| History of the TTA |
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| The twenty-first century wilI be remembered as one of the most significant periods of human history. Those qualities of direction, purpose and unity which are the essential ingredients for real progress had gradually been dissipated in a fragmented world. Humanity had become preoccupied with the minutiae of daily living and men of broader vision were finding themselves an unheeded minority. Man needed a quest to fire his imagination and extend his abilities. For a while he found one in his early attempts to explore the vastness of space, but the exhilaration was soon replaced by a growing resentment of the massive costs and minimal returns. Instead of being a springboard to escape a shrinking world, space became another weapon in mankind's civil war. Paradoxically, the strain of meeting the demands imposed by space programmes and the difficulties of sustaining enthusiasm led to a renewal of effort, for it was soon realised that real progress could only be made by a sharing of objectives and the means by which they could be achieved. By the end of the twentieth century the eastern and western blocs were co-operating in an expanding range of projects, thereby avoiding the wasteful process of duplication and parallel research that had been previously inevitable. In 1990 the World Community Research Council was formed to manage and co-ordinate these activities, and to allocate funds contributed by its member nations. With the admission of the Third World War Bloc sixteen years later the Council became the largest research establishment on the Earth, operating a number of major stations such as the North African Space Research Centre. Within a short time the investment made in space technology began to reap dividends. During the early years of the last century extensive facilities on our moon were established and industrial bases began to show a return. Most significant were the host of new materials and techniques which provided a basis for a rapid acceleration in the growth of industrial technology. For example, vacuum mills in free-fall were able to produce large quantities of valuable new alloys and uni- directional stress components, many of which were responsible for major advances in the development of new spacecraft. These, together with the earlier successes in the field of nuclear engineering, led in turn to the building of further facilities on Mars. Another important point had been reached because the creation of the bases required men to work on their construction and maintenance. In turn these men required support for the long periods of time they would be away from Earth, so their families accompanied them. It was then but a short step to the provision of regular access to and from the home planet, and though expensive, space travel had become an everyday reality. By today's standards, these early craft appear amusingly primitive and even dangerous, consisting of little more than a hollow tube with engines at the back and elementary controls at the front. It is almost inconceivable that people can have subjected themselves willingly to the discomfort and risks that space travel presented at that time. It is impossible to catalogue here all the thousands of individual developments and discoveries which led to our present skills in astro-engineering, but a few examples stand out as revolutionary. Although the principles of nuclear drive systems had been put into practice as far back as the late 1980s,the work done by the McKinley Corporation, who produce the Ion Ultradrive engine, transformed them into highly efficient and economical power sources, and many of today's ships are equipped with engines that are virtually identical to those introduced in 2013. More important still was the invention of the Warp Generator by Henry deVass fourteen years later. This device creates a distortion of distance and time in a way which 'folds up space'. Point A meets point B and an object at either point can transfer to the other. When the generator is shut down, space 'unfolds' and the object has arrived. Journeys that would otherwise take years can be made in a matter of weeks and although, in theory the transition can be made almost instantaneously there are a number of complications which prevented this. Time is required to build up sufficient power to satisfy the enormous energy requirements of the generators prior to a 'jump' and also to replenish reserves afterwards. In addiiion, ships have to move under conventional power to and from specified warp zones to avoid the possibility of either drawing other objects into the jump or of collision when emerging. Nevertheless the deVass Generator opened the road to the stars and led to our first contact with an alien intelligence. In 2036, a manned survey ship made contact with the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light years away, and this meeting led to a happy and rewarding association. In 2045 the Trade and Technology Exchange Agreement was signed with the Alpha Centaurians, and one of the most important benefits we gained was the acquisition of anti-gravity techniques. These were successfully brought together in 2045 by Dr Hans Berger in his Gravity-Resist Projector, and the form of spacecraft was transformed overnight. Now ships of very large proportions could safely be landed under most gravitational conditions the Colonial III being a good example of this application. The next major influence on spacecraft design was due to more unfortunate circumstances. In 2047 one of our survey ships was approaching Proxima Centauri,an inhabited system with which Alpha had a long history of conflict and antagonism, when it was attacked and destroyed. Soon afterwards Alpha was subjected to the worst thermonuclear attack it had ever experienced, this being followed by the destruction of one of our spaceliners with a full complement of passengers. The Proxima War had begun. It was to last for twenty years, during which time a wide range of military ships was produced by all three Star Systems. The state of war always accelerates technological, development and the hideous cost in lives and resources was at least to some small degree offset by the considerable advances made in the field of space travel. Navigational systems, hull design and materials, power units and communications all reached new levels of sophistication as a result of the long period of heavy investment and intensive research. Ships designed during this era feature strongly in this book. Until the war, space travel was still a fairly limited activity and this was reflected in the comparatively small number of different lypes of spacecraft. The space war bred dozens of new craft, many of which were adapted for peaceful roles afterwards clue to the exigencies of the reconstruction. As a result there is now a wide variety of ships to be seen in the spacelanes and although mainly commercial or military in function, by the end of the century the first purpose-built personal transport vessels were making their appearance. In contrast to these diminutive new members of the spacecraft family are the gigantic settler ships already taking Man further still, to new worlds uncountable miles away. The accomplishments of the twenty-first century are only the beginning of man's adventure in space, but for many people, this era with its setbacks, successes and optimistic gambles will always be the golden age of spaceflight. |
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