Date - August 25th, 2188 AD
A large room, filled with reporters snapping pictures and chatting amongst themselves settles as a man steps up to a podium at the front of the room and begins to speak.
“Ladies and Gentleman, the President of the New Earth Conglomerate,” the man steps aside as the president of the New Earth Conglomerate stands up at podium and begins to speak:
"Earth, our home, is no longer able to support us as a species. We have so recklessly and so selfishly filled our atmosphere with toxins, stripped our ground of its natural resources, polluted our water with chemicals, and scarred our landscapes with war. We are quickly running out of living space, food, water, and even breathable air. The time has come to cast down the shackles that bind us to this planet. The time has come to take the next step of human history, and that step is called Operation: New Haven!"
"What exactly is this Operation: New Haven?" a reporter shouts out.
“Operation: New Haven,” the President begins, “is our grasp at a new tomorrow, our second chance at prolonging the human race.”
“Mr. President,” a reporter begins, “what do you mean by ‘our second chance?’”
“It’s our chance to begin anew. We have learned from our mistakes and we, as a people, are ready to begin again, on a new planet,” the President says.
Camera flashes and questions from reporters overtake the room. The president raises his hand, the commotion quells, then points to one of the reporters in the front.
“Sir, where will humanity be getting this second chance?” the reporter questions.
“That’s a good question,” the President responds, “as you all know, in recent years we’ve been pushing more funding into our outer space exploration and planetary analysis programs. After billions of dollars and many years of hard work, we believe we’ve found the perfect planet to colonize.”
A large hologram of a planet appears next to the President’s podium. The planet is covered in very large bodies of water, what is not water is a lush green color. The North pole of planet is a tan yellowish color where the South pole is where. There appears to be seven moons orbiting the planet. The President begins to speak again,
“This, is Andromeda 7. Being four times larger than Earth with nearly the same gravitational field, Andromeda 7 is the perfect planet to colonize and begin Humanity’s next step into the future. To talk more about Andromeda 7, I introduce Chief of Extraterrestrial Exploration, Dr. William Howard.”
The President steps down from the podium as Dr. Howard takes his place.
“Hello, thank you all for joining us here today during this monumental part of human histo…” before the doctor can continue he is cut off by a reporter.
“Doctor, tell us more about the planet. What makes Andromeda 7 the best option for colonization?”
“Well,” the Doctor continues, “Andromeda 7 is made up of nearly 70% ocean and 25% lush, green, rainforests, with the remainder being the large deserts and tundras that are located at the North and South poles of the planet. Deep surface scans reveal the planet to be extremely rich in minerals and metals. There are six moons and one red dwarf star that orbit Andromeda, three of them are similar to our moon but boast a much higher metal concentration, two are covered in extremely dense rainforests, one consists of a massive ocean. Andromeda orbits a blue giant and takes approximately 3 Earth years to complete a full revolution. The planet’s day is about 32 hours long with daylight taking up about 20 of those hours, at certain times during its year the daylight can fluctuate to about 29 hours, depending on where its orbiting dwarf star is located. The average, year round, temperature is estimated to be about 30 degrees Celsius which, again, can fluctuate depending on where the orbiting sun is.”
“Doctor, you estimate the temperature to be 30 degrees Celseus, can’t you scan or land a probe that can determine the exact information?” a reporter questions.
“Well, getting exact and precise readings of the planet’s surface is quite impossible, at the moment. The orbiting star emits a unique radiation that interferes with precision temperature, atmosphere, and lifeform scans. It also blocks long range communications between the various probes we’ve attempted to land on the planet. In order to relay information from the planet’s surface to Earth, we would need to set up a short wave transmission system on the surface that would relay information to an orbiting station which would then transmit the data here to Earth. We’ve done hundreds of thousands of calculations and simulations to determine the temperature and atmosphere of the planet and we’re quite confident on our results.”
Another reporter shouts out, “Doctor, what are the native creatures of this planet like? If this planet is so perfect to sustain human life then surely that means there are already creatures living there.”
“Like I stated, due to the excess solar radiation created by the planets orbiting star, surface life form scans from the outer atmosphere are impossible. We have run probability calculations that state a 95% chance of life on the planet with a 15% chance of life boasting the sentience and intelligence of humans.” The doctor pauses to look down at his watch, he then looks up and begins speaking once more, “For the past 25 years, we’ve been monitoring and searching for habitable planets to colonize. In the most recent years, we’ve been observing and narrowing down our selection of possible planets between 3 until we finally concluded that Andromeda 7 was our best option for colonization. One more question?”
The room erupts as all the reporters try to get their questions in. The Doctor points to one reporter in the front of the room, the rest quiet themselves.”
“What’s the plan to get to Andromeda, Doctor?”
“We’re going to build, what we like to call, The Ark.” the hologram of the planet changes to a massive space ship, “The Ark will be the largest space faring vessel ever created by man. Its capable of housing and supporting a total crew of 100,000 people and has the capability to grow food for the entire crew as well as support the livestock and foliage that will be transported to Andromeda 7. The trip to Andromeda will take nearly 15 years, so the majority of the crew will need to go into cryogenic hibernation for most of the trip. This will be the largest undertaking humanity has ever grasped at. Thank you.”
The Doctor steps down from the podium as reporters start shouting and cameras start flashing.
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