Preparation
Our preparation for the journey to planet Celestine was finally coming to an end. The decision to visit the planet had been commissioned by President Cameron five years earlier in his speech to Congress, in which he had said that a visit to the planet would establish our nation’s as the frontrunner in the application of science and technology, especially space exploration. A special task force handling all the logistics had been formed immediately.
The first task had been to design the space ship that would be used in the voyage. Since the ship would consist of a lot of components, several companies that specialize in various aspects of technology were contracted to construct the spacecraft. There were chip manufacturing firms, airline manufacturers to assist with aerodynamic properties, and a host of several renowned scientists, each of whom had an area of specialty.
Aerodynamic properties would involve studying the motion of air and how it interacted with the rocket. The body of the rocket had to be mechanically strong because we would go past several celestial bodies such as meteors, asteroids, comets, moons, etc. An asteroid is a small body that orbits around the sun and is mainly made of rocks or ice (Harland and Harvey, pp. 139). A comet is a body that moves closer to the sun and has a head made up of a solid nucleus surrounded by a nebulous coma up to 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) in diameter and an elongated curved vapor tail arising from the coma when sufficiently close to the sun (Harland and Harvey, pp. 140).
Construction of Celestine Voyager
Celestine Voyager was the space vehicle that was to be used to travel to planet Celestine. Due to the huge budget of the program and the high degree of accuracy required, the government allocated $1 trillion for funding the construction and subsequent trip to Celestine. It was decided that the vehicle would comprise of three solid motor rockets and these would ensure that there was enough fuel to propel Celestine Voyager to its destination and back. These three sections were constructed in three distinct stages.
The first stage was known as the Celest I. It had six rocket engines that were powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene, each engine had a maximum volume of 1.7 million pounds (approximately 7,565,000 newtons) of force, the total force of the vehicle would be 45,390,000 newtons. The newton is the SI unit for force and is equal to the amount of net force required to accelerate a mass of one kilogram at a rate of one meter per second squared.
The thrust force is the force required to fire the entire rocket from its launch pad to a distance 62 km above the earth at a speed of 2840 meters per second (Noordung, pp. 42). When all the fuel in rocket engines has burned off, Celest II engines will shut off and explosive bolts connecting it to the main rocket would blow up, jettisoning the first stage into the Pacific Ocean.
The second stage was known as Celest II. It had five rocket engines and since the size of each engine was similar to that used in Celest I, it had a total force of 37,825,000 newtons. This force would propel the rocket 231 km above the earth. The disparity in the distance with the first stage is because Celest I would propel the rocket out of the earth’s atmosphere and into space, where there is less friction due to a lack of air, hence, the rocket would require less fuel. When the fuel was used up, the five engines in the second stage, just as the first stage, would shut off, and explosive bolts connecting it to the main rocket would blow up, disconnecting it from the rest of the spacecraft.
The final stage, known as Celest III, had just two engines and could provide a force of 15,130,000 newtons. This is the force that could propel Celestine Voyager to Celestine’s atmosphere and eventually land onto the planet, and push it back to the earth’s atmosphere. Apart from the engines, the last section of the space vehicle also consisted of the instrument panel and the command module that housed the three astronauts (Noordung, pp. 132). The command module would detach from Celest III and would be the last part of the vehicle to reach the earth wholly.
Several instruments were carried along the trip and included communication equipment, navigation systems, video and photo capturing devices, and telemetry transmitters. Telemetry transmitters are gadgets that would be used to collect data from space and the Celestine planet and transmit it back to earth automatically (Noordung, pp. 78). The information includes speed and space vehicle orientation, temperature, humidity, and all that pertains to the environment around the spacecraft.
Due to the risks involved in the mission, several safety measures were implemented, from example, the space module (CM), constructed to house four astronauts, was fitted with a heat shield to protect the astronauts from the intense heat generated when the vehicle re-entered the earth’s atmosphere at high speeds. The CM had a thin aluminum lining on the inside while the external part was made of brazed stainless steel lined with resin, acting as a heat shield. The spacecraft was fitted with fuel cells to generate additional propulsion force from the freely available hydrogen in the air and outer space (Noordung, pp. 96).
The fuel cells produce electricity through an electrochemical reaction involving hydrogen and oxygen. This energy was used to power the various instruments carried in the Celestine Voyager. The other three sections of the vehicle also had batteries to provide additional energy and to power the engines. The entire spacecraft weighed 105,500 pounds in total, on its return to earth, it would weigh just over 10, 455 pounds. A pound is a unit of weight equal to 453.592 grams.
Preparation for the Voyage
Before traveling to planet Celestine, it was imperative that we acclimatize our bodies to the conditions of outer space and planet. A research vehicle was constructed to simulate each of the conditions that we would encounter in space, including emergency procedures such as overheating of the CM, ejection out of the CM, landing on our destination planet, and eventually landing into the sea after our trip. Since Celestine was known to have extremely cold temperatures that could go as low as -80° C, a fifth of the earth’s gravity, and very mountainous terrain, all of the conditions were simulated. Through space photographs of the planet, a suitable landing area was identified. The four astronauts also learned how they could eject safely in case of an emergency.
The types of food materials to be carried along the voyage were also identified, especially foods that would make the body warm and still give energy. I also got to know more about my fellow astronauts, they were John Kelvin, a 48-year-old former researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who had earlier traveled to space, Ryan Mason, a 56-year-old father of two who had worked in the space agency since he was 23, and Michael Roberts, a 43-year-old former pilot, who was also the youngest among the four of us. Together we would make history as the first men to set foot on planet Celestine. I was appointed as the commander of the vehicle and Mason as my assistant, Roberts and Kelvin would control the other instruments, telemetry transmitters, and check on other technical elements.
After all the simulations and flight control training, our space travel was just 45 hours away. During this time, we spent time together with our families and worked on the final aspects of the journey.
The Journey to Celestine
Thousands of people thronged the highways and beaches a few hundred meters from the launch pad. As I was the commander, I made sure everything was in perfect order, and as the President pressed the button that launched us into space, I heard a loud explosion that shattered my ears, the explosion was a result of pumping a mixture of liquid hydrogen, an oxidizing material and kerosene into Celest I at high pressures. We were off into space.
As our vehicle entered space, all I could see was a white color. We went past a number of rocks, some of which were as huge as the skyscrapers of New York. During our journey through space, there was little we could do after setting up the instruments and communicating with the engineers at the Command center. Therefore, we got out of our chairs and floated effortlessly in turns due to the limited space in the command module. Being in a gravity-free environment almost felt like I was acting in a real sci-fi movie! We were still enjoying ourselves when we noticed some strange body on the LCD display mounted next to the spacecraft’s control panel.
The body was producing a very bright incandescent light and traveling at a speed close to 1,000 km/hr, it left behind a stream of hot air that reached 750° C (Noordung, pp. 9), which we determined using thermal detectors placed at the tip of the Celestine Voyager. For a while, we thought these were ‘alien bombs’, but upon transmitting the images back to earth, we were relieved to learn that they were meteors. Apparently, the meteor had entered the earth’s atmosphere where it had encountered the impact pressure, creating friction and generating great quantities of heat and light energy, causing them to heat up light up, creating a very bright incandescent light or fireball. This image was so spectacular.
After going past several planets, meteors and other celestial bodies, the voice-enabled indicators on our space vehicle mentioned that we should tie our seat belts for we were entering the bumpy Celestine atmosphere in less than 45 minutes. Through the telescopes, I could see that we were indeed approaching Celestine. As we entered Celestine’s atmosphere, we knew that the most critical point of the mission had come: we had to find a way of landing safely rather than landing on the spot earlier photographed.
Five minutes into the descent, we could have an unaided view of the rough terrain of the planet: huge craters and rugged peaks that seemed to have been formed millions of years ago. As Celestine Voyager’s radar scrutinized the surface for the ideal landing spot, two computers generated error messages. Due to the intense training we had received, we immediately knew what they meant.
The first one was caused by Mason’s decision to switch on the landing props yet we had not attained the mandatory 50-meter distance from the ground while the second error message was due to a loss of signals between the central command and us (Harland and Harvey, pp. 125). We immediately switched on the signal booster and regained connection once again. Mason stated that the bumpy had led to unstable velocities and as a safety procedure, had decided to switch on the landing props.
Touchdown on Celestine
We finally found the photographed area of landing and our spacecraft landed at exactly 15:45:20, 20 minutes later than the expected time, we rejoiced by hugging and patting each other on the back, then communicated to the command center. The delay was caused by a reduction of velocity as we entered Celestine’s atmosphere. On landing, we checked the amount of fuel left for our travel back to earth, there was enough fuel, besides, the journey back to earth would require very little fuel since we would be aided by the earth’s gravitational force. We put on our space gear and tied the gas cylinders to our backs carefully, one person at a time.
Kelvin stepped out first, I was second, Mason was third and finally followed by Roberts. As we walked through the Atikin Pass near the Matty Crater, the scene had no form of life: no trees, no twigs, no vegetation at all, not even a dried plant shoot to show evidence of earlier life. All we could see was a hazy brown color extending beyond the horizon. The hills and mountains had very sharp and rugged and sharply chiseled faces, and in the higher peaks, solid white snow.
There were two full moons on a clear yellow sky reminiscent of a movie I had watched earlier, known as Star Wars. As we went past the Matty Crater, we came past yet another large crater, the Olympic Crater, we saw exactly why it was named so. The crater was so large and rose several meters above the surface, resembling an Olympic stadium. This would have been an ultimate attraction site had it occurred on earth.
Due to its closeness to the sun, Celestine’s rocks experience very high temperatures during the day, and due to a lack of cloud cover as earth, temperatures fall to as low as -80° C, causing the rocks to split because of the huge temperature difference. This is responsible for the various geological features found on Celestine, especially the sharp rocky faces (Noordung, pp. 114).
We were still walking along the Celestine terrain, collecting rocks, when a sharp cracking sound dominated the atmosphere, each of us dunked behind a rock, fearing for the worst, I took out my laser machine hoping to blind the enemy. How we laughed at ourselves when we found out that it was the sound of cracking rocks, we had not realized that it was already 20:00:33, and the temperature drop was causing rocks to crack, fortunately, we were in the comfort of our spacesuits. It was time to head back into Celestine Voyager for the trip back home, but not before we set up instruments and erected a plaque.
Journey Back Home
We re-entered our spacecraft, closed and sealed the hatch, and rested for almost ten hours. Finally, at daybreak, we prepared for liftoff. We ensured that all components were in good working order. However, when we tried to start the engines, they failed to ignite. After communicating with the command center, we found out that the cold temperatures had caused a contraction of the metal connectors, breaking the connection between the engines and the ignition, this was a simple application of the properties of matter.
We reconnected the wires and started the engines again, they worked and we were propelled into space. As we aligned the spacecraft to enter the earth’s orbit, we knew that the mission still consisted of a very dangerous part: re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. However, this went on smoothly and we landed safely in the Pacific Ocean, where Navy Officers collected us. It was a truly memorable experience.
Works Cited
Harland, David M., and Harvey, Brian. Space Exploration 2008. Berlin: Springer, 2008.
Noordung, Hermann. The Problem of Space Travel: The Rocket Motor. Washington: NASA, 1995.