Interstellar 1

Chapter 5: The first planet

Interstellar 1, planning and nav room centrifuge area.

Alex Mitchell and Commander Warren sat in the Nav room, trying to choose what three planets to pick as Jack did the operation. "As this is the closest solar system, Alpha Centauri, scientists have already named the planets. I believe our best bet would be Verdi." He pointed toward a planet that appeared to be made entirely out of emerald. "This planet has no atmosphere, but is very rich in minerals and would give us a lot of science. Here is a special mountain our energy bike could reach." The energy bike was a special "bike"(Really more like a rover, just its nickname.) that could interact with ground minerals and used a slight bit of ion to traverse alien planets faster, safer, and could reach more rugged ground than a rover. Alex pointed to something that looked like an oversize crystal bunch, the sharp, geometric points of the crystals set upon a gentle slope with a small outcropping on them. The tips of these beautiful mountains reached almost into space. "And," Alex continued, "Here is a flat spot near the tip. We would save fuel in the lander." Each lander was almost as big as a bedroom. The bottom floor housed the energy bike and science equipment (In separate rooms so the science lab could be pressurized). On the upper floor, there was a small command center with panoramic windows and a small habitat farther back. To allow this, they did not have traditional landing legs. Instead, they had a soft pad with a hard back mounted on suspension, so it was distributed along the pad. There were small holes in the pad were engines peeked out. Once landed, they would deploy the bike and solar panels (They took food from the mothership). To leave, they would separate the lower level. "Hmm." Commander Warren thought. "Yes, let's land there." Only Scott and the Commander went down on the first planet, Scott had earned that privilege by designing the lander. That night, by the time the procedure was done, they did 2 Orion pulses (By this time they had told Wang it was not a weapon.) to burst to a encounter, and the second to slow to get into orbit. Next morning, they set off. They floated into the spacedock and navigated the maze of gangplanks till the found the right one: No Atmosphere High Altitude Ion Energy. There was only one of each kind. They got in, and sealed the door behind them. The lander slowly pressurized for the first time. "This is lander NA-HA-IE. Permission to undock." "Permission granted." Responded Alex, who acted as Commander when Warren herself was unable. "Engaging RCS, outside of Spacedock now. Permission to deorbit?" "Permission granted." Alex responded. Rotating the ship to retrograde, she burned the engine to an acceptable slope that placed the lander on the flat outcropping. Scott was sitting silently in his chair, ready for landing. The beautiful crystalline surface glistened in the sun. Once in safe zone, she activated the engines. Four NERVA plumes shot out of the holes in the lander, slowing the descent from one thousand meters per second to ten, slowly. At the position he was at, ten thousand meters above Verdi, the speed was nine hundred meters per second. At two hundred meters, the speed was slowed to fifty per second. Upon touching down at ten meters per second, the high-friction pad of the lander stuck to the ground, leaving the pod bouncing on its suspension. Two engines attached to the top started burning down, both of which have solid fuel, slowed and stopped the bouncing. "Engaging fuel mining." As it would be inefficient to bring fuel for both ascent and descent, they brought a fuel miner to gather fuel for the ascent. "Permission to take first EVA, Commander?" "Granted." Warren replied. Scott climbed down the ladder through the decoupler which led to the science lab. He walked out of the airlock of science lab, which led to the garage. Activating the lever on the side of the wall, the garage doors opened downward to form a ramp. He walked outside, and looked at the beautiful crystalline surface. The drill he walked over, and saw the drill had now been removed from its protective cowling. Pressing a lever next to it, the drill bit slowly lowered down to the semi-translucent glimmering surface and started mining. Grabbing a flag from the wall, and making sure he was seen by the TV cameras which would transmit home when they were back aboard the Interstellar 1, he stepped off the rig. "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind...." He planted the flag in. After that, he walked back into the lander, laughing wildly. Warren put her face in her palms. "Why did I let you go out first?" When they had first met at the astronaut training center, Scott had told Warren that if he were to ever land on another planet, he would repeat Neil Armstrong just to make the news crews mad. When both of them had been selected, she hoped that Scott would forget it, and it seemed like he did, because he did not talk about it. But it looks like did. By this time, it was night on Verdi. The sun refracting through the crystal mountains was a gorgeous sight, and could be seen by orbit. Warren and Scott took a short EVA to watch the beautiful sight. After cycling the airlock, they climbed back in, had dinner and went to bed. The next morning, they prepared the Ion Bike (Which we will be calling an ion rover from now on so you understand.) The inside had a command center in the front, and a small science lab in the back. Warren set the hover height to the highest they could be without them going into orbit on the tip of the crystal. The front was a half octagon, with panoramic windows. Instead of the other side of the octagon, it turned to a rectangle and stopped at the back. The back had a ramp on the airlock. On both sides of the airlock, there were weak thrusters, not much stronger than RCS. These were for pushing the ship. On the underside, a grid of Ion thrusters for hovering glowed blue. Scott opened the airlock and walked in the Ion rover. Commander Warren was already at the control seat. She moved the Ion rover slightly forward to get it out of the garage of the lander, before turning it 90 degrees via RCS ports on the side. She then activated the engines on the back till she was at a cruising speed of fifty miles per hour, faster than a rover. She than cut the engines, and coasted for over an hour before she had to fire the back engines again. Scott, meanwhile was studying the samples in the back. The Ion rover was able to get so high efficiency by not touching the ground via the ion engines, the low gravity of the planet, and no atmosphere. Once at the peak, they could see the Interstellar 1 orbiting at the same distance as you could see an airplane coming in for landing at an airport. After taking several samples, with a special friction padded feet to keep herself to the ground, she waved to the passing spacecraft, and the Interstellar 1 signaled "Hello" back with lights. Scott was amazed at the terrain, one step and you would be in zero-G and the next, on very solid ground of the upper reaches of mountain. After recording videos and getting samples and valuable data, Scott walked back to the Ion rover and headed back to the lander.