Starburst

2

Message received from Lt Col Sheffield N Jackman, USAF, commanding U.S. Starship Constitution. Day 40.

ALL'S WELL, FRIENDS, THANKS TO ALL THE GOOD BUDDIES AT Mission Control for the batch of personal messages. We enjoyed the concert you beamed us, in fact we recorded most of it so we can play it over again a little farther along, in case communication gets hairy.

We are now approaching the six-week point in our expedi­tion to Alpha Centauri, and have opened up the drive to .75 G acceleration—close enough to our Earthside weight that we move about quite easily and comfortably. As nearly as Letski could figure, we exceeded the distance from Earth of any other manned vehicle eight days ago. We were all excited about that. But now we're really beginning to feel we're on our way! Our latest navigation check confirms Mission Control's plot, and we estimate we should be crossing the orbit of Pluto, or where the orbit of Pluto would be if it were as tipped to the ecliptic as we are, at approximately 1631 hours, ship time, of Day 40. Which is today! Letski has been keeping track of the time dilation effect, which is beginning to be significant now that we are traveling about some 6 percent of the speed of light. He says this would make it approximately a quarter of two in the morning, your time, Mission Control.

Now, that's a significant thing, and we have voted to consider it the "coastal waters" mark. From then on we will have left the solar system behind, and thus we will be the first human beings to enter upon the deeps of interstellar space.

So we plan to have a ceremony. Letski and Ann Becklund have made up an American flag and we will jettison it at that point through the Number Three survey port, along with the prepared stainless-steel plaque containing the President's commissioning speech. We are also each throwing in some private articles. I am contributing my Air Academy class ring.

There is little change since previous reports. We are settling down nicely to our routine. The Constitution's outer skin temperature is now in close radiation equilibrium with the inputs from starlight and what's left of the heat from the Sun. It's certainly a lot better than when we were rounding the Sun for gravitational acceleration, and all getting pretty nervous as the heat began to seep through! I don't know if you could tell from our reports, but it was scary. Still, it was all within operational tolerances. We picked up the predicted delta-Vs, and the fusion drive never faltered.

Since then it's been pretty slow. We finished up all our postlaunch checks weeks ago, and as Dr. Knefhausen predicted, we began to find time hanging heavy on our hands. I remember him coming down to Huntsville and saying, "Between Sol and Alpha there is nothing to do, nothing!

So time will hang heavily!" Well, in between the centrifuge and the do-it-yourself medical courses we just couldn't imagine that at the time, but he was right. The spaceship really runs itself.

So we tried going along with Kneffie's proposed recreational schedule, using the worksheets prepared by the NASA Division of Flight Training and Personnel Management. At first—I think the boys back in Houston are big enough to know this!—it met with what you might call a cool reception. The first syllabus section called for studying things like number theory and the calculus of statement. Well, imagine that for openers! I'm afraid we just couldn't hack it, and we weren't desperate enough to give it the real effort it needed. So I have to say we just fooled around. Ann and Will Becklund played a lot of chess, sometimes with one of the rest of us but mostly together. Dot Letski began— wait for it!—writing a verse adaptation of War and Peace. The rest of us hacked around with equipment checks, and making astronomical observations, and just gabbing, and, you know, Kneffie was right. It began to get tiresome, just as he had briefed us.

So we got together one night over dinner, and we talked it over. Jim Barstow practically repeated Kneffie's speech word for word. He said mathematical questions had occupied some of the finest minds of the human race for thousands of years, and they could occupy ours fully and satisfyingly if we gave them a chance— besides which, considered purely as recreation, that had the advantage of no mass to transport, no competitive elements to get tempers disturbed, and so on. It all began to make sense. Plus we were frankly getting a little bit bored.

So we gave it a try. Now Letski is in his tenth day of trying to find a formula for primes, and my own dear Flo is trying to prove Goldbach's Conjecture by means of the theory of congruences. This is the girl who two months ago couldn't add up a laundry list! I have to admit that it certainly passes the time.

Also things are looking up in other respects. The first crop of new carrots and spring peas is coming in from the hydroponics system, so we're eating a little better. You can get pretty tired of dehydrated rations! We take turns cooking, and Flo is teaching me how to make everything come out at the same time—first time I cooked we ate in installments. Medically we are all fit. Psychologically, within predicted limits. But you know all that from the cardiovascular-respiratory monitors and so on; there was a little tension for a while, I admit, as the Sun "got smaller and smaller and the time ahead began looking longer. But I think we're over the worst of it.

And we're grateful for the chance you've given us! Particularly to our godfather, the good Doctor von Knefhausen.

That's about all for now; I'll append the detailed data on our blood pressures, pulses, and so on, as well as the tape from the power plant and navigation systems readouts. I'll report again as scheduled. Take care of the Earth for us— we're looking forward to seeing it again, in twenty years or so!