Sci-Fi Story Series Part 4 : Adventures of Sifar - Background

Strange place, universe is. It has space for both science, and stupidity of human philosophically. It is difficult to imagine how the laws of math come together, to create physical particles, which in turn reacts and have chemistry between themselves, thus, creating complex compounds, which coordinate together and genesis happened. In the process of evolution, single cells came together to create complex structures, till mankind evolved into being. Man intelligence, wisdom, curiosity all tangible and intangible qualities are result of these fundamental laws. It looks like mankind being part of these laws is, universe's way of understanding itself.

After 2017 discovery of gravitational waves, man tried to first understand and harness this phenomenon. Gravity permeates through time, dimensions and objects. It is gravity which keeps us glued to earth and at the same time make one teaspoon of neutron star material weighs more than a ton.

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 2027 A.D.

As it is said, space is the final frontier. Now capable of travelling intergalactic distances, the Wow! signal received in the past, can now be investigated. Scientists received the signal again after 5 decades, which proved that it was not equipment failure in the past. Scientists this time could detect and dissect the signal from all the electromagnetic spectrum frequency. It looked like much of the data is spread across the  electromagnetic spectrum and to be constructed together. The last piece of the puzzle was the Wow signal of 1977. Something or someone is calling us. There was a mass hysteria among communities. Mankind was still weak and in nascent stage. Planet wide war cannot be an option. This must be investigated but, waiting is an only option with current technology.

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2077 A.D. (Present)

Sifar is first of its kind spaceship which is built on the concept of harnessing the gravitational waves. The principle is simple to understand yet very difficult to achieve. It’s like riding a water waves, which sailing ships do all the time but doing this in space with gravity is a challenging task. To achieve this Sifar must reach at the location with relatively near Zero gravitational force, where the pull of different heavenly bodies nullify itself. Once there, Sifar has to activate the force field which will increase its interaction with spacetime, in other words will make it float like a ship in water, ready to sail.

The signal came from Sagittarius constellation. It can be imagined why as it is located near the center of our Milky Way. It is the densest part of our galaxy with many star clusters and nebulae. The discovery was exciting but it took nearly another 50 years to build ship like Sifar. Right on time before another speculated receiving of signal. Scientists are ready this time. They must succeed this time or there will have to wait for half a century again.

The crew selected, is willing to take the risk but as said no one works without profit. It is difficult to get funds to build this fantasy spaceship and with all the space program around it the cost will be a fortune. There are organizations who are interested but not without string attached. 

Fortunately, Federation of Space Research Organizations and Union of Tourism (SPROUT) or more famously named as Mahasangh came forward in this endeavor. There proviso is to have exclusive rights on the material and knowledge that can be gained from this adventure.

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 Sifar's Deck

"I won’t let this happen" thought Hind the knowledge is fundamental right of mankind and not for some bureaucrats, while remembering his directives again for the mission given by Kuber.

All communications are lost during the ascend. Sifar is vibrating like it is going to disintegrate. All crew is embracing to their seats.

"This will be over in a minute." Jai calm himself.

"This is nothing like simulation." beads of sweat appears on forehead of Smith.

Only person not seemingly effected was Nia enjoying every second of this thrill ride.

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Sifar reached the outer orbit of earth and then out of earth’s gravity well. The ship is now stable. With all communication link established.

"Sifar to Control Room, we are out and moving towards Lagrange point" Hind said with triumph.

"Copy that, permission to proceed" voice from ground base confirmed

Lagrange point is where gravitational pull of one body cancels out the gravitational pull of second body. In this case it is earth and moon. It is the best bet for the Sifar's Gravity engine to work. Since, earth is around six times as big as moon, this point is around 85% away from earth, accommodating orbital centripetal force on the line connecting center of earth and moon.

The cyrothrusters comes to life again to reach calculated coordinates.

"Here we go again.", Smith thought uneasily.

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 Headquarter

Kuber in his office was seeing the flight path of Sifar on projector screen.

“That’s the benefit of sitting on the top of food chain.” Thought Kuber.

"Any minute now.", smile comes on Kuber’s face.

Another monitor showing the current coordinates of Sifar and Lagrange coordinates, where his stealth code will get activated.

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Sifar reached Lagrange point between earth and moon quite uneventfully.

"Now we have to wait for the signal", announced Hind.

To Be continued...