Legacy

When ships to sail the void between the stars have been invented, there will also be men who come forward to sail those ships. — Johannes Kepler

In 2057, we left Earth to inhabit the closest planet outside of our solar system, Alpha Centauri Bb, or the Exoport. The spacecraft Santa Maria had main booster ignition from the Westminster launch pad in Colorado at 12:35 on Saturday, August 18th, 2057. The day was beautiful. It's not just some nostalgic self-delusion; it shows in the craft’s record: The temperature was 82° F, the wind speed was 5.65 knots, and the humidity level was 12%. Our last day on Earth...

We, the crew of the Santa Maria, understood that we could never return to our home planet again. The craft was aimed directly for the goal with no mission abort button. We boarded a ship sailing through the ocean of dark matter without a paddle. Even if we were able to reroute the vessel's course back towards Earth, the world we knew would be gone due to the time dilation effects of special relativity; although, we wouldn’t be traveling fast enough to experience the full consequences of time dilation. I now assume we were told this as to prevent regret -- we knew what we signed up for. We were chosen to go as we had taken vows of celibacy while on Earth in preparation for the mission, which would last 34.9 years, even though the Exoport is approximately 1.34 parsecs, or 25.69 trillion miles, away. It was the first shuttle to feature fission rockets, PIPE system (Photon-Ionic Propulsion by Electromagnetism), and traditional rocket propellant. The PIPE system relies on a laser beam of focused photons from a source on Earth to excite the electrons in the atoms of the spacecraft’s propellant, allowing for the atoms to become ions and repel a powerful magnet attached to the stern of the shuttle. These advancements enabled the shuttle to travel at a constant speed of 37,524,651 meters per second, or 23,316.74 miles per second.

The projected time of entering our new home’s orbit was determined to be Saturday, July 12, 2081 at 5:37 am. This was the time aboard the shuttle at least. We lost communication with Earth over three years ago on May 9, 2078, but this was expected. In fact, it was thought that we would have lost the signal over five years ago. A morse code message from Earth took nearly four years to reach us in these final few years of our journey. These messages were sent through the photon beam from the PIPE system, no longer needed after the first fifteen years. Before the PIPE system was deactivated, radio waves were able to contact us, but soon the message was scattered. This was a foreseen problem, and I had proposed a series of satellites to be stored in the hull of the Santa Maria, which could be released every so often to convey voice and video messages far into the depths of space; however, the idea was considered too costly to be implemented. Nevertheless, such thoughts are vain now, as the craft will begin to orbit Alpha Centauri Bb in less than 14 hours.

Nearly 35 years of my life have been spent aboard the Santa Maria -- nearly one and a half times more than I was alive on Earth’s surface. Life on board the space craft hasn't been awful for the vast majority of the crew. Only six of the 178 adult crew members succumbed to dimensional psychosis, in which the mind relinquishes sanity to attempt to comprehend the lack of concrete spatial planes in the celestial void of space, and/or cabin fever’s degenerative claustrophobia. With their sacrifices, we now understand how to ease the mind’s aches and the soul’s ails during extensive missions. We will rebuild a new society on this new planet, so that future generations may prosper from our labors. We'll build a world resembling home on the exterior, but instituting new laws and moral standards to create a utopia, an impossibility on Earth. Our names will be etched in stone as the pioneers of the new world, the true Final Frontier.

A broadcast has just reached our shuttle, the first in three years. The signal is very clear, much more so than those we received years ago. Actually, it appears to be a timed recording loaded within the spacecraft’s computer. It repeats: “Welcome. You have now arrived at Alpha Centauri Bb, the New Frontier.” It has said this message five times, but at varying speeds of playback. We have not yet responded since we just received another communication identified as being emitted from a source on the planet itself. A burst of white noise was followed by new voice that rang through the Santa Maria: “This is Icarus Asimov, Administrator of the Exoport Harbor. We’re glad the Santa Maria has arrived safely and hope the crew is alive and well. You may be in a state of fatigue at this moment, so a guidance team will be sent to your shuttle to see that you land safely. Congratulations, and welcome home.”

I stared off into the infinite darkness of space, even though the goal I had been waiting over a quarter of a century to see was right before me. We weren't the first. Our legacy, our story, our time washed away with this worthless ship. There were members of the crew who rejoiced that they could return to civilization. They didn't cared that people who left after us arrived before us. They could care less for the sight of a new beginning, a fresh start to lay the foundation for the new world.

I sauntered to the bridge and made me way onto the observation deck. Another message rang through the shuttle explaining the rapid advancement of technology after our departure and the increased velocity at which space vessels could travel. The voice explained how the ten dimensions of space must have inhibited out perceptions of reality and why we didn’t notice the shuttles that passed us in less than a second. It was true. My perceptions of space and time had vanished with my imagination and hope. There I stood, the seventh case of dimensional psychosis, waiting - lost in time once again - staring at the metropolis on the new world.