The orbital platform was still not ready for this batch of voyagers, even though it had been under construction since the space elevator had been completed and cargo crawlers had started to carry building supplies to space. Although the skeleton of the entire structure was completed, the power plants were operational, and the production factories in full swing, there was no oxygen or living supplies on board. A series of tests to evaluate the platform’s spaceworthiness still needed to be completed. Mildred and her fellow voyagers would merely be stopping at the platform before turning around for the trip back home. Their entire round trip would only be about two hours.
The orbital platform was as much of a marvel in its size as it was in how it had been constructed. Engineers on the ground had designed the first several crawlers to simply travel up the tether, reach geosynchronous orbit, then simply unfold into a predetermined configuration. Similar crawlers were sent up, and each additional crawler unfolded a particular way and connected to the existing array that was being created. This entire process was controlled by operators from the ground.
Dozens of crawlers had traveled up the tether, some forming the long spokes of the wheel, others forming the habitat ring for future occupation by humans, and still others forming components that would be used to process materials gathered from Earth and space. As the orbital platform took shape, dozens of larger crawlers ascended the tether, but these did not stop at the orbital platform. These crawlers carried thousands of miles of tether, which was being attached at the end of the 22,300 mile long tether and extending it by tens of thousands of miles. In this manner, the cable was lengthened to nearly 100,000 miles.It was at this point that the cable was able to remain suspended in orbit without further need of rocket-assisted lifting assistance. Before, the 22,300 mile long cable required the use of the Delta V (CH) CBC element on an intermittent basis to keep it aloft. There was sufficient weight and drag to slowly cause the cable to fall and burn up in the atmosphere had it not been for this rocket. By extending the cable to this length, there was now enough angular momentum and a sufficient counterweight to prevent the cable from falling back to Earth. The added benefit was that the cable was now long enough to permit travel well beyond Earth orbit. With the addition of magnets and frictionless acceleration, cargo ships and exploration vessels could be accelerated to dozens of kilometers per second - more than enough to reach escape velocity.
As the prefabricated crawlers had completed their mission and had formed the skeleton of the orbital platform, additional crawlers started to arrive. This time, these crawlers carried smaller robots that would become various components of the platform. Some robots were used to form the solar array to absorb incoming sunlight and create electricity to power the tether. Other robots were combined to form various types of factories. At this initial stage, factories were dedicated for various purposes. All of the building blocks to create additional ships could be built by the orbital platform - steel, carbon nanofiber, composite shells, polymer arrays, and various alloys. Processing plants were created that could separate various elements out, purify them, process them, and then package them for use by the orbital platform or for travel back down the elevator for use on Earth.
These production and processing facilities were soon joined by dedicated research laboratories. Scientists and universities around the world had signed up for the space elevator project at its inception. The prospect to finally get their life’s work developed in space simply could not be passed up. Scientists who had built various observatories and research satellites suddenly had an avenue to conduct their research and skip the long wait for launch into space. They could send their payloads into space for a fraction of the cost and with nearly zero risk. Biological research exploring mammalian responses to various stimuli in space, physics research studying the development of ultrapure compounds, chemistry research studying the interaction of various chemicals, and hundreds more types of research experiments were now accompanying crawlers going to the orbital platform.
Once the skeleton had been created and reinforced, and a significant amount of power was available to the platform and the tether, a different type of crawler started to travel up the elevator. These crawlers carried components to form a number of docking ports that cargo ships and exploration vessels could use to launch from and return to the orbital platform. Additional crawlers carried robots that would build these ships - borrowing technology that had been used for over a decade in the automobile industry. As these various parts were being fitted to the platform, thousands of connections were being created between the various elements. An assembly belt of a sort was being built, along with a vast computer infrastructure.
Over a period of time, a structure resembling a wagon wheel was taking shape. A habitat ring, akin to the wheel itself at the end of the spokes, was being created to support thousands of people simultaneously. Just above the donut-shaped habitat ring was attached a large hemisphere, containing the entire industrial and research complex. At the top of the hemisphere was a large, round, flat plate that made up the launch platform. Large chutes connected this plate to the hemisphere below, which would be used to transport cargo and eventually, people to and from spaceships.
When Mildred arrived at the orbital platform, it had the resources to sustain a concerted research, exploration, and mining operation. The industrial infrastructure could process the resources from a mile-long asteroid in a matter of days. The research infrastructure was conducting productive research that could be translated into improvements in basic human life. All that remained was completing the habitat ring so that it would be suitable for human life.
As Mildred came closer and closer to the platform, their crawler slowly started to rotate, matching the rotation of the platform. While this first voyage was more of a pleasure trip than anything else, the chance to do a docking maneuver could not be passed up. The magnets that had once accelerated them into space had reversed in polarity and were now slowing them down. As their rotation increased and their rate of ascent decreased, a series of informational announcements were occurring throughout the crawler, informing its occupants of what disembarkation would entail had this not been a dry run.
The crawler silently slowed as it neared the platform. It gradually came to a halt as soon as it passed into the orbital platform. Stabilizer bars came towards the crawler, anchoring it in place. Had this been an actual disembarkation, the lid of the crawler would have been removed inside of an enclosed area of the orbital platform, thereby ensuring continuity of oxygen and pressure. A specialized, magnetized platform would have been used by people to leave the crawler and enter the platform. From there, specialized trains would have ferried them along the conduits to the habitat ring, and from there, moving walkways and escalators to their final destinations.
Today, as soon as the docking procedure was completed and a series of tests run, the crawler was prepared for its return journey to Earth. The magnets were reactivated and as silently as before, the massive crawler started its controlled free fall back to Earth.
Less than an hour later, Mildred and her companions had landed at the Nexus. The journey back to land had been as beautiful and revealing as the journey to space. Seeing home get larger and larger, the familiar waves of the ocean, the clouds in the sky, and the growing island of Principe suddenly flooded Mildred with emotion. “When the children of Earth finally leave, they will miss their motherland terribly. No other planet will ever substitute for what has transpired here. This is where we were born, where we were raised, and where we learned to take our first steps. No matter what adventures and beauty await us in the great ether, nothing can replace the sheer history that has taken place here,” thought Mildred to herself.
The crawler smoothly docked at the Nexus, and the lid was raised once again. As Mildred and her companions exited the crawler, they were greeted with energetic applause, whistles, and shouts from the audience. The mission had been a complete success. The next time people made the trip to the orbital platform, they would be scientists, engineers, and professionals ready to populate the platform and get down to business.
In the meantime, as soon as the ceremonies had ended and the modules of the passenger crawler cleared, large cargo modules were moved into position. This time, the modules contained water, liquid oxygen, and liquid forms of various other atmosphere gases needed for life. Food supplies, personal possessions, and other necessities of basic human life were also transported in these containers. All but one of the containers carried such equipment.
One container had a series of modules to deploy a weapons system for the platform. A series of high powered lasers, targeting and detection systems, large diameter guns, and a missile array would all be deployed over the next several weeks. Kent had now started to quietly militarize space.
These conditions are, however, best fulfilled when the station is laid out in the shape of a large wheel as previously indicated: the rim of the wheel is composed out of cells and has the form of a ring braced by wire spokes towards the axis. Its interior is separated into individual rooms by partitions; all rooms are accessible from a wide corridor going around the entire station. There are individual rooms, larger sleeping bays, work and study areas, mess hall, laboratory, workshop, dark room, etc., as well as the usual utility areas, such as a kitchen, bath room, laundry room and similar areas. All rooms are furnished with modern day comforts; even cold and warm water lines are available. In general, the rooms are similar to those of a modern ship. They can be furnished just like on Earth because an almost normal, terrestrial gravitational state exists in these rooms…
While the force of gravity is directed towards the center of mass, the centrifugal force, on the other hand, is directed away from the center. Therefore, “vertical” in the habitat wheel means the reverse of on Earth: the radial direction from the center (from the axis of rotation) directed outward. Accordingly, “down” now points towards the perimeter and at the same time to the “lowest” part, while “up” now points towards the axis and at the same time to the “highest” point of this manmade celestial body. Taking its smallness into account, the radial orientation of the vertical direction, which in most cases is irrelevant on the Earth due to its size, now clearly becomes evident in the space station. The consequence of this is that all “vertical” directions (such as those for human beings standing erect, the partitions of the rooms, etc.) are now convergent instead of parallel to one another, and everything “horizontal” (e.g., water surface of the bathtub) appears curved instead of flat.
- Herman Potočnik, The Problem of Space Travel - The Rocket Motor
