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A Space Odd-Yssey
A Space Odd-Yssey
A Space Odd-Yssey
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A Space Odd-Yssey

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The Earth's WMDs (Women who make decisions) have been abducted by Space Pirates. The crew of the Odd-yssey need to search the Solar System to find the secret pirate based and save the WMDs from the space pirates before Earth descends to chaos - and without getting any more tickets from the Physics Police.

Hold on a second readers of this.

The captain did WHAT? Really? Oh that is not good. Hold on a second I will help you guys out in a second.

Ug, well sorry I have to go. You will just have to read the story for more.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherAuthorHouse
Release dateOct 10, 2012
ISBN9781468572872
A Space Odd-Yssey
Author

Edward Rhoads

I am an Astrophysicist teaching at IUPUI living in Indianapolis, Indiana. My avid imagination and vast knowledge of our Solar System gives me a unique view of the space around us and gives me a special chance to share that vision of it and of humanities possible future of it to you the reader.

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    A Space Odd-Yssey - Edward Rhoads

    A Space Odd-yssey

    By: Dr. Edward Rhoads

    This book is dedicated to all of the hard working scientists of NASA both past and

    present whose ingenuity and determination in using space probes to expand the knowledge

    of science have made a book of this level of detail possible.

    Table of Contents

    Chapter 1: The Voyage Home

    Chapter 2: Asteroid Encounter

    Chapter 3: Run Away!

    Chapter 4: Gliding Helplessly

    Chapter 5: Journey to the Center of the Sun

    Chapter 6: Ocean Landing

    Chapter 7: Observing the Moon

    Chapter 8: Motions of Stars

    Chapter 9: Tides

    Chapter 10: Take me to the Moon

    Chapter 11: Find the WMDs

    Chapter 12: The Birth of Earth

    Chapter 13: The Geologic History of the Earth

    Chapter 14: The History of Science

    Chapter 15: Recent History

    Chapter 16: Women in Science, or lack thereof

    Chapter 17: Mercury

    Chapter 18: Venus

    Chapter 19: Mars Landing

    Chapter 20: Exploring the Martian Pole

    Chapter 21: Exploring Olympus Mons

    Chapter 22: Exploring Valles Marineris and Beyond

    Chapter 23: The Asteroid Belt

    Chapter 24: Jupiter

    Chapter 25: Jupiter’s Moons

    Chapter 26: Saturn

    Chapter 27: Saturn’s Rings

    Chapter 28: Saturn’s Moons

    Chapter 29: Uranus

    Chapter 30: Neptune

    Chapter 31: Pluto

    Chapter 32: Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt

    Chapter 33: Rescue the WMDs

    Chapter 34: Into the Night

    Chapter 1: The Voyage Home

    In the cold darkness of space a giant spacecraft slowly made its way to the inner solar system. Although the front of this craft was flooded by sunlight, the front was painted very dark so that the space pirates would have a hard time finding the ship. The name of the ship, the Odd-yssey, was painted in light blue, and the name of the company, Aqua Terra Mining Co (ATMC for short), was painted just below it in red.

    ATMC specialized in mining the most precious and valuable resource known to human kind in the year 2316, water. The water was mined from icy objects in the outer solar system known as Trans-Neptunian Objects and then shipped back to the earth. This was a very dangerous trade as space pirates swarmed everywhere, trying to snatch this precious commodity for themselves.

    This was the ship’s maiden voyage, and so far the Odd-yssey had encountered no problems. On the bridge of the ship, the only door leading into the bridge was pushed open. As the figure behind the door emerged, everyone on the bridge jumped to their feet and saluted. Through the door walked a tall thin man wearing a crisp blue uniform. However, the uniform was off center and the shirt only partially tucked in. The uniformed man took three steps forward in a mechanical fashion. He didn’t notice the downward step, causing him to trip and fall down the set of three steps.

    From the ground, still face down, the uniformed man asked the nearest officer, Have we reached the asteroid belt yet?

    Yes, captain! the navigator responded quickly and militantly.

    The captain slowly got up. He pointed to the large screen in front of him and ordered the navigator, Show it on the view screen.

    The navigator quickly pushed a button while once again responding, Yes, captain!

    The view screen quickly changed from a screen with a lot of tactical information about the workings of the ship to a view of the space in front of them. However, the view was mostly dark. There were a few stars, but nothing else. However, with the three dimensional view of the screen the stars almost seemed like you could reach out and touch them. The captain, at first, stumbled behind his chair afraid that these stars on the screen would run into him.

    Where is it? the captain asked after regaining his footing and senses.

    Right in front of you, the navigator responded.

    Image434.JPG

    POSS I image courtesy of USNO image database (http://ftp.nofs.navy.mil/data/FchPix/)

    I don’t see anything other than stars. Where are all the rocks for us to navigate around? the captain exclaimed frantically, while waving his arms up and down even more frantically.

    The navigator rolled his eyes back, trying his best to silence his groan. Sir, that’s how Hollywood depicts the asteroid belt. However, that’s totally wrong. The true asteroid belt is nearly empty. Even though there are millions of objects, they are spread out by hundreds of millions of miles. In fact, on average, there is only one asteroid per one million miles.

    So we don’t have to worry about hitting one? the captain asked, confused.

    The odds of us hitting one are 100,000 to 1 if we were to fly blind through the belt, the navigator reassured. However, we know where all of the larger objects are, and we’re not on a path towards any, so there’s no reason to worry.

    The captain paced back and forth for a minute, mumbling where is the excitement of that and it’s an asteroid belt--we should dodge asteroids. Suddenly the captain came up with what he seemed to think was an excellent idea. Navigator Griffen P. Simmons, find an asteroid and bank towards it!

    The navigator was very confused by this, but he was starting to get used to the captain’s level of eccentricity. Okay, I’ll find an asteroid and adjust our course, but this is space, sir, so we can’t bank. It’s impossible.

    The captain turned sharply towards the navigator. With a stern, angry look the captain marched up to the navigator, tripping over his own chair, but he managed to stay on his feet. Don’t tell me what’s impossible; just do it!

    Yes, captain! the navigator shouted with a salute.

    As the navigator adjusted the controls on the wings a pair of jets went activated. One jet went up, and the other, on the opposite wing, went down. This caused the ship to spin slightly. While it was spinning the ship changed its direction of motion, much like an aircraft when it banks. To reverse the spin the jets were activated again for twice as long. Once the ship leveled and was headed straight in a new direction, the jets activated a third time to stop the spin.

    Almost immediately the communications officer announced to the captain in a very worried voice, Captain, we are being hailed!

    The captain panicked and jumped back a full step. He was certain that the space pirates had found him and he was going to have to surrender the ship. His father (the owner of ATMC) would not be happy about this. Sp-space pirates? he cried out.

    No sir, space police, the communications officer replied.

    This was very strange. There were not many space police around and most stayed close to the planets and outposts on moons. It was rare to find space police out this far. The captain ordered the communications officer to send a message to ask how their ship could assist the police officer.

    Very quickly a figure appeared on the viewing screen, a police officer with a booklet that he was writing in. I’m afraid I am going to have to write you a ticket, the officer stated.

    For WHAT? the captain demanded.

    For breaking the laws, the police officer quickly replied.

    What laws? the captain shouted. We didn’t violate any LAWS!

    The laws of physics, the officer explained. To change direction you have to have a force that causes you to change that direction. You providedno force, so you broke the laws of physics.

    Wait a minute, the captain argued. Hollywood does that all the time, and it works for airplanes, why wouldn’t it work here?

    The officer, a member of the Physics Police who had previously had his face buried in the notebook, glanced up sharply at the captain and set his ticket book aside. Well, Hollywood is wrong. At this point the officer smiled. How do you think I usually make my quota? Anyway, an airplane banking works because the air creates a force on the wing that changes the direction of the aircraft. However, in space, there is no force on the wings as there is no air. Your wings are only useful when you’re landing on a planet with atmosphere. In space they’re just a good spot for target practice. Here’s your ticket. Try to not violate any more laws of physics. I’ll be watching.

    At that the view screen turned back to the space in front of them. A police spacecraft passed in front. The craft was dark because the Odd-yssey was facing the sun, so the crew members were looking at the part not exposed to sunlight. The crew on the Odd-yssey watched as the police craft’s tail lights slowly got dimmer until they could no longer be seen with the naked eye.

    At this point the communications officer handed the captain his copy of the ticket. $100,000 space bucks! This is an outrage! the captain muttered, forgetting that because of inflation over 300 years a hamburger cost $1 million space bucks, so $100,000 was literally pocket change (the smallest coin was the $1000 space buck coin). Why didn’t you warn me? the captain yelled at the navigation officer.

    I tried, the navigation officer mumbled, scared.

    Hmmph, the captain grunted. Well, take us to that asteroid!

    Chapter 2: Asteroid Encounter

    Most people might know that the main asteroid belt lies between Mars and Jupiter. What most do not know is how spread out that main asteroid belt is. The asteroids closest to the sun are an average distance of about 200 million miles from the sun. The ones farthest away are close to 400 million miles from the sun. To put that into perspective, Mars is an average of 150 million miles from the sun, and Jupiter is 480 million miles away. So, the asteroid belt covers a fairly large area of space.

    Even at a velocity of 100 kilometers per second, which is ten times faster than the spaceships used in the late 20th to early 21st century, it would take the Odd-yssey over a month to cross the main asteroid belt. The asteroid the ship was headed toward, Vesta, was in the inner part of the asteroid belt. At first the crew complained that veering off course was dangerous and a waste of time. However, the crew had nothing to do but wait, play cards, play on the computers in their private quarters, and perform drills. Perform lots and lots of drills. In the darkness of space you never knew when a pirate ship would come out of nowhere. Therefore, while waiting to reach Vesta the crew was happy to have anything to break the boredom and monotony, and they accepted and embraced the asteroid exploring adventure.

    However, no asteroids appeared out of nowhere. In the month it took to get to Vesta the ship did not even pass anywhere near to one. During the final day of reaching Vesta you might expect it to loom in front of you. However, Vesta is only 330 miles in diameter, so it is relatively small. Sadly this is one of the largest asteroids in the main belt. Also, the spacecraft was approaching the asteroid from its night side, so there was no optical light to look at. The asteroid was a mere shadow to the eyes of the crew against the great black background of space.

    However, the ship’s sensors worked in the infrared. While the night side of the asteroid is very cold (far below zero Fahrenheit), the heat the asteroid emitted was detectible by the ship from very far away. The navigator had no problem in heading to the asteroid.

    Image442.JPG

    Photo courtesy of NASA via the Dawn Spacecraft on 7/16/2011 at a distance of only 9500 miles

    The navigator decided to take the ship down inside a crater in Vesta’s Southern hemisphere that is about the size of the entire asteroid.

    The crew had been strapped in for descent for eight hours at a force of three Gees. After the craft landed the captain tore off his restraints as quickly as possible to move about. He turned to the side and tried to take a step toward the exit from the bridge. With an outstretched hand and finger still pointed, the captain flew forward and crashed into the far wall with a loud thump.

    The science officer started to remind the captain that once the ship landed and it was no longer rotating the gravity would be the gravity of the asteroid and, furthermore, that since gravity depends on the size and density of an object this asteroid (even though one of the largest) was less than 2% of the gravity on earth.

    However, he thought better of it and chose to laugh silently instead. Since most of the crew laughed pretty loudly, the captain seemed not to notice the science officer’s restraint. Unfazed the captain quickly leapt to his feet. However, he once again forgot about the lowered gravity and hit his head on the ceiling. Prepare to explore the region, the captain ordered while slowly falling back to the ground. Once the captain reached the ground, three seconds later, the crew prepared to leave the ship.

    The trip outside was short. Other than the impact crater the only things to see were the crater walls. While the crater walls were an impressive eight miles high, they were so far away that they looked to be the height of a person from a block away. With nothing else to base sizes upon and no atmosphere, there was no way to tell if anything was a man-sized rock located a hundred meters away or the crater wall located over 300 miles away. So, not wanting his crew to walk endlessly and get lost, the captain ordered them back to the ship. The crew, neither wanting to leave nor having any idea why the captain would land on the asteroid to begin with, quickly and eagerly complied. The captain was the last person back on board.

    By the time the captain got to the bridge the crew was strapped in and the navigator was ready to take off. All he needed was the order from the captain. As soon as the captain said the word navigator, the navigator hit the button and the ship took off from the surface. The crew remained in their restraints for the next 10 hours as the craft accelerated back up to 100 kilometers per second.

    After only one day something surprising happened. The ship encountered another asteroid. This asteroid was a lot smaller though; it was only one kilometer in diameter. Also, this asteroid was uncharted. They had discovered a new asteroid! The crew was excited, and no one wondered why this asteroid had not been found long ago. There was no reason for it to not have been found by the numerous all sky surveys scans conducted in the first three decades of the 21st century when all of the asteroids in the main belt should have been found.

    Even though it would run them dangerously low on energy, the captain ordered that the ship approach the asteroid and that a landing party be assembled. Of course a ship about the size of a football stadium was not safe to land on a pile of rubble the size of the largest buildings on earth, so the ship had to slow down to the orbital speed and direction of the asteroid and orbit along with it at a distance of 30 kilometers. Once this was accomplished the captain, navigator, and science officer boarded a smaller ship and landed on the asteroid.

    Most tiny asteroids are rubble piles, loose piles of rocks which have been shattered and brought back together by gravity. They are therefore mostly empty space and have densities as low as a quarter that of water. Most rotate fairly quickly (as any impact to it not dead center will cause it to spin). The crew of the pod could not look at the asteroid though because they approached it from its night side. Only the navigator could see it by using the infrared sensors.

    Once the trio landed the science officer quickly noted to the captain that he should get up slowly. The captain scoffed at this, threw aside his restraints, took a strong stride upwards, and then bounced around the cabin until the science officer, who was himself still in restraints, was able to grab ahold of the captain and stop him. The gravity on this asteroid was about two hundred and fifty thousand times less than the gravity on the earth. The crew felt like they were floating in water.

    Since they had landed on the night side of the asteroid the crew needed flashlights to be able to see on the asteroid. Being only five million miles away, Vesta still shone bright in the sky. In fact, it was as bright as the brightest star visible, Sirius. Walking normally on an asteroid this small, however, is virtually impossible. On the earth if you toss a ball into the air it usually comes back. The harder you toss it, the farther up it goes. If you could toss it hard enough (11 km/s), then it would escape from the earth. This is called the escape velocity. If two objects have the same density then the smaller object has a lower escape velocity. If two objects have the same size then the object with the lower density, and therefore lower mass, will have a lower escape velocity. This asteroid was smaller in size and lower in density. Therefore the escape velocity on this asteroid was a slow walking pace.

    So, the crew had to use a tether line to keep them on the asteroid. A quick inspection of the asteroid told them what they already knew. The asteroid was a very lumpy, clumpy, loosely held together rock dune. The captain led the crew out. His first step kicked up rocks and dust which slowly flew off, never to return to the asteroid.

    However, with virtually no gravity, the captain started to fly up. He just had not grasped the difficulties in moving in low Gees. Luckily for the captain, bio-physics had spent the past 500 years perfecting materials based on spider’s silk. The result was a rope which while springy and stretchable was very strong and somewhat rigid. So, the captain managed to be held to the surface by the cleverly designed tether line and the even more cleverly engineered rigging which prevented the line from moving in any direction other than in and out.

    The science officer started to notice a problem though. There was a lack of craters. On an asteroid this size there should be craters of all sizes, all the way down to the microscopiclevel. These rocks looked like they had just recently been mined. Also, many seemed to have been broken in unnatural ways. Captain, I have a bad feeling about this, he warned.

    I am the captain and I give the orders! If you don’t like that you can head back to the ship! the captain lectured over the radio.

    The science officer was more than happy to comply with the captain. He shrugged his shoulders and quickly headed back. Luckily he was in the back of the three-man group so this was not difficult. A few moments later he sent a frantic shout over the radio, PIRATES!

    The captain and navigation officer turned towards the science officer to determine what he was yelling about. A few hundred yards on the other side of the shuttle there was a hatch with dozens of space pirates oozing out like bees out of a beehive. Each wore a spacesuit which was thruster powered. The three Odd-yssey crew members raced for the shuttle. With nothing to slow them down they slammed into the inner bay of the shuttle at great velocities. The science officer got there the fastest. Afraid for his life the science officer didn’t even notice the quick, sharp pain to his shoulder.

    The sheer force of the impacts of the three crew members was enough to pull the craft from its anchoring in the asteroid. With the lack of gravity the ship started moving slowly towards the pirates. While it was only a walking pace, it would have been enough for the shuttle to escape from the asteroid (if the pirates would have allowed it).

    Instead the navigator managed to get the thrusters started before everyone could attach the harnesses, and the shuttle flew off the asteroid just moments before the pirates could get to them. The navigator quickly set a course back to the ship.

    Chapter 3: Run Away!

    While the journey from asteroid to the ship on the pod was a mere minute, it seemed to take forever. The ship approached the pod (well they approached it, but it seemed like the ship was approaching) slowly. Meanwhile, the pirates on the asteroid slowly headed back underground. The asteroid started to rotate. Pieces of the asteroid started to fly off. First it was just dust; then small pebbles.

    The asteroid was actually a cleverly disguised pirate ship covered in rock and dust. It was a common trick to wait for an unsuspecting ship to pass close to the seemingly harmless floating rock and then ambush the passersby.

    When the pod reached the ship, the crew of the pod raced to the bridge of the ship. By the time they reached it they were all panting and out of breath.

    Warp, wheeze, speed! the captain gasped at a whisper.

    The navigator gulped a few quick mouthfuls of air before replying, No warp speed captain; this isn’t Star Trek. Then the navigator added, Should we activate plan B?

    The captain thought for a second. Yes, great idea. Let’s go with plan B. Um, what’s plan B?

    There is only one plan B, the navigator explained, and it is the same every time--RUN AWAY! The captain quickly agreed. The navigator hastily pushed several buttons, and the ship started to move.

    In the middle of the view screen was a small but extremely bright star. The star was so bright that you could not look directly at it without the use of the view screen. The sun. It was dead center because they were headed straight for it.

    The navigator chose this path intentionally. The pirates relied on infrared imagers to find a spacecraft. The spacecraft would be much warmer than any space junk this far out and so would be easy to spot. However, by putting the spacecraft directly in line with the sun the pirates would be blinded to their exact location. At best the pirates could only guess that the ship was in the direction of the sun. While this did not guarantee escape, it made it much more likely.

    Unseen to those in the ship, the pirate ship turned to face Odd-yssey. Once the pirates were lined up correctly their ship stopped rotating. However, the rocks on the surface did not stop, and so were flung into space. Having emerged from its cocoon the pirate ship started to accelerate towards the ship, but the mining ship had a good 10-mile lead and was hidden by the sun. However, that did not stop a pair of missiles from emerging from the pirate ship.

    Also blinded by the sun, and aimed randomly, the missiles passed a few hundred meters away from the spaceship. It would not take long for the pirate ship to hit the mining ship randomly though. Even though they were by now a good 20 miles ahead of the pirate ship, the pirates would soon get lucky and hit the mining ship. Although the mining ship as seen from the end would appear to be a circle with a diameter of 50 meters, it still took up a whole sixth of the diameter of the sun. It was only a matter of time before the mining ship was obliterated.

    That was too close, the captain yelled at the top of his lungs, recognizing the danger and fearing death. Go faster. FASTER!

    The navigator was about to tell the captain that they were already accelerating. Then he realized that maybe the captain meant to increase their acceleration (to speed up the rate they were speeding up). They were already at 3 Gees. The human body could not take much more for long periods of time. However, if they were dead, a safe acceleration rate would not matter, so he decided to increase the acceleration to 10 Gees.

    The captain started to groan something to the navigator that the navigator could not make out. However, the captain quickly passed out from the Gee forces. The navigator tried to hang on for as long as he could, but he was not a strong or tough man. He also succumbed to unconsciousness. Another pair of missiles flew past them. However, just before he lost consciousness, he flicked on the thrusters to move them sideways a bit. While this was a bit dangerous because it could take them out of the sun for the view of the pirate ship, it was a good gamble because the pirate ship had started to turn back. After all, the pirates needed to live and have fuel left to maneuver while the crazily fleeing mining ship could do without being able to maneuver. As soon as the navigator hit the switch for the thrusters, darkness swept over him like a tsunami.

    The crew was unconscious for a dangerous and potentially deadly 30 minutes. At that point the ship ran out of energy to maintain the breakneck acceleration. The acceleration ended which removed the Gee forces even though the spacecraft continued to glide forward at 200 kilometers per second. When the crew of the ship slowly came to, many were ill. It was a very bad day for the cleaning crew. Others simply had large headaches. One person in engineering required a day’s stay at the infirmary. Luckily, nobody was killed.

    The navigator stared sadly at the sun. He knew the horrible truth. Their escape had come at a great cost, and he was not sure that they would survive that cost. He was too scared to tell the captain, not that the captain would understand. Furthermore, there was nothing that could be done about it anyway, so he kept quiet.

    Lock in a course for the earth, the captain ordered.

    Sure thing! the navigator replied. He pretended to push a few buttons, but it was all a lie.

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