Rocheworld

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Rocheworld (1990), also known as The Flight of the Dragonfly (1984) is a science fiction novel by Robert Forward in which he uses a light-sail propulsion system to set the crew on an interstellar mission. The spaceship and crew of 20 have to travel 5.9 light-years (ca. 34 trillion miles; ca. 56 trillion km) to the double planet that orbits Barnard's Star, which they call Rocheworld.

1 Forward's Light-Sail Propulsion System
2 Flouwen
3 Rocheworld Shape
4 See also

[edit] Forward's Light-Sail Propulsion System

The light-sail system consists of three functional parts: a powerful laser, a large focusing lens, and a giant space-sail. The idea behind the solar sail is that the laser provides a small force on the sail when the sail reflects the light. This small force provides the acceleration of the spaceship. With the ship's primary source of energy coming from the outside, it would not be limited to traveling distances that it had enough fuel for.

The light used in the system was an array of a thousand laser generators, which were focused through lenses and aimed at the sail. The lasers provided up to 1500 terawatts of power. Two different lenses were used to magnify the laser beams. The acceleration lens was 100 km in diameter and was able to accelerate the ship at 0.01g; the deceleration lens was 300 km in diameter and was able to decelerate the ship at 0.1g. Although these accelerations are relatively small, over time they result in enormous speeds.

To catch the energy, Forward used a 1000-km-diameter, circular aluminum sail. The sail resembled a flattened doughnut with the doughnut hole visible but still intact. That is, the 300-km center sail could be separated from the outer as needed. When traveling to Rocheworld, the entire sail was used. When the ship needed to decelerate, the smaller sail was separated from the larger outer sail. The large sail focused the light onto the smaller sail, which “applied the brakes”, so to speak.

Using the Light-Sail Propulsion system, the spaceship Prometheus continued to accelerate for 20 years, traveling 2 light years' distance toward Barnard's Star before going into coast mode and traveling an additional 20 years' time at a constant speed of .2 c, covering the remaining 4 light years (ca. 23 trillion miles; 38 trillion km). The crew used a drug called "No-Die" which slowed their aging process, and arrived only a decade physically older than when they left.

[edit] Flouwen

Flouwen (the Middle English word for 'flow') are the alien creatures in the book. They are the sole inhabitants of the planet Eau, which makes up the watery half of Rocheworld; Roche is the dry, rocky half (The two are so close that they share a common atmosphere, and all the moisture has settled on the smaller Eau side). Flouwen are blob-like, happy-go-lucky aliens that spend their days surfing waves and working on difficult mathematical problems.

Flouwen appear to be giant, colored jellyfish in the ammonia oceans of Eau. Like Earthly jellyfish, they are amorphous, colored blobs of jelly. Texture and form, however, are where the similarities end. Flouwen are highly intelligent, sexless, and do not appear to physically age. They are able to communicate and see in the water by means of sonar. They are also able to see outside the water by morphing their jelly bodies into crude lenses, which they use to methodically track the stars. Flouwen are also capable of morphing themselves into a hard, rock-like substance when they feel the need think about a difficult problem for an extended period. They do this by excreting much of their body water, thereby bringing their silica-gel-based cells closer together, which allows quicker processing of information.

Flouwen can grow quite large over time. This excess bulk can be shed during a peculiar breeding ritual where large flouwen gather in a circle and spin off pieces of themselves to create a new flouwen. Because they are created out of indistinguishable pieces of their parents, they are born fairly intelligent. One of the aliens, Warm@Amber@Resonance, is said to be over five hundred Eau seasons in age. Warm@Amber@Resonance refers to other flouwen that are much older than it, such as Sour#Sapphire#Coo.

Flouwen possess mathematical abilities far exceeding our own. Despite their intellect, they lack any desire to make real use of it, other than to work on math problems or to study the stars; they just don't see the point in studying anything else. They do not have any concept of technology. They refer to the spaceship Dragonfly as a 'giant talking rock' or "Floating:Rock".

Flouwen do not appear to have a strong social structure. They tend to, for the most part, treat one another equally. However, knowledge in mathematics appears to cause an exception to this tendency. Indirectly, age tends to be a factor in this as well. Mathematics is one of the few subjects in which flouwen show interest and concern. While younger flouwen seem to have lots of free time to spend doing whatever their hearts desire, their elders spend long periods of time in rock form, contemplating and solving mathematical problems. As a result, the older flouwen often hold higher social status as a result of their perceived higher knowledge in mathematics.

Although flouwen do not seem to physically age, it's possible that they reveal their ages are reflected in the amount of time they spend contemplating in rock form. Perhaps the actual population of the flouwen is much larger than it appears, because there are many off working on problems. Some may never find solutions to their problems, so they will never return (thus completing their life cycle). (The flouwens' time to solve a problem is limited due to the fact that they will slowly weather away as time passes.)

[edit] Rocheworld Shape

Rocheworld itself is a double planet in which the two elements are close enough that they share an atmosphere. Each element is also deformed into an egg shape by the gravity of the other.