The Golden Ratio of Space Travel

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I don’t know if that is supposed to be a warning, or our team motto. I’ve heard it said so many times in the past months I just grin anymore. Besides, where we are going nobody would be there to hear our screams anyways, at least, not that we know of. As the ship’s doctor and veteran of space travel to the orbiting International Space Station, I feel like I may be the most ignorant person sitting in this ship. The rest of our crew is waiting for us on the ISS above. Brilliant scientists from every field, each one with hopes and dreams of finding something revolutionary in their field.

The clock is counting down impossibly fast as we approach liftoff. I know the Einsteinian theory of relativity was not about perspective, like ‘a watched pot never boils’ but as we get ready to challenge his actual theory, this one seems pretty solid. The weeks leading up to this day seemed to drag on forever. Super computers running simulations, double and triple checking burn ratios and force tolerances. The new Gemini Launch that we are quickly approaching is the first of its kind. The weight of our Star Ship was too much for the most powerful single engine rocket to get off the ground.

The twin engine Gemini was born specifically for this mission. Two rockets placed on either side of a holding container and launching simultaneously. When I explained this to my dad he said it would be like sitting in a tin can on top of a volcano. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was more like 50 volcanoes, each. Our ‘tin can’ as he put it was the most advanced space craft ever built. It was made from the toughest stuff known to man. The fact that the outer hull was not even from this planet spoke volumes. When the scientists held a press conference to tell the world what they had discovered, and what they proposed we do with it, the world was transformed. A common goal with unlimited potential. I remember watching the panel of scientists from several nations, sitting together at the release event. They told the story from its beginning. They had pictures, drawings, video and simulations and still it was hard to wrap your head around. My mind drifts to that live broadcast. I can hear them telling the tale.

“The asteroid that hit eight years ago was not detected on any radar. It was spotted by Jake Canelli, an amateur astronomy student at Arizona State University.” He claimed the cluster of stars he was looking at had lost a star. He started recording and went and got his professor. They looked at previous images from last terms class and he was right. One of the brighter stars in the cluster was gone. Replaced by, nothing. It was a black spot.

The teacher called NASA, they initially dismissed the report until they trained one of their telescopes on the so called ‘missing’ star. Then they turned all their telescopes towards it. Over the next two months they watched and speculated on whether it had collapsed and if they were looking at a new black hole. Then the star began to reappear, ever so slowly. That was when they realized it was an object that had been blocking their view. It was headed this way, and it was close. Based on its estimated size and trajectory, they expected that on impact it would split Australia in two. There was no time to make a plan. The speed it was moving at placed impact in just 48 hours. You can’t evacuate a continent in that amount of time. It was decided not to tell the people anything. Mass panic would create as much devastation as the asteroid itself. The ministry and ruling class went on a ‘sabbatical’ to England for the event.

When it hit, the seismic recorders barely detected anything. Less than a boulder crashing down a mountain. The path it was heading put it impacting about 150 miles outside of Sydney. When the government showed up in their hazmat suits with their Geiger counters and testing equipment, they expected it to be at the bottom of a massive crater. They thought it would be so hot it would ignite anything within a 100 meters. What they found was a half a dozen locals trying to get it on the back of a flatbed truck with an engine winch and chains. Not only was there no crater to speak of, it bounced and rolled for over a mile with little more than a trail of flattened bushes and broken branches behind it. It was not hot. Actually it was cool to the touch. It had no radiation emissions either. None. On any spectrum. It was, from all scientific perspectives, a large chunk of nothing. No light reflected, no x-ray could penetrate. No sonar detected it. Like the sound waves just kept going without a return ripple. No wonder our radar never saw it coming.

After a couple years of study, there was a huge debate over what to do with it. There was roughly 20 tons of the material. All the world governments tried to claim ownership, Great Britain put an end to the debate as it flexed its Royal muscles and pointed out that while largely left to its own devices, Australia was still a British Colony. Therefore, it was the property of the Crown. They did make contract with the Australian leadership that financial restitution would be paid off of any profits realized over cost of research. That settled, the scientists took over.

From all over the world they came. Each with a theory. Each with a plan. The military from the U.S., Russia, China, all of them, wanted to be involved of course. England declared it was a matter for the scientists and no military presence was allowed. The amount of force it took to split off a piece of the material made a bigger crater in the rock quarry they were using than the impact from space did. Once they had a chunk small enough to take into the lab, the testing was on.

It took less than a week to discover the most amazing property of this space metal. A simple test of its properties, to see if it was magnetic. When a ten ounce natural magnet was put into contact with it, the bond was not what was expected. The magnetic field it generated was not normal. It was, for lack of a better term, anti-magnetic. In the area three feet around the bonded magnet there was a repulsion field, similar to trying to put two magnets together with the same poles. Not only metals were affected though. It repelled organic and inorganic material as well. The chunk of ‘Magneto’ as they began to call it, an obvious homage to the character of the same name, was held suspended three feet in the air above the counter in the lab. When they tried to remove the magnet, any attempts to get close merely pushed it in the opposite direction. They got it pinned in a corner, but then could not get within three feet of it. To this day, that first chunk is floating in a display at the Smithsonian.

Once the scientists figured out how to use an electromagnet on a timer for testing the power of this repulsion field, they started testing with different power levels of the magnets. They found they could control the size of the field by the strength of the magnet applied. When a second magnet was attached to the opposite end of the Magneto and turned on with an overlapping field, it split the meteor in half on a perfect cut where the fields overlapped. Armed with this new knowledge, thin slices were possible.

Practical applications started pouring out of the group. Mass transit bullet trains, an end to fossil fuels, floating cities, and then someone said, armor. The men and women in the room went silent. They knew, if word got out that a vehicle covered with a thin sheet of it was then magnetized, it would be impenetrable. No bullet, bomb, missile or IED would harm it. It could make jets invisible to radar and impossible to shoot down. The military would take it all, and they would very likely meet an untimely death.

They sat in a room with a thin sheet of the Magneto floating above the table. Staring at it, each of them thinking of how much good it could do for the planet. Each of them knowing how the military WOULD use it to dominate the planet. Some of the brightest scientific minds in the world were in this room, and a few of them wept openly.

After the better part of the afternoon had passed in silence, one voice with a thick Russian accent spoke up. “You know, if we could take our governments focus off of concurring the world, we could use this stuff to concur the stars.” The team’s leader from the UK asked, “What do you mean?” “Isn’t it obvious? We have discovered a viable force field.” The silence erupted into excited talks again.

New experiments began, testing resistance in every medium. The repulsion field slipped through any fluid substance like it wasn’t there. Solids would be deflected in the path of least resistance. Projectiles fired at it would slip around the field and the object never moved. Mass was not relevant. Large heavy obstacles suspended by chains underwater would bounce out of the way of the test field. Large fixed objects were a different story. The drone with the sheet of Magneto attached that was flown into a quarry wall at full speed did not split the stone, but rather bounced up the wall, it’s momentum redirected but not reduced.

A few weeks later Piotr, a theoretical physicist, called a meeting. He was a stout man with no neck and dark hair. His accent was thick, but his excitement was clearly heard. He brought up his laptop and displayed it on the big screen in the room. He made a statement that will someday be in every history book. “We now have in our possession, the means to create a gravity well. The Magneto can be formed into a Fibonacci chamber, each one the size of the previous two, curved around itself in a spiral of the Golden Ratio. I believe if enough electric current is fed into magnets in the central chamber, the resultant field will exponentially expand as it travels outward, while simultaneously being self-contained. The result would be a controlled gravity well. Using this in conjunction with the repulsion field around a ship…” “And the ship would be able to fold space.” Another member finished the sentence.

There were months of research and the governments were brought together with each promised a seat at the table of a maiden flight. All thoughts of world domination were lost with the prospect of conquering space. There was only enough material once split into sheets, to outfit one massive space vessel. The rest was used to form the Fibonacci drive chamber. A spiraling chamber built with the golden ratio of the Fibonacci sequence. The testing was all theoretical models, no one could be sure how this would react. The drive would not be on a timer but an actual controller. The field that would be generated was directional, not spherical like the shield, and so basic electrical cable would control the flow of electricity to the chambers magnetic arrays giving control of the drive to the pilot.

I am brought back to my current situation by a voice in my helmet. “Doctor, we need a go/no go from you. Are the crews’ vitals within tolerance levels?” I check the monitors in front of me. My heart is racing as the world awaits my answer. “Medical is a go.” I announce to the control center. On down the list it goes, getting affirmative responses from every station on board. I tighten my restraining harness again. It is already secure, but my nerves demand action.

“Relativity, this is control. All systems are a go, you are clear to launch. Repeat, you are clear to launch. God’s speed… and then some.” We all chuckle at that. The Relativity, the name chosen for our space craft. Designated a science vessel, but with a little known trick hiding away in the belly of the beast. Twin rail guns powered from the same gravity well engine design on a much smaller scale. Who knew what we would face on this mission. I was along not just to monitor blood pressure. I was a trauma surgeon, and I hope I will not be needed.

The countdown was into single digits. The Gemini rockets were in ignition stages. They belched fire on either side of the delivery host. We were 100 feet above it cradled in the shell of the massive host. Pretty much a tin can, good call dad. With a lurch we rose, gradually picking up speed as the twin rockets put out enough carbon emissions to choke a forest. Clear of the platform we ascended. The cheers of the control center can barely be heard above the thunder of the Gemini drive. Now we are feeling the pull of gravity pushing us into our seats. How odd that this same gravity will be providing thrust in a matter of a couple days.

The twin rockets of the Gemini drive did their job flawlessly. They fall away along with the tin can we were packaged in as we leave the atmosphere, beginning their uncontrolled descent back to Earth. We use the thruster rockets to guide us to the International Space Station. We will be there in about six hours. We have supplies for them, they have the rest of our crew. Fifty scientists in all, each experts in their field, each part of a team. No one person was irreplaceable. As for my team, it included an army surgical specialist with years of service from being deployed. He was known for keeping people alive that no one thought would make it. Three trauma nurses completed our team, two women and one man. All qualified and spent time as disaster relief teams. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

As we approach the ISS the pilot jokingly suggest we bring up the shields and give her a nudge ‘as a test’ he says. Control responds back, “Keep it in your pants, captain.” This gets a laugh out of most of the crew. The docking with ISS is textbook perfect. The hatch is opened and we are greeted by the commander of the station. Orders are given to people with transport jacks to bring the pallets of supplies to the hold from our cargo area. The stations Jet Bridge is already attaching to the rear hold of Relativity.

The rest of the evening is spent with the two crews swapping stories of space and speculations on how this mission would go. There was talk of time distortion and if we would come back in a week, or a day, or a year, only to find the planet was dead or run by apes hundreds of years later. One of our physicists began to explain in great detail how the gravity drive is not an FTL engine. We would not be trying to break that barrier. Rather we would be creating an artificial gravity well behind the ship bending the space in front of us into a fold. Then slipping through the fold in a layer of sub space. At some point, even the stations nerds were lost. They just nodded their heads as if understanding how it all worked.

The bottom line was, we should be immune from time dilation as we move through the space folds outside of the time stream. The travel time would be nearly instantaneous while in warp. The passage of time on Earth would continue as normal, however, due to the distance of our journey we will be out of contact until our return. I go over the supplies in the sick bay. My staff and I discuss possible plans of action ‘in the event of…’ and try to ignore the butterflies in our stomachs. The end of our shift comes and sleep is not an option. Staring at the ceiling of the bunk bed, I can’t help but wonder what will happen when we throw that switch and engage the Gravity engine. Will we create a force field so strong it wipes out all of us? Will we be far enough away from the ISS that it will be safe if we do? Will it work? Just how far will we go?

My eyes no more than close when it is time to get up. We meet in the stations mess hall for breakfast and coffee. Lots of coffee. Not one member of the crew looks well rested. We make our way to the air lock and do a quick visual of the Relativity. Dark as night, she sits there like a shadow. Long and curved and if I’m being honest, almost looking like an eggplant. Now I’ll never get that image out of my head. I hate eggplant.

No light from the station is reflected back at us. We enter and head to our stations. The deck crew is in place turning on all systems and running through checklists like they have through so many simulations. I watch my monitors as life signs begin to appear as the crew turn on their suits built in sensors. We agree to put on our helmets for the first engagement of the Gravity drive engine. Not sure it would make a bit of difference if something went wrong, but it seemed like good advice.

The captains’ voice sounds steady. He gets confirmation from the ISS that the docking clamps have disengaged and we are free to fire thrusters. We move away gracefully. Drifting through space away from the ISS and on a heading towards our first destination. Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy. At a mere 25,000 light years from our sun, it is the closest known galaxy. Piece of cake. As we reach our designated distance from the ISS, we come to a stop. Mission control sends a final inspirational speech across an open channel to the crew. We are the world, we are the future, I have this nagging feeling I’ve heard those words somewhere before. We swell with pride and fear.

The time has come. No more waiting. The captain calls for the shields to be engaged. A slight prickling to the back of the neck is felt as the ship is encapsulated in an impenetrable field. “Begin sending power to the engine. Let’s start with 50% for the first jump.” He tells the helm. The Fibonacci chambers begin to generate a force field of their own. Each one building until it cascades into the next, with each added chamber the gravitational force is doubled. As more power is sent into the array of electromagnets lining the chambers, the physicists watch their creation build until they achieve the first created gravity well in history. Once it reaches 50% capacity, the call rings out. “Fifty percent captain, and she’s purring like a kitten!” “Ok everyone, let’s make history. Open the slipway.”

From the ISS, every window on that side had faces in it. Waiting to see what would happen. The ship was hard to make out, even this close. The vapor from the thruster jets gave them a trail to follow until they were in place. A dim glow surrounded the ship for a moment when the shields came up. The rear mounted chamber that was the Fibonacci drive looked like an armored conch shell. It was completely symmetrical and the opening was at the bottom. You didn’t know if you should expect to see flame shooting out or a giant slug like head.

Mere moments had passed since the faint glow of the shield announced they were ready to go. The area around the rear of the ship started to look distorted, like a whirlpool in space but motionless. Suddenly, the vortex grew larger than the ship, it shot along its hull at the same distance as the shields glow earlier and extended past the nose. For just a second you could see the vortex extend into the distance ever decreasing in diameter. Then the Relativity vanished, and the vortex with it. If you were staring at the back of the ship where the vortex was largest, you may have thought you saw the ship swallowed up by it and the opening chasing it along, but it happened so quickly you were not certain what you saw. One thing for sure though. Relativity was gone. There was no debris field, no explosion, no wake, and in the sudden vacuum of space, no one heard any screams.