Chapter No.3

The journey to Titan started out on NASA's Houston runway. Carl, Margaret, Janet and Alice boarded a rocket shuttle and strapped into seats to await clearance for take-off. The rocket shuttle was a more compact version of the spaceplane and was designed to allow a more refined ascent to the Explorer, the newest advanced spaceship, designed to journey through the solar system, that was orbiting Earth where it had been assembled. The shuttle that went with it was designed to land on other planets and moons.

"We're cleared to go," Carl announced as he powered up the engines to take off. The shuttle quickly ascended into the early morning sky and accelerated to enter an orbit that would arrive near the Explorer. Carl had to work the steering rockets to slowly approach the new spaceship. The Explorer's hanger deck was in front of the huge ship, and its opened door welcomed the shuttle like a giant condor waiting to consume a sparrow.

After the hanger door was closed and the chamber filled with air, the foursome exited the shuttle to enter the spacecraft by literally floating to a round tube with hand holds that led to the main living deck. They entered the circular deck from an entrance in the middle of the wall. The ship has two decks, in the form of wheels, which are miniature versions of the Lunar space station. These large wheels can be rotated to create artificial gravity, a necessary health benefit for long space voyages.

This quarters deck contained the main control center and the living quarters, which were simple bunks indented into the wall. This deck also had a kitchen area as well as a bathroom which had a toilet and shower. Although the facilities were spartan in concept, they were orders of magnitude more comfortable than what they had to endure on the Orion capsule and the spaceplane.

However, it would be some time before they could enjoy these amenities. They first had to endure a long acceleration to achieve the proper velocity to get to the Saturn location. For this rocket burn, they had to strap into seats that were embedded into the wall that was pointed toward the front where they would endure a long period of suffering painful g-forces.

"This is not going to be comfortable," Carl told them.

"No kidding Sherlock!" Janet replied in a mocking tone.

The other women laughed.

Their frivolity ended when the NEXT ion engines fired up to accelerate Xenon propellent electrostatically to an unimaginable velocity.

After an hour of acceleration, the rocket-burn finally ended, Carl and the women were able to relax and enjoy normal gravity. Actually. it's eighty percent of Earth's gravity, and it had to be activated by starting the deck's rotation.

"I thought that it was never going to end," Margaret complained. "How fast are we going now?"

"We should be up to at least three hundred thousand miles per hour," Carl said. "I'll have to get to the command center to get an accurate number."

"At that velocity we should get there in a reasonable time" Janet said.

"Unfortunately, it's not a straight-line course," Carl said. "It's more of a combination of speed and gravity that defines our course." He was trying to be vague because he knew it would take several months.

"That figures," she said in a disgusted tone.

Carl avoided reacting to her statement. "At least it will be more comfortable after I get to the command center and start up the wheel rotation."

Carl floated to the command center and activated it. Screens lit up with data that he needed. A much larger screen displayed a scene of space directly in front of the ship. His first action was to establish artificial gravity by activating the wheel rotation system. After loud warning sounds, the wheel suddenly started to move, which forced the women to hang on to something. Once it was at its proper rotational speed, they could begin to walk around in a normal fashion. Trips to the bathroom were first on the list of things to do.

Once Carl was sure that the Explorer was on the correct course, he could relax. It was all up to the ship now.

When they gathered at the kitchen, which consisted of a table and chairs near a microwave, a heating pad and a refrigerator, they appeared to be more relaxed. The artificial gravity, perfect temperature and humidity, and a steady but muted hum helped calm them even though their situation was not all that calm.

"If we're going this fast, what's to keep us from being blasted in a collision?" Janet asked

"This vessel has a three tier CAS. This collision avoidance system's first defense is an electromagnetic field that can fry small micrometeors. Automated weapon's grade laser systems handle medium sized meteors. The last resort for lager objects is the maneuvering rockets."

"Hopefully, they're good enough to prevent a collision," she said.

"It's the best CAS system ever created," Carl said. "As long as we have power, we're safe."

"There's supposed to be two rotating decks on this ship," Margaret said. "What's in the second deck?"

"It contains the agricultural plots," Carl said. "There are robot framers down there who tend the crops. It's our breadbasket, so to speak. As it turns out I'll have to go down there and repair them from time to time to keep the farming processes online."

"Why such a complicated system?"

'This isn't Star Trek. We can't get food out of a synthesizer in a wall outlet. Storing a lot of food isn't too practical. We do have some of that, but in order to sustain a long space journey, we need to grow food."

"I guess that means no booze," Janet said.

"Actually, that's not the case. The robots are capable of brewing beer from the grain crops they tend."

"That's crazy!"

Carl shrugged. "Not really. It's just an extra perk for us having to sacrifice our lives to go on a long space mission."

"Hopefully, what's happening to Titan won't change until we get there," Alice said.

"We should be able to observe it using this craft's main telescope. It won't be the same as the Hubble, but it will be good enough."

"The Hubble?" Alice responded, squinting at him.

"Oh, I mean the Galileo. I keep forgetting that we're not in the original timeline."

"I wonder if Titan would be undergoing a transformation in our original timeline," Margaret mused.

"No way to know that now," Carl said.

Not much was said about it after that. They were stuck together in a newly designed spaceship traveling in deep space to a moon of Saturn's. None of them knew what they were going to do when they got there. It was like trying to explore Hades without a wizard.

NEXT is a Xenon ion thruster engine capable of high velocity. It's experimental but has been used by NASA.