Station III - A History
Forward
"Welcome to the Neolyte Space Museum. We are proud to offer you this special presentation in honor of the grand opening for commerce of Neolyte Station III. As you are carried by the beltway, you will notice..."
Jeffie Kendricks' eyes were as big as the cookies in the little bag clutched in his left hand. He was being wisked along the beltway, the scenes from the history of Neolyte Station or Station III as his Uncle Bill had called it, were playing before his eyes. He watched as a series of 2D pictures were displayed on an antique 25 inch "color television" depicting the discovery of neolyte at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, as an offshoot of the final years of the "Cold War". He wondered what a cold war was...he'd have to ask his Uncle Bill next time they were on the vid.
Ahead he saw the first section of the history musuem dealing with neolyte and space, so he stepped off the beltway to stand in the small crowd gathered there. After politely trying to get a glimpse of this piece of the exhibition, his youth overtook his patience, and he crouched low, and crowded between legs until he was up front and more able to see and hear.
"...In the year 2010, the first of the new STSII hypervelocity spaceplanes was launched into its syncronous orbit. The mission, as defined by the World Space Consortium, was to explore the technology for use in the Station 1, a small but logical step towards the second permanent space station in Earth orbit. As part of the ceremony, the WSC President, Sinchoman Trin, formerly the representative from New Delhi, India, legally changed the name of planet Earth to Terra 1. The new moniker for planet Earth was a controversial name change, despite the fact that it was for purposes of space navigation only. The idea was to impress upon the people of the only habited planet in Sol 1's planetary system, that they were part of a much larger cosmos. And finally man was going to be reaching outward beyond that small little place in space.
It was the World Space Consortium or WSC, pronounced "wisk", that had finally made it possible for man to return to space after the horrible disaster abord the first "permanent" space station, Freedom. Terrans had learned that in order to live in space, you must travel and trade in space. This was not an economical necessity, it was a safety rule. If you didn't have an infrastructure that relied upon space travel in the vicinity of your space station, you risked a normal crisis developing into a disaster, and in very short time. That is what happened to Freedom. As redundant systems for air scrubbing began to fail, the inhabitants began to fall asleep. And sleep they did, forever. With no possibility for rescue for at least 2 days, the crew of the station simply expired in four hours without a cry or even a whisper. It was a humane death, but not at all popular with the people of the planet below, and space exploration had been set back 10 years.
But by 2010, the popular realization was that in order to prevent the total depletion of Earth's resources, Terrans needed to move out to the other planets. With incredible ideas for terraforming putting stars in the eyes of the voting populations, the WSC was given the task to define the safe and steady path to the nearer planets. With this heady mission in mind, WSC had began a seven step process for achieving the second permanent space station. Since the populace had rather forget the first station, everyone agreed it would be the honorable thing and in the spirit of the vicitms of Freedom, to call the first new station, Station 1.
Station 1's task was research. It would remain in space as long as that research task was necessary, being designed to be refueled, restocked, and maintained using a set of standard elements and equipment, manufacturable at just about any country on the planet. Station 1's primary goal was to design materials for Station III, the third phase of the Station project. Station III was to be the real truly permanent colony in space, not merely a space borne laboratory that only a select few would ever visit.
Station 2 was intended to be the medical facility to support studies of long term space habitation, as well as later serve as a nearby hospital to Station III as needed. Little did the designers of the program realize how small and understaffed this facility would become.
According to the plan, STSII, the second in the series of Space Transport Systems, was intended to ferry the elements of Station 1 and Station 2 into space. Simillar to the ill-fated Freedom, the two stations would be built of small sections of current space technology and begin operation almost immediately upon the section's final docking."
Jeffie was getting a little excited now. He knew all about Station 2, both from his Uncle and the brief history they had been lectured about in school. It was Station III he was most excited about.
"In the course of the first five years, crew members in training for Station III began to show up for 1 week indoctrination tours, using additional modules with independent life support and power setups. This ensured the delicate balance of resources required would not be upset by the visiting "students".
Along with the space required to house visiting students, Station 2 became the WSC's promotional center. A pair of modules were added late in the Station 2 program, to house visiting dignataries and other VIPs. The idea was to ensure everyone got a good feel for what WSC was doing ":up there".
Visitors such as these were always expected to comment on the fleet of shuttles lieing at "anchor" sharing the orbit in "tinker toy" docking skeletons. The reason for the ships just "lieing about"? Simply put, there were the ticket home if there were ever a real emergency. Fully automated, the ships were designed to be boarded by untrained personnel and with the closing of the airlock door, make a gentle push off and return to Terra 1. Even more impressive to the visitors, was the monthly evacuaction drill, which, on a rotating schedule, would be comprised of one of three evac methods:
A total of 200 people could be evacuated in under an hour by using the four escape chambers at the four ends of Station 2.
Station 2's goal was to ensure a ready cadre of space qualified individuals would be returning to Earth every day, to relate their adventure and spur the recruiting program for the out years of Station III. The need for this recruiting effort was understood when the initial Station III crew had been assigned. The announcement that the first crew had been chosen had been followed by a rapid decline in the recruiting figures, and even a worse decline in qualifyable space adventurers."
As the beltway moved Jeffie along to the next in the Station III sections, he began to understand why his Uncle was proud of what they were doing up on Station III. It had been a scary way to get into space...all those accidents and scared people running around trying to get home. He was somewhat mollified by what the space guys had done with Station 2...it sounded a bunch safer now. As he drew up to the Station III display, he stepped off the beltway again.
"In 2015, the first globular's were proposed as orphan elements to those already in production as Station III sections. The idea of a self contained, fully space worthy independent unit for independent research was proposed as a result of the successful student modules designed and refined during Station 2's hayday. The cost of a globular was off the scale however for most individual countries let alone a commercial enterprise, so small mini-consortiums sprang up with ideas and plans for their very own globulars.
Interestingly enough, the first globular to receive funding was from The Americas. Alarming to some was the fact that the globular was going to be a military high tech design lab, building the next generation nano-technology fiber optic strand production facility. This unique facility was to later be dubbed Globular 1, thus starting the convention that became permanent long before Station III was to go online.
Globular 1 soon changed from a single manufacturing facility into a four element manufacturing facility, with its size being multipled by about six times, and its power requirements exceeding the individual module requirement. However, the change in plans occurred early enough that the WSC, in an effort to encourage other quite profitable ventures, quadrupled their own station solar array capacity, as well as committed to standby emergency facilities to provide life support and life giving power and water to any globular which required emergency support. This is seen by most historians as a move to encourage commercialization of Station III early on.
The result was that by the time the next three globulars were committed to, the average size of a globular went from one 25th of the size of Station III, to only one fifth the size. Thus the small compact station design described in a lovely WSC drawing, had grown into a four headed rectangle that essentially surrounded and dwarfed the original station drawing.
In the year 2040, the great world court lawsuit began. It was sponsored, similar to a class action suit, by a number of countries, who as non-participating members of the Consortium, had determined they would be left out of the economic windfall expected from manufacturing on Station III. Since all the world's populace shared in the ownership of the planets resources, it was decided by the world court that the non-member nations had a right to not only partiicpate, but share in a small, but significant percentage of the gross profits from the station.
The very public trial lasted for three months, at which time the three world court justices decreed a directed verdict of guilty, and the WSC was forced to pay an ungodly fee as penalty, and was given two years to 'rationalize' the population of Station personnel to equally distribute the representation among all nations on Terra 1. The term 'rationalize' was used in order to remove any images of 'segratation' vs. 'integration' that still haunts many countries of the world.
A few positions on the station, however, were allowed to remain critical, those positions deemed part of the "protectorate", people destined to protect the investment into the Station. These included the Captain, Station Security Chief, and the local Station Physician. These positions were deemed important enough that they were not considered part of the 'rationalization' mix. Also exempt were many of the medical personnel aboard Station 2, which by this time had been renamed to "Eve", with Station 1 now closed down, nicknamed 'Adam'. Adam would remain deployable however, and used as a short term holding facility for any necessary overflow during an emergency evacuation.
However, due to the abundance of qualified medical personnel willing to go into space, today's Station III national balance is well served in the medical area, with little need to apply the 'rationalization' principal"
Jeffie wasn't sure he understood all this gobbly-gook. It was boring. He wanted to see more, and jumped back on the beltway to move down to the most recent additions to the exhibit, a 3D vid presentation made up of vids shot over the last week, which were, at the time, live from space. He had missed much at school, since despite the emphasis on broadcasts into the schoolroom, a lot of the vids went unseen by he and his friends.
Last Updated: Mar 3, 1996