The diary of a space traveler

Day 1: An introduction, rants and worries.

"There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation; why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years?" - Isaac Asimov

Ever since my high school days, I've always liked to begin my stories with a quote. Whether this will be a long and memorable story or not, I cannot say for sure until tomorrow afternoon. My name is Randon Charon, and I find my last name to be quite ironic considering the circumstances. But before I got any further, I would like to share my perspective on space travel with you.

To start with, Charon is Pluto's only moon, a quite nice one, yet inhumanly boreal. Although I'm the only member of my family with an enormous passion for the mysteries of our dark, deep universe, it's almost rediculous I have gotten this far. I am the co-pilot of mankind's largest colonization spacecraft ever built; the White Camelot. Being a huge fan of 20-21th century space-related action movies and literature certainly has certainly built up some thoughts about what COULD go wrong. In short, I'm quite worried right now. Although I've visited space 29 times previously, I still can't get used to the thought of sitting on top of a shuttle with 12,004 crew members, weighing over a three million metric tons in total. Even worse, it has four separate fusion reactors to power the megalopolis-sized ship. Although they should theoretically be almost entirely safe, each one of them has the capacity to easily incinerate the ship and leave nothing but subatomic particles behind.

Fear is, in my opinion, the main reason why this trip will be made in the first place. Less than one percent skies on Earth are being monitored for dangers such as incoming asteroids capable of taking out all life on the planet, and our newest American president is definitely aware of this fact. She was kind enough to more than double NASA's currently yearly budget at the expense of... Well, I really have no clue, but I'm definitely happy about her decision.

After a (hopefully) successful launch tomorrow at 9 pm CET, a quick jump will be made to the Orion belt through the Exar warpgate orbiting our own moon. A three-day travel past the blue supergiant Betelgeuse will take place to set up an additional warpgate for further travel into deeper, more unexplored space territory. Don't you just love the word "warpgate"? They're such an ingenous invention, as they literally bend the empty space in front of you as if it was a piece of cloth, literally bringing two distant locations closer to each other.

So, after bending space again, so to speak, in the Orion belt with the warpgate our expedition is to deploy, we will visit the IX-86745 solar system, unofficially known as Spero, meaning "hope" in Latin. One of the seven planets in orbit consist of an atmosphere similar to our own with both water and oxygen, but due to very low amounts of Nitrogen, it is highly unlikely we will find much, if any alien plantlife.

Either way, this concludes the introduction to my travel. I'm already late for NASA's press conference, and tonight I will spend the time I still have with some of my close friends; the crew members on the trip. Did I mention my girlfriend is going with me on the trip? Her job is to examine various kinds of samples we will take in posession every time we will get a chance to. Definitely not as exciting as my own task on the trip, but I can't tell you how happy I am to have her with me.


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Day 2: The big launch

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in." - Robert Heinlein

Today was a rush. It's about 5:40 pm when I write this, so I still have a bit of time until Aaron will pick me and the rest of the crew commanders up for what is going to be the greatest day of my life. My girlfriend Michelle is very excited about the trip as well, and she definitely has the right to be. I'm excited as well, but possibly not in a good way. I had a really hard time sleeping last night, and I dreamt some various nightmares. They weren't really related to the space flight, but I died in some really weird ways in all of the dreams. For instance, a clown came in through the window, nailed me to the floor with a glue gun and shoved an apple into my mouth and covered my nose until I got asphyxiated. Feel free to laugh at me, the big, tough astronaut, if you want to, but it scared the bejesus out of me.

So anyway, I was at a press conference last night with quite a few NASA employees, and although I didn't get any questions directed to myself, the White Camelot pilot Roger Falcon kept rambling for quite some time. Unfortunately, he's really one of the few people in the crew I can't get along with at times. For instance, if a big asteroid would come in our direction and I would want to turn right to avoid a fatal collision, he would most definitely insist on turning left instead.

Well, as opposed to driving a car, a spaceship can also be ascend or descend a bit like an airplane. What I find to be the most difficult part is to slow down mammoth-sized ships as there really is no wind or friction alike what we're used to on Earth. For instance, if a constant course for a planet would be set and there is no fuel to activate retro-thrust engines to slow us down, a direct impact is inevitable.

I just heard a honk from outside, and it seems as if I'm about to be picked up. Wish me luck.


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Day 3: Artificial gravity and more worries

"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" - Larry Niven

I was going to write about the actual launch experience shortly after when I still remembered everything perfectly well, but unfortunately, a major malfunction had occurred in the artificial photosynthesis core. Without it, we wouldn't have oxygen supplies for more than a few days, and we would have to abort the mission. I was really worried for a while, but luckily, our skilled engineers managed to solve the problem after a few hours. I just hope there won't be any more problems during this trip.

So anyway, I remember last night when I saw the White Camelot, rigged on the launch pad. It was definitely marvellous sight, as I have never seen it raised vertically before. The total ship length is over a quarter of a mile, or 420 meters to be exact. It's really top-notch, and I can't remember being on any other space vessel which has had an artificial gravity as similar to the one of the Earth as this one. I've been running around like a child most of the day, exploring most of the ship and getting to know more of the passengers. Unfortunately, I tripped on a staircase and hurt my knee fairly badly, but at least I didn't break anything, or so the doctor says.

I have a meeting with the head navigator in a few minutes, so I guess this concludes my experiences for today. We'll reach the Exar warpgate tonight, and I'll be sure to write down the ride first thing in the morning.


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Day 4: My tummy hurts

"Many of the problems that we have today may not have solutions on Earth. The solutions may lie only in leaving the planet behind. There's no way we can avoid tearing up the countryside for ores, for fuel, for raw materials here on Earth--short of everybody dying off." - Keith and Carolyn Henson

I can't emphasize how much sense that quote makes to me right now. The warpgate jump was definitely not especially enjoyable. I felt extremely seasick for the five hours it lasted, and I can't remember the last time I've vomited this much. At least I really liked the blue, fluorescent light the warp tunnel we traveled through emitted. In a way, I'd have to say walls of the warp tunnel resembles a liquid of some sort. Definitely not water though, it seems more like boiling mercury.

Speaking of the color blue, the blue supergiant star Betelgeuse illuminates the ship with a magnitude many times greater than the sun. It's really a spectacular view, although I can't wait to get a bit closer. Well, even with all of the fusion reactors activated, it will still take slightly more than two days until we get very close to the star. Scientists have said it might burst out into a gigantic supernova explosion and eradicate all of the Orion belt and eventually even the Earth. I just hope that won't happen when we're this close to it. In fact, I hope it will never happen.

That's all for today, folks. I might not write anything further until we get close to the star, as I have, believe it or not, some important matters to deal with.

From here on out, things might be getting a bit more exciting as well, I just hope they won't get TOO exciting.