Chapter 18

New Earth Colony

In Earth’s Orbit: January 1, 2101

There was much to celebrate. Earth had weathered the worst disaster in recorded history. The surviving 665 million inhabitants had managed, in 32 short years, to erase most of the reminders of what the Earth had been like before nine tenths of the population was lost. Some cities, especially those on the coasts, and in seismic and volcanic zones, had been totally abandoned. They now stood like ancient archaeological ruins, inhabited only by creeping plant growth and wild animals. An occasional defector camped out in these places, but authorities generally were not very happy with any desecration of these shrines to another Earth, another time.

Coolie Lemur, President of the World Federation, announced that SpaceWorks, funded by World Fusion, International, was putting on a special “Show of the Century” for the residents of Earth, Moon, and near Earth orbit. Particle beams, aimed at Earth’s atmosphere from orbiters, followed the course of midnight across the planet. At midnight, from above and below, the ionosphere exploded in beam-induced aurora borealis of color and magnitude never before seen. The wildly colored pulsating displays were accompanied by classical music. SpaceWorks chaser ships followed midnight for twenty-four hours around the planet. A lucky few got to make the entire trip with the President. Those that wished could either watch as midnight passed their way or tune in, stimulant induced, to the whole twenty-four hour saga.

Dom and Seala watched and listened from afar. Earth was about the size of the Moon viewed from Earth. With their telescopic vision, they watched the displays play across the dark side for about three hours, sipping nectar, celebrating in their own special way. They, too, had a lot to celebrate.

They were most pleased with the progress of their project. For ten years, they had been building a spacecraft of massive proportions in orbit of the Sun, matching Earth's orbit exactly. For the twenty-seven years since they had returned from the Kuiper Belt, they were convinced that the material there could be used to enhance human habitation. Brave souls, using Albatross-like sailing craft, had been enlisted to sail out to the Belt, snare a passing asteroid or comet, and escort it back to the orbit of the Earth. Here at the project, a mere million miles from Earth, four deep space objects were being taken apart to build New Earth Colony.

Earth had become a national park. Instead of a few parks scattered among a few nations, the continents and oceans were now one massive park, with a few, widely scattered settlements where people lived. The wilderness areas were still readily accessible by land, water, or air, but they were not settled. Strict rules for population growth and strict boundaries for where people could settle, insured that population growth and urban sprawl would never again damage the Earth. The carefully planned and redeveloped human settlements, and the vast wilderness just beyond their boundaries, created an idyllic environment not seen since the 18^th Century explorers ventured to new lands.

Everyone wanted to clone a relative, or bring back a lost loved one from the Great Disaster. It was no longer possible to do such things on Earth. With the support and sanction of the World Federation, Dom and Seala headed a joint project to create the first sustainable colony in orbit around the Sun. If this colony succeeded, and there was every indication that it would, then population growth and the restoration of ancestors could proceed because the population of these colonies would not put any pressure on the Earth's fragile ecosystem. The Federation had determined that while there always remained a certain danger to any human population on the Earth, keeping a population there could also help preserve the rich life forms that had developed over millions of years.

The Great Disaster was a case in point. It wasn't the first to have struck the Earth. Geologists determined that at least six times the Earth had suffered an extinction or near extinction event. While the Great Disaster had obliterated 95% of the Earth's species, including Homo sapiens, the fact that humans survived enabled over 50 percent of the species lost to be reintroduced. The Biotech Center not only survived the volcanic winter, it was instrumental in reintroducing millions of species from its vast store of genetic material. Without human intervention, it may have taken nature a thousand years to recreate the variety of fauna and flora that humans were accustomed to. The great lesson was that it wasn't individuals who were important, but species. Evolution took too long to create species for them to be lost in a geological instant.

From their construction ship, Dom and Seala viewed the progress of the great colony. Piece by piece, a huge ring was being constructed. The ring would be exactly the circumference of the Earth when finished. It would rotate once every twenty-four hours, providing exactly 1G gravity. The floor of the ring was 500 miles across. Every thousand miles along the ring, a spoke rose to the center of the ring. Each spoke would contain elevators to the center and conduits to carry air, water, power and other essential utilities to maintain the colony.

Each of the twenty-five segments of the ring would be 500 miles wide by 1000 miles long. After initial preparation for drainage, air flow, and support, various Earth-like landscape schemes would be built on the floor of each segment. There would be deserts, lakes, forests, farms, and mountainous regions built from asteroid materials. The roof above would arch 100 miles high. Built into the roof would be day lighting, night lighting, weather, stars and a moon. At each spoke, an airlock would insure that if an accident should occur, only one 25th of the living space in the colony would be affected. Manual overrides and quick response rescue strategies, as well as "safe” locations within each segment were designed to save human and animal life in the event of an accident.

The spokes of the colony supported a huge parabolic mirror, concentrating the Sun's energy to a fusion reactor 3,500 miles from the center of the ring. The reactor provided power to operate the colony’s stabilizing thrusters and recycling ecosystems. At the weightless center, serving ships would dock with ease in huge bays. Here, and at three other locations on the outer ring, were complete control centers with duplicate isolated nuclear power reactors that could run the entire colony alone.

Each segment was designed to support twenty thousand people and their animals. Population had to be strictly controlled, so that ecological balance could be maintained. In most segments, the population was located in a small, walking-environment city, located adjacent to a spoke. Some segments had two cities, and five had the population dispersed in several small communities. Initial life had to be carried from Earth. After that, the animals, birds, and insects brought to each of these ecosystems were designed to stabilize themselves. Human intervention would only be used if necessary. Most waste would be recycled. Waste that was not recycled would be placed in a parking orbit nearby for future use, or given a slight nudge that would eventually cause it to fall into the Sun.

The people chosen to populate New Earth Colony were a varied lot. They included the construction crews, people afraid that the Earth would have another disaster, clones of ancestors, and others. To assist with their survival, every inhabitant was fitted with implants and made a part of The Collective. The twenty-five ecosystems allowed inhabitants to travel easily to other regions and to transfer if they liked to another environment other than the one they were in.

The Sagan Array had not grown. After the Great Disaster, the Setiites were decimated. Fewer than 10,000 remained alive. The train of Albatrosses bringing receivers to the Array had stopped. Hope was still alive among the devout, but no signal came. Gradually, the movement died out. By the turn of the 22^nd Century, the Sagan Array was an artifact. While computers still analyzed the data the Array collected, virtually no one was listening. Everyone's thoughts turned to another task. How to save the inhabitants of the Earth in the Solar System.

Five years later

Dom and Seala were pleased. Ferries were bringing plants, animals, birds, insects, and humans to populate New Earth Colony. Nearby, within two hundred miles, New Plymouth Colony was being built. It was an improvement over New Earth Colony, but the differences were slight. With each new colony built and inhabited, new lessons were learned and new ideas tried. It was an evolutionary process.

Moonscape, Marscape, the GanymedeSphere and EuropaSphere projects, and the new one on Titan remained harsh and unforgiving footholds on the Solar System. The colonies proved to be much more hospitable. With their close proximity to Earth, inhabitants were able to make frequent journeys back to their homeland. The Earth became a primary rest and recuperation site for the weary space worker. Safaris were conducted into the wilderness, but they left little or no imprint upon the land.

A remarkable thing had happened. Not only had Earth been restored, but it had also been dramatically changed. Prehistoric creatures now roamed among the 20^th Century animals, adding a whole new chapter to evolution. The Great Plains of United States had changed the most. Great herds of buffalo still roamed the region; but now, because of the pile of rocks strewn for thousands of miles across the prairie, wild sheep and goats frequented the extended mountain range that spread well beyond the Mississippi River. Mammoths and mastodons also roamed here, along with giant musk oxen and three-toed horses. The wolves and cougar were joined by the saber toothed tiger and other predators of prehistoric origin. Like the Serengeti and High Steppes, the Great Debris Field had become a favorite attraction for animal lovers among Earth visitors.

Yellowstone remained the premier tourist site. The mountains at its rim had pushed upward, making the North Rim 22, 393 feet above sea level. The Great Valley was no less spectacular. While the molten core had filled in the gapping wound of the explosion, vertical cliffs exceeding 30,000 feet rimmed it on every side. It contained deserts, lava flows, geysers, hot lakes, hot rivers, canyons, and waterfalls of unrivaled variety, size and beauty. Much of it was below sea level. Plants and trees quickly reestablished a foothold on the shaky, hot ground. Animals moved in wherever it was cool enough to live. Because the Valley was completely isolated, it was thought of as a place to reintroduce dinosaurs. An experiment was underway to reintroduce prehistoric plants eaten by herbivores. It was succeeding.

The Federation plan was to create a sustainable human population in space that was not dependent entirely on the Earth. The realization that we were alone and very fragile, at least in the near universe, had sunk home with the Great Disaster. We had to save ourselves. The colonies were the first step.

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