AFP-1 experimental interstellar propulsion ship

Background

In 2028, the Galileo experimental propulsion project ended catastrophically, with 109 deaths and the complete loss of the test vehicle. It was built with lofty goals—exploration and exploitation of the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud and a voyage to the Proxima Centauri system—and a large amount of capital was expended to build a vehicle with all the perceived equipment and redundancies necessary for such a voyage, despite the reliance on what was still experimental propulsion technology. Additionally, a great deal of public relations “credit” was lavished for all stages of the project, including design, construction, and crew selection. The entire investment by the International Space Agency (ISA) was simply gone when the helium fuel erroneously leaked into the chamber with the energized laser-fusion exciters during a systems test.

However, lost in the stream of the news and investigations of the explosion was the validation of the nuclear thermal propulsion design, which had been anticipated to achieve 0.37c, a high-water mark for subluminal drives of the time (though that descriptor was only utilized by the very few subspace physicists, since faster-than light travel was still considered impossible). The drive itself had not even been completely installed (as it was awaiting the fusion reactor’s arrival), so the general public was working from the mis-assumption that the propulsion technology itself was dangerous and flawed. In reality, the ISA had not abandoned interest in this particular concept for advanced thrust.

Fission drives based on the Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems-derived ion technology were continuing to progress in maximum thrust capacity, though an upper velocity limit was anticipated. However, the same advancements in both engine design and miniaturization were applied to the Earth-bound static model of the Galileo’s NTR drive and hybridized with niche research of microwave resonance drive theory, otherwise known as an EmDrive. When the ISA was prepared to take another chance on the experimental tech, they unveiled the Advanced Fusion Project-1 (AFP-1), with its hybrid NTR/EmDrive thruster.

“Unveiling” is a rather hyperbolic description of the vessel’s launch, as the ISA did a figurative 180 with this follow-on project; no publicity preceded the event and it was announced with a simple press release. Built at an understated L-1 construction station, the intent was to stepdown expectations for the project and just “do the science”. The vessel was just over half the length and mass of the Galileo and crewed by only 14. It was never going to visit another star system and it was not built with that capability. Instead, life support was focused almost exclusively on operational support, not habitability; even the medical bay onboard amounted only to the space of a typical closet. A majority of the non-propulsion equipment was geared towards sensing, recording, and reporting all possible data in the thrust cavity, the fuel tankage, and the external hull. This was a prototype and all members of the project treated it as such; the intent was to test, correct, and refine a potential motive benchmark in Human space travel.

The hybrid drive was self-contained in what a first impression might suggest was a nozzle extension for an enormous thrust engine, but instead was a housing for the hybrid drive, with a flattened aft surface broken only by the thruster’s diminutive exhaust port. The energy provided by the fusion reactor (located just forward of the cavity) would be rhythmically-pumped into the chamber, bounced against the semi-absorptive material on the flat aft bulkhead, and then perfectly-reflected back onto a specially-modified ion engine’s vibration receiver by the angled panels of the forward and side portions of the cavity. The theory held that the resonance that developed within the void-space imbued multiplying and stabilizing effects upon the thrust generated by the ion engine alone, with a theoretical top velocity of 0.47c for the AFP-1 vehicle as a result. This was extremely more efficient and capable than the best performing ion-only thruster, presently operating at 0.23c on some other test vehicles.

History would, as Mark Twain quipped, end up rhyming for the AFP-1 project. The vessel exploded without warning on February 8, 2035. There were no indications of what went wrong; no tests were scheduled and the full crew was involved in operational training, without any energized engineering equipment, while on shore power. The helium tank was only partially filled (reports indicate a volume of some amount between 2 and 6 percent of capacity) and did feed the secondary explosions, but there was no evidence it was the origin of the event. Despite the ISA’s intensive investigation, the review board could provide no concrete reasoning for the vehicle’s sudden loss. There was considerable speculation from the possible (such as a faulty fusion injector that randomly fired, for cause unknown) to the absurd (claims that future-infamous Colonel William Green blew it up, despite his being a relatively obscure first lieutenant in the U.S. Army at the time). Due to both the uncertain results of the incident review and the paucity of historical records in World War Three, the actual cause of loss will likely remain forever unknown.

Blueprints/Orthos

Last Updated on 2403.15 by admin