Hail Mary
The Hail Mary is the most ambitious and desperate engineering project ever undertaken by humanity. Built under the near-absolute authority of Eva Stratt, it is an interstellar spacecraft designed for a one-way voyage to the star Tau Ceti, twelve light-years from Earth. Its mission is to discover why Tau Ceti has not been infected by Astrophage, the alien microbe that is consuming the sun's energy and threatening all life on Earth. The ship is a suicide mission; its crew of three are not expected to return.
Design and Construction
The Hail Mary is a 47-meter-long spacecraft with a distinctive rocket-like shape: a cylindrical crew compartment topped with a nose cone, with a wider rear section housing the fuel tanks and propulsion system. The ship's hull is made of aluminum, a well-tested material chosen by Stratt for reliability. The crew compartment is divided into three main levels: the control room at the top, the laboratory in the middle, and the dormitory at the bottom. A storage area, only about a meter high, sits beneath the dormitory. The ship's most critical innovation is its centrifuge, designed by Dr. Lokken. The Hail Mary can split into two halves connected by Zylon cables, allowing the crew compartment to rotate and simulate Earth gravity for the sensitive laboratory equipment. The ship's propulsion comes from a thousand and nine small "spin drives," each using Astrophage as fuel. These drives, designed by Dimitri Komorov, work by attracting Astrophage with infrared light, then rotating them to direct their thrust out the back of the ship. The ship's fuel, two million kilograms of enriched Astrophage, is stored in nine fuel bays and also circulated through a one-millimeter-thick layer in the hull, which serves as radiation shielding. The ship carries a vast digital library containing the collected knowledge of humanity, including every scientific paper, textbook, and piece of software ever created.
Crew and Mission
The Hail Mary's crew consists of three people: Commander Yáo Li-Jie, a Chinese astronaut; Engineer Olesya Ilyukhina, a Russian materials expert; and Science Specialist Martin DuBois, an American with doctorates in physics, chemistry, and biology. A backup crew, including Annie Shapiro, is also selected. All crew members are chosen for their scientific expertise and, crucially, for possessing a rare genetic marker that allows them to survive long-term medically induced comas. The crew is placed in comas for the four-year journey to Tau Ceti to avoid the psychological strain of a cramped, isolated, and ultimately fatal mission. The ship's automated medical system, developed by Dr. Lamai, monitors their vitals, feeds them, and provides care. The Hail Mary also carries four small, unmanned probes called "beetles" (named John, Paul, George, and Ringo), each with 120 kilograms of Astrophage fuel and 5 terabytes of data storage. These beetles are designed to return to Earth with the crew's findings, as the Hail Mary itself cannot make the return trip.
Journey and Fate
The Hail Mary launches from Earth and travels to Tau Ceti, accelerating at 1.5 g's for the entire journey. Due to time dilation, the crew experiences three years and nine months, while over thirteen years pass on Earth. Upon arrival, only Ryland Grace, the ship's tertiary science specialist, awakens from his coma; Yáo and Ilyukhina have died. Grace discovers the ship is in the Tau Ceti system and uses its advanced laboratory and instruments to investigate the local Astrophage. The Hail Mary's centrifuge is activated to provide gravity for experiments, and its Petrovascope is used to observe the Petrova line. The ship is severely damaged during a dangerous maneuver to collect a sample from the atmosphere of the planet Adrian, suffering a hull breach and losing fuel. Later, the ship's fuel supply is completely contaminated by Taumoeba, a predator microbe, leaving the Hail Mary dead in space. Grace is forced to use the beetles as makeshift engines to reach the alien ship Blip-A. After rescuing his alien friend Rocky, the Hail Mary is refueled with Astrophage from the Blip-A. Grace ultimately decides to use the Hail Mary to take Rocky back to his homeworld, Erid, rather than returning to Earth. The ship is later refitted and stocked with food grown from cloned human tissue, and it remains in orbit around Erid, a monument to the first interstellar alliance between two worlds.
