The Probability of Despondancy
“One of the hardest things to get used to up here was the exercising. I am not talking about the simple 20 minutes of cardio a day or something as simple as that. Rather, I have to exercise for four hours, everyday. I use the term days loosely; days are marked only by the computer and not by any cycling of light. The windows to the sun are deeply tinted to avoid the nasty rays while those away from the sun are un-tinted (I am told that if an accident occurred these windows would automatically tint in less than 30 seconds). It wasn’t the loss of day cycles, the inability to communicate, the lack of desire to use power all the time, or the final understanding that I have no family; those all were tough to get used to, but I still have to force myself to exercise. While at the training facility, I went through a rigorous exercise program. I was never that athletic and always regretted my participation in games during recess, so they started me off slowly…in their minds, that is. For me, I fell into bed every night wondering if lactic acid was supposed to be produced in the quantities I was experiencing.
“A year in I was pleased with the results. Never before had I known I possessed stomach muscles or triceps, but it was clear I did at that point. One evening I was reading (every evening I had assigned reading to do regarding the “mission”) about my daily schedule in space. Now that I am up here I know this schedule is the dumbest, most un-informed piece of information they gave me. Of course they wouldn’t know what sun catcher crews do all day and so they made up an ideal. If all the other crews are like me, they abandoned the schedule when they abandoned electronics. That being the case, nobody up here would’ve ever thought to contact anyone back on earth about what the schedule was really like. Even with the information I doubt that anyone part of mission command would have changed the “schedule” anyways; they wouldn’t want to scare the prospects even further with the information that their lives would change into something more resembling a Nat’s average schedule than an Art’s. The only thing that remained on my actual schedule was the exercise.
“Sun catcher crews spend most of their time weightless since it is just too problematic to generate any type of artificial gravity on a permanent basis without disturbing the energy collection units. In order to stay up here for thirty years (according to the information fed to me during training) I needed to experience gravity and weight for some portion of the day to maintain some sort of bone density. The tales and warnings about what I would become and look like without the exercise were not pretty, besides the fact that I wouldn’t be able to maintain the sun catcher if I didn’t maintain my muscle. So I still exercise everyday in my centrifuge.
“It isn’t really a centrifuge in terms of all kinds of tubes, but since it spins like one, that is what I
call it. Inside this large salad spinner I climb and retrieve the masses from the center that I’ll be using that day and arrange them carefully on the outside walls. After I activate the spin, on “slow”, I start with some warm up exercises—push-ups, arm curls with low weight, sit-ups, squat-thrusts—which lasts one hour. Next I turn the spin on medium and repeat the exercises, again for one hour. The next hour I do some harder exercises—push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups with additional mass, bench press, squats—still on the medium setting. For half of the last hour I run,
carrying extra mass with the setting on high spin. The final half hour is the most killer. I repeat some of the hard exercises with the spin still on high. All this is in a fairly sizeable circle, but it still has a noticeable curve. Further, slow isn’t that slow, it gives the equivalent of the force of gravity on earth and so medium and high have higher forces than normal earth living. The exercise makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel in a cage, an image that requires almost no imagination.”
What Kopper didn’t know was that even with all this exercise she would still have lost much. It was actually an unknown probability as to her return at all. Many of the crew did not make it home, but many made it past 24 years, which was the real break even point. Since the communication with the sun catcher crew was so limited they didn’t know exactly when sun catchers met tragic ends or how the ends were met. Studies had shown that by the 20th year in space the crew would be susceptible to breaking a bone even while doing relatively minor tasks. If people did break bones, they never did report it back. Who would care? If conceivably someone did the sun catcher crews knew that nothing could be done anyways. The bots could do most of the maintenance, but needed some outside direction. Psychiatric simulations and tests on earth showed that roughly 80% of the people who were sun catcher crew members would become despondent and feel worthless by the 26th year. By the 28th year many would doubt the ability to function if they did return to earth. Some sun catchers had been known to function for over 50 years, it was unknown if the crew survived that long. The better part of 90% never returned to earth and since there was no black box known to man that would survive crashing into the sun (as most sun catchers were believed to do) this loss was simply factored in and nobody made guesses as to how the losses occurred.
These statistics were never presented to Kopper. Instead she was trained to come home, for hope is a brighter star than the sun in giving energy for people to complete tasks. It was immediately after passing the initial tests, the day after she was informed that her training would continue, that they trained her how to come home. She sat in a small room, which she would sit it frequently from here on out, and watched a film on how the module would return home. Although there were many valuable materials in the energy collection modules, most were quite worn out after 30 years and so that part of the ship was released, carefully. The modules would continue to operate independently as long as possible as a sort of bonus energy collection. But Kopper was to collect everything she cared about into the living quarters; the control unit was left with the energy collection modules, but she would take her exercise module and all the engines with her. Before the computer disengaged she would have to communicate a message to earth to let them know she was coming and enter her “go home” code into the computer when it prompted her. This would trigger a gentle, slow acceleration away from the sun that would get her back to the moon. Her ship would land on the moon, where a retreival crew and ship would be waiting to bring her home. This was all shown with great fanfare and happiness. What was left untold was that the “go home” code was so that if the person was no longer coherent or able enough to enter the code the whole module (the most important part being the engines) could remain and collect energy.
Kopper wasn’t stupid though. As she watched the film, she could see the fake smiles. Granted, all her training films had a fake smile pasted on them, but this script belied the improbability of her return by its forcefulness of happiness. About half way through she let the film fall out of focus, but continued to appear to pay attention. Instead of hearing the fake joy of return and the procedure, she let her thoughts fall to her parents. She had loved them; it came to her suddenly. Her smile became more forced as she saw the one-way mirror out of the corner of her eye and she blinked back the tears fiercely. She had been proud that her parents were doing something important and noticeable. It had never occurred to her to be jealous of their success when her own in school was so unpromising. The fact that she couldn’t contribute to their research made her sad and embarrassed to taint their stellar reputation by her ineptness. However, her parents didn’t seem to be bothered by her lack of abilities in the least. Instead they conversed with her about books she was reading or took her places in which she showed interest. They even patiently explained her homework to her. An image of her father came into her mind saying, “I was almost out of college before I started understanding anything my teachers were saying.” She hadn’t believed him at the time, thinking he was just trying to make her feel better. Her mom had laughed from the living room, “It was a good thing that you covered that up well or I wouldn’t have dated you as a Sophomore.” That seemed to seal her thoughts that her dad was just making it up. Now, with them both gone and almost all her belongings packed away for “when she got back from being away” she was left with only her memories. Returning home didn’t sound like a very joyful occasion to her since her parents wouldn’t be here and the film became even less interesting. Her stomach turned, but her heart told her she would be okay and that her parents may be gone, but she had received more from them than she realized. Perhaps she would be as useful to society as they had been by doing this journey to space.
With this renewed courage and determination she made it through the training. On lift-off she said, “This is for you guys.” quietly while the crew aboard the tug ship made sure she was safely conveyed into space with the ‘Squilla. Once everyone had left, she unpacked two pictures and a cloth with a prayer written on it and found a place for them in the ship. Nobody had ever offered her real comfort over her parents death, but in this weightless place she began to feel that someone was listening.
“A year in I was pleased with the results. Never before had I known I possessed stomach muscles or triceps, but it was clear I did at that point. One evening I was reading (every evening I had assigned reading to do regarding the “mission”) about my daily schedule in space. Now that I am up here I know this schedule is the dumbest, most un-informed piece of information they gave me. Of course they wouldn’t know what sun catcher crews do all day and so they made up an ideal. If all the other crews are like me, they abandoned the schedule when they abandoned electronics. That being the case, nobody up here would’ve ever thought to contact anyone back on earth about what the schedule was really like. Even with the information I doubt that anyone part of mission command would have changed the “schedule” anyways; they wouldn’t want to scare the prospects even further with the information that their lives would change into something more resembling a Nat’s average schedule than an Art’s. The only thing that remained on my actual schedule was the exercise.
“Sun catcher crews spend most of their time weightless since it is just too problematic to generate any type of artificial gravity on a permanent basis without disturbing the energy collection units. In order to stay up here for thirty years (according to the information fed to me during training) I needed to experience gravity and weight for some portion of the day to maintain some sort of bone density. The tales and warnings about what I would become and look like without the exercise were not pretty, besides the fact that I wouldn’t be able to maintain the sun catcher if I didn’t maintain my muscle. So I still exercise everyday in my centrifuge.
“It isn’t really a centrifuge in terms of all kinds of tubes, but since it spins like one, that is what I
call it. Inside this large salad spinner I climb and retrieve the masses from the center that I’ll be using that day and arrange them carefully on the outside walls. After I activate the spin, on “slow”, I start with some warm up exercises—push-ups, arm curls with low weight, sit-ups, squat-thrusts—which lasts one hour. Next I turn the spin on medium and repeat the exercises, again for one hour. The next hour I do some harder exercises—push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups with additional mass, bench press, squats—still on the medium setting. For half of the last hour I run,
carrying extra mass with the setting on high spin. The final half hour is the most killer. I repeat some of the hard exercises with the spin still on high. All this is in a fairly sizeable circle, but it still has a noticeable curve. Further, slow isn’t that slow, it gives the equivalent of the force of gravity on earth and so medium and high have higher forces than normal earth living. The exercise makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel in a cage, an image that requires almost no imagination.”
What Kopper didn’t know was that even with all this exercise she would still have lost much. It was actually an unknown probability as to her return at all. Many of the crew did not make it home, but many made it past 24 years, which was the real break even point. Since the communication with the sun catcher crew was so limited they didn’t know exactly when sun catchers met tragic ends or how the ends were met. Studies had shown that by the 20th year in space the crew would be susceptible to breaking a bone even while doing relatively minor tasks. If people did break bones, they never did report it back. Who would care? If conceivably someone did the sun catcher crews knew that nothing could be done anyways. The bots could do most of the maintenance, but needed some outside direction. Psychiatric simulations and tests on earth showed that roughly 80% of the people who were sun catcher crew members would become despondent and feel worthless by the 26th year. By the 28th year many would doubt the ability to function if they did return to earth. Some sun catchers had been known to function for over 50 years, it was unknown if the crew survived that long. The better part of 90% never returned to earth and since there was no black box known to man that would survive crashing into the sun (as most sun catchers were believed to do) this loss was simply factored in and nobody made guesses as to how the losses occurred.
These statistics were never presented to Kopper. Instead she was trained to come home, for hope is a brighter star than the sun in giving energy for people to complete tasks. It was immediately after passing the initial tests, the day after she was informed that her training would continue, that they trained her how to come home. She sat in a small room, which she would sit it frequently from here on out, and watched a film on how the module would return home. Although there were many valuable materials in the energy collection modules, most were quite worn out after 30 years and so that part of the ship was released, carefully. The modules would continue to operate independently as long as possible as a sort of bonus energy collection. But Kopper was to collect everything she cared about into the living quarters; the control unit was left with the energy collection modules, but she would take her exercise module and all the engines with her. Before the computer disengaged she would have to communicate a message to earth to let them know she was coming and enter her “go home” code into the computer when it prompted her. This would trigger a gentle, slow acceleration away from the sun that would get her back to the moon. Her ship would land on the moon, where a retreival crew and ship would be waiting to bring her home. This was all shown with great fanfare and happiness. What was left untold was that the “go home” code was so that if the person was no longer coherent or able enough to enter the code the whole module (the most important part being the engines) could remain and collect energy.
Kopper wasn’t stupid though. As she watched the film, she could see the fake smiles. Granted, all her training films had a fake smile pasted on them, but this script belied the improbability of her return by its forcefulness of happiness. About half way through she let the film fall out of focus, but continued to appear to pay attention. Instead of hearing the fake joy of return and the procedure, she let her thoughts fall to her parents. She had loved them; it came to her suddenly. Her smile became more forced as she saw the one-way mirror out of the corner of her eye and she blinked back the tears fiercely. She had been proud that her parents were doing something important and noticeable. It had never occurred to her to be jealous of their success when her own in school was so unpromising. The fact that she couldn’t contribute to their research made her sad and embarrassed to taint their stellar reputation by her ineptness. However, her parents didn’t seem to be bothered by her lack of abilities in the least. Instead they conversed with her about books she was reading or took her places in which she showed interest. They even patiently explained her homework to her. An image of her father came into her mind saying, “I was almost out of college before I started understanding anything my teachers were saying.” She hadn’t believed him at the time, thinking he was just trying to make her feel better. Her mom had laughed from the living room, “It was a good thing that you covered that up well or I wouldn’t have dated you as a Sophomore.” That seemed to seal her thoughts that her dad was just making it up. Now, with them both gone and almost all her belongings packed away for “when she got back from being away” she was left with only her memories. Returning home didn’t sound like a very joyful occasion to her since her parents wouldn’t be here and the film became even less interesting. Her stomach turned, but her heart told her she would be okay and that her parents may be gone, but she had received more from them than she realized. Perhaps she would be as useful to society as they had been by doing this journey to space.
With this renewed courage and determination she made it through the training. On lift-off she said, “This is for you guys.” quietly while the crew aboard the tug ship made sure she was safely conveyed into space with the ‘Squilla. Once everyone had left, she unpacked two pictures and a cloth with a prayer written on it and found a place for them in the ship. Nobody had ever offered her real comfort over her parents death, but in this weightless place she began to feel that someone was listening.
posted by Unknown at 4:05 PM
