He's moving up, just doing it very slowly. Apparently his political connections are his only real asset at the moment.
** There's enough things going on now that I've decided to break updates down to annually instead of bi-annual**
2035
?Jan. 15th – A vital report as the Marc Aaronson completes it’s survey of Mars. Admiral Wilburn Castilleja orders the ship back to earth as Cpt. Schnepel is to accept a staff position at Fleet HQ. It will refuel there, and then begin the long journey to Jupiter.
More importantly, the survey of Mars revealed – nothing. This confirms that Venus is the only habitable inner-system world with resources.
Two days later, Dr. Makar’s team finishes and he emerges from the study with a deeper understanding of propulsion concepts. With Director Willie’s orders clear, his next project will be the Pressurized Water Reactor, which he believes will lead to a quantam leap in engine technology. Even with four of the five available labs being used, this is expected to take over a year.
March 3rd – The Marc Aaronson departs for Jupiter under it’s new CO, Lt. Cmdr. Waldo Politis, having given the crew a well-earned couple of months for shore leave. The journey will take over four months. Io is the first of four moons that will be surveyed, and the hope is there will be
time to scan the massive planet itself as well before returning to Earth.
?June 13th – It’s been a quiet few months after the constant activity that marked the Venus and Mars surveys and the changes at the end of last year. A new Essex-class vessel begins construction, while the Marc Aaronson has passed through the Kuiper Belt but is well over 100 million miles from Io, nearly a month yet of travel.
July – In the first week, the Marc Aaronson passed into the mini-system of the giant red planet. Io was surveyed by the 13th, followed by Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto before the end of the month. The last survey turned up a modest-sized deposit(58k) of Tritanium at 0.5 accessibility, but that was it. It’s a long trip out here, at least at current engine technology, for that.
By the middle of August a report on Jupiter itself was completed. Progress was getting a lot over time, but unfortunately, they had found nothing.
LC Waldo Politis inquired of navigation the possibility of reaching Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and returning to earth in time. Titan would take over six months to reach, then several more back home, but fuel reserves were more than adequate and it would be achievable in less than the two
years the crew had signed up for. Coordinates were locked in and before the end of the day they were under full power heading for the famous rings of Saturn. Since the Cassini Solstice mission in 2016-17(which resulted in nothing since mankind was too busy fighting each other to be bothered with their spacecraft at that point) no human craft had been this far, and of course this was far further than any manned mission had ever hoped to go.
?Titan was the last option in the solar system for a permanent human colony. Much would depend on the result of this journey.
October – The Ministry of Industry switches over more capacity from converting factories to converting mines, as the duranium stocks continue to decline(now only 1800 tons). Meanwhile, the first run of 100 Infrastructure is done on Earth, more than enough to begin colonization wherever SPACE might wish in the future.
At year’s end the Marc Aaronson was still a month and a half out from Titan, with a number of other important developments expected in the spring.