by OMAR FINK
The screen showed a diagram of the gaps and Lee explained, “The largest gaps are found near orbits of 2.1, 2.5, 2.8, and 2.95 Astronomical Units (AU) where 1 AU is the distance of the orbit of Earth around the Sun. Since asteroid orbits are not simple circles, but are elliptical, and are often slanted slightly off the plane where most planets are found, these gaps don’t mean there won’t be any rocks there. A rock that has an orbit outside one of the gaps can still cross through the gaps as they move around. But we still expect that many habitats will eventually choose orbits near the gaps.”
Lee continued, “You need to know about Kirkwood Gaps because you’ll be hearing a lot about them in the next few years. The first step for most habitat rings will be somewhere near the orbit of Mars and the next step may be the gap near the inner edge of the belt at 2.1 AUs.”
Lee returned to her original viewpoint, “Another dividing line worth knowing about is called the ‘frost line’. This is the distance from the Sun where it is cold enough for volatiles to be frozen. Rocks inside the frost line are less likely to contain any volatiles because they get boiled off by the Sun. The frost line begins around 2.7 AUs, but it’s not sharply defined because most orbits are elliptical instead of simple circles. Rocks found outside the frost line at one point in their orbit may dip in closer to the Sun at another point. Changes in orbital trajectories over time also muddy this line.”
Lee went on, “Another issue worth mentioning is that the HU planners are worried that we’re not moving fast enough with building habitats and migrating people. Even though we’ve built two hundred elevators and we’re moving more than ten million people per month up into space, and we’ve built more than thirty habitat rings for people to live in, it may not be enough. We’re right at the halfway point in the ten years before the comet train returns to destroy Earth. Our building rate is still increasing, but the planners say it reaches some bottlenecks soon and unless we find a way to get through that, everybody won’t be off Earth before the end of the ten years.”
Lee frowned and added, “This has rumors flying about who will be selected to leave, and who will decide who gets left behind. Some of these rumors have included mention of a lottery system. These are just rumors and there is no official word from the HU council about how this shortcoming will be dealt with. We’ll have to wait and see.”
+5 years, 3 months, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Gitane Levesque scowled at the camera, “What if it’s not enough? What if we haven’t done enough? What if everybody is not able to get off this planet before it is destroyed. We have five years left, but what if that is not enough time? We are hearing from more than one source that these questions are the prime worries of the HU planners.”
Gitane continued, “How can this be? Space elevators are being built, and people are moving out into space to live in the giant habitat rings. But it takes a long time to move billions of people, and it takes a long time to build all the infrastructure to get it done. If we had more time it would be no problem, but we don’t. We’re on a hard deadline where the comet train comes to destroy us whether we’re ready or not.”
Gitane said, “If we don’t finish this project to move people into space on time, who will decide who goes and who stays? How will it be decided? There have been rumors of a lottery system. Will they really draw lots to see who lives and who dies?”
Gitane finished with, “This is Gitane Levesque reporting for Europa Alliance Press in Geneva, Switzerland.”
As soon as the camera in front of him was no longer live, he lifted a half empty bottle of wine onto the desktop along with a glass and began to pour.
+5 years, 3 months, HABITAT-34, NEAR-EARTH-ORBIT
Billy Street looked at the elevator control panel, and spoke to it, “Elevator, select Level 6, floor 62. Go.”
The control panel responded in a soft voice, “This elevator will go to Level 6, floor 62. Doors closing.”
As the elevator began to move upward, the control panel showed the gravity level present on each floor. As it approached floor 62, the gravity dropped to just below four tenths of a G.
The elevator said, “Arriving at floor 62. Please be aware that your local gravity has changed from eight tenths G to four tenths G. Doors opening.”
Billy stepped off the elevator and his stride elongated slightly, becoming slower and smoother, creating a gliding effect. He leaned forward slightly, but looked completely natural in his gait. He walked along the transparent barrier that looked down on the main atrium two floors below on the central boulevard of Level 60. It was busy with people moving about but not crowded. He found a direction panel on a nearby wall and walked over to it. As he approached, it said, “Hello Billy, how may I direct you?”
He said, “I need directions to ‘The Mojo and Hoodoo Conjuring Company.”
The direction panel responded, “Follow this arrow along the main walkway, then turn into the side-way marked as ‘The Tranquil Pathway’. Other direction panels along this route will confirm your progress.”
He followed the direction indicated until he found the side-way, and turned down it. Sporadically, private entrances appeared along both walls that seemed to be residence quarters. He kept walking until the way opened up into an uneven shaped garden and public space area. The ceiling in the center rose three levels creating a soaring feeling with the top surface displaying an image of blue sky and clouds. Sculpted artificial trees and plants scattered through the area completed the feeling of a garden space. A few small shops and cafes dotted the edge. Seating areas were built into circular bases that held trees. A few people walked across the area, and some sat near the trees and at the cafes.
On the far side, lettering that seemed to be embedded into the wall surface displayed “The Mojo and Hoodoo Conjuring Company” in an arc over a cave-like entrance. Billy headed toward it. A small fountain in the middle of a stone-looking circle had several jets that alternated sending spurts of water up in arcs that floated lazily across to the other side, then fell back into a pond. Billy stopped for a moment to marvel at the slow motion water effect.
When he was done pondering the water of the fountain, he moved on into the cave entrance and walked in. The shop had dim lighting, creating a dark feel, but was filled with brightly colored and strange looking objects. Billy looked over the wares for sale. There were wax candles, LED candles, incense burners and incense, and a variety of oils and essences. These all created a smorgasbord of smells. There were packs that he recognized as Tarot cards and other packs of cards he had never seen before. There were writing pads and a variety of writing implements, including quill pens and bottles of inks. Stacks of pamphlets and books were next to electronic texts on reading chips. An entire wall was covered by teas and herbs. The opposite wall was covered with masks, costume items, juggling items. and assorted magic trick paraphernalia.
A brightly clad bird stepped out from some back area, “Welcome to Mojo and Hoodoo. How may I conjure thee?” The bird took off its head and revealed a human face that smiled at Billy.
Billy turned to look at the bird figure and smiled, “That’s some costume.”
The bird said, “Thank you. We sell all the parts and pieces and many more. The costumes are mostly in the back room and there is a changing area for body scans and custom designs.”
Billy replied, “I’m very impressed with your inventory. But surely you weren’t able to import all this with the weight embargo on personal items. Did you make all these things here?”
The bird tilted its head slightly to one side, “Yes, we did. We still have purchasing agents back on Earth, but all they do is find and define items that we might be able to sell here. and scan them and send us the files, and we print them here. The spices and aromas are made from formulas using your everyday food synthesizers. but with a few special elemental components added.” He shrugged.
Billy’s gaze centered on the juggling items, “Do you have many jugglers here?”
The bird responded, �
��Oh yes, they’re a favorite. Because of the low gravity floors, it’s easier to learn and easy to do well.”
Billy selected a net-bag of a dozen soft balls in primary colors and transferred the credits for them and left the shop.
He walked over to the fountain, and pulled a handful of balls out of the net. He threw one up into the air and waited for it to curve over the top of its arc and fall back to his hand. He tried that several more times with single balls and then added a second ball. While the first ball was in the air, he moved the second ball to his other hand, and also threw it into the air. When the first ball landed, he caught it with one hand, moved it to the other hand, then threw it back up into the same arc. Once he had the timing working smoothly, he kept adding more balls until eventually he had all twelve of them moving in a circle up and then back down.
Several small children clustered around Billy to watch him. Their mouths hung open in awe, then one asked, “Can you teach me to do that?”
Billy smiled and started catching the balls and putting them down instead of cycling them back up into the arc. When he had all twelve balls back in the net-bag, he pulled out two and began explaining, “Okay you start with just one, then when it feels comfortable, you add the second one.”
+5 years, 4 months, HABITAT-22, AU 2.1
Nabith Mehra seemed apologetic, “I hope you don’t mind me asking you to spend some time talking to me. I’ve talked to Delize before, but Keel, I only know you from the time you helped to rescue me and my family in the climber car near the habitat ring, and on that day you were just a voice on the radio.”
Keel smiled across the small cafe table at Nabith, “I remember.”
Nabith said, “I have a new assignment to work on, and thought maybe the two of you would be able to help me with defining it. The job is to create a navigation tool for the asteroid belt. We have lots of data and are accumulating more of it every day, but the data is scattered around in different places, and is not very usable. My job is to design some software that will make it easy to access and use.”
Delize Naidu put her coffee cup down, “It sounds like you’re talking about a database.”
Nabith said, “Yes, for the data on the back end, but it’s more important to know how you need to use the navigation data in real life.”
Keel said, “Well, we have a Computing, Communications, and Navigation (CCN) system in each craft, all the way down to individual pods. But the data is not always right up to date, and it’s often not easy to find what you’re looking for. Also, the flash alerts about small particle threats don’t come from the CCN system, but from dispatch over the audio channel.”
Delize interrupted, “Yes, in dispatch we get alerts from radar and even some optical sensors, but we have to interpret the threat, and then quickly notify local craft by voice. There might be a lot of room for improvement there.”
Nabith said, “So we have several different problems. We need to collect and correlate all the data on all known objects in the Solar System. We need to collect and quickly analyze threat status on new objects in real time. And finally, we need to make all this data available for use in an interface that’s intuitive.”
Keel said, “On Earth, we had the satellite based GPS system to give us instant location data. Out here, we don’t yet have such a system and doing the calculations based on astronomical observations takes a lot longer. We should have something like GPS out here.”
Delize exclaimed, “That’s an excellent idea! We really need that.”
Nabith said, “One of the problems we have with any communication based system out here is the time delay. You both know the Astronomical Unit (AU) designation with 1 AU based on the distance of Earth orbit from the Sun. At that distance, light and all other electromagnetic wave forms take eight minutes to cover that distance. That means at Earth orbit, it takes sixteen minutes to get a signal from one side of the Solar System to the other. Mars is near 1.5 AU and the inner edge of the asteroid belt is around 2 AU. Jupiter is just past 5 AU. For a cross system communication, that puts time delays at thirty-two minutes for 2 AU and eighty minutes for 5 AU. These delays don’t work for any system relying on real time information. We need a network of stations that can copy data around the network in the background so it’s nearby when its needed. These same stations can calculate their exact position in the Solar System, and then you can triangulate your position easily and quickly from the nearest station without serious delays.”
Delize smiled at him, “Nabith, I thought you said you needed some help. It sounds like you’ve got this all figured out.”
Nabith said, “I had some ideas, and you two just helped me come up with most of the answers. We can split out different kinds of data into different tables inside the database to speed up queries. We’ll need smart indexing to make it work fast. We’ll need an expert system that has been optimized for speed to analyze threats in real time. We’ll need an interface that’s fed data to constantly create a ‘local’ picture for any endpoint. We’ll need a distributed database system that replicates data around the net. And we’ll also need a network of both sensors that collect data, and data hubs that manage the distribution.”
Delize chuckled, “Is there anything else we can do to help?”
Nabith said, “The piece I need the most help with is knowing how you guys need to use the data at the endpoint. Can you each put together a list of things you need to know to do your job and things that don’t work right now? That is related to navigation.”
Keel looked over at Delize, “Sure, we can do that.”
Delize nodded her approval.
Nabith explained, “Wow! I just realized that once we put this navigation network in place, it can be used for much more than just navigation. It can also store and forward all kinds of communication across the system and eventually we’ll need a communications network too. Hey, I’ve got to go talk to somebody else about this. Do you mind if I leave now?” He stood up.
Delize smiled, “Take off. Keel and I will work on that list for you. Oh, and I have some contacts I will check with to see about getting you more assistance.”
Nabith almost ran down the boulevard, waving back over his shoulder.
Delize turned to Keel, “He’s only eighteen years old.”
Keel smiled back at her. Then he said, “Well, let’s work on that list.”
+5 years, 5 months, HABITAT-34, NEAR EARTH ORBIT (NEO)
Lee Martin strolled down the wide boulevard on Level 3, floor 30 of Habitat-34, taking in the sights. The street was not straight, but curved both right and left at times, and also narrowed and widened at times. Most of it was under a soaring atrium like ceiling that also varied in height at times, but averaged about five to six floors above the street surface. There were a few places where islands appeared in the middle of the boulevard, also exhibiting varied heights from a few floors to meeting the ceiling. More narrow side streets and alleys appeared here and there. The end result presented what appeared to be a constantly changing, almost random pattern of architectural angles.
The ground floor on Level 3 presented a variety of commercial and business fronts. Some of the floors just above had open air balconies. The walls of the shops and the residence areas above were a patchwork quilt of colors and patterns. Some were like vividly painted murals, other more subdued abstract gray patterns, and some just a plain off-white. Only of few of the shop fronts were actually occupied, but there were a variety of restaurants and specialty stores.
As Lee strode past a sidewalk cafe, a figure rose to meet her with open arms and a loud, “Ciao bella!”
She turned to see the handsome Italian features of Marco Lagorio smiling broadly at her. She smiled back, “Marco! What are you doing here?” She hugged him, and he pressed his face with pursed lips against both of her cheeks.
Marco said, “I live here, as do you. I’ve seen some of your broadcasts. Here, have a seat.” He made a sweeping gesture toward a chair at the table where his cup o
f cappuccino sat.
Lee took the seat offered, and Marco helped to slide it under her as she sat.
Marco took his own seat and explained, “I’ve just been here a few weeks, but the HU decided my job was better served out here actually living in the product itself. How do you like my work so far?” He waved a hand around in the air, indicating everything.
Lee laughed, “It’s impressive work, Marco.”
Marco said, “Of course, I just oversee things at a high altitude. I don’t do any of the detail design work. But living here gives me a chance to become immersed in the environment that I helped to produce. Also, this ring is a special version, and I need to see how it is going to work in person.”
