The Ark IV

About a week ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Instead, I am presenting some capsule summaries of the motivation behind a subset of those ideas. Today I wanted to talk about the Ark program and the Ark IV in particular.

In case you forgot, the Arks were built of several sections. The lead section was the command compartment and the service module which also contained the SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) booster for returning to space. The next section was the crew compartment that looked like this:


The next section was the cargo compartment which was just a little larger than the crew compartment. On all the other Arks, the last section was the propulsion module. The Ark IV was different. It had an extra propulsion module used to get the Ark up to speed then it dropped off and then Ark IV looked like all the other Arks. The reason for the extra booster was because Nu2 Lupi, the target for Ark IV, was an incredible 48 light years away. The only reason they sent an Ark such a long distance is because the Sagan mission told them there were not one but two habitable planets, doubling the chances of a successful launch.

The Arks were designed to travel at 5% of the speed of light meaning the Ark IV should have taken about 960 years to get there under optimal conditions. It was so far away that the designers felt their Grey drive wouldn't have enough juice to get them the whold way hence the extra propulsion module. In reality, it took them closer to 1300 years, that's 13 centuries, to get there. In fact, when Aason Bierak came across the settlers on Hades, they hadn't even been there for a hundred years.

Amazingly enough, the landing procedures for the Ark IV worked perfectly even after such a long trip. The command crew separated the cargo compartment and flew the crew compartment down to the surface and landed. They then ignited the SSTO booster and flew back up into space and docked with the cargo compartment. They jettisoned the propulsion module and landed the cargo compartment fairly close to the crew compartment.

The reanimated colonists went about their business setting up their new home, the Darwin people started their secret agenda and all was well until the K'val arrived. This was not anything the planners of the Ark program could have planned for.