2350
Days were passing, and the two scientists were spending all the hours of the day
together. If it was not recreation, they would discuss about the future of humans and
whether the solution really was to colonize. With the help of their friends, they started
to do the math for possible interstellar travel. As time went by, the thrill of the idea
and the problems they managed to bypass made the idea seem more and more
plausible. Even Jain joined dynamically in the idea of deep space. Perhaps a gamble
with the stars would pay off. For many years, the world had known of habitable
planets in close proximity to Earth. Was it the time to colonize another solar system?
The technologies that would be required for this trip could also be used to transfer
people to Mars safely and even help the Earth recover. It could be a win-win bet.
They began referencing their research as “Project Gaia.”
2352
The cities were governed by a table of superintendents, one from each city, who held
most of their conferences through the web. Since the cities were working as intended
and there was very little that depended on humans, the role of the superintendent
had become undesirable and unimportant. Most of the budget requests were focused
on roads in the snow toward the surface, mainly for research and rarely for
recreation. The costs were low and usually granted. In some cases, bubbles of voids
were found in the snow, and the request for their use would be filled. These and
others like them were projects that were approved by the superintendent of the dome
city that would control it. It was very rare that they had to give a joint approval for
something. The missiles to space were a good example. Alex gathered all the dome
cities’ superintendents to ask for a joint budget for Project Gaia to begin its
realization.
Seeing the huge group of people watching him on their monitors, Alex took a
deep breath and began. “Hello, everyone. I will proceed directly to the subject at
hand. Since our ancient history, when humans were faced with infertile land, drought,
or any other life-threatening situation, they would migrate. They would travel vast
distances for their time and colonize uninhabited areas or fight to take the areas from
others. This practice has ensured our continuous survival for millennia.” He left a
couple of seconds of silence, then continued. “Now we are facing the same issue.
Our world is dead, and it will stay dead for perhaps thousands of years. Our air will
remain unbreathable and the soil uncultivatable. Our seas have frozen, and under
the ice, there is almost nothing that survived the increase of acidity. We speculate
that the way things are going, we will not survive long enough to see the Earth as it
once was. Our dome cities are in near 100 percent efficiency. But it is not 100
percent, and even if it was, error and accidents are draining supplies and energy,
making it continuously harder to extend our survival indefinitely. Together with the
risk of Apostasis, rendering more of us unable to take part in social actions, it
becomes clear that our solution is space. Project Gaia wants to ensure the
continuation of our species in space. Not just Mars. Mars will have its own problems
of sustaining a large population. Our goal should be set on deep space. There is a
known system, about forty light-years from Earth, called Solis. Its existence is a near
miracle. It is a system that seems to be engineered to sustain life. It is centered
around a small star, a fraction of our own, but a very stable star with a projected
lifespan that will outlive almost everything else in the universe. It has many planets in
close proximity to it, and four of them are in the habitable zone. A system like that
could be fully colonized, and it gives us four chances of survival.”
One of the superintendents rudely interrupted the speech. “Are we seriously
discussing about an actual ark away from here?”
“I am, yes!” said Alex with charm and confidence. “We have detected oxygen
on Solis’s four planets, which tells us a lot of things. Since oxygen bonds easily with
other elements, it’s a good indication of life. Finding it on four different planets of the
same system, however, increases the chances that photosynthesis is taking place on
them. It’s very unlikely that an intelligent civilization is calling those planets home
because there is no evidence of any electromagnetic signals emitted from the
system. It might sound impossible, but a migration such as this would have one and
only one difficulty to overcome: the distance. We have made the first estimations,
and it is clear that the challenge of covering that distance is smaller than the
challenges we face here on Earth or the challenges we will be facing on Mars. Our
team is hereby requesting the necessary resources for achieving the goal of reaching
the stars and continuing our species’s survival into the universe. This funding will not
only allow us to travel into space, but the technologies that we will develop for the
travel will revolutionize life here on Earth and allow a safer migration to Mars in the
future. Additionally, our communications will allow us to exchange information so the
developments from Solis will be shared with Earth.”
“What would the costs be?” asked one superintendent.
“The research for the spaceship would require a team of over two thousand
people. The manufacturing of the ship itself would need materials we currently do not
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.have. We will need to mine them, which means that another five hundred people are
estimated to be required to work on that.”
“For how long?” he continued.
“We estimate about thirty years until completion,” said Alex.
“So, you want twenty-five hundred people to work for you, for thirty years, on
a project that will be shot into space,” said another superintendent.
Alex was prepared for this, so he almost arrogantly answered, “Our people
are wasting their lives behind screens, playing games. We have become lazy and
purposeless. I am proposing a plan that will put many out of us into action. Many who
are currently waiting for something to happen will rally to a cause such as this. The
technologies we will create will not be ‘shot into space.’ Just the prototype will. The
rest will stay here to be further upgraded and provide solutions to problems of the
future.”
“I am beginning to like this idea,” said Semreh, the superintendent from Abuja
who knew Alex from before. “I am proposing volunteer recruiting only. Would that
work, Alex?”
“That would work great,” said Alex.
The project got the green light, and the volunteers, just as Alex had predicted,
came in abundance. After the details of the project became public, tens of thousands
of applications for every job, ideas and solutions to all the problems started raining
down. Now Alex had all the power and funding he needed to make the project a
reality.
2353
Abuja
Alex entered a room with Jain and eight other people inside. “Hello, everyone,” he
said while walking to his seat. “It is nice to see all of you in person here.”
“Nice to be here … kinda,” said Gakuto.
“Why kinda?” asked Alex with a smile. It was obvious that Gakuto was joking
to break the ice.
“Well, I had to leave my plants unintended.”
“I am sorry to hear that. I hope someone will take care of them. Now, the
reasons we are all here in person,” said Alex with energy in his voice. “We have split
the project in certain aspects that are of high importance. The team gathered here is
composed of people of many different departments, all of whom will be joining the
expedition. We need to know each other well, since we will act as leaders upon
arrival at the Solis system. The entirety of the project will be supervised by myself
and the construction of the Hera, by Jain.”
“So, we go with Hera?” said Juuda. who was a close friend of Jain and Alex.
“Yes. Hera! From the goddess whose breastmilk got spilled in the sky,
creating the galaxy.”
“I like it,” said Gakuto.
“You will like this more,” said Alex. “We are estimating a three-thousand-year
trip, and the plan is to get there sleeping. However, even in drug-induced hibernation,
our bodies will require nutrition. This is where you come in, Gakuto.”
“Say no more! I got it covered. Not yet, but I will figure it out,” said Gakuto
with his permanently excited attitude.
“I am sure you will. There will be more problems to tackle, and the team in
this room will be in charge of solving them. You can apply for as many people as you
need, and I will make sure that we have the necessary help to complete the project.
Is everything understood so far?”
Heads nodded throughout the room. Only Gakuto’s voice was in the air. “Yes,
sir!” His energy was enough for everyone.
“So, Steve, you will be head of engineering. Your main tasks will be solving
the issues with large-body detection and avoidance as well as dust and small-particle
collisions.”
Steve looked seriously toward Alex. “There are many ways we can work on
that. More important will be the AI which will drive those systems, since we will all be
sleeping, and the shielding from cosmic radiation.”
Alex smiled like he was not expecting such a good answer. “That’s exactly
right. Margaret here is the leading authority on computing and artificial intelligence.
She will work with you on this project. Together with Hypatia, you will work on
shielding the Hera from anything space has to throw at us. You have a nearly
unlimited resource for this to work but not unlimited time.”
“I have seen the timetables, and I think we should be able to solve those
problems in time,” said Steve with confidence.
“Moving on to the next problem, we need to shield all possible life on those
planets from our microbes.”
“I think this is my field too,” interrupted Gakuto.
“I too think this is going to fall on your department, Gakuto,” said Jain
“Do I have to do everything?” Gakuto said while smiling toward Konoya, the
psychiatrist of the group.
“Hypatia, you will also be tasked to lead the team that will figure out the
maneuvers that the ship will need to do to decelerate upon arrival.”
“I have actually begun working on it since I got the briefing of the project. It is
less complex than you might think,” said Hypatia.
“Happy to hear that. Now let’s go to the three probably hardest problems we
will face. We need a way of adapting to the different gravity forces. We don’t know
which of the system’s planets we will be landing on yet, so we need to be prepared
for anything. Galen, you are the doctor of the group. You program nanobots to deal
with all sorts of conditions of the human body. I am guessing that you are the best-
suited person for this job.”
Galen was skeptical. “We have used nano-enhancements before to increase
strength or stamina on humans, but the experiments were at their infancy. Controlling
that with our minds might be a very hard task. I will work on it for a while and update
you about the direction we will be taking.”
“Sounds promising enough,” said Alex. “I will add to this that we need a way
of combating the lack of gravity on the ship and the probable births that will take
place. Babies and kids will need a full G worth to grow their bones strong and
healthy.”
Most nodded their heads in understanding.
“This will be a hard one to work on,” said Steve.
“We could forbid childbirth during the trip,” said Jain, “but the benefits of this
research will be crucial for many other aspects of our technological innovation and
needs for this expedition.”
“As Jain explained, there are many scenarios, and technology like that would
be key to solving other problems which might occur,” added Alex. “We will finally
need an energy source to power all those functions of the ship.”
The team got their assignments and began immediately working on the
project.