Sam said, “You know my good friend Kory just made varsity, and I heard that there were even some top university recruits watching. I hope when I get to high school, I’ll play that well.”
Tom stared at Sam momentarily, masking the welled-up feeling of regret and sorrow that threatened to silence him, before he said, “Sam, you’re going to play with the best.”
He unlocked the car door, and they headed toward Interstate 70. All the while, Tom was glad that he had reached an agreement with his colleagues that there would be no more delays, no matter what lay ahead.
And so, it began.
Part I
Preparing
2017–2024
Chapter 1 – Far from Routine
Dr. Tom Burns, Boeing Offices, Aurora, Colorado
Tom and his colleagues had decided to hire the best teams to build intergalactic spaceships to find a new planet to live on that was comparable to Earth. It was either that or face the possibility of seeing the end of life. Since it could take years, if not hundreds of years, to reach a destination or planet that was safe for human life, it was necessary to keep humans alive, active and to be able to live as healthy a life as possible.
Tom, who had worked at Boeing for sixteen years, knew there was no way a spaceship would ever be approved by the government. Also, he could not ask a company such as Boeing to build a spaceship that would be necessary to their specifications. It took years for any new program to be developed at a major corporation that was mainly concerned about its stock price and shareholders. There was just too much red tape that Tom wanted to avoid at all costs.
When Tom decided to implement the spaceship project, he knew he had to resign his position with Boeing. By the age of forty-two, Tom had worked on various innovative projects that attempted to help sustain the future of the planet. Under Tom, Boeing had reduced greenhouse emissions and noise created by airplanes. His latest work had been on a hybrid airplane like what was currently available in cars. This would decrease the need for gasoline and carbon emissions. He was sad that he was leaving all these research projects and certainly some of his fellow scientists, but the work had been drawn out too long and time was of the essence.
Tom lived in Colorado with his family near Denver in Aurora. Soon after his meeting with his colleagues on the phone, he decided to meet with his boss, Dr. Frank Sullivan, who supervised his job as an engineer, to let him know he was leaving and explain his reason for resigning.
Frank welcomed Tom to his office. Tom came in, and they shook hands.
Frank said, “What can I do for you, Tom?”
“Well, Frankie, I need to talk to you about something.”
Frankie, as everyone called him, had worked for Boeing for thirty-five years and generally was seen as a terrific boss and person. He had been through all the successes and failures, including a speedy rising stock price as well as a hustle to catch up with Airbus and build successors to their fifty-year old designs.
“Ok. What’s up?”
“Frankie, good to see you. I came here because I wanted to tell you face to face that I will be resigning my position with Boeing and moving on to another job.”
Frankie looked aghast. He said, “Are you going to General Dynamics, Lockheed or any of our competitors? Is it because of your salary or stock options?”
Tom almost wanted to laugh, but since this was a serious discussion, he did not.
“No, I am not going to any of those companies. I will do my best to explain it to you. You are probably going to think I am crazy when I finish. First, I want to say that I have enjoyed the time I have spent working at Boeing. However, as an environmental scientist, I am very concerned that human life on Earth will come to an end soon. I believe in the next two hundred years, with one natural disaster after another occurring, the world will end. People are going to die horrible deaths. Now I know that the government environmental reports and scientific journals have reported that they too believe we are going to have major problems with the environment, but they predict we will survive for quite a long time, although it will become more difficult with all the man-made pollution. I just think these scientists and government workers are not willing to provide the dire warning necessary because it would set off a huge panic in the population. After all, where would everyone go if you knew the world was about to end?”
“You know Boeing’s been in the news for wanting to beat Elon Musk to Mars over the years!” It was almost offhanded. Frankie gave his winning smile. “In addition, Boeing has been working on electric planes using a fuel cell. We were able to successfully fly one in 2008.”
“Jousting news, you know that! I’ve seen the mockups. Look, they’re mock-ups. Design stage stuff! Far from routine. First person to set their foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing-built rocket? Yeah, I saw that. Anyway, if the Earth is uninhabitable, there will be no place on Earth that is safe from the destruction that is sure to come. Electric planes should have been developed a long time ago. I want my family, especially my children and grandchildren to be able to live in a world where they do not have to worry. Why would you even have a baby if you knew the baby would die before they lived to be thirty years old? I have decided with the help of a special group of people from around the world to build a huge spaceship capable of reaching other galaxies in an attempt to find a planet to live on.”
Tom waited for a reaction, which he knew was sure to happen.
“You are kidding me, right? Tell me this is a joke.”
Tom said with a straight face, “No, Frankie, it is no joke.”
Frankie stood up, rubbed his hands over his hair and looked down. Then he said, “Look, actually I agree somewhat with what you are saying. Earth is going to have big problems, and people are going to pay the price for a lot of stupid politicians around the world. But this idea of yours to build a spaceship to reach some far away destination is just pure fantasy. Maybe in a hundred years we will be able to do it, but right now, we do not have a clue. Why don’t you stay here and help Boeing keep designing and researching this?”
Frankie looked pained. Tom couldn’t help briefly sharing in his boss’s concerns or even appreciating Frankie’s gesture. In fact, he was proud of his work at Boeing. He’d spent years attempting to improve technologies, finding new ways to build sensors and develop applicable environmental assessments, but it seemed like they were drowning in data. Feeble improvements and politics were going to let politicians sit idly by despite it all and give his kids more explanations of how things really worked. What kind of message was being sent to his kids who hadn’t had the benefit of years of discovery and evidence yet? He didn’t only feel desperate, he felt like he would be shirking the contribution to the world that kept nagging at him, his calling.
“Also, even if you travel at Mach 4, which is the fastest rocket speed we currently have, it will take you an eternity to go anywhere near where you want to be. You will all be dead before you even become close to getting there. Plus, you have no funding. This is going to cost billions—if not trillions—of dollars. No company in the world would undertake such a project right now. They would be bankrupt before it was finished, and there would be no profit at all. What if it exploded right after take-off? Who will be your partners in this endeavor? No one has developed anything close to what you are planning to do, so it is going to take a lot of manpower and brainpower to accomplish this. There are just too many unknowns right now to succeed.”