“... as I described it in my last progress report, the work on Pan is continuing smoothly.
Contacts with the Fen pet drones is still alternating between annoying, funny or useful. While they are hanging around the construction site to watch us, they are always eager to carry some tools for us. A few times they brought back things and even two of my crew, who lost ground contact and were flying away from Pan.
When the second part of our equipment arrives from Nova Paris, we will have already burrowed the first part of the station in the ice. I expect phase two of the project to be finish with little or no delay.”
Eric Hunt looked over his progress report for the bean counters at Earth for a last time. Even here, a billion kilometers away from Earth it was impossible to escape the paperwork completely.
He sometimes wondered how the Fen would have built this station. Most likely it would have been something very crazy. Or maybe a floating city like in Star Wars above the clouds of Saturn.
He sighed, whatever it would have been, it would have got artificial gravity. Thinking about this for a moment, he opened the document again.
“I would also like to forward the request of multiple crew members to allow the addition of a waved gravity generator to the habitation section of the station. I talked with several Fen during the last week, according to their knowledge it should be trivial to add an electrical powered generator without compromising the station.
As part of the ‘Environmental Systems’ it would most likely be completely free of strange side effects. One generator per section would also allow us to regulate the gravity in each module on its own, which is necessary for some of the production technology we want to install.”
He nodded to himself and pressed the ‘send mail’ button, then stood up and left his apartment to join his crew members in the canteen.
“Ah Eric, good to see you... we had been expecting you meeting us here a few hours ago... that much paperwork left?”
Eric nodded. “I always thought that being an astronaut would allow you to leave all this paperwork back on Earth, but the damned bureaucrats got an upgrade for their procedures.”
Everyone at the table chuckled.
“Before you ask me again, yes I asked them about the gravity generator idea. Most likely they will declare me insane and unfit for command, but maybe they will see the benefits of the idea. Transferring from this station to some hole in an ice moon with zero gravity doesn’t sound great.”
Sarah sighed. “Don’t forget to mention the nice cafeteria here, and the wonderful showers they have installed in our rooms. I asked one of the catgirls about the showers, did you knew that they don’t even used Handwavium for them, except for some filtration module in the bottom?”
“What are you up to?” Eric asked suspiciously.
“Oh, we have the job to build up the station, but we are also allowed to expand it later if necessary. The only restriction we got is that Handwavium is not allowed inside the station.”
“Yes, we all know that...” Eric started, but Sarah just interrupted him.
“What's about putting one additional box of steel into the ice, one that is NOT part of the station? If its not part of the station, we might get away with ignoring some of the rules.”
Eric shook his head. “Everything we build with the materials we have is part of the station. I am sorry, but this is not going to work.”
Sarah just grinned.
“Oh, I think I know a few engineers who might be willing to build us an additional parts for the moon. Without using up ESA or JAXA supplied materials, but with artificial gravity and hot showers!”
“They will just shoot us when we get back to Earth” Eric just murmured, trying to ignore the discussion Sarah just started at the table. “They give us some medals and then they will shoot us.”
Contacts with the Fen pet drones is still alternating between annoying, funny or useful. While they are hanging around the construction site to watch us, they are always eager to carry some tools for us. A few times they brought back things and even two of my crew, who lost ground contact and were flying away from Pan.
When the second part of our equipment arrives from Nova Paris, we will have already burrowed the first part of the station in the ice. I expect phase two of the project to be finish with little or no delay.”
Eric Hunt looked over his progress report for the bean counters at Earth for a last time. Even here, a billion kilometers away from Earth it was impossible to escape the paperwork completely.
He sometimes wondered how the Fen would have built this station. Most likely it would have been something very crazy. Or maybe a floating city like in Star Wars above the clouds of Saturn.
He sighed, whatever it would have been, it would have got artificial gravity. Thinking about this for a moment, he opened the document again.
“I would also like to forward the request of multiple crew members to allow the addition of a waved gravity generator to the habitation section of the station. I talked with several Fen during the last week, according to their knowledge it should be trivial to add an electrical powered generator without compromising the station.
As part of the ‘Environmental Systems’ it would most likely be completely free of strange side effects. One generator per section would also allow us to regulate the gravity in each module on its own, which is necessary for some of the production technology we want to install.”
He nodded to himself and pressed the ‘send mail’ button, then stood up and left his apartment to join his crew members in the canteen.
“Ah Eric, good to see you... we had been expecting you meeting us here a few hours ago... that much paperwork left?”
Eric nodded. “I always thought that being an astronaut would allow you to leave all this paperwork back on Earth, but the damned bureaucrats got an upgrade for their procedures.”
Everyone at the table chuckled.
“Before you ask me again, yes I asked them about the gravity generator idea. Most likely they will declare me insane and unfit for command, but maybe they will see the benefits of the idea. Transferring from this station to some hole in an ice moon with zero gravity doesn’t sound great.”
Sarah sighed. “Don’t forget to mention the nice cafeteria here, and the wonderful showers they have installed in our rooms. I asked one of the catgirls about the showers, did you knew that they don’t even used Handwavium for them, except for some filtration module in the bottom?”
“What are you up to?” Eric asked suspiciously.
“Oh, we have the job to build up the station, but we are also allowed to expand it later if necessary. The only restriction we got is that Handwavium is not allowed inside the station.”
“Yes, we all know that...” Eric started, but Sarah just interrupted him.
“What's about putting one additional box of steel into the ice, one that is NOT part of the station? If its not part of the station, we might get away with ignoring some of the rules.”
Eric shook his head. “Everything we build with the materials we have is part of the station. I am sorry, but this is not going to work.”
Sarah just grinned.
“Oh, I think I know a few engineers who might be willing to build us an additional parts for the moon. Without using up ESA or JAXA supplied materials, but with artificial gravity and hot showers!”
“They will just shoot us when we get back to Earth” Eric just murmured, trying to ignore the discussion Sarah just started at the table. “They give us some medals and then they will shoot us.”