Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe (10 page)

Image 12
– Unidentified galaxy observed by the astronauts.

(credits and details on the final page)

The plan was relatively simple:
they would need to speed up, a lot, both so that they could get to the other
side in eight days, and so they wouldn’t be swallowed up by the black hole.
Contrary to what intuition would indicate, they weren’t fleeing from the black
hole, but rather, they were headed toward it at full speed.  This was the only
way for them to speed up. The acceleration of the thrust itself, in addition to
the acceleration caused by the gravitational pull of the singularity, resulted
in a gravity four times greater than that on Earth.

At a certain point in the
trajectory, once they were going at full speed—which, in this case, would be
about 80% light speed—they would activate the engines and deviate off course,
thus circumventing the black hole and entering its orbit.

For the first three days, the
ship would experience intense and constant acceleration. However, once they
made the detour and entered the black hole’s orbit, the acceleration would
disappear and they would return to floating through space. The trip was planned
to last four more days in this state.

Finally, after seven days, they
would turn the engines back on and escape the orbit, at which point they would
once again be subjected to gravitational force and a slight deceleration, until
finally arriving at the point where they would create the wormhole and perform
the jump. One more day of travel, making eight days in total.

Once the route was mapped out,
they began a journey which no other human being, vehicle, or probe had ever
experienced before.

It was hard to imagine that they
would endure three days of intense acceleration, almost reaching light speed.
First of all, because no physical structure created by man had ever reached
such a speed. And, secondly, because traveling so close to a black hole at that
speed meant that time and space would become distorted. For them, the clock
kept ticking as it always had, but for someone on Earth—if they were able to
observe the ship from there—it would seem as if every second lasted an
eternity.

Time wasn’t the only factor that seemed
strange; space was also affected. They all had different dimensions than
normal, even though they weren’t able to perceive any particular changes.

The gravity exerted by the
singularity, however, was very perceptible and real to them. They didn’t seem
to be in space anymore. They felt a 4G force (four times Earth’s gravity).
Russell, for example, usually weighed 175 pounds on Earth, but now, it was as
if he weighed 700.

On the first day, they were all
in great pain because of the strong acceleration. Nonetheless, they gradually
started getting used to their new weight. They didn’t move around at all; they
spent all of their time sitting. Even lifting an arm was extremely tiring.

Allison was reminded of a ride at
a theme park near her house in which everyone sat in a sort of cylinder; the
ride would start spinning really quickly until you couldn’t even manage to get a
hair out of your face.

During the first few minutes of
the trip, after stowing the rings, Frank put the system in voice recognition
mode. That way, they could do almost all their daily tasks just by speaking
with the computer.

Before reaching the peak level of
acceleration, they all put on a special part of their space suits. They would
all use a system that was, basically, a high-tech diaper. Though they had joked
about this element during training, it had become incredibly important for this
part of the trip.

Even simple activities such as
typing or turning their heads would become unbearable.

Allison was the lightest of the
team. She was the one responsible for going to the Service Module and bringing
back food. They ate only twice per day. They weren’t at a point where they
needed to ration food yet, but it was just too hard to get up for more food.

Russell, on the other hand, had
to do the most work. From time to time, he had to make small adjustments to the
Orion-II... something he couldn’t do with voice commands. Despite using
joysticks for this task, his weight made these maneuvers—which he had trained
extensively for on Earth—much more difficult to manage.

“Russell?” Frank called out.

“What?”

“I was thinking... could you turn
the ship about 30 degrees upwards?” the engineer asked.

“Why?”

“The angle we’re at right now is
putting a lot of weight on my lower back. If you could tilt the ship a bit,
some of that weight would fall on the rest of my back,” he explained.

“Frank, do you know how difficult
it is to maneuver the ship at this speed? And that if I make even the slightest
error, our weight could become concentrated on our chests, making it hard to
breathe?” Russell argued.

“Come on, just a little bit?” he
insisted.

“Okay, here’s how it’s going to
go: when you find a way for us to stop the ship once we arrive at our
destination, I’ll be so kind as to tilt the ship a bit so your bum won’t be in
so much pain,” the commander negotiated in a playful tone.

At the end of the third day,
Russell and Allison calculated when they would have to turn the engines back on
in order to position the Orion-II in orbit. They were reaching the most
critical point of the trip. They would have to alter their path and accelerate
at full force. Up until that point, they had been headed toward the black hole,
but now, they would follow a curve to circumvent the hole at high speed, thus
positioning themselves in its orbit.

If the maneuver were successful,
that would be the end of the acceleration. They would be safely orbiting the
black hole, once again floating inside the ship. But if their calculations were
off, if the engines failed, or if anything else went wrong, they wouldn’t be
able to enter the orbit and they would have to jump through a wormhole from
wherever they were to avoid being swallowed up by the black hole. Allison had
said that, in this case, jumping just “anywhere” wouldn’t solve the problem...
they would end up dying anyway, because they wouldn’t be able to make it back
to Earth. So, she had tried to convince her colleagues to die in the black hole
itself. At least that way they would finally discover what happens when one is
sucked in by a singularity in space. Obviously, neither of the two remaining
astronauts liked the sound of that, and they put an end to the discussion. None
of them were planning on failing. They absolutely had to find a way to get the
ship in orbit.

Finally, the time came. Russell
slowly steered the ship, aligning the rockets with their ideal trajectory. They
all prepared themselves as he counted down. Once he activated the ignition,
they would all feel a strong jolt backwards. The ship was flying at full speed;
then, gradually, the immense gravitational force they had experienced started
to decrease.

This leg of the journey took
approximately 10 hours. Russell turned the engines on and off, aiming to stay
on course. He only stopped once he could tell that the variation in
acceleration had stopped. They had reached equilibrium. The centrifugal force
of their curvilinear trajectory and the force of the black hole’s gravitational
field were finally equal.

The crew members were ecstatic.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan. Allison and Frank
congratulated the commander over and over again. Inside the Orion-II, everyone
was feeling optimistic.

The next day, Allison told
Russell and Frank that she thought she had discovered a way to stop the ship.

“Frank, you know that final
minute before each jump, when the ship produces so much gravity that it starts
attracting light?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “that’s when
the ship is on the verge of turning into a black hole and creating a wormhole.”

“Is there any way that you could
adjust the parameters to make that minute last three minutes?” she asked.

“The accelerator’s parameters are
pre-configured. I would have to access a really sensitive part of the
controller software to make the change. And changing that would mean we would
be operating with parameters that have never been tested. How is this going to
help us stop the ship?” Frank asked.

“As soon as we get to the correct
location, we’ll have to turn on the engines to escape the orbit we’re in and
thus distance ourselves from the black hole, traveling toward the jump point.
When we do that, the gravity of the singularity will help us lower our speed,
because it will try to keep sucking us in. But it won’t lower our speed enough,
because we’ll have the engines on. However—and here’s my idea—when we activate
the accelerator to create the wormhole, the ship’s exterior gravity will
increase, distorting space by manipulating dark matter. For a short time, our
mass will increase exponentially,” Allison explained.

“I see what you’re getting at.
The longer we generate that huge gravity, the longer the ship will represent a
“mini black hole,” meaning that the singularity will exert a much stronger
force of attraction, which will help us slow down. Allison, that’s brilliant!”

“Yes, but it won’t bring us to a
complete stop. We would still be going pretty fast when we arrive in Draco.
But, then, following the same principle, we would lose speed again when
attracted by Valkiria,” she explained.

“Allison, have you managed to
calculate whether this deceleration would be bearable?” Frank asked.

“Yes, that’s why we would need to
increase that final pre-jump minute to three minutes. That’s how long we’d need
for a safe acceleration between eight and ten ‘Gs’. Some of us will likely lose
consciousness, but nothing that won’t be reversed a few minutes later,” she
concluded.

“It seems like a good idea.
Frank, can you make that adjustment and increase the final minute of the
algorithm that creates the wormhole?” Russell asked.

“Yes, I’ll start working on that
right now,” he responded.

Over the next few days, he made
the adjustments. The three astronauts began discussing their return to Earth.
If everything went according to plan—if they were actually able to jump back to
the Draco Galaxy, and were then lucky enough to jump back to Earth’s solar
system—they wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it back to Earth, and might not
even have enough to get to the Space Station. They could always aim the ship
toward Earth and let gravity do the rest... but reentering with only two
parachutes was out of the question.

This was, without a doubt, a
problem they would have to address later on. For now, they were focused on the
next leg of their journey.

In the end, Allison’s initial
prediction that the trip would only take them eight days was incorrect. In
fact, it only took them seven days. By the last day, they were all ready for
the escape procedure.

They would have to turn the
engines back on, escape the black hole’s orbit and move away from the singularity,
navigating through open space until arriving at the spot where they would have
to perform the jump.

“All systems operational. Fuel at
22%, oxygen at 58%, batteries at 10%,” Frank reported.

“Activating engines,” Russell
commanded.

The entire ship was overcome by a
strong acceleration. The comfort of the orbit began to disappear. They
gradually started to feel an acceleration opposite the direction the ship was
traveling in. They started slowing down as the gravitational force of the black
hole began attracting them again. After some time, they turned off the engines;
they had officially escaped from the singularity. They advanced toward the
target as planned. They would arrive at the jump location in approximately 13
hours.

At one point, an alert appeared
on one of the monitors. Their fuel level had reach eight percent, which was
much less than they had predicted. They had been required to spend a lot of
fuel both entering and exiting the black hole’s orbit.

“Frank, it’s time to reposition
the rings and prepare the dark matter accelerator. We’re 30 minutes away from
the target,” Russell said.

The engineer was clearly tense.
There was no way to know if the ship would be able to correctly reopen the
rings. They had been stowed at the beginning of this part of the trip,
something they weren’t designed for. Something could have been damaged in this
process. They had also been subjected to extreme gravitational force during
this leg of the journey, which could have bent or damaged the engines
responsible for reopening the rings.

Allison and Russell look on
apprehensively. After Frank initiates the procedure, the rings start to move.
They slowly start returning to their original position.

Then, one of the engine alarms
goes off, signaling an overload. Frank immediately increases the voltage, contrary
to the obvious solution, which would be to decrease the load, not increase it.
He knew he wouldn’t need that engine again, he just needed to accomplish this
final mission: fully positioning the vertical ring.

Another three alarms go off. The
other engines are also experiencing overload. The ring only needs to move a few
more inches to be fully aligned.

Finally, the alarms fall silent.

“The rings are in position.
Confirmation that the system is operational. You just have to tell me when,”
Frank responded, relieved.

They all smiled. The ghost was
gone. The ship was still working and was ready for the next jump.

A few minutes later, Russell
asked Frank to initiate the procedure. Once again, the countdown began. This time,
instead of ten minutes, the clock read twelve. They had added two more minutes
to the final pre-jump time.

As the countdown got closer to
zero, the crew started to feel a strong acceleration pulling against their
trajectory. They were manipulating the gravity around them, which was causing
the force of attraction between the ship and the black hole to increase. The
ship really started slowing down.

And the countdown continued. The
gravity generated by the accelerators increased exponentially, causing the ship
to slow down even more.

They finally arrive at the final
minute, which would now last three minutes. They are all pressed against their
seats as the lights outside begin to become distorted.

“Pray that we jump the first time
around. If we end up on the negative side of the 50% probability rate, we’re
going to find ourselves in a very tricky situation,” says Russell.

A sharp acceleration presses them
against their seats, much more so than anything they had felt up until this
point. At the end of the three minutes, the green light on the dashboard lights
up. The astronauts are immediately thrown in the opposite direction. They had
stopped slowing down; the jump had been successful. They had managed to jump
through the wormhole, meaning the black hole was no longer there to pull them
toward it.

But they didn’t know that yet.
They were all unconscious. Russell gradually began to wake up. He didn’t know
how long he had been unconscious.

“Is everyone okay? I think we
jumped,” he said.

“Frank, can you please give us
the systems readings?” the commander requested.

There was no answer.

“Frank? Frank? Can you hear me?
Allison?”

Allison slowly started to wake
up. She and Frank had also lost consciousness during the jump due to the
intense deceleration the ship had experienced.

“Did it work?” Allison asked as
she began to recover.

“Yes, it seems like it did. Can
you confirm if we’re back in Draco?” Russell asked.

“Yes, we are, Russ,” Allison
said, pulling herself together. “Valkiria is behind us, I can see it on camera.”

“Huh? Where? When?” asked Frank sleepily
as he slowly opened his eyes.

Russell and Allison looked at
each other, laughing.

“Frank, are you okay?” asked
Allison.

“Did I pass out? “Am I the only
one who passed out?” he asked.

“Yes, just you. When we get back,
I’m going to put something in my report saying that you need to do more G-force
training,” said Russell smiling, as he winked at Allison, encouraging her to
follow along with the lie.

The astronomer started collecting
data from the telescope, cross-referencing it with the data from their first
jump.

“Russell, we need to modify our
trajectory 15 degrees. If we do that, at the speed I’ve calculated, we’ll
arrive at our destination in five hours,” she said.

“Okay, I’m adjusting the course.
Prepare for engine activation.”

A few minutes later, they were on
the right path. Their fuel level was critical. They were at just four percent.
And, given the data captured by the telescope, Allison predicted that they were
still traveling at a very high speed. This wasn’t too far from what they had
predicted, but considering that the fact that they only had four percent of
their fuel left, they wouldn’t be able to slow down completely in the solar
system before returning to Earth. For the first time, she decided not to share
her concerns with the team.

Just over four hours later, they
were close enough to the jump point to activate the accelerators and create the
wormhole that would take them back. They were all overcome with a feeling of
confidence. They were more optimistic than ever.

“Russ, Frank, we can go ahead and
activate the accelerators. We’re in position,” Allison said.

“Are you sure, Allison? We’re not
going to end up in another bizarre place?” the commander asked.

“I’m completely sure. This is the
spot. The computer compared our current position to the location where we first
arrived by aligning at least nine different stars. This allows for extreme
precision. When we jumped the first time, I was working with a greater margin
of error. I’m confident this time,” she concluded.

“Okay. Frank, activate the
accelerators,” Russell commanded.

The monitor displayed twelve
minutes. When the countdown reached the final three minutes, they all felt
another intense deceleration, though this time it wasn’t as strong as the last,
since Valkiria’s force of attraction wasn’t as great as that of the black hole.

They were all pressed against
their seats again, as if something were pulling them backwards. And that’s
exactly what was happening. The gravity of the star was pulling them. They
hadn’t been able to perceive this the first few times, since that force had
only been exerted at the end of the final pre-jump minute. But since that
“final moment” now lasted three minutes, the gravitational force was quite
clear.

The light from the stars outside
started to become distorted. By now, this was a familiar process. All they
wanted was to jump the first time. They still had enough energy for two jumps;
if the first one failed, the second one would almost definitely work. Nonetheless,
they weren’t in the mood to play with the odds. They all wanted a successful
first attempt. They all wanted to see that star disappear. They were also
extremely scared of ending up back in the Andromeda Galaxy, and having to deal
with that giant black hole again.

And if their plan didn’t work, if
they didn’t jump back to the solar system, they wouldn’t have much energy left
to jump again or continue traveling. It would be the end of the mission.

These were the thoughts that
crossed their minds during that final minute. The distorted light from the
stars outside, the huge blur visible through the window, the last few seconds
of reflection... and the uncertainty of what was to come.

That’s what transpired inside the
Orion-II during the final three minutes before what would probably be the
ship’s last jump. In the distance, a small, white dot in space went out.

Inside the capsule, the green
light lit up once again. The jump had been completed.