William Forstchen: Article 23

Justin Bell was heading back to the stars.

He settled back in his chair and felt a chill of excitement race down his back as the airlock door to the Skyhook turbolift slammed shut. He looked over at Matt Everett, his best friend from the Academy, and smiled.

"Well, buddy, good-bye Earth, but back home for you," Justin said with a smile.

"I finally got a chance to see a sunset and go canoeing. There's a lot about Earth I'll miss," Matt replied wistfully.

"But gravity sure ain't one of them," Justin laughed.

Matt gulped and shook his head ruefully. The ultimate moment of embarrassment for the solar sailor had been when he jumped up a bit too quickly at the dinner table, forgetting that he would not simply float away. Instead, he crashed down on the table in the Chinese restaurant, ruining his dress white uniform.

"How you Earthsiders live with gravity all the time is beyond me," Matt said. "It'll be good to be able to float again."

"We'll be back at the Academy soon enough," Justin replied.

It was hard to believe he was actually heading back to the Academy. Only two weeks ago he had thought for sure that he'd wash out at the end of the summer session. Thanks to the help of a lot of friends he managed (somewhat to his own surprise) to squeak through the Astro — Navigation course and was now returning for his first full year as a cadet at Star Voyager Academy.

"Please fasten seatbelts for liftoff," a computerized voice announced.

Justin settled down into his seat by the window and strapped himself in.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Skyhook Tower One, first tower to the stars. This is passenger car number 338, departing at 1303 Greenwich Space Time, arriving at Geosynch Orbit Base at 1919 Greenwich Space Time. Even if you have traveled with us before, please pay close attention to the safety briefing."

Justin watched the computer screen mounted into the back of the seat in front of him as the crew pointed out where space suits were stored in case air pressure inside the cabin was lost. Justin shook his head at that one. If they had a catastrophic depressurization there would be just enough time to look at the instructions for getting the shit out of its bag before it was all over.

"If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask your computer, the serving 'bots, or your flight attendant. We are second in line for boost so please remain in your seats until the seatbelt light is turned off."

A shudder ran through the cabin and Justin looked out the window to watch the show.

He half-wished that he lived back in the old days before 2050 when there was only one way to get into space aboard a shuttle plane. He remembered his grandfather's stories about riding an old United States second generation shuttle, soaring to the heavens atop a pillar of fire. But those days were just about finished because of the Skyhook Tower, which was far safer and a hundred times cheaper for boosting a passenger into space.

The tower was opening up space. Well over a hundred thousand passengers per day were going up or coming back down on the thirty-seven thousand kilometer-high tower, along with several hundred thousand tons of manufactured goods and supplies.

Outside his window he saw the vast domed pavilion of the Rio Skyhook Terminal, packed with thousands of passengers rushing to catch their rides into space or waiting for those coming back. It was obvious who the space travelers returning to Earth were. Many of them had been too long away from the home world's standard gravity and moved slowly, or rode on small float chairs until they got used to gravity again.

"Departure in ten seconds," the computer notified them.

The Skyhook car shuddered again as it rolled along its track and then locked itself on to the side of the tower. Justin pressed his face against the window and looked out across the terminal. Dozens of cars, which were nothing more than long thin tubes eighty feet long and twenty feet wide, were loading up with passengers. On one side of the cars were the heavy magnetic locks that hooked to the tracks located on the side of the tower. The rest of the car was ringed with small porthole windows so that the hundred and twenty passengers on board could watch the show. Once loaded, the car, standing upright, slid out of its terminal gate onto a conveyor track that guided it to one of the vertical magnetic tracks strapped to the side of the tower.

The cars would then ride up the side of the tower into space. Directly in front of the car the track would carry a negative charge while directly behind the car the track was positively charged, the combination propelling the positively charged car in the desired direction. It was the same system used in the magnetic levitation trains that now hooked the world together, with the Express running from New York to Los Angeles in five hours.

The lights in the cabin flickered slightly and the car started up. Justin felt the seat pushing into his back as the terminal floor appeared to drop away. A couple of seconds later they were through the top of the building. It was a scorching hot morning in Brazil, heat shimmers rising off the parking lot and the magnetic levitation train station outside the terminal. To the south of the passenger terminal Justin could see the vast warehouses where cargo bound for space and manufactured goods returning down the tower were stored. Rio had replaced Gape Kennedy and Star City in Russia as the major port into space, though Brazil would soon have competition when the second tower was finished in Indonesia just outside of Jakarta.

He felt as if he were sinking into the seat as the car sped up to over eight hundred kilometers per hour, the fastest it would go while inside the Earth's atmosphere. Within seconds they were nearly six kilometers above the ground.

Justin turned to the computer screen mounted on the seat in front of him and switched it to show the forward view.

Overhead the Skyhook Tower rose like a white finger pointing straight up into space. Of course it was impossible to see the far end of it, which terminated at just over thirty-seven thousand kilometers above the surface of the Earth. It was, he realized once more, the engineering miracle of the 21st century. It had been constructed from the top down. In the same way that the cables of a suspension bridge are woven together, back and forth across a river, the cables that made up the heart of the tower were lowered thirty-seven thousand kilometers down from space and anchored to the ground. It in fact had to be made in space, since the cables were uniquely engineered metal-carbon fibers, with strength ten thousand times that of steel at only a fraction of the weight. They could only be made in the zero gravity and vacuum of space. What was fascinating as well was that the tower was actually held erect by centrifugal force. The rotation of the Earth and the angular momentum thus created held the tower aloft.

The tower was really an elevator to the stars, with nine tracks mounted on the side of the tower. Two were for passengers, one up and one down, with cars departing every minute, and six for cargo, while the final track was for the maintenance crews.

Justin found it to be fascinating that there was a staircase inside the tower that went all the way from the ground up to the first station, which was located five hundred kilometers up. A bizarre new sport had developed with athletes wearing specially designed lightweight pressure suits racing up the steps; the world record for the climb was now just under twenty-two days. A rung ladder inside the tower went up for the next thirty-six thousand and seven hundred kilometers. A few crazies had asked to go for it, though it would take years to finish the climb. The UN and Colonies Space Commission had come down with a definite "No!" on that idea.