Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (29 page)

“I can do that Mr. President,” replied Peter after getting the nod from Mike.  “You probably are aware that we have discovered that the Brown Dwarf has a planet in orbit around it.”

“I do, and from what I have been told in the past this planet is no real threat to us, I hope that information has not changed,” said the President.

“No sir. The planet is not a threat to us here on Earth, or to any other planet in the Solar system.  We have been studying this planet as well as we can for some time now.  It is still quite distant so our information on its composition and atmosphere is still rather sketchy.   We have been able to do some more accurate calculations on its orbit and what the planet is going to do as it comes near the gravitation influence of our sun.  Those calculations and some other information we have are why we wanted to brief you. This information could have a tremendous impact on humanity and needs to be considered when any future Space Force planning takes place. I have some diagrams to show you that will help explain.”

“Planet X, sorry for the name, but we are just calling it that as a nickname at the moment until it is named, is in a very large and elliptical orbit around the Dwarf as you can see here.  Because of this, it is believed that the planet was captured by the Brown Dwarf as it passed through or near another star system thousands of years ago.  The planet has such a loose gravitational association with the Dwarf it is quite remarkable it was captured at all and not thrown out into space as Jupiter is going to be.  When the Dwarf passes through our solar system, this planet X is going to be so far away from it in its orbit that it will actually pass on the opposite side of our sun than the dwarf is.  The Brown Dwarf will lose the planet at that time.  The really interesting part is that our sun is going to capture the planet and it will settle into an orbit in our suns habitable zone very close to what the Earth’s is now.”

“Just a minute,” interjected the President.  “If it is in nearly in the same orbit as Earth then there will be a very big risk of Earth and this planet eventually colliding with each other, right?  That is not good news, in my opinion.”

“It is going to have a very similar orbit but with one big difference,” explained Peter.  “You see, with the exception of Pluto, almost all of the planets in our solar system are aligned in the same plane or the ecliptically aligned orbit plane.  This is like a flat disk of orbits similar to the rings on Saturn.  This new planet did not form around our sun so its orbit is wildly different.  It is going to settle into an orbit that is greater than eighty degrees off, or above the ecliptic.  The planet’s closest approach to our sun is going to be about eight to ten million miles closer than what Earth’s is right now.  It’s farthest point will be about five to six million miles farther than ours is right now.  Computer projections show that the closest it will ever get to Earth in the future will be about ten million miles.  This will cause some higher tides at certain times, but nothing catastrophic.  It will be easily visible from Earth, roughly about five percent the size of the full moon during closest approach.  That closest approach will happen about every three hundred and twenty-one years, but every eleven years it will be well within twenty million miles from us.  That is approximately one third the distance to Mars.”

“This raises some interesting questions for us.  The rough spectrographic data we have on the planet shows it has substantial water, in the form of ice at the moment.  At one time it probably had a Nitrogen/Carbon Dioxide atmosphere with some Oxygen mixed in. 
Right now, the atmosphere is frozen and lying as snow and ice on the surface.  That will rapidly change as the planet approaches the sun.  The planets first pass around the sun will take it as close to the sun as the orbit of Venus.  The frozen gases will vaporize giving it an atmosphere that will hold in the heat and start melting the water ice.  Weather patterns will form and the planet will eventually reach equilibrium, although that may take quite a few years to stabilize.  It will most likely be a warm planet like ours, with an appreciable amount of water present.  We feel sure it will be much more hospitable than Mars is at present.”

“Let me get this straight,” said the President thoughtfully.  “This planet X, as you are calling it, is going to be in our solar system in the near future and we will be able to live on it?”

“Yes and maybe,” said Peter.  “We are about ninety nine percent sure of the fact that it will settle into orbit as we described.  It is however, still too early to determine whether it will be inhabitable by humans, or even life as we know it.  It has been frozen solid for at least thousands of years.  If it ever had any life forms on it, is very unlikely that they could have survived.  The planet is roughly eighty percent the size of Earth and the gravity is probably about two thirds that of Earths.  We know it has some water on it, and it may possibly have an atmosphere that is similar to Earth’s.  We still do not know what its atmospheric composition will be or how thick that atmosphere will be.  We will need to determine that as it warms up.  We are requesting funding to develop a probe to put into orbit around it as soon as we can.  We need a scientific probe to study it and answer these questions.  The best time for launching the probe would be before it passes around the sun the first time.”

The President held up his hands.  “I am going to be very honest here.  Our nation is about broke.  Every spare dime we have is being spent on the populace relocation efforts and getting ready for the arrival of your Dwarf.  The Space Force is sucking up huge amounts of the nation’s income.  The rest of the world is contributing nothing to the effort to help shield the world from the rain of asteroids and meteors that you astronomers are predicting.  I just do not see how we can afford another multi-billion dollar probe to study this planet right now.”

“Mr. President,” David Honstein leaned forward as he spoke.  “We are not asking just for a robotic probe.  We feel it is most prudent to put a manned mission in orbit around the newcomer and launch some robot probes to its surface.  These could be controlled by tele-robotic communications from the crew in orbit.  It would be the next best thing to actually landing.  We have no information on what to expect on this planet so it would be wiser to have someone with real time control be able to direct robotic probes rather than controlling them from Earth.”

“There is no way we can afford that, it is out of the question,” said the President.

“Mr. President, let me put this into perspective,” reasoned David.  “We are the only nation that is really going to have any sort of space capability left for some time into the future after E-Day.  The world is counting on us to keep a dinosaur killer sized asteroid from doing the same to humanity.  We already have, or will have in the near future, the technology to do this.  Let me put it this way.  There will be a whole new world there, it may or may not be of use to us, but the United States will have a big head start on the rest of the world in getting to it.  That could prove to be very beneficial.  We could use a slightly modified version of the Inter-Mars Transfer ship that is launching in about five months.”

“Tell me Doctor Honstein, why you are so insistent on this mission to study the new planet so soon?” inquired the President.  “Why not wait until after the Dwarf Star has passed us by?”

“Mr. President, NASA and the Space Force are doing everything they can to get the Earth Asteroid Defense System set up.  There are going to be some hiccups in that process as we have seen already.  I am worried that if a really big rock comes barreling in from the Oort cloud that we might not be able to keep it from hitting Earth.  If there is a chance that we could set up a colony on this planet it would maybe ensure that all our eggs are not in one basket so to speak.  I know we are looking at doing the same thing on Mars, but Mars is a lot colder and much farther away.  This opportunity is something we really need to look into as soon as we can.”

The President sat back deep in thought.  “Doctor Honstein, I cannot authorize another space ship without approval from Congress. However, if NASA and Space Force...let’s say, pre-staged some repair and replacement parts for the Inter-Mars Ships that someday could be assembled quickly into another ship with a different purpose, then I believe most people would not question that.  It would need to be done under present budget constraints.  I understand your concerns and I will discuss the Space Force Budget more with the appropriations committee and certain congressional leaders.  That is all I can advise you to do at the moment.  I will see if I can get Congress to at least free up some funding for an unmanned probe to the planet but I cannot guarantee success.  Thank you for briefing me and if you will excuse me, I have a million other urgent matters to attend to, or so my Chief of Staff tells me.”  They all stood while the President left the room.

“Well, that went better than I expected,” said Mike.  “You did well, Peter.”

David nodded his agreement.  “You may have a future rubbing noses with the politicians after all Peter.  You better get used to it.  Now, we need to figure out how to appropriate and store these spare parts the President spoke of and get them into orbit.  Getting them up there is not the real problem.  Purchasing them without the bean counters catching on is the real challenge.  This should be right up your alley, Mike.”

“And if I get caught?” asked Mike.

“Then we all deny we even know you and let them stake you out at low tide for the crabs to chew on as the tide comes in,” joked David.

“It’s good to know you have my back,” grinned Mike.

Chapter 32

April 1
st
, 2028

Interplanetary Space, Somewhere Between Mars and Earth

“Alpha Control, this is Space Force Interdictor One, we have a slight problem here,” Colonel Mike Pierce released his mike button as he waited for the thirty second delay for his message to reach Space Station Alpha and then the return delay for their response.  They were seven million miles from Earth as the space crow flies, so it took that long for the radio messages to travel back and forth. He looked over at his co-pilot Major Hank Jenkins.  “Makes you sort of miss the milk runs to Lunar One doesn’t it?”

Hank was watching the four hundred meter diameter asteroid that was rapidly tumbling in an erratic pattern in front of their ship.  They were floating, parked in space, about a thousand meters from the irregularly shaped asteroid.  The interdictor class of space ship was a four man ship designed for intercepting and managing smaller sized asteroids that were on a trajectory to hit Earth.  This particular asteroid, AP-EF2019, was not a threat to Earth, but it had been chosen to try an experimental method that had been worked out to deflect other more dangerous asteroids of the same type and size.

The Interdictor Class Ship was similar in size to the Inter-Lunar Cargo Tugs that Mike and Hank had first flown a few years ago.  It was only powered by one slightly larger fission reactor however, as it used an advanced VASIMR propulsion system instead of the Hydrogen Moderated Nuclear Thermal System that the ships closer to Earth used.  It could not accelerate anywhere near as fast as the tugs, but the Xenon fuel they used lasted much longer and they could basically accelerate or decelerate continuously. For longer trips, this made this type of propulsion much more effective.  The ship was also the first class of ship to carry an electromagnetic shield, or force field, as the civvies called it.  This protected the crew from cosmic radiation and errant solar flares when it was far from Earth’s protective magnetic field.  With a deep space time capability of about three months, it was limited really by the amount of food, water, and oxygen they could carry for the four man crew.  On this particular test run however, they were only carrying a crew of three.

“Interdictor one, go ahead and state your status,” finally the answer came from Space Station Alpha.

“We are beaming you direct video now,” said Mike.  “This piece of rock you picked out for us to practice on is really tumbling. I am not sure that the computer guidance system for the
alignment thruster probes can compensate.  Your engineering type specialist here advises that we try manually anchoring them.  I agree with his assessment but we wanted concurrence from you before we do an EVA to try that.”  Mike released his radio button to await the response.

“If they give the ok for Jerry to go out, I will suit up and standby as a backup in case he gets in trouble,” said Hank.

Mike nodded his head.  “I guess now we see why they did not think that we could launch robotic probes from Earth and do this.  It is going to take someone with a good eye and probably lots of practice to get good at this.”

“Interdictor one, this is Alpha control.  We are not real keen on an EVA for manual probe placement.  As mission commander on site, we will let you make call.  If you wish to abort then we will understand.  We do agree with your assessment that the computer guidance system will not be successful for probe implants due to the high rate of tumbling the asteroid has.”

Mike switched to internal coms.  “Hey Jerry, Alpha says it is our call.  Do you think you can do it manually?  You will probably have to implant at least four Modules for us to get this thing steadied out.  If you want to try it, Hank will suit up and standby in the airlock in case you get in trouble.  I am letting you make the call.”

“Hell Colonel, we did not come seven million miles just to turn back without even trying.  Let me give it a shot,” Jerry called back.