Beaming Through the Cosmos

“3… 2… 1… transformation acti...va..va..ted.” The quantum super computer’s voice lagged as an intense green glow filled the entire room. The glow increased in intensity as it reflected from every shiny surface within the lab. The glow shimmered away gradually returning the workspace into a gloomy glum grey. At the controls for the computer sat a person in a yellow hazmat suit, the latex rubber of their outfit made a squelching noise as they adjusted themselves on their wheeled desk chair. They leaned forwards and spoke into a microphone: “Professor Velvet. Do you copy?”

In front of the hazmat suited scientist were layers of vibrant flashing buttons that controlled the computer, but in front of that, was a raised platform with two glass containers. Both of the glass containers were interconnected by entwining, twisting vines of wires and cables. In the biggest of the two containers the wires went inside, where they lead down into the cranium of an unconscious scientist. On her lab coat was a badge that read “Prof. Velvet”.

The scientist sitting at the computer controls jumped as her voice crackled through the comms link: “Copy that, loud & clear Mr Hazmatio...” Professor Velvet’s voice fuzzed through, uttering a nickname for the hazmat suited scientist. “Okay Velvet, you better buckle up” said the Hazmat suited scientist. “I’ll try my best...” she said. Professor Velvet’s body remained unconscious, unmoving and unspeaking despite her voice filtering through the radio.

The glass container neighbouring Dr Velvet’s was much, much smaller in comparison to the human sized one that held her, no bigger than a shot glass. The surface of the small glass lit up green whenever the sound of Professor Velvet’s voice came through the radio. The small glass disconnected from the wires that linked it to Dr Velvet’s head. A large vacuum tube descended from the ceiling and suctioned the small container away into a high speed pipeline transport system.

Professor Velvet was an astronaut who was about to begin a trip that would revolutionize space travel. She was going to travel further than any human ever has, or ever will. The record for human distance in space travel would remain unbroken, because Dr Velvet’s human body would be busy snoring away in a lab. But as for her awareness, well... Dr. Velvet’s conscious mind had been implanted into a tardigrade.

A tardigrade is the most evolved organism in existence. Able to withstand the coldest & hottest temperatures, highest pressures, nuclear explosions, and able to withstand the harshness of outer space. This tardigrade had a telepathic radio link which enabled the professor's voice to emanate from the computer.

Professor Velvet examined her surroundings through a new pair of eyes. She tried standing on two feet like a human but she instantly lost balance and rolled over. She landed laying on her back and tried to sit up, but her new belly was too fat. She looked at the sight of her new eight chubby little limbs that each ended with hands resembling starfish. She rolled over sideways onto her little hands and squelched her layers of armoured flesh towards the wall of the glass container. Velvet placed her widely splayed fingers against the surface of the glass, feeling the bobbles of it’s molecular structure vibrate as the glass zipped at high speed through vacuum pipeline. She was just getting used to her new ugly reflection when the glass came to an instant stop, the pause in momentum flung her up against the roof of the glass. She slowly descended back down where she bounced and rolled off particles of dust on her way down. The base layer of the glass retracted beneath her and she fell through, landing on a microchip. On this microchip other tardigrades were laying strapped in ready for take off. She found her spot and pressed a button that sent the micro-robotic straps around her. The tardigrade space shuttle balanced on the open barrel of a giant laser cannon that was going to blast them up into orbit. Each microchip was small enough to ride on a light photon and become the fastest thing to ever enter space.

The project organisation’s name was called M.E.A.S.U.R.E. which is an abbreviation for:

Mass Measurement

Estimation

Across

Sizeable

Utilized

Rectified

Eclipses

Prior to the mind awareness transfer, the organisation first specialized in light beam manipulation. M.E.A.S.U.R.E’s first achievement was creating a beam of light that was capable of calculating its own route, able to curve around obstacles and spiral with the orbit of anything in its path, be it planets, moons, suns & so on. The reason this type of laser was developed was so the laser beam could go on forever uninterrupted into the deepest realms of space with nothing breaking it’s path.

Previous versions had been used to measure the depth of the earth’s crust, the mariana trench and the circumference size of the sun. But now this beam was going to be used to measure the size of the universe itself. The furthest location from earth in the current observable universe is a galaxy known as GN-z11 which lies somewhere around 13.4 billion lightyears away. If the route was done at normal lightspeed, existence itself might no longer exist by the time it reached there, so M.E.A.S.U.R.E focused their next breakthrough on figuring out how to increase the speed of light.

To make light surpass its maximum velocity, it had to constantly accelerate without fail and continue to build up momentum. To do this they forced the curvature of their laser into a perfect circle, where light photons would constantly push the existing path of light ahead of it faster. Just imagine a dog chasing its tail, except never getting dizzy and speeding up for all eternity. The dog would end up levitating like a helicopter and probably form into the heart of a tornado, naughty dog. Here at M.E.A.S.U.R.E we don’t like destruction so lets get rid of that comparison.

Thankfully light has no mass, so we don’t need to worry about it affecting surrounding elements, that is unless something was small enough to latch onto a particle of light itself. Such as a tardigrade.

As M.E.A.S.U.R.E tested their new creation of circular continuous lasers they found a way to disperse that momentum into different directions. They would splinter the halo of light into thinner strands, then offshoot these new branches into whichever direction the computer pleased.

M.E.A.S.U.R.E called the laser cannon “Columbus” after the man who discovered the “new world”, also known as the continent of America. I guess you could say this machine was a modern day equivalent. Set on visiting never-seen before parts of our universe. This Columbus was going to shed light into places where stars & planets are still yet to form.

A branching tree of light that would labyrinth itself through the universe, each strand of light carrying microchips with tardigrades strapped on board. Black holes, icy planets, forming suns all of it could be explored with no need for food, human waste, no danger to human life as the astronaut's body would be back here on earth. All the humans who have dreamed of space travel could now do it in a newly evolved way.

Thanks to the microchip the “Columbus' machine could collect all sorts of readings as well as insight from the tardigrades that were hitching a ride. Dr Velvet twisted her chubby head round and saw rows upon rows next to her of the hundreds of previously human astronauts strapped onto rows of microchips at the shooting barrel tips of Columbus machines. The computer’s voice rang out echoing through the giant complex as the shutters of the metallic roof far above opened up the night sky and all the constellations ahead of them. The countdown to take off began. “3...2...1… Blast off.”

Hundreds of green lasers shot simultaneously up into the night sky and within the blink of an eye Dr Velvet and all of the other tiny astronauts had already departed from Earth’s atmosphere. A few hours later they passed Pluto.

It’s been 20 years since Dr Velvet’s body down on Earth has been placed in cryogenic suspension, awaiting to be defrosted when she wishes to retire. The green spiralling laser beams branching out into our universe are still going faster than ever and we just don’t know what they might come across... when beaming through the cosmos.