Reaching For The Stars

As Peter and the others climbed in, the driver started the motors and when they were all seated he took the mini bus silently up the ramp to the road.

“Which sector have you got today, Peter”?

“Nice easy one for a change, sector seven. How about you, Steve”?

“We’ve got sector five and Joe here has the long one round Alpha Centuari, number fifteen”.

The mini bus was heading rapidly towards the marshalled spacecraft and a little over two minutes after leaving the garage, they drew up alongside the saucers. Peter and the others had just alighted from the vehicle and were walking towards their respective crafts when the driver called out.

“Lieutenant Gresham, sir, video phone message for you”.

Peter turned round and walked back to the vehicle, perching himself on the edge of the driver’s seat to view the screen more easily.

“Sorry to call you back sir”, the young girl clerk said, “we’ve just had a message come up from the workshops to tell you that your car is finished and will be in the garage when you return later”.

“Thanks Glenda, could you make sure the keys are left at main reception for me”?

“No problem sir, have a good trip”.

“Cheers, Glenda. See you later”.

He flipped the set off and hurried back to where Maureen was waiting. As he drew level he caught her hand and led the way towards his craft.

“Trouble, love”? Maureen asked.

“No, just a message from the workshops. The car’s done and will be back tonight when we come back”.

“Great. Transport again”.

By now they had reached Peter`s ranger and as they went inside, the door slid shut behind them. Maureen had not been in a ranger before and looked round with an excited look on her face, at the machine which would carry them many millions of miles before the day was over. Inside, the saucer was pleasantly warm and not too brightly lit. Peter led the way upstairs to the central deck, which housed living accommodation, galley, shower compartment, toilets and various store and ancillary rooms. In the centre at a higher level still was the control room. From the windows round the control deck, there was excellent vision all-round the craft. Through the windows on the lower living deck quite a lot could also be seen. The craft was made of a strange material, a sort of combination between metal and plastic and had come from Varianne. It was opaque, very light and immensely strong. It could stand enormous pressures and was completely impervious to heat and cold, which made it an excellent material for spacecraft construction. Many of Earth’s scientists could still not understand its amazing qualities, even though they were used to working with it.

Peter and Chris slipped into the two seats behind the main controls and Bill ushered Maureen into one the rear seats and took the other one himself. He showed her how to fasten the seat harness correctly and then began explaining how to work the number two computer, which was used solely for navigational purposes. Peter flipped a switch on the main panel, which set lights flashing on and off all along the panel. This was a computerised pre-flight check, which took only seconds to complete. As soon as the check was successfully completed all the lights went out to be replaced by one steady green one, showing that everything was in order. Chris in the meantime had operated some more switches that bought the various support systems to life. The overhead video screen now showed the interior of the spaceports control tower and the face of the duty controller could be seen. Peter pressed a red button on the panel which started the motors and a quiet hum reached them from down below. Within two minutes of taking their seats, everything was ready for take-off.

“Okay Ranger Two, you’re clear for take-off. Good hunting and have a safe trip.”

“Thank you control”, Chris responded, “we’ll be setting course for the moon on leaving”.

Peter operated another control and with a gentle sway the saucer left the ground. Being only Maureen’s second space flight, she automatically gripped the edge of her seat and braced herself for the acceleration thrust that never came. Owing to the saucers design there was no great downward thrust owing to the rapid acceleration as there had been with the old fashioned rockets, just a very rapid smooth assent. In these saucers, fuel was no problem. Eleven kilograms of atom-x was sufficient to keep the craft flying at maximum speed for five hundred years and as a consequence, the fuel never needed replacement, as this amount of fuel would outlast the life of the actual craft. Peter glanced over his shoulder and caught Maureen’s rather scared, apprehensive expression.

“Relax honey; there’ll be no violent movement in this. There’s more motion on a bus then there is in here”.

Maureen smiled back and tried to appear relaxed. Both panels, for pilots and navigator were fitted with conventional aircraft instruments for planetary use, which automatically blacked out when travelling in space. She glanced down at the panel in front of Bill and herself and was surprised to see that they were already eight miles high, only twelve seconds from take-off. The craft felt rock steady and there was no sensation of movement at all. The hum from the motors was now barely audible and in fact one had to listen quite carefully to hear it at all. Less than a minute after leaving the ground, the lighting levels inside the saucer changed as the sky outside changed rapidly through varying shades of dark blue to an inky blackness. At the same time the windows all-round the craft closed automatically with external shutters, leaving just a large screen above the pilots to display the view outside. Maureen realised that they were now in space. Another great improvement the saucers had over the old fashioned rockets was their artificial gravity and natural atmosphere, which meant that space suits and weighted boots were a thing of the past, except when working outside a craft in space. Chris glanced at the duty sheet and then turned and spoke to Maureen.

“It’ll take us about twenty minutes to reach moon base six. Should give you time to rustle up some coffee”.

“Fine. Where do I make it”?

“In the galley, which is down on the living deck, along the corridor and it’s the door past the lounge. Everything you need is in the locker on the right hand side of the waste disposer”.

“Okay, four cups coming up”.

Maureen unclipped her seat harness and went downstairs to the galley. A few minutes later the smell of fresh roasted coffee wafted up to the control room, and was closely followed by Maureen with four steaming mugs on a tray. Another advantage of the saucers over the old fashioned rockets was their ability to carry fresh rations and plenty of fresh water. Each craft carried a thousand gallons of water in special sponge like tanks. Even this extra weight made no difference to the handling of the craft. All waste material was ejected through a specially designed unit, which sealed all waste in self-destructing containers, which disintegrated completely one minute after ejection. The flush toilets worked on the same principle, as did waste water. At any stops, whether at the crafts home base or anywhere else that water was required, it could be taken on board in a matter of minutes as the whole tank assembly was simply a plug in pod that plugged into a hatch in the lower part of the fuselage.

On looking up at the video screen she saw not the spaceport control tower but the interior of moon base six. A young girl smiled at her from the screen and she smiled back. Looking onto the main external view screen, Maureen expected to see the moon but saw only many stars instead.

“Peter, love, I’m probably being stupid, but where’s the moon”?

“Don’t worry love; we’re already on the dark side of the moon and only a hundred miles above the surface. All these craft are equipped with special television cameras and infrared viewers, which we use to see where we’re going. Watch the large viewing screen and you’ll be able to see the moon”.

As he spoke he pressed a button and immediately the moons image was projected onto the screen, almost as if the screen were a giant window.

“We also use this facility”, Chris put in, “when we want to take a closer look at something without going too close. The set has a zoom facility, which I’ll show you. It can give us a clear picture from a thousand miles out”.