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Spaceception

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Atlas2342

Atlas2342

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On 3/10/2016 at 3:43 PM, Atlas2342 said:

Chapter 1; The Discovery

Robert Baker was in his mid-forties with graying brown hair and a slightly lined face. He graduated from the University of Hawaii with a master's in astronomy, and got a job at a local observatory where he and his team studied pulsars, neutron stars, quasars, and black holes. His team of 27 people mainly cataloged newly discovered objects, but they sometimes looked for the objects themselves. Robert was also looked at as one of the most influential people in the state, as he and his team were some of the best in Hawaii.

 

Ring, Ring, Ring, Ri-

"What?" Asked Robert Baker, tiredly.

"Hello Professor Baker, I know you're sleeping, but I need you to come to the observatory immediately."

Robert sighed. "Jack, it's 2:30 pm, I'm not supposed to be there until 7:40 pm, then I said I'll look at your data."

"Yeah," Jack began, "Well, we've just been refining the simulations we've been working on, and we need you to come here now."

"Alright Jack, I'll be there in half an hour," Robert responded. He sighed. "Honey, I'm going to be heading out early!" he called.

"Okay!" His wife Mary called back.

Robert got out of bed, put on his pants and a shirt, put on his shoes, and walked downstairs to kiss his wife goodbye, then he walked outside to his car, got in and drove towards the observatory.

Robert was nearing the observatory now, and a few minutes later, he was there. He pulled into the parking lot, got out of his car, and walked towards the building that housed the offices and the supercomputer. The moment Robert walked through the door, he was greeted by Jack, practically waiting right by the door for him.

"Hey Jack, what's so important you have to wake me up?" Asked Robert.

"Well, we found something strange a few thousand AU from the Solar System," Jack responded. "Gravitational disturbances," he added.

"Gravitational disturbances? Like wormholes?" Asked Robert, interested.

"No," started Jack, "Like a black hole!" he said. "Headed for the solar system." Robert's jaw dropped.

"Wait, did I hear that right? A black hole?" he asked, with a shaking voice.

"Yes, a black hole, currently it's 3200 AU away from Earth, traveling at almost 300 kps, but in 44 years, it will be within the orbit of Eris," Said Jack.

"And how big is this black hole?" Robert asked.

Jack sighed and said "One hundred times the mass of the Sun."

"Wait, what!?" The building immediately went silent. "It's alright everyone," Robert said to them.

"You heard me," said Jack, "In seven years, the Earth will go into an ice age, and in 29, the Earth will be pulled into an orbit closer than Venus, and more elliptical than Mercury, raising its temperature past the boiling point." Robert noticed a hint of fear in his voice.

"Take me to the room you guys have been simulating. I want to see if it's just a bug in the system. If there is a black hole a hundred times the mass of the Sun, how in God's name did we miss it?" asked Robert, with a clear urgency.

"It seemed to have come into existence 8 hours ago," Jack responded.

"Okay then, let's go to the simulation room," Robert said. Jack nodded and led him down to the room the team had been using. When they walked in, there were 22 people in the room pouring over data sheets and computer screens, and there were a few coffee pots as well. The room was medium sized. One of the team members, George, walked over to Robert to him to give him some of the latest news.

"We've been getting some more data, and we now know that the radiation from the black hole will sterilize life on Earth in 36 years, and shortly after that Earth gets closer to the Sun, and the Moon will collide with Earth, turning it into a worse hell than Venus." George sighed and went back to work.

"Alright everyone, here's what we're going to do, I want all of you to check and re-check every piece of data you've got. And every time, check for bugs in the system to make sure it isn't a really bad glitch, okay? Good, now let’s get to work," Robert said.

"We're gonna need more coffee," muttered Mara, one of the programmers. She grabbed three empty coffee pots and walked out to fill them, and returned shortly after with a few full pots of coffee. After that, she returned to work. For three weeks they worked tirelessly, looking at telescope data, re-doing simulations, over and over again, sometimes they were doing 36 hour shifts. Finally, they accepted the fact that a black hole was heading towards the Solar System.

Robert rubbed his eyes, and tiredly said "Get me on the next flight to D.C."

"What are you doing?” asked Mara.

"I need to talk to the president," Robert said.

He sighed, got up, and walked out the door. At this point, everyone knew what Robert and his team were doing. One astronomer walked over to him and asked, "Is there any news?" As soon as she asked, the hall suddenly went silent, save for the whirring of computers.

"Yes, we have confirmed that a black hole is in fact heading towards the Solar System, arriving in 44 years," Robert said.

There was a shocked silence for at least six minutes. So silent, in fact, that they were deaf to the computer sounds and pretty much any other noise in the area. This continued until the same astronomer, who asked Robert the earlier question, asked shakily, "Wh-what will happen to humanity?"

Robert took a deep breath and said, “In seven years, the Earth will go into another ice age. Twenty nine years after that, the radiation of the black hole will begin to wipe out life on Earth. And seven years after that, the Earth will be pulled into a closer orbit than Venus. There's also a good chance that the moon will collide with the Earth."

After that, the hall seemed more quiet than before, except now, everyone who had been in the hall had their mouths wide open in shock. Robert then walked down the hall and out the door to get some fresh air, and took deep breaths to calm himself. For 10 minutes, he stood there with his eyes closed before opening them and walking back inside, where he was greeted by the head of the observatory, Amy Summers.

"Please, please, please tell me this isn't just some really bad joke," she said almost pleadingly.

"It's not a joke Amy, there really is a black hole heading towards us. We've been observing it for three weeks now, and the only thing that has changed is its distance."

Amy grabbed her hair with her hand, and pointed at Robert with a shaking finger, "You need to talk to the President about this.”

"I know," said Robert, "I'll be going out soon."

"Go now!" Amy said, "We can't waste any time." Robert nodded and walked back out the door, towards his car.

Half an hour later, he was at home. He got out of his car and walked inside. Without so much as saying hello to his wife, Robert walked upstairs. He grabbed a small suitcase, and started pilling clothes in it. His wife walked upstairs, and stood at the doorway, looking at her husband sympathetically.

"Where are you going now?" she asked.

"D.C." Robert said.

"Why?" She asked, this time almost demanding.

"I need to talk to the President," he said bluntly. Robert’s wife stood at the doorway, shocked, while Robert closed his suitcase, kissed her, walked downstairs, went outside to his car, and pulled out of the driveway. He began to head towards the airport, one and a half hours later, he was boarding a plane to D.C.

10 hours later

Robert stepped out of the plane, stretching his tired legs. He walked over to the lane of the self-driving taxis, put $50 in, and then it drove itself to the White House. 37 minutes later, the car pulled into the White House gate.

"Do you have an appointment with the President, professor?" asked the security guard, after he scanned his retina.

"No," said Robert, “but I need to talk to him urgently.”

"No appointment, no President," said the security guard.

"Look, there's a black hole heading our way, and in 44 years, it will fly past the Solar System, killing all life on Earth, including us," said Robert desperately.

The security guard looked blank for a few seconds, and then he said, "Christ almighty, why didn't you start with that?" He pulled out a walkie-talkie and said, "Professor Baker would like to speak with the President, no appointment needed."  Then he lifted the gate for him. Robert sat down as the taxi pulled him towards the entrance of the White House. Robert stepped out of the taxi when it stopped, and it parked itself a few feet away. When he opened the door to the White House, a woman was walking towards him.

She said, "Hello, my name is Ashley Johnson, and I am the President's secretary." She held out her hand, and Robert shook it. "Alright, right this way." she said. Robert followed her through a hallway, towards the Oval Office. Robert looked at all of the pictures of presidents that lined the walls, while his heart was beating like a drum, and he thought about how all of that history would be destroyed. A moment later, they were in front of the Oval Office, and Mrs. Johnson knocked on the door.

"Who's there?" asked the President.

"Professor Robert Baker, he would like to speak with you, Mr. President."

"Come in," he said. Mrs. Johnson opened the door, and Robert saw that the President and Vice President had been talking.

"Mr. Anderson, would you mind leaving me and Professor Baker alone to talk?" asked the President.

"Certainly," said Mr. Anderson, and he walked out the door.

"Well, I'll leave you two to talk," said Mrs. Johnson, and she shut the door.

"Hello Professor. And please, call me Alex," Alex said as he offered his hand. Robert shook it.

"So what's this 'news' you need to tell me?"

"Okay, Mr. Pre- Alex, I have something to tell you, and it's not good." Robert took a deep breath, and said, "Over three weeks ago, my team found a black hole outside of our Solar System. We don't know how it got there, as it seemed to have popped into existence around the same time."

"Please, take a seat," said Alex. The President walked over to the back of the desk, and sat on his chair, while Robert sat opposite to him in a smaller armchair. "Tell me what's going to happen to Earth," said Alex.

Robert nodded and said, "In seven years, the Earth will go into an ice age, twenty nine years after that, the radiation will begin to kill life on Earth, and seven years after that, the Earth will be pulled into an orbit closer than Venus', raising the temperature beyond the boiling point. Not only that, but the Moon is likely to collide with Earth as well. In other words, all life on Earth will become extinct." Alex took a few moments absorbing what he had just heard, and finally spoke after a few minutes.

"What can we do?"

"We have two options," said Robert. “We can sit here and die out, or, we can leave the Solar System and look for a new home."

Alex asked, "Is there nowhere in the solar system we could escape to?"

Robert replied, "No. Mars' orbit will technically be in the habitable zone after all this happens, but its orbit will be too elliptical to be useful."

Alex nodded and said, "Out of the solar system it is. How many could we take?"

"Ideally, we'd want a crew of 20,000, but I reckon we could work with 200." Alex nodded again, and sat there for a couple minutes thinking. Then he tapped a touchscreen next to him.

"Yes Mr. President?" asked Mrs. Johnson.

"Get me a conference call with the leaders of the UK, Canada, China, Japan, and the heads of their respective space agencies."

"Okay, what should I tell them?" she asked.

"Tell them the future of humanity is at stake," said Alex.

"Oh-Okay," said Mrs. Johnson. "Calling them now."

Alex stood up, and gestured for Robert to follow him. He opened up the door, and walked to the cabinet room. There they took a chair, and waited for the 10 screens to light up. That took half an hour. After all the screens were lit, Alex stood up and introduced them to Robert, and then he asked, "Robert, could you tell them what you told me?"

"Certainly," Robert said. And he repeated what he told the president. After he finished, all eyes were on the space agency heads.

"Alright Professor, you may leave now. Thank you for telling us this," said Alex as he gestured him towards the door. Robert nodded and walked out of the room. The door closed as Alex pressed a button on his cuff, and he spoke into it saying, "Mrs. Johnson, please escort Robert out of the White House, thank you."

Alex then turned to the 10 screens, "Alright, now you know how the world will end. The next question is: How do we save humanity from going extinct?"

The head of ESA spoke up, "Obviously, we need to build a starship. I propose we use Project Orion. It uses nuclear pulse propulsion."

"What's that?" asked Alex.

"Nuclear pulse propulsion works by detonating nuclear bombs at the back of the ship to produce thrust. With that setup, we could reach 5% of the speed of light, and slow down," said the head of the ESA.

"Uh, how about no. I don't care if it's the end of the world, we're not going to put the last of humanity on a bunch of bombs," Alex replied.

"Okay then," said the head of NASA, Bill Connors. "What about laser sails? You have a massive, very thin sail. It basically uses light from highly concentrated lasers to get it up to speed. With that design, you could get to 10% of the speed of light. The only problem is really just slowing down, but seeing as how we could use the solar wind of the target stat, that shouldn't be a big problem."

"And how big would this sail have to be?" asked the prime minister of Russia.

"Quite literally the size of Texas, or, an almost 1100 kilometers wide circle," said Bill.

"That's not doable in the slightest sense," said the prime minister of Canada.

"Okay," said Bill. "What about a Bussard ramjet? That works by having a laser to ionize the interstellar medium, and a magnetic field that scoops hydrogen from interstellar space, and fuses it to make power and thrust. That would be limited to about 12% of the speed of light."

"And how big would that have to be?" asked Alex.

"160 km, but, it would effectively be mass-less, since it’s a magnetic field, with an emitter and a laser to allow it to work. It also needs the other aspects of a space craft, too." Almost everyone but Alex was nodding in approval.

"This is great and all, but have you all forgotten that the longest a fusion reactor has ever been active is 5 months? So how long does this need to work?" asked Alex.

"Forty years minimum, 80-150 years realistically," answered Bill. "However, the engine only needs to be turned on 4 times. Once for the acceleration, which would only take about a month. Second, for slowing down into orbit around the target star. Third, to speed up slightly towards the target planet. And forth, to enter orbit around the target planet. The rest of the time we could use conventional nuclear fission reactors."

"Okay, I guess I can live with that," said Alex. "But what about crew? When Robert and I were talking, he said ideally we'd want 20,000 for genetic diversity, but said we could work with 200."

The head of CNSA spoke up this time, "No, 200 is too low, but I don't think we could build a ship large enough to hold 20,000, but we could work with 1,000. That would be my minimum."

The head of JAXA spoke up this time, "What are we going to put them in? Microgravity isn't the best place to put astronauts in, fun, yes, but in the span of 40-150 years, their bones will become thin and brittle, and when they get to the planet, their bones will break, so what habitat do we want them in? Doughnut shaped, or cylinder shaped?" The debate reigned on for over half an hour, until they settled for a doughnut centrifuge spacecraft capable of holding 3,500 people, it would be 600 meters across, and provide 0.77 gees of gravity.

"This is all well and good, but where are we going to go?" asked the head of Roscosmos.

Bill answered, "The closest star with planets is Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years away, making the trip 40 years. It has three planets. Unfortunately, they're too cold to support human life. after that, it's Alpha Centauri a. That star only has two hot gas giants. Next is Alpha Centauri b, which has four planets, but they're all hot deserts. After that it's Lalande 21185, which has six planets, two in the habitable zone, all rocky, but the star is 8.3 light years away, making the trip 79 years. After that, there's Epsilon Indi. That star has three planets, all gas giants. Two of them are ice giants, and are too cold, but one, larger than Jupiter, is in the habitable zone, however, it's not known to have Earthlike moons, but evidence from JWST suggests that it does. Unfortunately its distance of 11 light years would make the trip last 110 years. On the bright side, however, the star is Sun-like, meaning the sky could be blue, and the views would be excellent. We could also imagine there being several Earthlike moons orbiting it if the gas giant accumulated enough material."

And so, the argument began. It was split into four parties. The first wanted to take the easy way, and go to Proxima. As they said, the star has a cold desert planet, which would be useful for a self sustaining base, and a couple of icy planets, which would be useful for just about everything, water, air, plants, fuel cells, fusion, etc. The second wanted to go to Lalande 21185, arguing that the six planet system with two potential worlds that could be easily colonized would be best for the crew. The 3rd group wanted to wait and go to Epsilon Indi, saying we should prioritize a Sun-like star over anything else. Plus the gas giant would be useful for protecting any moons from lethal radiation. The 4th wanted to keep looking for planets, saying there could be better options for humanity. After over an hour of arguing, they decided to take a vote, the most popular vote went to Lalande 21185, and that was settled as the target. After that, they had to decide how to build and fund it. Funding was easy, as they all decided to put 30% of their national budgets to space exploration, and to put all of it to the starship. Figuring out how to build it was harder, but after half an hour of discussion, they decided to have NASA and JAXA build the propulsion system, the ESA and CSA building the habitat (As well as having all private companies who built spacecraft assist them), and CNSA and Roscosmos will build the shuttles. On the question of how the citizens would react they decided to declare martial law over their citizens, and practically make their countries dictatorships.

     Three days later

The entire world was in frenzy, after their leaders declared almost absolute power over them. Protesting reached an all time high, and economies were starting to get damage. The UN wondered how they were going to keep the peace for the next 36 years...

_________________________________________________________

Okay, did the suggestion....

 

This....

Edit: fixed my mistake, sorry....

Edited by Atlas2342
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Spaceception

Spaceception

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2 minutes ago, Atlas2342 said:

 In the first part of the Chapter 1, what did you mean by U of Hawaii?

I think Bill changed it, so I just went with it, it was originally "A local university" or something along those lines :)

Also, that pale blue thing is over your text, I think it may be a bug.

Edited by Spaceception
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Atlas2342

Atlas2342

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7 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I think Bill changed it, so I just went with it, it was originally "A local university" or something along those lines :)

Also, that pale blue thing is over your text, I think it may be a bug.

Should i change the "U' to University? Also, weird, I don't see any pale blue things...

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Spaceception

Spaceception

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Just now, Atlas2342 said:

Should i change the "U' to University? Also, weird, I don't see any pale blue things...

it's gone now, at lest on the comment I'm quoting you on, but your comment before still has it.

No, I can do that :) Thanks though.

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Andem

Andem

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Cool! It seems a little rushed, which I understand, and I have to ask if you saw a certain netflix documentary that I fotret the name of. It basically outlined a similar issue with a neutron star heading through the Solar System...

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Spaceception

Spaceception

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1 hour ago, Andem said:

Cool! It seems a little rushed, which I understand, and I have to ask if you saw a certain netflix documentary that I fotret the name of. It basically outlined a similar issue with a neutron star heading through the Solar System...

Evacuate Earth :)

And I'm not trying to make it similar, for one thing, they have a lot less time to build the ship, and for another it has more sci-fi elements to it and for anotherother, THE CREW IS CHOSEN PROPERLY, wait was I yelling? Sorry, but when I saw that elderly people were getting on the ship, It lost any respect I had for it. YOU DON"T PUT OLD PEOPLE ON A SHIP DESIGNED TO SAVE HUMANITY!! THEY CAN"T REPRODUCE!! Again, sorry, got emotional for a sec.

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Andem

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2 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Evacuate Earth :)

And I'm not trying to make it similar, for one thing, they have a lot less time to build the ship, and for another it has more sci-fi elements to it and for anotherother, THE CREW IS CHOSEN PROPERLY, wait was I yelling? Sorry, but when I saw that elderly people were getting on the ship, It lost any respect I had for it. YOU DON"T PUT OLD PEOPLE ON A SHIP DESIGNED TO SAVE HUMANITY!! THEY CAN"T REPRODUCE!! Again, sorry, got emotional for a sec.

Yeah, Documentary isn't the right word for it, and I didn't mean to say that you were ripping it off or anything.Tthinking about it, it was kind of silly, wasn't it?

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Spaceception

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Just now, Andem said:

Yeah, Documentary isn't the right word for it, and I didn't mean to say that you were ripping it off or anything.Tthinking about it, it was kind of silly, wasn't it?

Yeah, I still kinda like it though, so parts are pretty good, but it's not the most scientific :)

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Andem

Andem

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Just now, Spaceception said:

Anyway, I've finished over an entire page, and it's coming together nicely, it'll still be fasted paced, but not as fast paced :)

Awesome! I can't wait!

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Bill Phil

Bill Phil

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On March 9, 2016 at 7:49 AM, Spaceception said:

I think Bill changed it, so I just went with it, it was originally "A local university" or something along those lines :)

Also, that pale blue thing is over your text, I think it may be a bug.

I'm pretty sure I stuck with a local university... I dunno.

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Atlas2342

Atlas2342

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7 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

I just checked my submission. It still says a local university.

But in the one Spaceception posted its "U"...

Chapter 1; The Discovery

Robert Baker was in his mid-forties with graying brown hair and a slightly lined face. He graduated from the U of Hawaii with a master's in astronomy, and got a job at a local observatory where he and his team studied pulsars, neutron stars, quasars, and black holes. His team of 27 people mainly cataloged newly discovered objects, but they sometimes looked for the objects themselves. Robert was also looked at as one of the most influential people in the state, as he and his team were some of the best in Hawaii.

Edited by Atlas2342
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