With all these disasters occurring, leaders of the world had canceled all commercial flights anywhere. All planes were to be used for emergency purposes only. All cruise ships were to return to port and be taken over by the government to use for emergencies.
The United States was particularly concerned about the Kilauea volcano on the big island of Hawaii. In 2018 many homes were destroyed. This was not a significant volcano at the time, but geologists had predicted a major eruption could happen anytime in the future. If it did happen, they expected boulders the size of washing machines to be hurled around the island. Although the Hawaii volcano had not erupted yet, it seemed everyone on the big island was attempting to evacuate. Planes and ships packed with people were leaving the island at a rapid pace, since no one knew if there would be a major eruption.
In Indonesia, one of the volcanoes had triggered a massive tsunami due to an undersea earthquake. One of the worst disasters in history was the eruption of the Indonesian volcano, Krakatoa, in 1889. This was one of the most violent explosions in recent human history—completely destroying the island on which it resided. The last eruption at Krakatoa was said to be four times more potent than an atomic bomb. People could hear it around the world. Tsunamis were produced that devastated the region, killing around 36,000 people and destroying whole villages. Another volcano in Indonesia was the deadliest of all time, killing 120,00 people. This took place in 1815 on Mt. Tambora. As a result of this volcano, there was a tremendous loss of crops due to the temperature taking a drastic drop.
With all this activity happening around the world, one of the major concerns now for the spaceships was they might have to adjust their trajectories to avoid all the ash and smoke given off from the volcanoes and other disasters.
Tom told Sam, “I have a big job for you and Jose. I need you two to study the weather patterns and wind currents and figure out where the smoke will be the worst. We need to understand where we can fly without being blinded. You will need to monitor this carefully and then let us know what the best flight pattern will be for our spaceship. I am sure the other ships will have to do the same thing. Please keep in touch and let me know if you need help. This has to be done daily. Also, you need to monitor NOAA and any other channel available for more earthquakes and volcanoes and their forecast for the near future. There are still going to be aftershocks that will affect all the regions concerned, and there is the possibility of more volcanic eruptions.”
Tom watched the two of them as they both absorbed the concern and sadness of the people on board. Sam and Jose left for the weather lab to work on their new duties immediately.
Part IV
It was All-Hands-on-Deck
Chapter 40 – Recalculating
Sam Burns, the Imagine, Rocky Mountains, CO
Seeing the opportunity to make a significant contribution, Sam and Jose raced to the control room to monitor the weather and events happening around the world. On the way, they saw Sally and asked her to join them in the control room. All three were sickened by the incoming disaster reports.
Sam explained that they needed to figure out several factors as they worked on calculating the path to fly the spaceship into orbit. Of course, this was all subject to change daily depending on the smoke from disasters and the weather. They agreed they had to figure out the rotation of the Earth. Once they did that, they calculated the straightest trajectory needed to overcome the gravitational pull of the planet. Also, they had to avoid flying into a large plume of smoke and perhaps being hit by boulders that could damage the ship.
Sam had learned about some of the work that members of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had done in terms of collision-avoidance support for space shuttle programs and tracking small objects in the solar system. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory hadn’t launched its NEOCam (Near Earth Object Camera) because they wouldn’t commit to funding the mission by the time Sam had finished high school and even as his dad’s crew prepared to launch Imagine. Nonetheless, several billionaires had already run their own space-based near-Earth objects (NEO) detection systems. They provided access to Sam and his dad, since the two of them had shown interest in helping analyze the data and were known advocates for the advancement of these thermal-infrared telescopes that were designed to discover NEOs.
Thankfully, they also had access to Galah, the Galactic Archaeology with HERMES survey. Since 2013, Galah was ambitiously measuring the abundance of each chemical in stars to determine the chemical makeup of the Milky Way’s approximately one million stars through algorithms, partnering with the European Space Agency’s Gaia to map more than one billion stars in the Milky Way. A lot could be practically applied to traveling onboard Imagine within the galaxy. Having the latest information to chemically tag individual stars combined with knowing the motions and speeds within the Galaxy in constant motion, as well as the positions and distances of the stars, was informative. The analyzed data would help the Imagine team understand the past, present and future to see how the Galaxy has and can change over time. It would help explain galactic material, allowing their measurements to become more accurate about how much the universe is expanding and the relative movement of celestial bodies within the Galaxy. It was going to be vital to make sure that their advanced communication system was able to continue these critical mission partnerships back on Earth.
Through these partnerships and all the work Sam had already been doing by contributing to the data analysis and interpretations of the data, he was learning the power of knowledge and its practical application. He figured that if the world did actually face an existential risk of complete destruction with too many emergencies and climate changes that disrupted human existence, then there would be people still working on Earth unwilling to stop the progress of human potential. If there were enough people in the Milky Way Galaxy ensuring that they could leave Earth, then it was possible that all the combined efforts could ensure saving humanity from its worst offenders. The desire to leave Earth and explore beyond the farthest edges of the universe for future generations depended on it. Working alongside so many dedicated people who were contributing such meaningful work to humanity, Sam would be surprised if in the future their combined efforts didn’t help those left on Earth through renewed technologies and advanced capabilities.
Finally, they needed to figure out the trajectory within the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy to get to Alpha Centauri—the Southern Pointer Stars aimed at the Southern Cross in the large, sprawling Centaurus constellation—overcoming the Sun’s gravitational pull. From their studies, they knew they needed to figure out a hyperbolic trajectory. Jose said they would apply Newton’s laws of motion. The hyperbolic trajectory was calculated to allow for unlimited space travel. Regardless of the path chosen, they would have to take off in a particular direction to ensure the integrity of the ship. Once they escaped the Earth’s gravitational pull, they had to establish the correct velocity to escape the solar system.
Sam and Jose started crunching numbers on the computer and simulation screens. They knew they could not launch towards California since the fumes and fires from the earthquake would impact the trajectory.
After some consideration and mathematical models, they all agreed to launch in the direction of Florida. They would probably fly over Disney World and Cape Canaveral. Once the ship was past Florida, it would have to move into orbit over Africa to avoid the plumes from Europe’s volcanoes and the Ring of Fire.