Ephemeris

7 : Big Beautiful Brain

For the past years in the space shuttle program, NASA became idle and had no way to send astronauts into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or other US launch stations. As an alternative, all astronauts had to fly from the remote Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They hoped they would someday restore their golden age of scientific and technological achievements in space exploration. No one was withholding anyone from dreaming big because dreaming is believing. Thus, from that credence to seeing flights again from their soil, NASA could not believe before their eyes that they would achieve it and make history again.

In 2020, they successfully sent a crew to the International Space Station, celebrating its 51st anniversary, an achievement for the country and everyone who believed in and worked to realize it. Moreover, a few years later, a treaty ended most restrictions of access between ROS and USOS facilities to our fellow cosmonauts or astronauts of the ISS. With this new covenant, our scientists' collective minds and efforts catalyzed further headway in science and technology.

Sadly, the habitable artificial satellite ISS, the most massive human-made infrastructure ever constructed in space, was deteriorating. Some said it would survive at least until 2025 or maybe earlier. The glowing copper flame of the Statue of Liberty's torch was telling the people not to give up. That was why NASA, with such zeal, gathered all the brilliant scientists and engineers to think of possible tweaking to save the celestial structure. Without a doubt, camaraderie gave a beautiful result in realizing its shared vision, and one of them was Atlas V. It ascended smoothly, and it was the first flight after a long hiatus of delays and debate for nine years.

NASA continued to repair and reconstruct the ISS, making it bigger, sturdier, and more functional. In the third quarter of 2029, they added another pressurized module for NASA's advanced technology—the space garbage vehicle. The new module, attached at the Tranquility's last zenith port, served as a cargo bay for the vehicle.

After the unexpected discovery of a dark dwarf planet that had struck the moon into chunks, they knew that one of these days, debris from the collapsed heavenly body would break out over towns or cities, damaging edifices and lives. That was why they developed this space vehicle powered by enhanced photovoltaic cells, compact and long-lasting Lithium-ion batteries, and drove using beam-powered propulsion. Pilots manually maneuvered this ground-breaking space garbage vehicle—a pilot and a flight engineer, the former doing most of the action. The garbage vehicle was as big as a bus and looked like one except for the rubber tires.

Many revolutionary innovations began to clean the space clatter tumbling through low Earth orbit. All of them were efficient in catching small debris. One of those was a spacecraft powered by the Earth's magnetosphere tethered with a giant net to capture space debris designed by Japan. However, the nets were easily raptured when they caught large space debris floating in space, such as old upper-stage rocket parts.

What was more, a few rocks, the size of a van from the collision, were pulled by the Earth's gravity, threatening the poor earthlings. In this kind of threat, the garbage vehicle was to the rescue. It had two long mechanical arms attached on both sides. Found in the ends of the mechanical arms were extendable intelligent fingers that could enwrap the debris securely. The mechanical arms pulled the debris gently; then, one would press a button to open the topside and carefully put it inside the compartment while checking it on a monitor. Then the space vehicle drifted away further from Earth and tossed the debris into the vastness of cosmic space. After a splendid job, the vehicle could dock back to the ISS to its pressurized module for maintenance. But now, there is only one garbage vehicle functioning to clean up space.

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The International Space Station was stunning, spreading its improved double-sided solar array wings hovering at 7.66 kilometers per second in low Earth orbit, a lightning-speed journey 250 miles from the ground.