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A New PastChapter 58: Faster, Higher, Further free porn video
“Damn, this looks like a pig,” Hunter said as he paused inside the new hangar in Kenya and admired my latest project.
Our base in Kenya had changed over the years, growing from an emergency field to our primary heavy lift base. Most personel went to orbit on GOTs, but our heavy lifters were based here in Kenya. Our shelters had been replaced with permanent huts and houses, built along traditional lines, but with modern materials. Staff now enjoyed easy access to Nairobi via train, plane, and the occasional automobile, but seldom needed to venture to the city since most of the modern conveniences were now present on the base.
New mission needs and our smaller, more efficient engines had formed the basis for my idea. An off-the-cuff comment to Ali had put more specific wheels in motion. Now, nearly three years later, I was showing the completed project to someone for the first time. I had not built the vehicle alone. I had designed it and sent components out to various partners and expert firms. I had rotated assembly teams through the complex, hopping down from Park City on a infrequent, but regular basis, to check and verify the work. Security had been kept tight. Tamara had been instrumental in coordinating the various assembly activities. Terry White had been involved in the design and ground testing. But no one had experienced the thrill of walking into the darkened hangar and seeing the white curves of a new orbiter before.
It reminded me of rolling out ‘the beast’ from my garage for the first time so many years ago, only not nearly as pretty a vehicle. The ship was essentially a dome based on a circle fifty meters wide and twenty-five meters tall. Eight of our newest engines were placed in pairs around the circumference of the craft, pointing upward in their bullet shaped cowlings.
“How in the hell did you manage to build this without me finding out about it?” Hunter finally managed to ask as we walked closer and the scale of the ship hit him.
I smiled.
“You’ve been kept busy and I’ve been careful.” While I had been splitting time teaching and working on other projects, Hunter had been working with the medical research field to determine how our better control of magnetic fields could improve medical imaging technology.
“This thing looks powerful. The GOTs are sexy, but you can tell this ship is going a lot further than orbit. Have you named it yet?
“How right you are,” I said as I patted him on the shoulder. “This will be our new workhorse in orbit. This first one is dubbed ‘Orion’,” I added. “It can be flown by two people, but configured to support twelve astronauts for up to a six month mission with a pretty significant cargo capacity. We could pretty easily re-configure the interior storage to support passengers, if we absolutely had to.”
I stopped at an airlock door near the stubby landing strut and pushed a button to open the door. “We have four airlocks down here, each set forty-five degrees between the engine mounts. We have another up on the top of the dome that includes a standard docking collar, so we can connect to the station or an OTV in orbit.
We stepped inside and through the lock door into the three meter wide corridor running around the circumference of the ship.
“The first deck is forty-four meters in diameter, with eight meter ceilings. We have a pretty standard cargo pallet system in there for equipment load-outs and what not.” I guided him up a ladder in the passage way, leading to the first hab deck.
“This is hab-one,” I said as we stepped through another set of pressure tight doors. “We made this deck pressure tight from the cargo area since we wanted the option of opening the cargo space to vacuum for easier loading and unloading. Here we’ve got the primary EVA support rooms, engineering and environmental support and pressurized storage areas and lab space.” We walked through several rooms, before climbing up to the next level.
“This is hab-two. Living quarters, galley, recreation spaces and some additional labs are on this deck. Hab-three is similar.” We took our time exploring the spaces as we climbed higher.
“The command deck has our flight controls, RPV controls and mission sensor stations in addition to access to the top docking airlock and associated EVA storage and suit-up areas.”
“This is impressive,” Hunter said as he ran a hand across the acceleration couch at the pilot’s station. “And you can crew it with two people?”
I nodded. “Most of the actual piloting is done by the computer. You’d want someone experienced for exploration and emergencies, but a pilot and co-pilot engineer are all you have to have. We debated getting it down to a solo configuration, but wanted some safety interlocks requiring two-person control.”
“You’re going to use this to ramp up lunar production, aren’t you?” he asked.
“The moon, Mars, and beyond,” I replied.
“What about flight testing?” Hunter asked as he glanced at the two auxiliary consoles and acceleration couches.
“We start tomorrow. That’s why I wanted you to come over.”
He stared at me.
“I want you to help with the ground control aspects. We’re doing the flight testing ourselves, initially.”
“Who’s piloting?”
“Terry insisted. I’ll be in the right-hand seat.”
“Have you talked to Lila or Chrissy about this?” The concern was obvious in his voice.
“Lila knows, and doesn’t like it. I’ll let Chrissy know after we’re done with the initial testing profile.”
“Which will be when?”
I smiled. “Before I take us all out for Valentines Day.”
“Capacitors at full ignition charge, engines one and two at standby,” I said.
We had spent a week on ground tests, followed by an inaugural flight, and then a series of short hops, lifting off and touching down immediately to verify systems and back-ups. Even at our lowest power setting and shortest engine firing time of a half-second, we had hopped seven meters into the air. Luckily, our landing strut shock-absorbers had been designed to take hard landings. We were shaken, but not broken in those tests.
NASA or the Air Force would have taken six months to get us to the point we were at. Terry insisted on two weeks of daily tests, climbing steadily higher and landing gently once engines and sensors were fully calibrated. Everything had checked out so far. Today was the ‘big’ test. We were going to orbit and beyond, assuming things checked out.
“Landing shocks fully charged,” Terry said as he flipped the last switch on the console and completed our pre-take-off checklist.
“Control, this is Orion, requesting permission to launch, over.”
“Orion, this is control. Winds are from two-two-sixer at seven. Airspace is clear. Launch path is clear to orbit. Orion, you have permission to proceed, over.”
“This is Orion, roger, out.”
Terry gave me a thumbs up and then put his hands on the control sticks at the end of his arm-rests. Once he did, the engine ignition light on my panel shifted from amber to green. I pressed the start sequence and braced myself.
The countdown reached zero, and we were pushed down firmly with growing force as we leapt into the air. Ten seconds into the flight, we watched our gear indicators flash green as the landing gear was retracted and the insulated doors closed tightly. By that point, we were both breathing shallowly, clenching our diaphragms while keeping our movements to the minimum needed to ensure a safe launch.
“Orion, control, all systems are go. T-plus thirty seconds, velocity at one point seven kps, altitude twenty-six klicks, over.”
The numbers corresponded to our onboard readouts.
“Control, Orion, concur, over.”
The pressure was unrelenting as we continued to climb out of the atmosphere. We both watched the mission timer on the console as it counted up to sixty. The pressure cut off on queue and we both surged forward against our straps as we breathed deeply
“Orion, control. T-plus sixty seconds, velocity at three point five kps, altitude 106 klicks, over.”
“Control, Orion concurs. Standing by for orbital insertion checks, over,” Terry said.
While we were in space, we were not yet in orbit, having stopped our acceleration over a minute before we would achieve orbital velocity. We were technically on a ballistic trajectory that would end up hitting the Indian Ocean if we did nothing. Of course, we had a plan to do something.
We had lifted off with all eight engines firing at minimal thrust, flinging us skyward at six-gees. Now we were lowering our thrust by using only four engines, and would then reduce it to two, pairing thrust from opposite engine sets to keep us moving in the direction we wanted. If it worked as we planned, we would have the comfort of one-gee travel.
“Initiate acceleration,” Terry commanded.
I obeyed and we felt ourselves pushed against our backs once again. Sixty seconds later, we were moving nearly eighteen hundred meters per second faster and had climbed another fifty-two kilometers.
“Shifting to two engine configuration,” I said as the computer cut-off two engines.
Another sixty seconds passed.
“Control, this is Orion. Mission time t-plus four minutes, eighteen seconds, all systems are green, acceleration is stable at nine point eight meters per second. Course heading confirmed, ETA to mid-flight turnover is one hour, forty-three minutes, over.”
“Orion, control concurs. Standing by for telemetry checks, over.”
Terry and I got busy running through our telemetry checks, then verifying key controls at their local stations to ensure everything was tracking to our plan. The time flew by, and we soon were strapped back into our control couches as the mission timer counted down to a controlled shut-off of the engines. I held my breath. If we failed to turn and restart our engines, Terry and I would have the distinction of being the first human travellers to go beyond lunar orbit, since we were traveling much too fast to be captured by the weak lunar gravity. We floated for a moment in zero-gee and then watched the programmed maneuvering thrusters rotate us end for end until our engines were facing in our direction of travel. A moment later, the computer re-started our engines and we returned to a feeling of normal gravity.
“Control, Orion, mid-point turnover complete, over.”
We had just confirmed we would reach the moon safely, in under four hours from lift-off. We would end up on a free return trajectory, but had no intention of taking the slow road home. We would once again flip and accelerate.
Fly to the moon and back? All in a day’s work, I thought.
“No, the math doesn’t work that way,” John said as we stood before a well-used chalkboard. I had watched him lecture in a graduate class espousing what would become known as the Jacob’s Ladder strategy for building improved density functionals. It had triggered a thought for potentially coupling a vector within the magnetic field to the quantum ground state. It was the first hint at a new direction I had been able to identify in my infuriating calculation paradox.
After our fusion seminar and the class office hours, I had asked if he was free to take a look at something potentially new. He had easily agreed.
“Look,” I said as I scribbled out the linear fusion field theory calculation I had first tried, with the imaginary number along the tau or time axis.
“This matrix transformation solves the equation and conforms to the observational data.”
I wrote another matrix transformation. “This also solves the equation and accounts for observations.”
I continued, writing a third. “And so does this one. If I set any two of these equal to the other, I should be able to resolve to a common vector through the matrix, but I can’t. They solve the same problem, account for the observed phenomena, but can be proven to not be equivalent. How is that possible?”
John stepped back and looked at my equations. It was the first time I had ever been willing to review them with another physicist. My fear that they truly were insolvable was what finally forced me to let go of my hubris and share my thinking.
He took his time, walking through the equations and double checking the matrices defining the magnetic fields in the generators.
“If these are all correct, there has to be some function translating each solution, but derived from a common equation.” He lined up the equations and began canceling common factors, as I had done a thousand times. He stopped a step earlier than I usually did, pausing.
“If we expand the matrices, we could isolate the variables...” his voice trailed off.
“No, the matrix is in five dimensions, maybe more,” he said. “These solutions are in four. You need to determine the integral of the matrix these are all derived from,” he said excitedly.
“I know,” I said exasperated. “That’s what I was trying to do, using an approach similar to what you were talking about earlier today, and thinking about a density function that would build to give me the function to explain this.”
He stopped pacing again and stared. “Paul, this could touch on a grand unified theory. If you can link the magnetic forces to space-time and then gravity, you could be looking at another Nobel Prize. This is really an amazing set of observations and calculations. We have to figure this out, and then test it. It could mean so much to the field.”
“I’ve been trying for years,” I finally admitted.
“But this is different than the equations you published originally,” he said.
I nodded. I wrote a fourth solution down.
“This solves the equation as well, and also accounts for the observed phenomena. It has no unwieldy negative imaginary numbers on the tau axis, no changes in the fundamental constants, no mysteries to solve. It fits the bill for publication and provability.”
“Then that is constant. Just like the integral of a constant is the constant times a dimensional value, we need to build up, like you said, taking a density function approach, and reaching to these higher dimensional variables and the unifying equation beyond.”
“But we’re going to need to build some experiments to point us in the right direction,” I added. “Just getting the math right by guessing at those variable is not going to work.”
“I agree,” he said as he began writing another matrix transformation on the board. “If we treat this base matrix as the final derivative, we can at least quantify which dimension is easiest to experiment on.”
I watched him for a few minutes. He was coming at the problem from a different angle than I had ever taken. It took him nearly five minutes, but he ended up with a new matrix transformation.
“This couples the simple state to electromagnetism,” he concluded. “That gives us a transform matrix that goes from four dimensions in space-time to five. Kaluza-Klein theory supports this interpretation.”
I knew string theory would be built atop KK-theory and had some testable attributes in the future, but had never seen or heard of this approach to KK-theory. I had never liked the convoluted nature of string theory as it had grown in complexity over time to account for divergent observational data. It had tried to become the fifth force of nature in my first time, but never been provable.
“Paul, this is going to take time to think about and build up. This could be a lifetime’s work. How long are you in town for?”
I actually laughed. I could imagine him spending every waking moment working on this for the next year until he cracked the problem. I had been tempted to do just that, but knew I would fail.
“John, I have to fly home in the morning.” He looked crestfallen. “We will take our time and work through this. I’ll get a private workspace set up online for us to collaborate through. I can’t help but feel this approach, combining your density field theory with the fusion equation and its field matrices is going help take physics into a whole new realm.”
Later that night, as I climbed into bed in my New Orleans house, my mind spun at the implications of the math we had managed to work through. John was correct that this might be a lifetime of work unless we could devise some experiments to point us in a correct direction. I had at least one observational point that I had not shared, because it was still unclear how my mind and memories had been transplanted into my own past.
There was more than physics involved here, since my body had not jumped into my own past. We were touching on something that transcended science as we knew it. We were going to try and quantify mind and possibly what most would consider the soul. It was a terrifying, exciting thought.
It also rekindled hope that I might be able to fix another wrong in my recent past.
But at what cost?
“You seem distracted,” Chrissy said as she draped her arms around my neck.
I was, but did not want to tell her why. Her spring break coincided with part of the kids’s break and I had brought us all down to St. Lucia. The crystal blue waters of the bay and the towering peaks of the Pitons brought back memories for me of my own final spring break, coming here with Jeryl, dreaming of the future. Now, fourteen years later, I was back.
“Just remembering my own final spring break down here,” I admitted. It was more than that distracting me, however.
“Tell me about it,” Chrissy said as she moved around to sit next to me on the balcony couch.
The kids were down below us, playing in the low surf on the beach with Nicole acting as life-guard if they decided to go out in the water. I glanced at them and then at Chrissy.
“Jeryl, Kelly, Matthew, Lila, Hunter and I were down here. I conspired with Hunter to sneak Lila’s passport and surprised them all with a trip down. We were all so young and wound up from our final semester and work. It was good to relax a little. Alison was like the responsible aunt or older cousin, watching over us and joining in our fun once in a while.”
I paused, remembering those passionate times, the fun times, and the relaxing times we had shared.
“Now, it’s so different. Matthew, Alison, and Jeryl are dead, but Ali, Jer, you, and Ian are here with us. Who will be around in another fourteen years? Will anyone here today be back at this house, playing on the beach, in another fourteen years? I guess I’m just a little maudlin this morning.”
Chrissy gave me a hug and snuggled up next to me. “Tell me what you did on that trip,” she said gently.
I smiled, remembering, and told her some of what we had gotten up to. She laughed at my telling of sailing to get out of shopping. Her laugh helped me. I gave her a kiss.
“Tell me another memory from then,” she said as our lips parted.
I talked about the jeep tour into the rain forest and hiking among the Pitons. She kissed me again, and then asked for another. I told her about the first, and then second shopping trip where we men had been more pack mules than companions.
She laughed. “That gives me some ideas,” she teased before kissing me again.
“I know how much you love Jeryl,” she said. “I hope you don’t think I’m trying to replace her in your heart,” she added. “I believe there is more than enough room in there for both of us.”
I kissed her once more. “Thanks. I think you might be right about that.”
I had loved Jeryl and Alison. Alison pulling away from us had not diminished the feeling of love. Falling for Imogene had not diminished those feelings within me, even though our breakup had hurt. Likewise, loving Chrissy had not tempered the feelings or memories.
Further conversation was interrupted as Ali came barreling out onto the balcony, stripping off her bikini and hopping under the outdoor shower in the far corner.
“I love the beach, but hate the sand,” she announced as she stepped out from under the water. She was starting to develop the same trim curves her mother had once had; another reminder of the past.
Chrissy laughed at her and stood, fetching a towel for her to dry off with. “Maybe you shouldn’t roll around in it then,” she said. Jer and Nicole came through the doorway.
“What are we doing today?” Jer asked.
“I want to go sailing,” Ali demanded.
“I want to go back to the rainforest on the jeep,” Jer replied.
“What do you want to do?” I asked Chrissy, ignoring my demanding children for a moment more.
Chrissy smiled. “I don’t see why we can’t do it all. Let’s go to the rain forest this morning and then come back for a late sail and a bonfire on the beach.”
“Cool,” Ali and Jer said at the same time. I nodded and stood.
“Ali, you need to get dressed if we’re going out,” I added.
She stuck her tongue out at me, laughed, dropped her towel and ran inside.
So like her mother, I thought.
“Traditionally, a graduation speaker is expected to extoll the values of your education and encourage you to reflect on the past and what you’ve learned. If you don’t learn from your past, you are destined to repeat it, according to historians and philosophers. Hopefully, I have learned from my past.”
I was wearing full regalia, standing at the podium I had walked past fourteen years prior, addressing the Class of 2001 at Stanford’s School of Engineering graduation ceremony.
“But, looking back is only informative, not definitive. Actions define us. You see, I was not the honor graduate in my class, but I was driven to try and fail, and try again, to continue pushing forward, and to learn from those hard lessons inside and outside the classroom. Of course, I also tried to learn from other people’s hard lessons, and their successes, as well as my own. But today is not about my past or my path since graduation.”
“Today is about your futures and I believe they are futures full of promise and prosperity, so long as you choose to make it so.”
“I say make it so because the future is not set; every choice we make helps build it, every day forward presents a choice. We can do the minimum to get by and have one future, or we can take risks to maximize our opportunities and have an entirely different and richer life. We may not always overcome our trials and tribulations, but we will all be richer for the attempt. The path will not be easy or straight forward. It will challenge you and you will struggle. From each struggle, learn and grow and try again. You may fail and curse the choice, but that’s life. Learn from it. Pick yourself up, and try again.”
“Greater speakers than I have said the same. ‘Failure is not falling down, but refusing to get back up’ was a quote from Teddy Roosevelt. Walt Disney said, ‘Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn to walk.’ Michael Jordan has been quoted as sying ‘I have failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.’ And there is a Japanese proverb that says, ‘Fall seven times, stand up eight.’
“No matter who your heroes are, it is likely they have learned this lesson of not giving up, of not settling. You have been equipped by your teachers, family and friends to make choices wisely; given the tools you need to succeed. There is nothing I can teach you today, but there is much you will continue to learn. So here is my challenge to the class of 2001; when you are faced with a choice between the easy path or the harder but more rewarding path, choose wisely.”
“To paraphrase one of our greatest presidents, ‘We choose the harder paths, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because they will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.’ Graduates, faculty, and guests, please join me in saluting the class of 2001 and encourage us all to face those challenges!”
The applause was rewarding, even if it was for a re-hash of my high school graduation speech. Hadn’t I told them to learn from the past? I would have been foolish to not take my own lesson to heart.
I sat through the remainder of the ceremony, smiling broadly as Chrissy crossed the stage and received her diploma. After the recessional, I joined Camilla, Bluey, and the rest of our entourage outside the auditorium for pictures and congratulations. Following photos, we were back to the house where everyone changed and then into San Francisco for a celebratory dinner and night on the town.
I had been surprised Chrissy did not want to spend more time with her classmates, celebrating, but she had demurred.
“I caught up with them all last week,” she said. “I don’t need to go to big parties. I’d rather spend time with you, and mum and dad, and the kiddo’s.”
“Whatever you want,” I had replied.
The next day, we were all off to Ireland. Ali had finally worn me down and was taking the longer spaceflight orientation course with Chrissy. Jer was reconnecting with Miss Emily. He was happy to go up to Astra Station, but did not want to do the longer course. Bluey, Camilla, and Jane stayed for a few days, then hopped over to London, and finally headed home to Australia.
I continued to work on esoteric math and managing my sprawling businesses.
“Did you see this?” Tamara asked as she held a report in her hand.
“What is it?”
“The DoD auction. They’ve lowered the minimum bid.”
I nodded. “We’ll be cutting production. If Lockheed’s process can deliver the volume they want, I’ll shut the line down. I’d rather be rid of it, personally.”
Tamara looked at me with surprise in her eye. “Why?”
“It’s a security headache and isn’t really contributing that much to the bottom line anymore. It’s a nice bit of business, but it isn’t really helping us with anything else. It’s not like we need the money.”
She shook her head. “You’re the boss. You do know that most business experts would scoff at your attitude, right?”
“That’s why I never pretend to be an expert in business. This is the right move to make, however. Now, how are we doing on the next Orion?”
In the five months since our inaugural flight, we had started construction on a second vessel, while the Orion itself had been fully certified and pressed into service accelerating our lunar base build out. The ship’s cargo capacity dramatically increased how much material we could move to the moon, but it exposed other bottlenecks in our overall supply and logistics chain. Getting other manufacturing processes ramped up was taking time.
“It’s on track for trials in October,” she replied.
“Good. Let’s get a team put together for mission planning.”
“For what?” she asked. We were beyond the original Team Luna plan now.
“I want us to consider Mars, and an asteroid mission. Once we have plans and objectives for each, we’ll hold a review and decide which direction we will go.”
“What time frame?”
“I’d like to be in Park City for the Olympic Games next year, so we should be planning a mission launch after that.”
“Less than a year for planning two interplanetary mission profiles? You’re killing me.”
I smiled.
“You know you love the challenge. Let’s get status on the planning included in my daily briefings.”
Tamara groaned, but nodded.
“Paul,” Kelly said after we exchanged greetings on the phone. “What have you done to stir up the DoD? There was a rather heated discussion in today’s security briefing.”
I sighed and told her about cutting stealth compound production with an eye on phasing out that production line.
“Lockheed isn’t going to be able to maintain the volume the DoD wants,” she said.
“Then the DoD shouldn’t have signaled otherwise. How did they expect me to react to a lowering of the starting bid point?” I countered.
“What did they do?” My accusation seemed to catch her by surprise.
I explained. “Look,” I added. “We needed the money that production provided years ago. Right now, I don’t see the need for it. The government prevented me from patenting the material or process, and gave Lockheed plenty of time and incentive to try and copy my material. I’m not really interested in being their safety net now while they refine their process.”
Kelly sighed. “I can tell your mind is pretty firm on this. Is there anything I can do to change it?”
I thought about it. “I don’t think so. From a business perspective, the money from last year’s auctions was less income than the power we sold on the open energy market. That material has one unique property that the government rightfully does not want sold on the open market. I agree with that concern. Think about the efforts I undertook to help keep that property secret. I just don’t want the security hassles that go with ongoing production. I’ve got too many other things on the drawing board to manage that distraction.”
“Would you be willing to spin out that production to the DoD directly? For a hefty buy-out?”
That suggestion surprised me. I thought about it.
“I don’t think the staff that knows the process would be that intersted. I’d rather not sell the Austin plant, since we do produce other materials there. It would turn into a purchase of intellectual property more than anything.”
Mckenna
- 07.12.2020
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