Ten hours in-system. Captain Trajan is proceeding inward as planned. No sign of activity.
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43 hours in-system. Still nothing to report. Captain Trajan is now more than 400 m-km from the Barnard => Sol jump point, nearly half-way to the inner planets.
On his way into the inner system, Captain Trajan passes within 100 m-km of the gas giant Barnard V, and within 5 m-km of the prime candidate Barnard II. No EM emissions are detected at this range. His ship settles into orbit around the innermost world, Barnard I, and begins scanning its surface.
Whew. It looks like I might actually make it back to oversee the Alan Parsons project.
Emu, I'm getting reports that the ship interior is testing positive for some sort of immunodeficiency virus -- presumably human, given that we're the only species on board right now.
I'm not sure what it is or how it will affect progress, but I'll keep you updated.
I'm not sure what it is or how it will affect progress, but I'll keep you updated.
It takes nearly a week... an uneventful week... to map and characterize the innermost planet, Barnard I. It is a relatively small world, half the diameter of the Earth but nearly as dense, giving a surface gravity of half Earth-normal; huddled close to its feeble sun only 4.1 m-km away and tidally locked on it. It has only a trace of an atmosphere and a surface temperature in excess of 340 degrees centigrade. Trajan's crew have been able to locate a significant deposit of Vendarite on the planet... over 1.5 million tons at 80% concentration. There are also large but low-grade (10%) deposits of Mercassium and Corbomite, that could be recovered as by-products of a Vendarite-extraction operation.
Trajan and his crew now move on to examine the prime target, Barnard II. They approach and enter orbit without untoward incident.
Trajan and his crew now move on to examine the prime target, Barnard II. They approach and enter orbit without untoward incident.
It takes about two and a half weeks to map and characterize the prime target, Bernard II. No sign of alien life is detected on its surface. The planet is more massive than Earth, but somewhat less dense, giving it an Earth-like surface gravity of 1.04g. Atmosphere 82% Nitrogen, 18% Carbon Dioxide. Surface temperature a bit high at 35 degrees centigrade. There is a liquid ocean covering 32% of the planet's surface. All in all, this planet is an excellent target for colonization, and for eventual terraforming to class-0. It will be somewhat easier to terraform than Mars.
Geological scanning reveals two important deposits of minerals: over 33 million tons of Tritanium at 80% purity, and over 60 million tons of Duranium at 70% purity. There are also low-grade (10%) deposits of Neutronium, Corundium and Gallicite, all in the multi-million ton range.
Trajan and his crew now head out to examine the last terrestrial-sized planet, Barnard III, before moving on to the moon systems of the four gas giants.
Do you guys want continued detailed reports, or should I just finish the system survey and then post a summary?
Geological scanning reveals two important deposits of minerals: over 33 million tons of Tritanium at 80% purity, and over 60 million tons of Duranium at 70% purity. There are also low-grade (10%) deposits of Neutronium, Corundium and Gallicite, all in the multi-million ton range.
Trajan and his crew now head out to examine the last terrestrial-sized planet, Barnard III, before moving on to the moon systems of the four gas giants.
Do you guys want continued detailed reports, or should I just finish the system survey and then post a summary?
Summary would be fine I think.
Also yay for new real estate! How long until we can build jump gates? Or will colony ships and freighters need jump tenders for the time being?
Also yay for new real estate! How long until we can build jump gates? Or will colony ships and freighters need jump tenders for the time being?
I'd say just post a summary unless we encounter something. But based on the first two planets, I'd say we've hit the mother lode here. Tritanium, Duranium, and Vendaraite in multihundred million ton deposits at high concentration. If that holds up through the rest of the system bodies, I'd say we should get a colony on Barnard II (aka "Trajania") and get the mines in. This system could power our expansion for decades.
Either one will take a while. Researching, designing, tooling and building a Gate Constructor will probably be quicker, since it won't need its own jump drive. We have been working on researching the Jump Gate Construction Module, but it's on the back burner while we push towards Ion Engines.
Should I interrupt our work on Ion Engines (which will be needed both by missiles and by the Battle Fleet) long enough to get the Gate Construction Module finished? That would take less than a year, after which we could design a ship and retool a yard.
We've only found three of the eleven minerals in economic concentrations so far, but yeah, there are loads of moons still to search. Eighty-three of them.
Continue on the Ion Engines, get the engines in prototype and deployed, then power to the gates. That way you can fit the JCS with Ion Engines.
I'd finish Ion engines first to be honest. That way the Gate Constructors will be faster when they finally are built. Also I may be wrong but would it not also be better to let our new colony on Ganymede get to a point where it's self sufficient before we divert more freighters to supporting new colonies in Barnard's Star
Since a JCS is going to spend a year on-station building the Gate (six months on each end) anyway, I'm not sure how much difference it makes if it reaches station in two weeks instead of three.
It's gonna be a while before Ganymede is self-sufficient. The place is so hostile that I really shouldn't have colonized it at this stage.
Bruce Willis just joined my Naval Officer corps. I think we can stop worrying about aliens invading Earth!