Later that day, after his Fajar and Ishraq prayers, the Traveler started off to work with the help from both Boston Dynamic Robots and Wania, the AI. Main task was to ascertain the issues with the 1g Drive, which prevented the AI from shutting it down or returning it back towards Earth.
"Issues started off once we were approaching the Asteroid to tether it. Our 1g Drive went suddenly out of control and we hit the hard surface with devastating force. What caused it?", Traveler mused, remembering the details. His mind was sharp now, if his body was still recovering.
The 1g Drive was a marvel of cutting edge engineering, a joint efforts by a team of Engineers from SUPARCO, NASA, Indian Institute of Space Technology and Turkish Space Program. He has been leading this team for the last 10 years. At its core the concept was simple enough. Old Earth Rockets were big behemoths, which accelerated at very high speeds, breaking free from the Earth's gravity and consuming most of their fuel in that attempt. This left little for the rest of journey.
In early 21st Century, the theoretical proposal of 1g constant acceleration drive was proposed, which translated into a following capabilities:
If a space ship constantly accelerated at a mere 1g rate of acceleration, it could reach the speed of light with a year, so it had to be slowed down half way to stop at your destination. To summarize, one could reach the nearest star system, Proxima Century with in 4 year, Sirrus in 5 years, Orion Nebula in 15 Years, and even Center of Milky way in just 20 years of travelers time. However tte catch was passage on Normal time on Earth. Time on Earth would be passing at the same rate as before and 27000 years would have passed for the 20 years on near light speed travel.
The additional benefits were that the long term space travel did not effect the brain, vision, and bone densities of Astronauts, as they would feel a normal gravity of 1g, throughout the journey, at least till the time, the ship started off to decelerate.
The design was improved tremendously with the theoretical concept proposed by Fatima Ibrahimi in a research paper again in early 21st century. Combining the two ideas, the joint research team was able to create a long running thrust and sustain it for longer period of time. However the technology had its very clear limitations.
For constant thrust to maintain for longer period of time, a lot of fuel was required. So, the whole technological process halted to a grind when it came to longer and longer thrust times. Finally the world realized that they were bound to remain within Solar System confines, unless some out of the box ideas were not explored.
Grand Islamic Scientific Counsel was again approached, and two suggestion were made to the team, showing them a ray of hope:
"And they carry your loads to a land you could not have reached except with difficulty to yourselves. Indeed, your Lord is Kind and Merciful. And [He created] the horses, mules and donkeys for you to ride and [as] adornment. And He creates that which you do not know". Quran 16:8
And then this :
"O company of jinn and mankind, if you are able to pass beyond the regions of the heavens and the earth, then pass. You will not pass except by authority [from Allah ]". Quran 55:33
The team started afresh, this time motivated by Allah's promise for success and new ways for transportation, which could be theirs if they worked hard.
His team worked day and night for 10 years, however the chances of success were very limited, as the weight and thrust ratios made the endeavor an engineering nightmare. However luck was on their side. And he never lost hope, believing in the words of God, the all Merciful.
A parallel team of space scientists was working on creation of a worm hole in space from Moon Base. The traveler visited them many a times, during his missions to the 1g drive space station. The Wormhole Team was able to achieve limited success, however, their worm hole would be more stable, if it was located out in open space.
The 1g drive tam offered them their services, a few arrangement were made at government level and finally the stable worm hole generator was shifted aboard the 1g Drive space station.
The problem was with the size of worm hole generated. It was microscopic, and no one knew where it lead, as no sensors could be sent across to detect where it lead, a few centimeters across, or a few light years. Its other end was a complete Mystery.
The 1 g drive team was expert in the particles analysis, as all of their drive technology was based on different types of particles in minutest possible quantities, and then fusing or splitting them to generate a constant thrust. They has worked on all types of particles, including dark energy, ion and magnetic thrust, smallest interstellar hydrogen gasses and whatnot, however the types of particles they were catching were a class of their own. These new particles were very large in size, however once they exited this side of worm hole, they immediately were "crushed" and thus could be fused successfully. However the quantity of these particles was so less, that they could not give much momentum to the Drive.
Until one year ago, the traveler was asleep, and in his deep sleep had a strange dream. He saw a very huge star shining , a blue sun, larger then his entire field of vision.
He never understood the significance of his dream.
The Worm hole creator was no exact science. They were generating the worm almost randomly. Each time the other end materialized, it was at an apparently randomly place.
The Worm Hole Generation Project team was getting impatient, as funding was getting tighter and tighter with each passing month.
The Traveler decide to offer his help, in exchange for their data. Reluctantly the team handed over their data sets to the Drive team. Drive team fed the initial parameters data and the types of particles being returned in return, their own area of expertise.
Mother AI was able to generate a very interesting map of the results.
It looked like the type of particles painted a very interesting story of their own. The particles seemed to be coming from deep space. Then some star system flares, then the hydrogen clouds , and so on.
The Drive team suggested to rapidly switch the Worm hole on and off at a very rapid rate, and record the type of particles spewing out at their end.
This took them another 6 months to perfect, with 4 fusion reactors feeding the setup, meeting the energy needs of experiment.
Finally they had a very low resolution, strange map of an alien solar system. And knew exactly how to place the other end of worm hole wherever they wanted to place it.
They placed it close to the sun.
The result was devastating. Thanks God, there were no humans abroad the station at the time. All the atlas Robots were pulverized instantly.
The team learned their lesson, and kept the warm hole at a safe distance from the remote sun, for all subsequent testing. Finally they had a stable source of continuous transmission of particles which could be translated into a usable stream of energy.
Within a month, the system was integrated into the 1g Drive, and was being tested for a month, until the Asteroid disaster.
He looked carefully at all the system logs. The ion plasma inflow was smooth, until suddenly it wasn't. What could have gone wrong?
He handed over the data to Wania, who took her time to complete the analysis, and finally said after two hours, "Nothing Special, your remote source had a sudden influx of plasma , looks like there a Solar Flare, which hit the Worm hole, and our controlled stream of particles was suddenly overwhelmed. The worst issue was that the sudden pressure widened the wormhole flow due to its power, resulting in even more inflow". "However, due to presence of storage chambers, the extra plasma flow was stored, instead of translating into extra thrust. The main issue arose due to many burnt circuits, due to which the drive became unresponsive to remote commands. That's why have not been able to stop or turn round, and have kept on moving for the last 30 months"
"So exactly where we are going", he asked , thinking loudly.
"We are more than half way to Proxima Century, as per my calculations" informed Wania.
"Very strange for an accident to point to our nearest star system, its not logical", he concluded.
"Its no accident, we had only manual control possible to steer a bit, with no breaks, so to speak. so i kept on sending both Atlas robots to manually correct the path to the nearest star system. I was able to give precise instructions, after placing the camera modules all around the Rock and the Drive, this way, i could "see" all around to identify the star positions and plot a course, hoping that one day you will wake up and be able to repair the drive with your knowledge. Drive navigation has the star charts saved. And we have been making new charts, along the way as well"
"Great, lets get to work then, we have a year's food supply left for me to decide what to do, and how to survive", he laughed and felt excitement building in his chest. A new plan was forming in his mind, filling him with hope and new challenges.
References:
Forbes: "How Far a Space Ship Could Go, If it never run Out of Thrust" by Ethan Siegel, 30 Dec 2020.
NewAtlas,com: "New Magnetic Rocket Thrusters Concept could propel astronauts to Mars: by Fatima Ibrahimi (Physict at US department of Energy, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory ( PPPL)", 31 Jan 2021.
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