Hello readers,
If you’re worried about missing out on part 5 of Spacefall, you may relax, I am working on it, and will probably put it up tomorrow. I’m just taking a bit of a break today because the last two parts were 2,000 words each and part 5 is looking like it will be in the 3,000 word range.
Space fall is based on an idea I had one day while reading up about exo planets that astronomers have found in recent years. I was particularly surprised to learn that water is a relatively abundant substance in the universe that is typically present during the formation of a new star system, but unless a planet has a strong electromagnetic field, like the Earth does, the water eventually gets blown off the surface of the planet and into space. Water is so abundant that some exo planets have oceans on them possibly hundreds of kilometres deep. Yet many planets are like Mars or the moon lack a strong electromagnetic field to prevent the water that used to be there from being stripped away by the sun’s radiation.
It seemed to me that these planets with super oceans were a bit of a waste because the high gravitational pull of these worlds made it extremely dangerous to land on. Once you land on a big planet it’s very hard to get off again. Imagine if we lived on the moon. The gravity there is only a sixth of what Earth’s it. Escape velocity is much lower and so leaving the moon would be relatively easy, you would only need a small rocket like the ones used in the moon landings. However, for moon explorers to land on the Earth it would have to be a one way trip. Because they would have to land a space craft the size of a Saturn V rocket safely on the Earth for them to be able to get back home to the moon again. Keep in mind a Saturn V rocket is over 110 metres tall and weights almost 3 million kilograms. Try reversing that down your drive way from orbit!
So I started thinking of ways that the water from these super ocean worlds might be drained off and moved to a planet that lacked water. I considered schemes involving elevators, pipes, or other conventional thinks… then I thought about weeping religious artefacts like crosses. How capillary action through walls can allow link two spaces that don’t appear to be connected. What if one could use the space warping technology of Star Trek to create a fold in the fabric of space and allow water to just freely pour from one planet onto another? Now, there are zillions of issues with doing this that when properly accounted for it makes the giant pipe from one planet to another look the more realistic approach. Fortunately, I’m a writer and not subject to just limitations.
However, while I was happily irrigating this desert planet in my imagination I started to worry. What would happen if this fold in space was permanent? Was it possible to completely flood a planet? How long would this flooding take? What things could the population do to adapt to such a slow moving catastrophe? And that’s where the idea for Spacefall came from.
That’s all for now, maybe next time I take a break I will explain the title! 😛
Stay tuned and thank you for all the likes!
Sophisticated Nonsense 