CMDR PAUSANIAS - THE SHIP OF THE MIND EXPEDITION - DAY 57
05 Oct 2020Pausanias
Hi Cmdrs,Well the Carriers crew have left The Carl Sagan and gone on their little adventure for a few days. They decided to take the Python because Alanis Charles, my Head Mechanic, said she liked the gold stripes across the hull, she thought they looked nice.
I saw them off from the upper deck observation tower watching them take off from one of the pads on the flight deck and zoom off into the distance. I saw the vapour trails of the Python disappear into the black.
This leaves me alone on the Carrier for a few days to do as I please, virtually anyway.
There's nothing to do in the Cutter as it's all fuelled up, limpeted, and ready to go as soon as they return. This image shows the Cutter quietly sitting in her hangar.
Now the Drake Class Carrier is 3.2km long and just over 700m wide so I' not going to spend my time wandering around the Carrier although I have been and had a look at some of the essential systems and all is in order.
I thought tonight I'd try and explain why the Carrier is called The Carl Sagan.
When I was a boy of about 9 or 10 and still living on Earth my Dad bought home some DVD's, these were storage mediums from many centuries ago, and because he was an Engineer he had been able to construct a device to read these optical discs. One of the 'box sets', as they used to be called, was called COSMOS by Carl Sagan. I can remember watching these in my room on my view screen and being inspired by them to have a career in space travel.
COSMOS was originally made in 1978 and the DVD's my Dad got were still playable, although I have since copied them to a more up-to-date media so I can keep them stored safely for the future.
I remember the first disk 'Cosmic Shores' were Carl spoke of us evolving from the Earths oceans and us tentatively dipping our toes into the Cosmic ocean of space with mans early probes to other planets in our solar system and landing men on Earths moon.
He talked of a 'Ship of the Imagination' that could traverse the universe simply by imagining what it would or could be like, this ship took on the shape of a dandelion spore, it had no limits or boundaries as to where it might go. As a boy watching this my imagination was ignited.
Around 45 years later I have a starship capable of jumping 500 ltyrs at a time carrying a small crew and several of my large fleet of ships, I can go where I want I this Galaxy much as Carl Sagan imagined
He created a film that was released in 1997 called CONTACT which he never saw completed as he died in 1996. The film carries the dedication ‘FOR CARL’, I echo that sentiment when I named this vessel The Carl Sagan, ‘FOR CARL’, I will explore our Galaxy for you as you imagined.
Total Carrier jump distance since 10th August: 17,000 ltyrs - (Personal note: 34 jumps on 2 Oct)
Total Ship jump so far: 36,775
Total planets Level 3 scanned: 13,552
Total exploration data: 343,500,000 credits
Total systems with my name on: 2663
The Cutter is now 13,012 ltyrs away from Sol - slightly further away tonight!
TRA X-1, approximately 3,750 to go . . .
P