2048
Everybody in the know at SPACE knew this year would be defined by the jump point surveys ...
Jump Point Survey Efforts
March 28th – The GSV Hopeful clears the Wartsila docks. Less than a week later Cmdr. Chong Vaugh arrives, transferring to the ship and handing over command of the FT Southampton. He’s an experienced officer, graduating the Academy in ‘42 and since has been at the helm of the freighters Victoria, Venus, and now the Southampton. This experience and his convenient proximity to Earth at the time earn him this command over the more talented, younger Gregorio Granberg who is at this moment near Titan.
April 1st – April Fool’s day is no laughing matter as the GSV Hopeful sets course for Jump Point #6, the next one ‘ahead’ of Saturn in it’s orbit. It will then head to 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 in turn, completing the circuit of the inner ring before heading further outsystem. It was a journey of just over two billion kilometers, and would take two and a half weeks.
April 18, 7:05 AM – The Hopeful arrived on station and began scanning the jump point location. They soon reported back that the scan itself would take another week or so, according to the onboard computer.
April 26, 4:00 PM – Just moments after the turning of the hour, the Hopeful had some rather unhopeful news: there was no active singularity at Jump Point #6, and they were proceeding to #5. Although disappointing, we had been told that most of them would like not contain active possibilities. Still, until one is found, there is a sense of worry about the validity of the entire exercise.
May 21, 7:44 PM – Another report from the Hopeful ... success! A jump point has been found, and it has also been discovered that it is closer than anticipated ... inside Jupiter orbit!
Scientists are not certain why it is so far from it’s expected location, speculating only about the unpredictable nature of space-time. But the evidence cannot be denied that it exists, the scanners test gravitational anomalies dozens of different ways to verify all aspects of the space-time distortion. The jump point is a mere 737m km away from the sun at a bearing of 216.
While the survey proceeds, Director-Governor Duling put the apparatus of SPACE in motion. Operation Uncertain Hope was a go. The next step was probably the most intimidating and certainly the most demanding from a resource point of view. It was expected that the required technology to build a functional jump engine would be ready by 2050, and everything else needed to be prepared.
Uncertain Hope was the(rather cheesy) name given to the design and deployment of a new class dubbed the Pioneer (with apologies to Dr. Palmer). The mission was astounding: to explore a jump point and whatever system lay beyond it. The specifications were considerable. Assuming it worked, the ship would emerge in a star system of which we would have only the vaguest knowledge from long-range telescopes. It would need to be prepared for anything, including an extended duration of stay to make vital recordings of whatever was found.
Geosurvey and gravsurvey suites would be essential to scan both for any further jump points in the new system and test for any resource deposits. In addition, equivalently sized thermal and electromagnetic passive sensors would need to be designed and built. Nobody knows what’s out there, and all possible information would be needed. The vessel would need fuel-efficient engines capable of reaching a reasonable speed – if not, it might find itself in a paradise but be too far away to discover it. This would also be an espescially long-term mission, with the commander given authority to explore as far as may be deemed necessary and/or fruitful. A 5-year commitment would be required from commander and crew for extended traveling, which in turn would imply substantial fuel reserves. And of course it would need a ‘jump engine’ large enough to open a wormhole for all of this vital equipment to navigate the jump. Engineers estimated such a ship would need to be multiple times larger than the current survey ships, probably at least 6000-6500 tons, and possibly as large as 10,000. Wartsila set to work immediately expanding from the current capacity of 3000, which clearly would be absurdly inadequate to the task. There could be no doubt the cost would be considerable, but was there really a choice? Multiple research projects would be required to prototype the optimal components. There was much to be done ... and hope seemed to shine a bit brighter with the pursuit of a challenging and potentially rewarding goal.
Two of three ‘regular path’ projects that were using multiple labs had one each taken from them to allow these prototype instruments to be designed. Clint Wyche(EM 5-3 Sensor Suite), Elwood Tousaint(TH 5-3 Sensor Suite) headed up the new teams. A new engine would be needed as well but that was best kept until the completion of some of the efficiency-related research that is presently ongoing. Tousaint has never headed up a project before, and is not the most skilled for the job, but as the only scientist SPACE has yet produced with a talent for Sensors & Fire Control, it is hoped he will improve through this experience.
Early September – The inner-most of the three circles of potential jump point locations has been completed: only the one has been found to contain an active jump point. The GSV Hopeful has been underway for just under five months, and moves out to begin investigating the second circle.
October 24th – Another confirmed jump point by the GSV Hopeful! This one is at a distance of 3.6b km, bearing 304. That places it squarely between Uranus and Neptune orbits, some five times further than the first one. For the time being these are known simply as Jump Point Alpha and Jump Point Bravo, respectively. An interesting, if probably coincidental, fact is that Bravo is nearly exactly the same distance from Alpha as it is from the sun itself.
Fleet Operations
January 11 – The FT Custer clears the Tod & MacGregor Yard, which immediately readies to install the new engines on the freighters. That work will begin later this year.
June 22nd – The FT Hercules returns to earth for shore leave, and is the first to undergo the refitting process to the new, more efficient II-xe model. It’s a four-month process, costing about half as much as a new ship for each. That’s a pretty penny to spend on some relatively minor upgrades, but HQ deems it worth it for using 11% less fuel.
June 28th – In a highly embarassing miscalculation, the FT Victoria under the command of Cmdr. Jon McElveen comes up about a week short of Earth, having run out of fuel. The ship is a relic at this point and is probably nearing the end of it’s useful service, but the FT Custer is less than two weeks away and inbound, and it is retasked with getting the
Victoria enough fuel to finish the journey.
July 9th – Refueling mission is complete, and the Victoria is back underway.
July 13th – The first official colony ship(the corporations have already built five of them) is finished. Dubbed the CS New Beginnings, it sets out to take it’s first 50,000 colonists to Titan, which is nearing a million now. The P&A Group Shipyard retools for the Lexington II class, and at the same time works on scrapping the Vega and Valencia. They’ve served well, but their time is up.
August 9th – The ST Vega and ST Valencia have been scrapped on Earth.
October 20th – The FT Hercules becomes the first of the freighters to be refitted. The Venus, already a month into it’s allotted shore leave which will now be extended significantly, takes the next spot.
Earth
May -- The factories have ‘caught up’ with the corundium supply. The rate of conversion would need to be indexed to the available supply being produced, which right now is a little over a dozen per year – except that’s about how fast the 11.7 million workers assigned to the task are able to convert them anyway. The supply has caught up with production just in time.
September -- Construction begins on a few more mass drivers to ensure enough are available for the next round of comet-based mining colonies.
Commissioned Officers
May -- Jedidiah Thone is commissioned!(again)
Administration rating: 1
Bonuses: Wealth Creation 30%, Population Growth 5%
Personality Traits: Risk-taker
Money and people we have, though the winds are changing. Still, the prospects for a risk-taking politician are never great.
December -- After just over a year in the service, Jay Cin III has been promoted to Commander!
Research & Development
March 3rd – Ignacio Bavaro’s team completes research into Maximum Jump Radius(50k km). The base level for squadron size is three ships, and that’s their next project. However, Sanko Matar, the best propulsion scientist alive today, switches to take over at this point with Bavaro taking over his work on reduced-power engine technology.
May – Santo Makar research skill is up to 45%, accelerating progress on the jump engine projects. Meanwhile, the factories on earth and pumping out more than ever before thanks to Herbert Duling’s supervision(increases Factory Production to 10%).
June – A 13th research lab is completed and assigned to one of the existing projects that recently lost space(Pebble Bed Reactor).
December 1st – The next step has been unveiled by Dr. Santo Makar, who has completed research into Jump Drive – Maximum Squadron Radius. The most important jump drive technology, efficiency, is up next and will take until late summer next year.
December 5th – Our first thermal sensor, the TH 5-3 Sensor Suite, has been successfully prototyped by Dr. Clint Wyche’s team. Only after the project was completed was it discovered a clerical error had been made in the blueprints: the intended size was 250 tons, these are 150-ton sensors. Back to the drawing board for Dr. Wyche. A similar mistake had been made on the electromagnetic sensors, and work on that prototype was canceled in favor of the desired size there as well.
Colonial Developments
August 1st – Crommelin is up to 20 mines, and shipping efforts briefly switch to Comas Sola which is on close approach again, upping the prescence there to 25. That was a quick effort, completed by late August, and it was then time for the next phase of comet exploitation.
Corundium is no longer considered the most critical mineral, with duranium still depleting rapidly on earth and mine conversions sustainable at a passable rate. With that in mind, the comet Borrelly was next on the agenda at less than 700m km and incoming. Van Biesbroeck, Neujmin, and Stephan-Oterma are incoming after it, so there are plenty of targets.
Mid-August – The CS New Beginnings unloaded it’s 50,000 colonists and headed back to Earth.
September 20th – The mass driver on Borrelly has been activated, under the leadership of newly appointed Governor Carroll Westcott. SPACE has now run out of people to appoint who have any notable mining skill, and is just taking the best administrators available to put in charge of the colonies. Hopefully they’ll learn.
September 23rd – A bizarre but positive report arrives from Sedna, the second-to-last of the geological surveys to be ordered. Immediately after being dropped off, the Rater team reported a large deposit of uridum(almost 180k, fairly good accessibility at 0.7) and that there was no use spending any more time there. A rock that size(1600 km diameter, about a seventh that of earth) and they only needed hours to find that much and conclude there was nothing left to find? Bizarre, and they head off to the Ikeya-Zang comet next for the ‘final’ survey for the time being, but the civilian complex there will now be sending us uridium as well.
Figures that it’s the mineral we need least – the uridium stockpile on Earth is over 35kt, by far our most plenteous, and has very limited use(not a gram is currently requisitioned for any ongoing project). They might as well have told us they found a treasure trove of quartz or pumice, for all that good it would do. Actually, those we might have been able to sell.
Mid-October – The team originally known as the JupSat geology team, led by Dr. Brandon Grimmett, has completed it’s final survey and is headed back to Earth.
December 14th – The JupSat(Brandon Grimmett) Geology Team arrives back at Earth and is disbanded. Meanwhile, the Vega II and Valencia II transports are completed at the Tod & MacGregor, and a third pair is begun.
