Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe (6 page)

Image 06
– Inside of the Orion-II.

(credits and details on the final page)

Houston was overwhelmed with joy.
But with such added tension, it was a different feeling from any other previous
mission. The images sent by the Communication Module showed the Orion-II
disappearing right in front of their eyes inside a cloud of distortion. Cheers
and applause gave way to congratulations and handshakes. NASA confirmed the
jump had been successful.

In 1969, NASA had managed to
place the first astronauts on the moon, a feat that had yet to be repeated by
any other nation on Earth. In 1990, the agency had launched the Hubble
telescope, responsible for a large part of humanity’s understanding of the
universe to date. In 1997, it sent the first probe to explore the surface of
Mars, the Pathfinder. A few years later, in 2000, NASA sent the first
astronauts to the recently constructed International Space Station (ISS).
Finally, in 2030, they accomplished the greatest historic feat up until that
point: the first astronauts traveled to Mars.

People would remember 2036,
however, as the year in which the first human beings went through a wormhole
and arrived in another galaxy. The agency was experiencing a moment of great
achievement.

Nonetheless, once the jump to
Draco was complete, Houston settled in for a long wait. Since they didn’t have
any type of communication with the ship, the control center had no other choice
but to wait. They monitored the images and data sent by the Communication
Module around the clock. They expected the crew to return in five days.

After the initial excitement, the
second day of waiting at the control center was more restrained.

On the third day, that joy was
still evident, but a certain monotony had set in.

On the fourth day, the tension
came back. By the next day, finally, the five days of waiting were over.
Everyone was on standby, waiting for the three pioneers to return to the solar
system. The module broadcasted live, but there was nothing more than a dark
void. The controllers were distressed, which, in a certain sense, was to be expected.

But on the sixth, seventh and
eighth days, the situation remained unchanged.

The mission commander in Houston,
senior director Dr. Terry Jones, woke up every two hours during the night to
receive status updates from the controllers. During the day, he spent hours
staring at the panel which displayed the information sent by the module. He
kept this routine up for one week. Then, he started waking up every four
hours... until he stopped waking up at all.

It had already been 20 days since
the mission launch. Fifteen days since the jump. The team’s morale and energy
were low after such a long time with no news. The media pressured everyone from
the director of NASA to the President of the United States, but there was
little to be said. The agency just kept waiting for them to return.

The end of the first month of
waiting was bleak. After three months, few believed the astronauts to still be
alive. After six months, NASA publicly confirmed the Stellarium-12 mission had
failed. The crew never returned, and their deaths were made official. America
gained three new dead heroes.

In that same announcement, under
intense pressure from society and the U.S. Congress, NASA confirmed the
Stellarium space program would be suspended. Researchers began conducting new
studies about how to send humans through wormholes in a safer way. A cohort of
scientists tried to develop theories about what might have gone wrong, so
society could at least understand their fate.

Five years later, with little
support from the government and discredited by public opinion, the Stellarium
Space Program is definitely closed and forgotten. The entire team is relocated;
the equipment taken apart; the documents archived. NASA returns to its plans
for missions to Mars. A strong sense of failure and regret is felt throughout
the agency.

And, so, the world moved on.

Image 07
– Capsule of NASA’s Orion spacecraft.

(credits and details on the final page)

The Orion-II had only been in
Draco for a few hours. Inside, a nervous crew worked frantically.

“Can we turn the telescope back
on? Is there any way to set it up so that it will scan the area every half
hour?” Russell suggested to Allison.

“I’m already scanning every
fifteen minutes. There isn’t anything visible to the naked eye, either, but the
probe captured images of it, so it must be on the other side.”

“How long does this planet’s
orbit take?” asked Russell.

“I’m not exactly sure, but from
the few images we’ve received, we calculated that a complete orbit could last
about one thousand days on Earth,” responded Allison.

“So, if the planet Sater really
is on the other side, the mission is over. We have no way of getting the probe
to the other side of Valkiria. There’s no way for us to steer it there
remotely. We would lose all communication as soon as it eclipsed behind the
star,” Russell concluded.

“And we don’t have any way of
getting to the other side, do we, Allison?” asked Frank.

“It’s too risky. If we were to
start moving around in space, we would have a hard time opening up the wormhole
to return home. We would have no way of guaranteeing that our location in space
at any given time would take as back to where we came from. The only thing we
know for certain is that, when we left from the jump point, the wormhole
brought us to this exact spot. If we activate the wormhole from here, it will
take us back there. But, if we leave here and try to make it around Valkiria,
we’ll really be risking it. We might never find our way back to our solar
system,” Allison explained.

“Okay, we’ve been looking for
this planet for seven hours now. We can wait for two more hours, and if we
haven’t found it by then, we should abort the mission and return,” suggested
Russell, and everyone agreed.

At that moment, Allison began to
work with the telescope data and the images captured by the cameras. Frank
checked the status of the systems and regulated the temperature inside the
ship. Russell visually mapped everything he could see through the front window.

“It’s a little hard to see
because of how dark it is, but there’s something in that direction. It might be
too small to be a planet,” said the commander.

“Yes, those are asteroids. I saw
them in the telescope images a few hours ago. They appear to be orbiting
Valkiria. If you look up a bit, you can see that there are several of them,
which form a belt,” explained Allison.

“That’s amazing...” said Russell,
as Frank tried to look out the same window.

It was a very long belt. There
were hundreds of asteroids of all sizes. They were all very close together, but
at a safe distance from the ship.

Finally, the two hours of waiting
came to an end. They all started getting ready for their return. Frank had
already performed the necessary procedures and checked the systems. Allison had
collected a ton of images, and did not seem too disappointed with the
cancellation.

Russell was relieved. Something
about this mission had worried him from the beginning. Despite feeling more
confident than before, he knew that going back was the right thing to do.

And, so, they turned on the
accelerator. The monitor counted down from ten minutes. They all sat in
silence, watching Valkiria. In the final minute, as they had gotten used to,
the images outside started to become distorted. Valkiria became a huge blur.
The green light on the panel lit up, indicating that the process had finished.
However, they hadn’t jumped.

“That 50% probability again…”
said Frank, as they all looked toward the star, confirming that they had indeed
failed to jump.

“Initiating proceedings for a
second attempt. Frank, activate the accelerator when I say so,” Russell said.

At that moment, an alarm starts
to go off inside the ship. Allison and Frank look at each other, while Russell
immediately aborts the procedure. Frank tries to figure out what is causing the
alert. Allison runs toward one of the windows.

“It’s the asteroids! They’re
coming in our direction, fast!” she warns, pointing to the images from camera
three, as she looks through the window again and tries to judge how much danger
they re in.

“The gravity we generated with
the accelerator attracted them to us. We’ve got to get out of here!” she
exclaims.

“Hang on... buckle up, Allison!
Starting engines in three, two, one...”

Russell fires up the engines and
the ship takes off at maximum thrust. They suffer intense turbulence as the
ship gets faster and faster. Once again, the astronauts are pressed against
their seats. The alarm is deafening. A few of the larger asteroids can clearly
be seen through the windows.

Suddenly, the ship is jolted by a
huge shock and starts to rotate. Apparently, a fragment has hit the front tip
of the Orion-II, causing it to spiral. The centripetal acceleration is
extremely strong, causing both Allison and Frank to lose consciousness.

The commander is still conscious,
fighting off the strength of that rotation as best he can. Before going
unconscious, as well, he is able to shut off the engines and activate the
automatic stabilization. It’s the last thing he does before he goes out. The
futures of all three astronauts lie in the hands of the autopilot function. If
the ship were to stabilize quickly, they would regain consciousness.

A few minutes later, the engines
finish shutting down. The ship is finally stabilized. However, it sped up so
much in this process that it moved farther and farther from its initial
coordinates.

One by one, they start waking up.
It takes them a few seconds to realize what has happened. They are able to look
around and confirm that they did indeed escape, but they aren’t exactly sure
where they are.

Allison calculates their
location, which Russell uses to correct the ship’s position. He then turns the
engines back on, placing the spacecraft in Valkiria’s orbit and preventing them
from being pulled in by the star’s gravity.

“All systems operating as
expected. What do we do now?” asked Frank.

The astronauts sat in silence as
they thought Frank’s question over. Finally, after looking at his colleague for
a few seconds, Russell said: “We’re going to activate the accelerator and go
home before we get any farther from the jump point.”

“Get any farther?” mocked
Allison. “We’re already really far away. We need to go back to where we were
before and then create the wormhole from there. Can we do that, Russ?”

“Given our current position, I
think that would only be possible if we completed a full orbit around
Valkiria.”

The crew fell silent for a
moment. Russell wasn't sure that was a good idea. Nonetheless, the ship had
traveled a great distance while they were all unconscious. Plus, if they chose
not to go around the star, they would have to brake the ship with the thrust
and use the engines to get back to their original location, a maneuver which
could very well end up using all of their fuel.

“According to my calculations, it
would take us about three days to orbit the star. We would hardly use any
fuel,” said Russell.

They all agreed and starting
preparing for the journey ahead. They would go almost all the way around
Valkiria. Russell would monitor their position in relation to the star and
correct the orbit whenever necessary.

Allison would take advantage of
the trip to scan the space around them with her telescope, capture and analyze
images from the cameras, and try to observe as much as possible through the
windows of the ship.

And, so, they left. After 10
hours of traveling through space, Frank was visibly worried. He had remained
silent since they had made the decision to orbit the star.

“Frank, is everything okay?”
asked Allison.

“Yes,” he replied shyly.

“You haven’t said a word all day.
I understand why... but if you need to talk...”

“It’s just that, for as long as
I’ve been an astronaut, I’ve always considered the possibility of not going
home,” he said, beginning to vent his feelings. “But I’ve never experienced
anything this real. I’m not ready to not go home, Allison.”

“And you don’t have to be.
Everything’s going to be okay. In two days, we’ll be back to the spot where
we’ll perform the jump. Everything is going to be fine,” said his colleague,
attempting to comfort him.

“Allison, can you come here,
please?” interrupted Russell.

“Is that your planet?” asked the
commander, pointing out the window to a dark area with a slight shimmer of
light. The light seemed spherical in shape. And although it seemed small, given
how far away it was, it was actually a huge body. It was located a bit above
the horizon, and was quite difficult to see because of the light radiating from
the star.

“I think so! It has to be!”
exclaimed Allison, as she headed straight for the computer that controlled the
telescope.

Soon after inputting a few
coordinates and adjusting the zoom on the telescope, the first images appeared
on the display monitor.

“Guys, check this out. That’s our
planet, Sater!” said Allison joyfully as she pointed to the screen.

The planet was magnificent. It
was a reddish blue color. The rings around it were bright and clearly visible.
A short while later, they were close enough to see it in greater detail.

“Let’s send the probe,” said
Allison.

“No. Mission aborted. We’re
staying on course until we can jump back, as planned,” said Russell.

“Russ, this planet is the only
reason we came here. We have to complete the mission!” she argued. “With the
data we have now, Frank could set up the probe to travel to and orbit the
planet. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to get some images before losing contact
on the other side of Valkiria. Then, we’ll arrive at the jump point as planned,
and we’ll still be able to take something back to Earth.”

“Okay, let’s assume that we
launch the probe and it’s able to get to the planet. What happens if we don’t
have enough time to capture any images? We’ll have to go back to Earth with no
images and no probe,” argued Russell.

“That’s fine,” responded Allison,
“the probe would orbit the planet until the next mission could go and capture
that data, without having to launch a second probe. In any case, there’s no
reason for us not to continue with the mission. The planet is practically right
in front of us!”

At that point, Russell pensively
looked toward the planet. He didn’t want to go home with his first failure,
especially since this was NASA’s biggest mission to date.

“Frank, let’s launch,” he said,
smiling at Allison.

“Okay, I’m going to need about 15
minutes to set up the new parameters,” Frank answered.

The rings around the ship are
realigned. As the probe undocks, the crew inside the Orion-II feels a slight
tremor. Allison positions the telescope so that she can monitor its journey.
Frank remotely opens the solar panels on the probe. Shortly thereafter, he
activates its engines.

In silence, they all watch as the
small vehicle makes its way to Sater. Little by little, it becomes nothing but
a shining spot in the dark sky. A few minutes later, even that beam of light
becomes invisible. The planet takes over one of the windows. Russell makes the
necessary adjustments to compensate for Sater’s gravity, which is slowly
pulling the Orion-II out of orbit.

And so, in astonishment, the crew
fought for a spot in the leftmost part of the capsule, looking out the windows
of the Orion-II to view the striking images of a planet never before seen.

After some time, the planet
started to fall behind the ship. It was only visible on the spacecraft’s
cameras. Frank continued monitoring all of the probe’s navigation data, while
Allison focused on the monitors, waiting for the first images to come in.

“Confirmed, the probe is in
orbit!” Frank announced excitedly after receiving verification on the computer.

“Excellent!” said Allison in
celebration. “Russell, how long until the probe is out of sight and we lose
contact?”

“Probably no more than three
hours...”

He is suddenly interrupted; the
cabin goes dark. Unexpectedly, the ship turns off completely. All of the
lights, computers, and even the on-board life support systems switch off.

The crew is enveloped in shock
and concern. A moment later, after coming to the obvious conclusion that the
ship has suffered a mechanical failure, Frank turns on his flashlight and
unfastens his seatbelt. Russell starts pressing a few buttons in the cabin,
trying, unsuccessfully, to restart the systems.

“Frank, what happened?” he asks.

“We may have experienced an
overload. The solar panels must be capturing a huge amount of energy. Or maybe
the Valkiria star is giving off too much heat. I’m going to manually restart
the systems.”

Frank opens one of the panels on
the ship floor. He reaches into a compartment filled with a variety of
electronic circuits. Confidently, he unplugs one of them, and then plugs it
back in. The ship comes back to life.