From the Desk of Director Sarah Martinez, Entry 18
December 1, 2101
I’m lucky Friez has given me a bye on doing these posts. At least he finally gets what’s going on here, namely that if I don’t get the Ladder back up and running or come up with another solution, all the work we’ve put in over the past 25 years will be for nothing. The population just hasn’t come down enough to make sure the climate trends keep moving downward. I mean, we’ve shipped upwards of a billion people off Earth, but during that same time another 300 million people were born, which is 100 million more than those that died in the same time.
It’s exhausting.
However, that message I got from R&D is about to change everything. They’ve figured out what the hull of the Hope is made of and can replicate it! It’s some sort of ceramic-crystal-silicon mixture that doesn’t stick to anything, but when you mix it into a paste with some weird gunk they came up with, then spray it onto any surface, that surface has zero friction. At least, after it dries and is buffed down again to remove the paste elements.
But zero friction. Feels a lot like a toy I had as a kid, honestly. I think it was called Magnetic Sand or something like that. I dropped some on the wood floors of our house once and that spot turned into a trip hazard. Got my ass beat for that one…
Anyway. It means we can just… accelerate out of the atmosphere without any worries. The first test run with a new ship is tomorrow. The team decided to go with an oval spheroid, reminiscent of those tic-tac videos of UFOs from way back when. Anders, the team lead, is a big conspiracy theory nut, which I think is fucking fantastic because he now works for me.
Regardless, if this ship works—and it shouldn’t by standard physics rules—then everything is about to change. Any device that can benefit from zero friction, will. God, even personal vehicles; think of the miles-per-charge increase when wind resistance means nothing? Or the hydrogen efficiency of intercontinental travel?
Once we confirm it’s safe to install and to have around, I’m going to force the Board to release the tech brief to all nations and peoples in the galaxy. New Eden, China, the Brazilian Union—all of them are getting it. The benefits are just too great for humanity to keep something like this locked up.
I just hope it’s for the better.
Humans have a bad fucking habit of turning everything into a weapon.
Wish me luck on the test launch. I think we’re going to need it.
Until next time,
Sayre
