Hey all. Thanks go to William Joel, contributing author to the anthology project, for coming up with this artistic gem. Yes, in addition to being an accomplished writer, he also teaches computer animation and knows a thing or two about rendering things in 3D. This animated short is of the Terraforming ship, Mark I, doing a fly by in deep space. Hope you enjoy as much as I did!
Tag: space colonization
Anthology Sample: “Swan Song”
Hello all. There’s plenty of things happening on the Anthology front! More authors, more contributions, and more final drafts being produced. As it happens, our good contributor and friend here, Melanie Edmonds, has just finished work on her story “Swan Song”. This is the third installment in Part II of the anthology, which deals with the final mission of the Colony Ships.
The story takes place roughly 100 years after Planetfall is made, when the Avincenna, Taftazani, and Kashani delivered the first wave of colonists to Yuva. Those who crewed them have lived a comparatively empty existence ever since, being unable to live planetside due to the intense gravity and finding little else of value to do since.
Edmonds take us into the world of these people and inside the ships as they perform their final duty to the colony and embrace their destiny. Here is the first section of the story, fresh from the digital press!
They say there is a swan that is silent for its whole life. It grows and loves and does all the swan-like things, but it does not utter a sound. Then, the moment before it dies, it opens its throat, and not even the vacuum of space can swallow the beauty of its song.
* * * *
[The image broadcast across the Yuva networks is dominated by the great globe of her sun, Gliese 581. Nearing the glow, three shapes track slowly and majestically. Their silhouettes are familiar, for they are the great colony ships.]
[Transmission Voiceover]
“It has been ten years since we arrived here. Ten years since we slowed our ships and woke our children. Ten years since we put a stake in this planet and said, ‘this is our new home’. This is Yuva.”
* * * *
Avicenna, Bridge
Gliese 581 – 20 minutes
“Final corrections made. We’re on approach vector.” Pilot Gnana Tanaq slid her hands off the controls. This is the last time I’ll do this, she thought. “Inertia will carry us in, now.”
The first time she touched the console, her hands were smooth and soft, barely out of puberty. Now, sixty-four years later, they were wrinkled and worn, though they still curled around the grips easily. Just as she had worn shiny spots into the plastic, so the grips had worn her hands into control-friendly curves. Pilots’ claws, some people called them. She bore hers proudly.
Behind her, she felt Jackson sigh and loosen his grip on his console. “So, that’s it, then.”
“Yup.”
“How long?”
Gnana glanced down at the readouts scrolling before her. “Not long. Twenty minutes, maybe, depending on how quickly the gravity pulls us in.” She turned her chair so she could see him. “You’re the navigator, though.”
Jackson didn’t even bother to check his readings. He shrugged. “Sounds right.”
She smiled at him, dark skin crinkling around her eyes. “I know, I know: it goes against everything you believe in to navigate purposefully into something.”
He wrinkled his nose and his moustache twitched. “I keep wanting to tell you to alter course. Can’t help it.”
Gnana laughed softly, but there was no real humour in it. The forward viewports were unshuttered and Gliese 581 filled the entire window. Its orange glow lit the Bridge as if it was already on fire.
With a sigh, she unclipped the tether that held her to the chair and pushed over to where Jackson floated. She covered his hand with hers and his head dipped slightly in acknowledgement. The sunlight was turning his hair red, like it had been years ago. Gnana used to joke that he was the whitest man she’d ever met, so pale he wasn’t even freckled. Like her, he’d spent his whole life in space behind radiation shielding; his skin had never felt the real touch of a sun. Another twenty minutes would change that.
She turned her attention forward. It was hard to look at the Bridge now; it wasn’t the home she had known anymore. She had expected memories to crowd in here, but instead, all she saw was gaps. The holes where missing stations once were: communications, cryonics, long-range sensors. The stripped-down environmental console and the bare patches of decking where chairs used to be; the only one remaining was hers, because the pilot still needed it for this final journey. Even navigation was stripped down.
This room used to be busy with bodies, full of shifting console displays and the shadows of the crew. Now, it was just her and Jackson.
Gnana glanced sideways and saw Jackson frowning. “Still angry that he chose not to come?” She didn’t have to say who she meant; he knew.
Jackson’s expression scrunched down. “His place is here.”
“It was his choice.” Gnana’s tone was non-committal; in truth, she wasn’t sure what she thought about the captain’s decision.
Three days ago, she had agreed with Jackson: the captain was a coward who refused the honourable path. They had all known this was a likely end to this journey when they signed on, but he had chosen to stay on the orbital platforms, training the colonists in… she wasn’t even sure what.
Then, the night before they departed on their final voyage, she had seen the captain at a bar. It was the only time in her life she had ever seen him drunk, and it wasn’t pretty. He had slurred goodbye to her and hugged her – hugged her – and she had seen it in his eyes. It tore him up to deny his duty but he wasn’t ready to stand on his ship and sail into the sun for the last time; there was still living left for him to do.
She couldn’t begrudge him that. He was younger than the other captains, though his time commanding the Avicenna meant he would never be able to step foot on the planet below. The toll of space on bones and organs meant the gravity would kill him, slowly and painfully. But he could have a life on the orbital platforms, maybe even lead the colonial effort the way he had led the ship.
She had considered staying too, but the only position open for her was as a shuttle pilot. It wasn’t anything like flying the Avicenna, though, and even a short atmospheric stay caused her pain. The last time, she’d had a bone-deep ache for two weeks afterwards, making her hands shake so badly that she couldn’t fly at all.
Besides, she was tired. This was her last flight, and it seemed fitting to her that it was with her baby, her ship, the machine that spoke to her through her hands on its controls.
With a sigh, she lifted her gaze to the sun burning before them.
“Look on the bright side,” she said to Jackson without looking. “Maybe you’ll finally get a tan.”
And that’s from Part II of the novel, so suffice it to say, we’re making headway! Stay tuned for more!
The Martian Menu
A recent article on CBC tells us something interesting about the Red Planet. It seems that the good folks at NASA’s Advanced Food Technology Project are planning a menu that astronauts will be taking with them to Mars. It’s all part of a planned mission that will be taking place in 2030, involving six to eight astronauts with an expected duration of six months.
This is no easy feat, but it’s further complicated by the fact that once there, the astronauts will not be able to be resupplied at regular intervals. Yes, unlike the ISS, they can’t just send shuttled loaded with freeze dried food. Luckily, NASA knows that Mars low gravity means that once there, astronauts will be able to prepare their own food. Things things like chopping vegetables and boiling water with a pressure cooker are possible there, unlike in a zero-g environment.
So in addition to planning a travel menu, NASA is planning on equipping the mission with the means to create a “Martian greenhouse” upon their arrival. This would include a variety of fruits and vegetables — from carrots to bell peppers — kept in a hydroponic solution, meaning they would be planted in mineral-laced water instead of soil. The astronauts would care for their garden and then use those ingredients, combined with others, such as nuts and spices brought from Earth, to prepare their meals.
Not bad. And an improvement over a space menu for one simple reason. Zero-g has an effect on taste and smell. Yes, zero gravity seems to impair these things, making food taste bland. So a spicy red pepper sauce and a chili and oil sauce, when eaten in space, are pretty much paste. Not cool…
This research is an important step in ushering in the age of colonization. Much like the recent surveys which discovered of water on the moon, and tested its gravity and for minerals, it’s the sort of nuts and bolts planning that will one day go into real mission planning. First the Moon, then Mars, then Ganymede, Europa, Ceres, Titan and Oberon. All bodies with gravity that could be settled in the not-too-distant future, and that’s just within our solar system! Given the time, resources and technology, the universe really is the limit!
Behold, the Yuva Colony Ship!
At last, the Colony Ship design, which my group and I will be using for our upcoming anthology (entitled “Yuva”), is complete! After doing a mock-up about a week ago using Microsoft Paint, someone in my group (who shall remain nameless) wondered aloud if I could do some cross-section as well. While I was agonized at the thought of doing something so complex with this program, I couldn’t resist the challenge! It took a good seven days, but the entire ship is now complete, inside and out.
The rear and mid sections were already done, and posted here. However, some much needed back and forth with my crew made me rethink a few things about those. You can never revise something enough, especially something like a colony ship, where the needs of some thousand imaginary colonists are concerned 😉 In any case, I now present all three sections and the external view, completed, edited, and revised, together here for the first time. Behold!
I hope this is the last time I’ll be going back over it. I also hope the colonists have everything they need here – food, water, shelter, recreation, waste removal, security, entertainment, the means to get to and from the planet when they arrive, and the materials they will need to build the structures they intend to live in. See anything missing? Let me know!
Updated Anthology Map!
Hey all. As you may know, my writing and I are busy at work producing an anthology about space travel and colonization. We have our location picked out, the star system Gliese 581. We have a planet, known as Gliese 581 g. We still need more writers, I was hoping for a dozen or so people to contribute to our short story collection. So if you’re a writer and enjoy classic sci-fi, space travel, exoplanets, weird aliens, androids, terraforming, sub-orbital colonies, space elevators, terradome and so forth, let me know and I’ll set you up with a project!
In the meantime, I’ve updated our map of the Gliese 581 to more accurately reflect the planets and the names they will be assigned in our story. Have a gander:
Another Anthology Sample!
Hello all again! Recently, my colleague and collaborator on the upcoming anthology about space and colonization – Mr. Goran Zidar – sent me a draft of his story. Dealing with Terraformers, the story tells the tale of the people who went on ahead of the main colonization force to alter the climate of Gliese 581 g (aka. Yuva) to meet the needs of the coming settlers.
As all fans of sci-fi know, terraforming is a very labor-intensive process that takes decades, if not centuries, and requires some pretty top of the line equipment and hard science. So you can imagine how excited I was to see Mr. Zidar’s take on the whole thing. Well, the text of his draft is posted below, the first installment on what will be a full-length short story, and certainly impressed the hell out of me. Read it for yourselves, you’ll see what I mean.
Terraformers:
“Don’t you just love it?” Kirana said. She leaned back against the stones and let the reddish light of the sun bathe her face. The warmth from the small red dwarf star felt good through her oxygen mask, and she closed her eyes to let it wash over her.
“It’s just a sunset, Kira,” her brother, Justin, pointed out. “We see them every day.”
“Dad says that in ten years we’ll be able go outside without masks. I can’t wait.”
“Ten years? That’s ages.”
“It’s not that long when you think about it.”
“What do you mean?” Her brother looked at her, his brows furrowed.
“The machine’s been running for more than thirty years already. Ten years isn’t much compared to that.”
“It is when you’re only eleven.”
“I suppose, but it’s still incredible.” She sighed wistfully. “I’ve lived here my whole life, but it’s like I know we don’t belong here.”
“You’re a weirdo, you know that?” He gave his sister a playful shove.
“You know that Earth’s sun is about three times bigger than here?”
“Now that’s incredible,” Justin said. “Imagine it. Must be like summer all year round.”
“Now you’re the weirdo.” She shoved him back.
“Kira. Justin. Where are you?” Her father’s voice came over the intercom.
She looked across to her brother who rolled his eyes. “On the ridge, Father,” she said, keying the mic for broadcast. “What’s up?”
“I need you both back here. We’ve been summoned. There’s a shuttle arriving to collect us in three minutes.”
“Okay, Dad. We’re on our way.”
“Yippee!” Justin said, clapping his hands together. “I’m going on a shuttle.”
Kira raised an eyebrow. “There must be something big happening for them to send one of those.”
“Let’s hurry.” Justin rose and disappeared between the rocks. “We don’t want to miss it.”
Kira laughed as she chased after her brother. “Slow down, Justin. They won’t leave without us.”
The pair reached the small research station just as the shuttle was touching down. Dust flew everywhere as the landing thrusters engaged to bring the small transport to a gentle stop.
Their father waved them over as he waited for the dust to settle. Kira could tell by the stiffness in his stance that he wasn’t happy. She knew he hated interruptions and a summons from on high would definitely not sit well with him. She slid her hand in his and squeezed it slightly. He relaxed immediately; she always knew how to read his moods.
“What about the ATV?” she said.
“I’m sure they brought someone to drive it back.”
This station was located about 1500 kilometres from the space elevator. The three of them had spent the last few days trekking across the planet’s surface to survey the damaged research stations closest to the space elevator. Most of the data could be collected remotely, but father hated the politics topside and these malfunctioning stations were the perfect excuse for him to get away.
The hatch on the shuttle cracked open, and Daric stepped out. As soon as Justin saw it was him he ran up to the pilot. Daric opened his arms and the pair embraced fondly. Justin dreamed of one being a pilot, and Daric was something of his hero. It’s a good thing he was such a nice guy because Justin can be annoying from time to time.
“Hey there, Daric,” her father said he drew nearer.
“Good evening, Sir.”
Kira felt her dad stiffen. Formality didn’t sit well with him, especially not when it came from Daric.
“What’s up?” he said.
Daric shrugged. “No idea, I’m just the taxi service. Whatever it is, it’s above my pay grade.”
Her father sighed loudly. “Let’s get this over with.”
They all climbed into the shuttle, Justin claiming a seat in the cockpit next to Daric while Kira and her father sat in back. She found her father looking out the window. Dust billowed as the shuttle’s engines started, obscuring the view outside. By the time they’d cleared the dust, they saw that ATV had already begun its long trek back to the Needle, as the space elevator was called.
The trip up to the station perched atop the Needle took less than fifteen minutes. Kira sat in silence while Justin chatted incessantly to Daric. She was constantly amazed at the young pilot’s patience when it came to dealing with her brother. With a smile, she looked out the window at the station that loomed before them.
The station was a reminder of where they came from, the only really tangible thing they had that spoke of Earth. It was built over a hundred and fifty years ago, originally serving as the ship that brought the reconnaissance team here. It was huge, large enough to accommodate some humanity’s best minds and their families.
Doctors, scientists, engineers, mechanics, and teachers, the best and brightest with all the skills needed to shape an entire world to their will. An entire generation had lived and died on that trip. Cryogenic storage techniques were deemed too experimental to risk on this journey. The crew all knew that even with the best life extension therapies available to them, most of those who’d left earth would never live to see their arrival.
Gliese 581 is twenty light-years from Earth. It was a long way to travel, and the journey lasted more than a century. Kira’s father was born in that inky void, a true child of the stars, but she and her brother had been born here. Everything they knew of Earth came from their studies. To her, the human home-world was nothing more than a collection of images and words, equal parts beautiful and terrible. The poisoned ball of rock beneath her was more a home to her than Earth ever would be.
When the colonists first entered the system, their ship was placed into a low geo-stationary orbit around the star’s fourth planet, and their work began. It stopped being a ship, and became the crucible for their hopes and dreams. After all these years it may no longer be capable of interstellar flight, but it remained their home.
She thought of everything they’d managed to accomplish since their arrival. All the lives lost, the risks, the sacrifice, all of it so that when the next waves of humans arrived, they’d have a world to live on. Some part of her wondered if these newcomers would be worthy of it. From what she understood of human nature, she doubted that they would be.
The shuttle docked with the station, and the three of them disembarked, leaving Daric to complete his post flight checks. Their father took them aside and hugged them tightly. It was a long hug, and based on Justin’s fidgeting, not something he was entirely comfortable with.
“What was that for?” Kira said when he finally released them.
Her father smiled. “Does a father need a reason to hug his kids? I just wanted to show you I loved you.”
“Dad,” Justin pushed their father back a step. “We already know that.”
“You’re going to a council meeting, aren’t you?” He always got clingy before one of those. The nest of vipers he called them. Kira hadn’t ever really seen a viper, but she understood the reference well enough.
He nodded. “Now go home, both of you. We’ve been roughing it for a while so I’m sure you’ll enjoy being free of these damned suits. For a little while I’ll be there just as soon as I can.”
“Yes, father.” Kira sighed.
“Oh, and Kira.”
“I know, I know, keep an eye on Justin.” She turned and ushered her little brother into the station.
“I’ll see you in a little bit.” Her dad called out after them.
Kira rolled her eyes, and give her father a dismissive wave as she turned the corner. Walking through the corridors of the station made her feel uncomfortable. She imagined that the steel walls were closing in on her. It was always like this after coming back from the planet’s surface. Down there she felt like she could go anywhere, do anything, but up here, everything was so constrained, so… regimented.
Things had to be done according to a predefined schedule, and there was never any room for compromise. Of course she understood exactly why such routine was important; their very survival depended on it, but it always took some getting used to after being planet side for a few days.
See what I mean? Sub-orbital stations, space elevators, atv’s, shuttles and sleeper ships. I’d say this stuff practically writes itself, but it doesn’t! People like Mr. Zidar, Mrs. Muhammed-Ali, Mr. Joel, and myself do! Ah, I’m just kidding, we aint divas and we definitely don’t think our hips weight a tonne. Then again, if this book goes mainstream and makes us famous… all bets are off 😉
Starship Enterprise… in 20 years!
My pal Fraser Cain over at Universe Today has once again posted the latest from the sci-fi universe. Despite my best efforts, I just can’t seem to keep up with the professionals! Apparently, an engineer has stipulated that the original Enterprise, the Constitution-class vessel from the original series, could be built in 20 years.
In the original series, this ship was built by a team of Star Fleet engineers in the year 2245. However, this engineer describes – in excrutiating detail- how we could do it by 2032, and using current technology.
Everything from the ion drives, the artificial gravity, a 100 megawatt laser, and landing pods and shuttles. Everything but the warp drive… that’s going to take some more time. But dammit, the Star Trek engineers never specified how that whole “warp bubble” thing works anyway!
This ship could make the trip from Earth to the Moon in just three days, and Mars in ninety. Such a ship, with the capacity to carry a large crew and land people with its compliment of shuttles, would be the first step towards colonizing the Solar System. First the Moon, then Mars, then Europa and Ganymede. Perhaps Oberon and Titan too… Skies the limit, apparently!
Like many things, this latest revelation teaches us that the future is coming faster than previously thought. Already we’ve seen compads and peronsal communicators arrive early (iPads and cell phones). If starships make it on the scene a full two centuries ahead of schedule, then it will just prove what guys like Kurzweil say all the time. Technology is not linear, its exponential, and everyday the future gets that much closer… Profoundness! Cue Star Trek music!
NASA sees light from distant “Super Earth”
Big news coming in over the wire! Apparently, NASA scientists, using the Spitzer Space Telescope, have spotted light from a planet in a distant solar system. Back in 2004, in a solar system named 55 Cancri A, a planet that is twice the size of Earth and almost 8 times its mass, was first discovered. They named this planet 55 Cancri e, is 41 light years from our solar system, and is often referred to as a “Super Earth”.
Though NASA has known about the planet for some time, it’s only now that they’ve been able to detect infrared light coming from its surface. As part of NASA’s ongoing exploration efforts, Spitzer is part of a long term goal to find habitable planets in our universe, as well as extra-terrestrial life.
Unforuntately, 55 Cancri e is not one such planet. In addition to not being able to support life in its current state, terraforming it would also be useless. It’s mass and density means that it’s gravitational field is far stronger than anything we humans would find tolerable. But hey, maybe it’s got some friends that won’t crush us like bugs the second we set foot on them! And as they say, it’s a big universe. Always a chance we’ll find intelligent life somewhere else…
In the meantime, check out this video on 55 Cancri e from Space.com!
Super Earth Visible For First Time
Stories by Williams 