"Well, I pulled our original calculations for the Epsilon Eridani HZ - that's habitable zone, the range of orbits around the star in which the temperature and radiation would be appropriate for an earthlike environment. Well, the endpoints of this line on the left and right are right at half an AU, which is just about the bare minimum distance, but it is still inside our estimate." Flynn said. "Our calculations show that the line is about a thousand miles wide. And the verticals we also have an idea on. If we are correct about everything else, they are moving such that their rotational period is around 4 days. That means the centrifugal acceleration on that line would be vaguely in the ballpark of earth normal gravity. Those verticals are struts of some sort. The line is a ring world, Janus, a goddamn ring world!"
The concept was as old as science fiction. Build a ring around a star out of materials with ungodly strength and spin it up to a rotational velocity such as to mimic gravity. The surface area would be a thousand times bigger than a planet, but not use nearly as many materials. It was laughably beyond human technology, beyond the capacities of any materials yet dreamed of by engineers. And yet we can see somebody doing it right now.
"How advanced must they be?" Janus asked.
"The strength of the materials alone is unimaginable." Flynn said. "It would need to be a million times stronger than steel, maybe ten million. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating since I haven't bothered to pull the numbers myself. Do you have any idea how big this is?"
"This is proof." Janus said. "The microwave signals, the patterned radio chatter. That's nothing. That is all explainable. This though, this is proof." It was the only word he could think of and it still seemed inadequate to describe the sheer awe. "Are we absolutely sure that this isn't just canals on Mars all over again?"
Flynn did not answer for a few moments. Every scientist knew that story. The warning story of not announcing discoveries before they had been double and triple checked independently. Schiaparelli had announced in 1877 that he had discovered canals on Mars through his telescope. Some could reproduce the pictures, some could not. Debate raged for decades and was settled only when better and better telescopes proved that there were only mirages on Mars, not canals. "We keep it quiet still, I should think. Try not to let it leak out until we watch a little longer, get a few more data points in."
"I think that would be wise." Janus said. He paused and then smiled. "I'll start the calculations though for the vessel to launch for Epsilon Eridani instead of Alpha Centauri." He said. "Why wait for better telescopes when we can just go there?"
Flynn laughed. "I don't care if you get a ship there first Janus, I saw them first. They're going to be called Flynnites and that's final." He hung up and Janus forced himself to go back to work although the daze of possibility clouded all his faculties. As if in a dream, he went back to work, organizing construction schedules and double-checking calculations for the dry run of the scaled down prototype coming up any day now. Tomorrow, I think. Janus told himself. We'll do the dry run tomorrow and then we'll know it works in reality.
The concept was as old as science fiction. Build a ring around a star out of materials with ungodly strength and spin it up to a rotational velocity such as to mimic gravity. The surface area would be a thousand times bigger than a planet, but not use nearly as many materials. It was laughably beyond human technology, beyond the capacities of any materials yet dreamed of by engineers. And yet we can see somebody doing it right now.
"How advanced must they be?" Janus asked.
"The strength of the materials alone is unimaginable." Flynn said. "It would need to be a million times stronger than steel, maybe ten million. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating since I haven't bothered to pull the numbers myself. Do you have any idea how big this is?"
"This is proof." Janus said. "The microwave signals, the patterned radio chatter. That's nothing. That is all explainable. This though, this is proof." It was the only word he could think of and it still seemed inadequate to describe the sheer awe. "Are we absolutely sure that this isn't just canals on Mars all over again?"
Flynn did not answer for a few moments. Every scientist knew that story. The warning story of not announcing discoveries before they had been double and triple checked independently. Schiaparelli had announced in 1877 that he had discovered canals on Mars through his telescope. Some could reproduce the pictures, some could not. Debate raged for decades and was settled only when better and better telescopes proved that there were only mirages on Mars, not canals. "We keep it quiet still, I should think. Try not to let it leak out until we watch a little longer, get a few more data points in."
"I think that would be wise." Janus said. He paused and then smiled. "I'll start the calculations though for the vessel to launch for Epsilon Eridani instead of Alpha Centauri." He said. "Why wait for better telescopes when we can just go there?"
Flynn laughed. "I don't care if you get a ship there first Janus, I saw them first. They're going to be called Flynnites and that's final." He hung up and Janus forced himself to go back to work although the daze of possibility clouded all his faculties. As if in a dream, he went back to work, organizing construction schedules and double-checking calculations for the dry run of the scaled down prototype coming up any day now. Tomorrow, I think. Janus told himself. We'll do the dry run tomorrow and then we'll know it works in reality.
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