The Chronicles of Monster Planet - стр. 3
But now… I shrugged away the memories, the picture changed. It’s over. Cancelled. What if we don't fly anywhere at all? So much time, money and hopes wasted. The Hope. That was the name of our ship. It was an allegory, the hope of humanity. Our planet was almost irreversibly destroyed, and we could not prevent its further deterioration. So-called presidents and prime ministers of developed countries paid lip service to environmental protection, participated in various congresses and public organizations, but all of them still remained miserable slaves of private capital, which was bleeding the planet dry. Oil, natural gas, shale gas, open-pit mining, deep-sea mining, carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse effect, ozone holes, endless wars and much more. The planet was dying and there was a part of society that understood this very well. Among those were some very rich and influential people who managed to push the corruption-riddled United Nations into arranging an international space expedition.
Our expedition became possible only after the Pullman-Anderson drive was created. Based on the Pullman effect, the Anderson Design Bureau managed to develop a uniquely fast sub-light drive.
Our mission was to gather intelligence. To land on a designated Earth-type exoplanet, send the Hope back home and wait for the Ark, a new larger ship with settlers, which had just entered the design stage at the time of our launch. The Hope was essentially a large house that could be detached from the carrier and work autonomously on nuclear power for hundreds of years. We were to confirm that the planet was, in fact, habitable.
Our target planet was located more than a hundred light years from Earth, thus, induced suspended animation – deep conservation – was required. The DC machines developed at that time were tested on us. Time was precious.
Nearly two hundred years in a capsule with an artificially maintained microclimate, including pressure to simulate gravity. That's what we had to endure. Then it was either “new Earth” – or not. The latter option was not a pleasant one.
According to the scientists, it was highly likely that the planet would be similar to Earth. It was discovered a long time ago with the help of NASA's Kepler telescope. The telescope operated from 2009 to 2013 and made it possible to discover over three thousand exoplanets. Planets outside the Solar System. And the very first exoplanet was discovered at the end of the twentieth century, orbiting the orange subgiant Gamma Cephei A. Our destination star was also orange, although it was a dwarf. It was located in the Vela constellation, the largest star of which was nicknamed after astronaut Roger Chaffee.
Thus, our goal was a planet orbiting an orange dwarf. To be clear, an orange dwarf is a cross between a red dwarf and a yellow dwarf like the Sun. Something in between in terms of luminosity and size. That orange dwarf was seven tenths the size of the Sun, yet had the same luminosity. Possibly, there were other bodies in orbit around it, but only one was confirmed by the Kepler telescope. The planet was solid – in contrast to gaseous ones; there are four such planets in the Solar System. The planet was about one and a half times the size of Earth, and it was closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun, but within the habitable zone. The planet had an atmosphere and presumably water on its surface.