Embedded Files
Molly Kercheval
1/26/17
Psych Assignment: Letter to texter and driver
Dear Friend,
I would like to inform you about my displeasure with you irresponsibly texting and driving. I feel unsafe in your car and unsafe on the roads in general because of the activities I have witnessed you performing (texting/talking on your cell phone while driving).
I have heard about men who, like you, mean only the best and simply believe they can multitask enough to text while driving. These people I've heard of have killed others on the road, without meaning to, because they were texting. These people they killed have wives, families, loved ones, and heartfelt connections, just like you do, and just like the person that killed them by making a stupid decision. Imagine what it must feel like to have multiple deaths on your conscience! Well if you keep texting and driving, pretty soon you won't need to imagine it to feel the horrible psychological ripping pain. Or physical pain; you could be the one that disappears from this world because of your horrible, stupid mistake.
I am not just saying all this to scare you or spite you, I am writing this because I care and am worried. In most places they have texting laws; In Utah, they go something like this. If you are texting or on your phone at all while driving, you have to pay a $750 fine and 90 days in jail. If you injure another person because of it, it’s a $1,000 fine and 6 months in jail. If you kill someone (on purpose or not), then it's a $10,000 fine and 15 years in jail. No one wants that; not you, not me, not your parents, and not your friends. There are at least 40,000 fatalities a year on highways, and I don't want you to be one of them, or cause one of them. If you are talking on the phone, you are 4 times more likely to cause an accident, which is the same as driving drunk. If you’re texting, you’re 8 times more likely to cause an accident. That’s twice as worse as driving drunk!
These aren't just random numbers and statistics either; there is real psychology and science behind the numbers, and reasons for why it's a terrible idea to text and drive. There is a specific phenomenon called ‘Inattention Blindness’ that describes the case where when people are focusing their attention on something, they do not even notice many things that occur right in front of their eyes. People only ‘see’ about half of what is happening in their visual space if their focus is dedicated to something else. And of course, this is *while* your eyes are still on the road (example; just talking on your cell phone but insisting it’s fine because your eyes are still on the road). If you’re texting however, your attention completely shifts to your cell phone and you become actually blind to what is happening on the road. Multitasking is impossible; and even if you can try to focus on two tasks, your brain can only put so much work into them, so you only half- focus on either task.
So, if you had to choose between; 1) Putting your cell phone on silent and maybe having your friend be unhappy with your “slow” reply time, or 2) Killing yourself and multiple innocent people on the highway, which would you choose? I know this might be harsh information for you, but I care deeply about your life and the lives of others, and this subject in general. It’s not that hard to make a small, smart decision, that will save lives. Please stop texting while you drive.
Sincerely,
Molly Kercheval
Molly Kercheval
5/20/15
ESS 102 Science Fiction.
Years ago, when I would look up in the sky on a clear night, there would be something about how vast the starry void feels. I was a child at the time when I feared the thought of space. Thinking about the ways you can die or get cancer, like space radiation from galactic cosmic rays and UV rays from the sun, made me anxious as a kid. Not only that, but also the effects of microgravity on humans such as bone decay that can take up to 2 years recovery, muscle loss by at least 20%, and possible suffocation or CO2 poisoning from lack of air. As a child, two hours of exercise a day to keep up muscle development sounded like torture. Years later in college, I finally started to learn more about the dangers of space, wanting to face my fears so I could further understand human exploration as it is today. Here, in the year 2078, human exploration is the biggest issue on humanity's mind. Past generations had practically killed the planet by polluting its atmosphere with CO2 and poisonous gases from the burning of fossil fuels. Because of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere, it was trapping more heat in the atmosphere with the greenhouse effect. The sea level had rose at least 20cm from late 1880’s to early 21st century before scientists had even realized it was caused by humans warming the atmosphere and causing the ice caps to melt. Now our ozone layer in the stratosphere, 14-22 km above the ground of earth, is almost depleted, and people who can't afford SRP (Sun Radiation Protection) technology are dying off. The population of planet Earth used to be very high in numbers, somewhere around 11 billion people, but recently has dropped down to about 9 billion with the recent deaths and space migrations.
SpaceX, founded in the early 21st century, developed a transport system and colony on our moon, the planet Mars, and Europa (one of Jupiter's moons). Since the political realization of global warming in 2025, terraforming and colonization has been humanity's largest goal, and technology/education towards those fields have progressed dramatically within the last 30 years, thanks to the new generation of humans with EBBS implants (Enhanced Biological Brain Systems). My parent’s generation were the ones who developed them, hoping they could develop technology at a much faster rate than normal humans. After testing it out on a handful of test subjects for over 30 years (since childbirth) and seeing successful results, they decided to make the implant a necessary part of every new child born this century. After all, if the test subjects created a terraforming machine that could help fix earth’s and other planet’s atmospheres, what did this new generation have in store for us? Of course, the problem I saw with this new technology is that if parents don’t want their child modified, or if a child is born without getting one, the kid will be seen as much less intelligent. There were many political and moral debates going on concerning this matter, and I tried not to focus too hard on it. Instead, I focused hard on my training.
It had been nearly 25 years since the EBBS Generation Project, and 7 years ago the ebbies (slang for EBBS Generation) created a fully developed Alcubierre Drive. About 50 years ago, it was merely concept, but since around 2015, scientists (such as Harold Sonny White) had started to develop methods to put it in action. The drive works not by ‘normal’ propulsion such as chemical or plasma fuels or ion engines, but by contracting the space time continuum in front of it, allowing it to travel large distances faster than the speed of light, which is 3 x 10^8 meters per second. However, first it must harvest exotic energy from interstellar space to achieve negative mass, a.k.a. an energy density field lower than a vacuum (less than zero kilograms per cubic meter). SpaceX decided a long time ago that once it was developed, a crew would travel into deep space outside the solar system and try to colonize an exoplanet, specifically Gliese 667Cc which orbits around the distant star of Gliese 667C, since it had been deemed the most habitable compared to earth. It is also nearly 3.4 times larger than planet Earth! As it was, we would need an Alcubierre drive to have even considered rapid colonization on the exoplanet 23 light years away from us. On the Antimatter propulsion we use today, it would take less than, but most of a human lifespan to even travel to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. The propulsion uses the energy from the collision and reaction of matter and antimatter particles. The antimatter particles mirror regular particles, except small differences, such as the electrons being positive instead of negative (positrons). With the antimatter engines, we were able to reach about 80% velocity the speed of light (2.4 x 10^8 meters per second). Back in the earlier 21st century however, antimatter rockets were very expensive to make, with antimatter particles costing 62.5 trillion dollars per gram! Thank goodness the International Economic Union decided to focus efforts on lowering cost for space travel equipment. Along with the Alcubierre drive, SpaceX developed a ship (nicknamed IXS Enterprise, based on the old television show Star Trek), and are currently training a crew of 7 for the potentially one-way trip. One of those crew members is me.
My name is Alex J. Mann, and I’m 42 years young. I know people hate it when I say “years young” but in reality with the expected human lifespan thanks to the new Welfare system, I am young and ready for the cosmos. Humans live approximately up to 130 years on Earth (if they’re rich), and people under 25 are deemed too young for space travel thanks to their still developing bodies and minds. It takes a few years of training to prepare for long term space transport, so SpaceX and NeWT (New World Transport, a spin off company of SpaceX founded 40 years ago) created a ‘college’ for passenger training on the large transport vessels. It takes approximately 5 years of training for a normal citizen to be eligible for transport to the moon colony and a couple years longer for the mars or Europa colonies. The crew of IXS Enterprise are in a separate program that has lasted 10 years, as there are many more factors we have to deal with on this mission, and require the best expertise and experience. All of us are experienced engineers, physicists, NeWT drivers, and astronomers. Speaking of the crew, one of them had walked into my office at that very moment.
“Heya Alex! It’s almost 10, are you finished with your work?”
“Yeah” I sighed, pushing away from my desk. I looked over at my crewmate, Joel Goodman. “I’m on the last part of the rover vehicle scope.”.
He gave me a questioning glance. “Didn’t Maria already finish that?”
I replied, “Yes, but I wanted to do it myself as well and see if our results matched up. Just because she’s the top engineer doesn’t mean we should leave everything to her you know. In case she dies we need to know how to fix everything.”
Joel pouted his lip and said, “Way to get morbid. We’ll all be fine! IXS Enterprise has been tested again and again and it’s state of the art in terms of safety. They’ve been working on it for nearly 30 years.”
I threw up my arms and exclaimed in a nervous outburst, “But not the drive! They can’t test it until we’ve actually gone out there and produced the spacetime bubble!”
Joel tutted at me and said, “To use an old term, Alex; don’t get your panties in a twist. We’re all nervous, but you can’t lose your cool. That’s why we were chosen, because we maintain our cool and dignity.” Joel stood up as straight as he could and mocked standing at attention, then slumped again saying, “Also, we’re reminded of the drive practically every day, no need to repeat it again. They’ve checked the math over and over again, and tested it so many times on a smaller scale, it’s bound to work”.
I shot back with a counterpoint, “There’s also the fact that they never found the endpoint of any of those. Who knows how far off they went?”
“Mathematically, just as far as they needed it to”. Joel smiled.
I sighed and smiled tightly, knowing I can’t win against Joel’s optimism. “Haha, alright you win. Hey guess what?”
“Should I guess, or are you going to tell me anyways?”
I pointed at him. “Patience is a virtue. Let me say it.”
Joel leaned in and dramatically listened to try to humor me. I secretly hate it when he does that, because I know he knows what I’m thinking. I exclaimed, “We’re leaving tomorrow!”
Joel threw up his hands with a wide smile on his face and made a quiet ‘aaahhh’ noise. “...I know! Say goodbye to earth, buddy, cause we’re out of here! A new home, full of unknown secrets! Hey though, I should go; I have to say my final goodbyes to family”.
“Same for me. See you soon!” I said. Joel still had hands up like a robot and jogged out of my office saying ‘ahhh’ quietly in excitement. I could safely say that Joel was my favorite of the crew. He was always the most optimistic, even though he knew how many dangers there are on the mission. Of course I love all the other crew members as well, they’re like family. There’s me, Joel, Maria Willis, Joy Hamilton, Noel Chapman, Toby Morrison, and Arlene Wolfe. Maria is our top engineer of the mission, graduating with extremely high grades from the number one aeronautics/astronautics school planet-wide, and has been working with SpaceX for nearly all her life. Many look down upon her because she is an ebbie, and only 27 years old. She had been one of the ebbie leaders in charge of the alcubierre drive, and volunteered to go on the IXS Enterprise mission, since she worked very hard on that particular drive. She had not only augmentation on her brain, but also her muscles and bone structure, making her easily as strong and hardy as an android or cyborg, if not more. Joy and Noel are internet childhood friends, 37 and 38 year old, who played and trained together in virtual reality simulations for years and years before they joined the mission. Occasionally they will invite the rest of us during our infrequent free time and we’ll all play what we’ve lovingly nicknamed ‘space pirates’. It’s a zero gravity simulation using Virtual Identity Suits (VidSuits) connected to the internet and submerged in a pool to create weightlessness. We would run a program where we pretended to ransack old shuttles or alien ships for parts and ‘loot’. Some people call Toby the grumpy old man of the group (he’s 61), but in reality he keeps the crew together and in order even better than we can manage on our own. Toby is a natural militaristic leader and motivator, keeping the peace between crew members, and laying down the law when needed. You could say he’s a natural father, seeing how he had two kids of his own back home. For being middle-aged, he’s very trained and in shape, with a good head on his shoulders. Arlene is similar to the sweet, strange, intelligent aunt that everyone seems to have in their life. She is constantly checking up on people and double checking on systems. She and Joel enjoy making rounds to the different sectors of the IXS Enterprise mission, raising moral and making sure everyone is motivated and working efficiently.
There are approximately 25 other crew members who were being trained for the next transport, given our mission was a success. We were a scout part for a larger colonization party, essentially, and it was our mission to set up the colony and pave a way for human expansion across star systems. We were are setting out to test the Alcubierre Drive for full integration with the newer ship models and safety for humans. Theoretically, it was completely safe, shrouding us in a bubble of space-time and preventing any harm to come to us in our own perceived relativity. However, any tests that SpaceX or NWT have done have warped much too far into space to communicate with it, and none had come back from their trips, despite programming, save one. There were suspicions and controversies among scientists and the media that there was tampering of the test from an outside source, but the officials decided to ignore speculation and go forward with the initial IXS Enterprise mission.
Goodbyes to families and interviews from e-network paparazzi were the last things we did before take off. That day felt like one of the longest days of my life, with such anticipation around us one could choke on it. Once we were in the passenger capsule, you could feel the intensity building throughout the worlds. Launch procedures from Earth was something we all used to do on at least a monthly basis. Control would talk to us through the main communication device in the launch cabin, and we would use ion thrusters to enter the different layers of Earth’s atmosphere. First being the troposphere, then the stratosphere, mesosphere, and finally thermosphere. 60 seconds into launch and 500 kilometers up, we cleared the thermosphere, which reaches temperatures of 50 degrees celsius or above. We passed into the exosphere, and began to leave orbit shortly after. I could’ve only imagined the cheers and whoops and parties being thrown in honor of the trip and the crew. Thinking about it gave me a brief, painful reminder that I would likely never come home.
Nostalgic feelings aside, we all shared excited glances all thinking the same thing; we were on our way. They said the trip would take approximately 4 years, since Gliese 667Cc was 23 light years away. Because of the development in antimatter drives, we’ve been able to travel there before, but it took nearly 60 years instead of 4. Our crew are volunteer guinea pigs for the Alcubierre drive, and may very well not survive this trip. However, we are all optimistic and hope for the best, so I should best not dwell long on those details.
Since activating the Alcubierre drive within our solar system is dangerous, and the majority of exotic matter lies in interstellar space, we had to spend 2 of the 4 years simply exiting our solar system. For travel within the solar system, we used our solar sails, an ion thruster, and a small backup antimatter drive if needed. Those were so familiar to us as engineers and veterans of previous space missions, it was just like any other day. Over the two years of travel, we kept the many systems in functional order, such as the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) and Common Cabin Air Assembly (CCAA) which maintained the atmosphere in the cabins. We also checked on the hour to assure we were keeping correct trajectory and avoiding space debris. As we passed each planet (if they were nearby on orbit) we all took breaks to stare, open mouthed out the window; the view never gets old, trust me. Sometimes to pass the time, Joel and I would race around the space station, running the outward circle that produces the artificial gravity. I had always prefered spending time in the outside habitat, because it reminded me of home, not to mention all the health issues that came with weightlessness. Although people like Joy and Noel love the weightlessness, because they were always on the virtual space simulations at the college. The real thing, however, is notably different than the VidSuits in underwater pools.
Time passed slowly, day to day operations were normal, and the mission had so far run smoothly. We were all getting antsy and ready to test out the new drive, since we were passing through the Kuiper belt and nearing the bow shock of our heliosphere; the edge of the solar system. Maria was frantically working on a system update a couple days before we were supposed to activate the drive. I went over to her and asked, “how’s that system update?”.
She looked up at me with a stifled, panicked look in her eyes, sweat dripping down her brow. “I think there’s something wrong with drive”.
I was completely taken aback with alarm and said, “It’s two days before activation, and you’re finding a problem? Why didn’t you tell the rest of us or put it in the daily report?!”.
She said almost too quietly, “I just found it during this system update, two minutes ago. It’s a slightly misplaced part in the machinery panel for the activation system, and it’s going to be difficult to repair.”
I was trying to remain calm and said, “Can you fix it before activation date? I should tell the others.”
Maria was silent for a few seconds, grunting as she bent down to reach the wiring and mechanics of the activation panel for the drive. “I should be able to fix it in a couple hours. There will be a 10-15% chance that the activation will go wrong and we’ll collapse into a single point”.
I took this information with great uncertainty and fear, as one of the biggest dangers of the Alcubierre drive we learned about at the College was the collapse into a single, indefinite point, a.k.a. a black hole. Because of the physics and quantum mechanics used, measurements and mechanisms needed to be exact, otherwise we would get a bad reaction between the drive and the exotic matter. If we created a single point, we would all get spaghettified and create a huge danger to the solar system as a whole. It was also a big danger while scientists were testing out the smaller drives, but that was in a much more controlled environment and the sizes of the crafts they launched were much smaller than the IXS Enterprise. IXS Enterprise is one of the largest exploration starships made to date, excluding Mayflower One and Two for the large human transports to colonies.
I pulled out my on-board radio and broadcasted a notice to all the crew members, notifying them of the misalignment in the activation panel, and the details Maria listed to me about fixing it. People started to gather in the cabin, all wanting to be closer to each other while danger was imminent. I didn’t pay as much attention in my human psychology class, but I do know people hated to be alone and scared. Toby was the first one in the cabin, as he’s always concerned about the safety of the crew, then the rest of the crew show up with worried looks on their faces. Joel and Arlene came up next to me and we three shared wary glances. Each of the crew (since we are all advanced engineers) took a look at the misaligned part and all were uncertain about our own ability to fix it. The part was embedded in other, larger parts of the machinery, and we didn’t want to risk misalignment of all the parts, so we left it to Maria: the top engineer and ebbie.
After about ten minutes of talking and hopeful reassurance, we all headed back to our stations to keep working on updates and preparation for the activation date. For a painful, unfortunately distracting two hours, I anxiously worked on the retraction coils for the extra cabins. Once the cabins were fully retracted and the ship’s magnetic field was up and running, we would be prepared for drive activation. Once I was finished checking everything over, I practically ran over to the activation panel to check up on Maria’s progress. She was sitting underneath the panel with her hands on her face, and not saying a word as I walked in. I became very aware of the tension in the air and cautiously asked, “Is it fixed?”.
She looked up from her hands, seeming surprised of my sudden appearance in front of her. She said, “Yeah, I finished just now! You have impeccable timing.”
I sighed of relief and responded, “Gods, Maria! You seemed down when I walked in and I thought you were going to deliver me bad news. So the drive will activate no problem?”
Maria looked almost smug and said, “Of course! There will still be a 10-15% chance of failure, but at least it’ll still work. Next time, I’m doing the mechanics of the drive myself. We cannot afford human error on this mission.”
I looked at her quizzically. “Well, you’re still technically human, aren’t you?”.
She gave me a look and shrugged. I smiled a little and shrugged back. We used to joke a lot in College that ebbies were so similar to androids, especially with the extra muscle enhancements. It’s not something we talk about in public though, people are still sore from the AI android incident in the Bioengineering labs at College. I broke the silence by saying, “well, lets go get dinner and run a full system check up before bed. Plus we gotta celebrate the drive activation tomorrow!”
Maria smiled and said, “What are we waiting for?”. We left to go get our favorite flavored nutrient bars from the storage containers, and collected the other crew members as they finished their system updates and got the magnetic field up and running (it needed about a day to ‘warm up’ before we activated the drive). Everybody went to bed that night feeling excited and nervous; I know I was because I couldn’t hold down my food.
The next day was the height of tension on the whole trip that far. This was the penultimate moment everyone had been waiting for! Almost every person on every colony was tuned into the transmission of us preparing to activate the Alcubierre drive that humanity had waited so long to develop. We all sat in the main control cabin, waiting to input the code to activate the drive. We had already prepared the spacecraft’s functions so the drive could activate perfectly, save the snag in Maria’s system check. All our minds were on that one snag that could mean life or death, for maybe all of humanity! Maria was in one of the front chairs, strapped in because of the weightlessness. She hesitated and swallowed, then started slowly counting down from ten until she pressed the ‘input’ button. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,”, I was gripping my seat in anticipation, looking straight ahead. “five, four, three, two, one… zero!” Maria pressed the button and we began to hear whirring all around us as the drive started converting exotic energy. We could hear clearly the ‘whooshing’ of the ring mechanism encircling the spacecraft at inhuman speeds, using the magnetic field around the spacecraft as it’s kickstarter, and speeding up with the added exotic matter energy. It was creating the bubble of spacetime around us that could contract space ahead of us, allowing us to transgress the speed of light for the first time in human space travel. Suddenly, about 5 seconds after activation, we all felt the slightest vibrations coming from all around us. I started to become panicked internally, because we were taught at the College the whole process would be smooth without any acceleration backlash or hard vibrations. I glanced nervously at Maria, who seemed to be visibly sweating although the cabin was perfect temperature. 5 more seconds pass, with the drive whirring noisily, then everything went dark.
My mind awoke, suddenly aware I was either still alive or there actually was some sort of afterlife. I opened my eyes to reveal my crewmates and the control cabin, exactly as it was left. My head pounded uncontrollably and it was hard to breathe. I could feel blood flowing down my face, most likely from my nose. I tried to move my eyes and head enough to look at my crewmates. Maria was unbuckled from her seat, trying to wake the others. They looked about the same condition I was in, except Toby was also bleeding from his eyes. I tried to use my voice and it cracked. I tried again, “What the hell happened?”.
Maria jumped at the sound of my voice; it seemed everybody else was still passed out. She floated over to my chair and quietly said, “The drive worked. Not perfectly, but we’re in the correct location according to programming. It seems that the mistake in the activation panel was what caused the slight tremors and acceleration backlash”.
I widened my eyes in surprise and exclaimed in a broken voice, “shouldn’t we be dead?? A backlash at that speed should have turned us into pulp!”
Maria sighed and said, “According to my calculations we should be dead. It’s unknown to me why we survived, but everyone appears to be more or less intact. Battered, but alive.”
I stared at her open mouthed for a couple seconds taking in the news, then quickly recomposed myself, saying “We need to send a report back home.” As soon as I finished that sentence, the realization of how far we were from earth hit me like a light-rail. 24 light-years is a long, long way from home.
Maria interrupted my moment of shock by assuring me; “I already sent back a message. You guys have been unconscious for about 40 minutes. I’m going to go ahead and open the front blinds.”
Our top engineer swam through the air back to her seat, buckled herself in, and started typing instructions. The blinds to the front ship viewer began to compress and fold up, revealing a blinding light. I put my hand up to my eyes as they adjusted to the light of this foreign sun. Then, I saw the exoplanet in the distance, Gliese 667Cc, in its full splendor with its earth-like features and rusty brown surface beneath the clouds, along with it’s green algae- filled oceans. The star Gliese 667C behind it burned bright at a temperature of 3,400 Kelvin. It is a red dwarf star, so of of course it would be cooler than our own sun at 5,778 Kelvin. Red dwarf stars make up about three fourths of the stars in our galaxy. Even as the power of the star felt overwhelming, I remembered that it only radiated about 1.4% of our own sun’s luminosity. As I looked around the cabin, the rest of the crew slowly started to awaken from the sudden brightness, all having approximately the same reaction and wake up as I did. Except Toby, who at the moment couldn’t open his eyes. He remained stoically silent, or maybe he was too hurt to speak. I could not tell. Maria, who was already ready to go and more or less intact because of her ebbie enhancements, interrupted our silent, groggy episode of awe. “We’ve got another two years to go, and a lot to do. I hope you’re all prepared.”
It had been 8 months since that day, and I was working out when I noticed something strange outside the spacecraft viewing window. It was almost a shimmer of some sort. It seemed very large and extremely slight, but I, to this day, could swear there was something there. I had learned about dark and exotic matter in College, and how much of it’s behavior was still unresolved, although I had been taught that it was virtually invisible to human eyes. My muscles stopped moving as a thought occurred to me. I had the strangest feeling that somehow the shimmer, our survival of activation, and the return of the test Alcubierre drive in the early lab stages were all connected somehow. Later that day, I had even discovered that Arlene had found a reading of a CME from her coronagraph equipment a few minutes before I saw the shimmer. Back home on the sun, a CME would create a wave of solar energetic particles at a speed of 489 kilometers per second and inevitably disturb magnetospheres of planets. They would happen as frequently as once a week to 3 times a day depending on the sunspot cycle. The sunspot cycle was based on the rotation of the sun and it’s magnetic field lines. The sunspots created by magnetic field loops would cycle approximately every 11 years, and would tell us the rotation of the sun, including the solar maximum which can produce 2-3 CME’s a day.
Although at that point in time, I brushed off the shimmer, seeing that both the strange survival and return of the test drive all had theoretical answers to them, and the shimmer could’ve been a trick of the eyes. After all, I was working out and sweating, or the pounding blood beneath my skin and eyes could have affected my vision. I had a lot of work to do on the CME data gathered anyways, so focusing on a superstition with no evidence would have been a waste of time. Either way, I noted the sight in my personal log.
After months and months of collecting data, calculations, communications, and waiting, we began to near landing date. We were very close to the planet now, and it was, as we were told, massive. I knew that was to be one of the most beautiful sights I had ever witnessed in my life. We could see the exoplanet in all its glory and the red dwarf, Gliese 667C, setting behind it, giving the planet an eerie but welcoming glow. At that moment, I knew not what the future would hold, but I knew I had made the right choice to come on this mission.
Author’s note: As I made this story, I became very attached to it’s plot and future. If I were given more time, and a higher limit for pages, I would extend its story to be much, much more. As you may have noticed, there is still room for the landing of IXS Enterprise on the exoplanet, and the many problems the crew may encounter, as well as the foreshadowing involving intelligent alien life influencing humanity. The small test Alcubierre drive, survival of the crew, and shimmer Alex saw were all influences of the aliens. ‘Space Pirates’ was also going to play into that scenario. I hope to expand this story at a future date, and I will also leave you with a fun question. What gender is the main character?
Resources/references:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184143-nasa-unveils-its-futuristic-warp-drive-starship-called-enterprise-of-course
The Alcubierre Warp Drive: On the Matter of Matter Brendan McMonigal,∗ Geraint F. Lewis,† and Philip O’Byrne‡ Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, A28, The University of Sydney, NSW 200 (PDF Paper on the Alcubierre Drive
Warp Field Mechanics 101 Dr. Harold “Sonny” White NASA Johnson Space Center 2101 NASA Parkway, MC EP4 Houston, TX 77058 (PDF Paper on the mechanics of Alcubierre Drive)
http://www.climatehotmap.org/about/global-warming-causes.html (website on global warming and it’s causes).
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/grnhse.html (website on the greenhouse effect).
http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp?MR=1 (More info on global warming).
http://www.planetsedu.com/habitable-planet/gliese-667-cc/ (Information on Gliese 667C and Gliese 667Cc).
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/CMEs.shtml (Information on CME’s. I also used this website for other sun-based information).
http://www.mn.uio.no/astro/english/research/news-and-events/news/astronews-2012-02-17.html (More information on Gliese 667Cc).
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/antimatter_spaceship.html (A NASA article on antimatter propulsion).
http://quest.nasa.gov/qna/questions/FAQ_Shuttle_Launch.htm#How_many_shuttle_launch (Questions and answers about rocket launches by NASA).
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