Around the Solar System in 80 Days

Day 1: Slough to Earth Orbit

The weather is cold and grimy. It’s the sort of day on which nothing should be done, nothing that really means anything other than putting the cat out or maybe going to the shops. Ordinary people, living out ordinary days, would feel that perhaps today would be a good day to stay at home.

I’m not having an ordinary day. I’m sitting outside on a very cold and damp maglev station, waiting for a train. There are no trains. British MagRail signal staff are on strike today, all 254 of them, and so Britain’s maglevs have slid to a halt for an undefined amount of time. Rain drips off my nose. It’s not a promising start to one of televisions greatest feats ever; Jay the cameraman and Helen the director look suitably despondent. It looks like the “last moving glimpses of home” shot is going to have to be sacrificed for the “I hate Slough in the rain” scene.

Precisely 500 years ago, a French science-fiction by the name of Jules Verne created the amazing story of how it could be possible to circumnavigate the globe in just 80 days. To the modern reader who is used to sub-orbital travel with several circumnavigations each day, this may seem rather irrelevant. But Verne’s story has always had a special place in my heart; it’s a relic from another millennium and yet there is something magical in the premise of exploring the entire contents of a world in such a short space of time. And that is why I have been enlisted into making a very similar journey, to explore the modern world: but now our own solar system shall be included. For in this age of mass space travel, our world has expanded beyond our home on Earth.

Helen is making frantic calls on her mobile. It’s either because she realises that within 24 hours she shall have to leave it behind on the planet to which it’s restricted, or possibly that in 24 hours, if she hasn’t left said planet behind, the BBC might just rip up her pay-packet. Jay is a lugubrious yet philosophical kind of man, prone to making sad comments about the shot that higher authorities have commanded him to shoot. I know it’s just the weather making me feel like the universe is about to end, but somehow the idea of spending 80 days cooped up in various spacecraft with these two people doesn’t fill me with much excitement.

Just when thoughts about how to make “Around Slough in 8 Hours” sound more appealing to a licence-paying audience, hope arrives through the mizzle like some kind of rather bedraggled guardian angel. In an extreme demonstration of the might of the BBC, some clever pen-pusher has managed to get a maglev to run on the Slough-Brighton line. Within minutes, we’re speeding towards Britain’s biggest and most kitted out spaceport, Brighton International Multiport, with hope in our hearts, and several inches of water in our bags.

Built in 2199, Brighton International was originally intended merely to play host to American hydro-tankers inbound from Jupiter. However, soon afterwards, the great divide between the American and European space programs (re)commenced (i.e. America took/was given Jupiter; Europe had to lump it with Saturn and Titan), and Brighton International suddenly became the centre of European space-flight. Quibbles over the fact that European hydrogen from Saturn cost about 8 times as much as American hydrogen from Jupiter were quashed by the joy at having an all British space centre, after years (or rather centuries) of waiting. It seems that the USA will always have cheaper fuel than us.

Arriving at the sleek subterranean maglev station, the first thing that we learn is that the whole centre has just had a major computer black-out. With just three hours to go until our ship launches, this comes as a bit of a worry to say the least. The BBC may be able to persuade striking maglev workman to return to work, but their powers are severely limited when it comes to orbiting space-stations. For after a short hop to the International Space Station, we are to catch a motley collection of space-craft to visit every planet in the solar system, from freezing little Pluto (which I personally believe is truly a planet, hands down) right up the regal gas giants; from the crushing surface of Venus to the rocky moons of Mars. We shall travel on anything that moves in space, with everything from space-freighters to tourist shuttles on our agenda.

For now, we seem to be finished with just car and maglev on our list. The spaceport’s check-in staff seems to be a little confused, and we almost end up sending our luggage to Sydney, Australia instead of the ISS. However, with 28 minutes to the scheduled take-off time, we rush along the boarding bridge and into one of the world’s biggest passenger spacecraft. Painted in a brilliant red livery, the Vanguard XR5 has been in service for just 10 years, and so far it has had an excellent safety record. Neither I nor Jay has been into space before, much to our rather flustered director’s consternation. Jay’s comment that the XR5 looks like a flying baked bean can seems rather unfair, especially as none of us have to pay for the trip. The seats aren’t exactly comfortable, ‘sitting’ being a euphemism for ‘strapped in’, while there is of course no in-flight food or drink until we reach stable orbit. Apparently, it’s not much worth waiting for. Helen describes space-food as one of the least developed facet of human space exploration in its almost 400 year long history; “It’s like super-glue with food colouring and an E-number spectrum.” I can’t wait.

Space travel is a strange medium, struggling desperately to be like earth-bound plane travel but not quite managing it. While in sub-orbital and atmospheric flight there is always at least a few minutes to down a few glasses of champagne, in spaceflight there are no such luxuries. It took some persuading to let Altea Aerospace, who runs the Vanguard, to let us bring the camera and its essential equipment (what Jay calls his “encumbrances”). Rumour has it that Helen tried to do a dodgy deal and swap Jay’s cabin space for it, but this was rendered unnecessary when the BBC paid off another passenger to go on a later flight. What the license-payers will say I dread to think.

At precisely 1306 the Vanguard fires full throttle then rattles its way down the main runway. At the front of the claustrophobic passenger compartment, a small LCD display shows our course in relation to the ISS. At the moment, it’s only a few hundred kilometres behind us and gaining rapidly, and briefly thoughts of having a race with it flash across my mind. In reality, this is nowhere near the real picture. It will take us about one and a half days to rendezvous with the space station, which should give us long enough to recover from the stress of take-off.

I don’t like taking off in aeroplanes. I know that planes can fly, but that doesn’t make trusting the metal hulk in which you’re sitting any easier. Taking off in a space-ship is worse. A lot worse. The ground doesn’t just retreat when you rise into the air; in dive bombs. In a plane, you feel at least fairly majestic as you rise smoothly into the air. In a space-ship, there’s no time to be majestic; it’s a 60 degree climb at full rocket power with an added punch of a scramjet squashing your belly. The atmosphere drops away surprisingly quickly, a pale blue slowly changing into jet black peppered with stars. The g-forces stop you enjoying the view; in fact you just want it to end. Jay is trying to capture resolute anguish on my face in order to complete the “goodbye sweet home” scene, but I have a horrible suspicion that all he is capturing is an “ohheckwhydidIletmyselfintothis?!” look. Quite how he is managing to film in this I don’t know. Sadly Helen is sitting in the row behind us. She says later that she thoroughly enjoyed the ascent. Junior crew members have their doubts.

Watching the earth disappear beneath us gives me an unusual feeling of longing. The thought that I shall not be able to breathe from that atmosphere directly is a very sobering one; that for the next 80 days I shall be completely reliant on the ability of several air conditioning systems and life support systems to supply life-giving oxygen to my lungs. Space may be fairly well conquered nowadays, but that still doesn’t make it homey.

After many crushing minutes of rocket-powered ascent, the engines finally cut out and we’re in orbit. After such a long time of clenching fists into laps, our hands fly up stupidly into the air. Weightlessness isn’t something that comes on gradually; it just suddenly hits you that down is no longer a proper concept. The most telling sign is that the drinks menu for the “restaurant” becomes an awful lot shorter.