Powell-Pellegrino Station is built on Mercury's south pole, connected by hardened power lines to solar energy farms that line the planet's surface. The station is named after J.R. Powell and C.R. Pellegrino, who first proposed the idea of establishing facilities on Mercury to collect energy and apply it toward interstellar travel in the September 1986 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.
Vast arrays of solar energy collectors, constructed from heat-resistant polymers, transmit gigawatts of energy each second to an exotic matter generator. Heat-collecting arrays composed of a copper alloy that can resist Mercury's 700-degree-Kelvin temperatures are connected to pipelines that carry superheated plasma to and from the control facilities.
.jpg) |
Mercury, as imaged by NASA's Messenger probe in January 2008.
Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution
The station's proximity to the sun serves as its primary line of defense. Other defenses are built to take advantage of the abundant energy supply: hardened satellites orbit the planet and can focus the sun's output like a laser on targets up to 1 billion km away. The sun's radiation also leaks into Trans-D space, foiling Trans-D sensors and limiting Trans-D travel. Ships must gate in either in Mercury's shadow -- within 2,000 kilometers of the planet's surface -- or gate in at least 80 million km from the sun and traverse 20 million km from the Trans-D "barrier" to Mercury via sublight drive. Further, because of the intense radiation, only ships specially hardened against the radiation may safely travel from the barrier to Mercury. Even military vessels cannot make the trip without risking severe damage and loss of life.
Mercury's north pole houses a maximum-security prison with facilities for growing food and for producing, recycling and purifying water. No guards are stationed there, but automated remote stations constantly monitor the facility. Prisoners are transported to the facility in hardened, disposable vehicles that use non-fusion thrusters to travel from Earth to Mercury. The shuttles have no controls on board but are operated by remote control: they travel to the facility, where their passengers disembark; the shuttles are then piloted into the sun.