to try an experimental method that had been worked out to deflect other more dangerous asteroids of the same type and size.
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