2001_ A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke [32]
Frank Poole admitted to the same feelings, and had sometimes jokingly regretted that the nearest psychiatrist was the better part of a hundred million miles away. But this sense of isolation and estrangement was easy enough to understand, and certainly indicated no abnormality. In the fifty years since men had ventured into space, there had never been a mission quite like this.
It had begun, five years ago, as Project Jupiter — the first manned round trip to the greatest of the planets. The ship was nearly ready for the two-year voyage when, somewhat abruptly, the mission profile had been changed.
Discovery would still go to Jupiter; but she would not stop there. She would not even slacken speed as she raced through the far-ranging Jovian satellite system. On the contrary — she would use the gravitational field of the giant world us a sling to cast her even farther from the Sun. Like a comet, she would streak on across the outer reaches of the solar system to her ultimate goal, the ringed glory of Saturn. And she would never return.
For Discovery, it would be a one-way trip — yet her crew had no intention of committing suicide. If all went well, they would be back on Earth within seven years — five of which would pass like a flash in the dreamless sleep of hibernation, while they awaited rescue by the still unbuilt Discovery II.
The word “rescue” was carefully avoided in all the Astronautics Agency’s statements and documents; it implied some failure of planning, and the approved jargon was “re-acquisition.” If anything went really wrong, there would certainly be no hope of rescue, almost a billion miles from Earth.
It was a calculated risk, like all voyages into the unknown. But half a century of research had proved that artificially induced human hibernation was perfectly safe, and it had opened up new possibilities in space travel. Not until this mission, however, had they been exploited to the utmost.
The three members of the survey team, who would not be needed until the ship entered her final orbit around Saturn, would sleep through the entire outward flight. Tons of food and other expendables would thus be saved; almost as important, the team would be fresh and alert, and not fatigued by the ten-month voyage, when they went into action.
Discovery would enter a parking orbit around Saturn, becoming a new moon of the giant planet. She would swing back and forth along a two-million-mile ellipse that took her close to Saturn, and then across the orbits of all its major moons. They would have a hundred days in which to map and study a world with eighty times the area of Earth, and surrounded by a retinue of at least fifteen known satellites - one of them as large as the planet Mercury.
There must be wonders enough here for centuries of study; the first expedition could only carry out a preliminary reconnaissance. All that it found would be radioed back to Earth; even if the explorers never returned, their discoveries would not be lost.
At the end of the hundred days, Discovery would close down. All the crew would go into hibernation; only the essential systems would continue to operate, watched over by the ship’s tireless electronic brain. She would continue to swing around Saturn, on an orbit now so well determined that men would know exactly where to look for her a thousand years hence. But in only five years, according to present plans, Discovery II would come. Even if six or seven or eight years elapsed, her sleeping passengers would never know the difference. For all of them, the clock would have stopped as it had stopped already for Whitehead, Kaminski, and Hunter.
Sometimes Bowman, as First Captain of Discovery, envied his three unconscious colleagues in the frozen peace of the Hibernaculum. They were free from all boredom and all responsibility; until they reached Saturn, the external world did not exist.
But that world was watching them, through their bio-sensor displays. Tucked