Guide talk:TAU

Outline

Political situation & impetus for mission
Engineering description
Missions
- one mission is meant to record the fine-structure constant (the strength of the electromagnetic interaction between elementary charged particles) of the post-Kuiper heliosphere of Sol, to compare to later more-distant missions, as an aspect of early research into subspace physics.

Part 1:

first manned attempts to leave the system in the late '30s, led by USA
France, Texas, China & India were intentionally left out, vocal critics of the program
TAU = Thousand Astronomical Units, an "unrealistic intended range"
Kuiper belt: 30 - 50 AUs
Oort cloud: 2,000 - 100,000 AUs

Part 2:

ion engines built by AmJet (American Jet?)
ship's modules (and equipment) were built on-planet around the world with partner nations
component sabotage by Texas & Greenpeace submarines; theft of EM shield generators by Russia
assembled in orbit
relatively large, fusion-powered booster to achieve

"equipped with a block D gas-core fission reaction propulsion system"
"equipped with hibernation systems"
"extrasolar survey mission objectives included the survey of deep extra solar environment to distance of 100 AU, interaction of the solar magnetic field at heliopause, long-duration crew habitation..."
"NASA lost contact with the Charybdis following the apparent failure of the ship's telemetry system on February 7, 2038. The official NASA report read: "Vehicle systems at telemetry cutoff indicated thrust abnormality. Vehicle attained 12× solar escape velocity 2.56 hours earlier than planned. Assumed vehicle was lost with consumables run out, 20% possibility of crew survival with hibernation systems at low usage mode. Follow up mission Jacob resulted in negative track.""