The on-board digital computer, as Russian flight computers loved to be called, was a wonderful brainchild of the third leap in the development of electronic computer technology. Just the staff. One of the many personalities on board.
To fly a giant space flight to Pluto from a portable laptop. There's something original about it. Fantastic.
The world has changed. Nowadays, not the ship's on-board computers, as they were just thirty years ago, were the leaders of the digital race. Now they were catching up - in everything but reliability, in which they remained the recognized leaders.
However, there was such a super-reliable car on board, too. And not alone. Flying to Pluto was too far away and too complicated a mission to get by with one electronic brain.
And the computers were just as ready to fly as the astronauts. Even more.
If something had happened to the crew, the BCVM complex would have completed the mission. Arrive at Pluto. Get close to Haron. Transmit the code signal. Examine the results. Transmit to Earth.
Although, of course, the astronauts could significantly expand the success of the mission - or neutralize its possible failures. But - just in case - they were ready to not come back. Like that trio - Dobrovolsky, Volkov, Patsayev - that rushed to Mars on their duck shell thirty years ago.
In the meantime, almost all the astronauts were asleep. Even with all the tricks of earth engineers, the ship Discovery One had to fly to its goal for almost eight years. No one would have survived eight years in a bank. Especially - four at once. Therefore, they were asleep. In turn. For three months - no longer given the restrictions of "winter hibernation", less - the calculated reserves and capacity of greenhouses. Now it was David's turn to stay awake.
The year 2010
"Frank, David, Sergei, Walter. You are the first people in Jupiter, the first people in the far solar system and the first people in Pluto. It's not that it's news to you, but I do want to give you a fraction of the feeling we have on Earth right now.
Your expedition has overshadowed the selfless feat of the crew of the First Interplanetary Planet, and even the series "On the Galaxy with Discovery One" has more success than the Soviet epic.
Still, it doesn't mean much against the background of what awaits you.
You may be aware of what we've been looking for on the moon since the 1950s since we went into space.
Traces of strangers outside our planet were found at every step, and this time and again convinced the politicians to invest in space. But until 2001, all the findings turned out to be a bump in the eyes of politicians, at least. The calcium city in the Alphonse crater turned out to be just dust - and what about the fact that a foreign artificial city on the Moon became dust only in the twentieth century? The crystal in the Copernicus Crater became the same dust literally before our very eyes. And only in the first two thousand in the Tycho crater did we find the Monolith. The Sphere.
When the sun rays have fallen on a surface of the Sphere, it has turned on. Its signals came to the brains of those next to her, and an extremely powerful release went towards Pluto.
In addition, there were references to Pluto among the visions of those near Sphere. Luckily, I wasn't the only astronomer who was there, and I was able to verify the information about the Pluto system.
The conclusion is clear - there's something even more active than the Sphere. Even more valuable.
Your expedition was thrown there just as the Soviet government once sent the Soyuz-11 crew on a flight - without looking back and with almost no chance. And in the same way - now everything depends exclusively on you. At a distance of 4 light hours, no remote control can cope.
Naturally, you knew all this yourself. It's just... I wanted to say it all again when you get to Pluto.
We don't know what it is, where it is, or how it is in the Pluto system. But, uh... The parameters of the signal that will require someone else's device are yours. Take advantage of them. Report the result. We dare not demand more from you.
Dr. Floyd.
David raised his eyes from the screen and looked out for the cutlery window. They don't know, it's true. But only for now.