So, escaping. Getting back to Earth. Right. How exactly was Jon gonna do that?
He was back in his spacesuit again, sitting in the buggy now back on the Moon's surface, and staring at the Earth where it hung in the sky, maybe 30 degrees up off the horizon. It was definitely bigger in the Sky than the Moon or the Sun viewed from Lake Point. MUCH bigger. If the Moon had used to be a glowing Silver Dollar in the sky, then the Earth was bigger than a CD now, and partially shadowed like the moon used to be. Only a little; from Jon's perspective it was almost a Full Moon -- er, full Earth? Gibbous Earth? Most of it was illuminated apart from a dark crescent, anyway. To be honest, it was kinda viscerally daunting to look at from this angle; a huge, gently rotating Globe way up there, with big white weather systems streaking over the familiar geography, and the part of North America he called his home only now bashfully emerging from the Dark Crescent and waking up his home for the morning. All of it looked down on him from on high, as if taunting him, saying "Come home, if you can."
Jon frowned. On one hand, he didn't have to return home, per se; The Stone was more than capable of building a nice home for him up here, where he could survive a very long time with no extra resources. He could wish up things to do, and people to hang out with. Maybe he could conjure up clones of Karyn and Zoe and Mom and everyone he really cared about, or maybe "perfected" versions of them for his company, or maybe even some new alien race of sexy haremettes that could go out and populate the moon with adapted children born from his seed...
But then, he'd still have to look up at the taunting Earth every night. The REAL Karyn and Zoe and Linda were still up there, probably wondering why he'd disappeared so suddenly, and only imagining the worst. To be honest, if he hadn't thought to summon the Spacesuit at the critical moment, they might have been right. He tried calling them (his phone was still in his school bag), but unsurprisingly there was no cellphone coverage on the Moon, nor did the Stone have the Range to extend Earth's cellphone networks all the way up here. Maybe he could wish up a radio broadcaster powerful enough for all the stations of Earth to pick up? No, that was probably a bad idea for multiple reasons, not least because humanity would probably have a hard time reaching back to him. He'd still have to get there in person, himself, probably. Ideally, he'd also come up with a relatively easy way to get back to all this free real estate he'd just come into. But how?
Of the many problems he had with getting to Earth, one of the scariest was the prospect of Re-Entry. Everything he knew about realistic spaceflight said that, when something falls into an atmosphere, it burns. Badly. Meteors could be vaporized before they even hit the ground. Human rockets were built to withstand the heat, though. Usually. If there were no accidents. (There had been accidents.) And he was falling ALL the way down from the Moon!
So, just naively wishing up a replica of Saturn V was out. He really, really didn't want to risk Re-Entry until he absolutely had to, until he knew for sure he/his spacecraft wouldn't burn to bits. Maybe there was a way to get close to Earth's atmosphere without having to risk Re-Entry? He could try getting into orbit around Earth, maybe, but just flying around in space untethered to anything seemed like a bad idea.
Then it hit him. Space Elevator.
In some Sci-Fi, there was this surprisingly plausible idea that, if you had a heavy satellite that was sufficiently high up, you could tie a cable between it and the planet it orbits, elevate the satellite a little, and then let the cable go taut thanks to the centrifugal force on the satellite. Once you had such a rope between the planet and Space, you could just climb the rope to get to whatever space station you had up there, and then slide back down for planetary access. In principle it was very efficient, and more importantly for Jon it was very safe. He'd looked into it once, and apparently, the reason no Space Elevators existed on Earth yet was mostly due to Cable construction: almost every material that could be cheaply fabricated would snap under its own weight if it had to dangle to Earth from Space, and SciFi had to resort to inventing fantastical Nanotube Structures with huge strength-to-weight ratios and low cost to brush that under the rug. Earth Gravity was just too strong.
BUT, on worlds with lower gravity, like Mars, or Titan, or Europa, or the Moon... It was apparently possible to make a cable that was strong and light enough out of just carbon fiber or Kevlar.
"I wish I had a few yards of high-strength, low-weight cable, at least strong and light enough for a Lunar Space Elevator."
Test succeeded. A long, very thick white braided line appeared, wider around than Jon's thigh, but it turned out to be easy to lift. As thick as it was, it didn't have an awful lot of give to it, but it was certainly bending enough to be without a doubt a proper cable. He just needed to wish up a LOT more of this, plus a way to get the other end up toward Earth (probably another rocket, one he'd be much more okay with losing if something went wrong), and he'd have a decent means to get most of the way towards Earth.
The first question was, exactly how much cable was that? He didn't want to go all the way to Earth, the cable would almost certainly break if he tried, and he'd be basically making a city-leveling meteor out of the lifting rocket even if it didn't. He didn't want to go vertically up to Space either, what with the Earth being relatively low in the Sky, and didn't know how long the cable would have to be to pull taut in that case anyway. If he could get the other end of the cable close enough to Earth, then Earth's Gravity should overpower the Moon's at some point, and he wouldn't need centrifugal force or anything to keep it taut, but he didn't know exactly where that point was, either. Come to think of it, he didn't even know the distance between the Earth and the Moon in the first place anyway.
Jon sighed. "I wish I had a table of the distances I ought to know for this."
| Distance from Moon's Center | Location | Distance from Earth's Center |
|---|---|---|
| 1.7 | You, right now | 396 |
| 356 - 406 | Earth's surface | 6.4 |
| 53.4 - 60.9 | L1 Point* | 303 - 345 |
| 312 - 364 | Geostationary Point** | 42.1 |
| 59.7 - 68.1 | L2 Point* | 416 - 474 |
All distances given in millions of meters. Where distances vary due to the moon's orbit being noncircular, upper and lower bounds are given.
*The L1 and L2 Lagrange points are where the Moon's Gravity, Earth's Gravity, and Centrifugal force all cancel out to make an orbit that stays exactly in line with the Earth and Moon. L1 is between them, L2 is on the far side of the moon.
**The minimum height of an Earth-to-Space Elevator. Also the altitude of the highest human-made satellites.
"...Huh." So, right away, Jon was noticing problems he hadn't even thought of until that moment. For one, the distance variance. The Moon's orbit was slightly elliptical, wasn't it? And that meant he'd have to slightly change the length of his Space Elevator, or find some other workaround. On reflection, though, that wasn't a huge deal; he could just wish for a giant spool or winch or something down at the Luna Luna Base to reel in the excess cable and let out more as needed to adjust for the distance change. Come to think of it, that was probably how he'd get the lifting rocket to slow down and brake, too; he could just put some brake pads or something on the spool to ease it into a stop.
Also, satellites. It hadn't even occurred to Jon that satellites could be an issue until he read the word. He didn't want one of them slamming into his cable and breaking the elevator; and for that matter, he should probably add a sheath to the cable to protect it from other meteors, on the off chance one of them hit it out in space. It looked like he could only extend the Elevator as far as the Geostationary Point, or maybe a little nearer than that just to be safe. Which meant he still had another 50,000 kilometers or so to fall to get back to Earth from the end of the Elevator... but he'd get there when he got there.
Finally -- and this was less of a technical problem and more of a disturbing realization -- Grandpa had said the Wishing Stone's Range was only limited to maybe tens of kilometers in his letter. For the voyage he was thinking of he was gonna have be thinking in the tens of THOUSANDS of kilometers for scale. Space was fucking huge, and it hit him for the first time that the Stone's magic bubble was still truly a tiny thing in the grand scheme of it all. He was looking up from his buggy at a circle in the Sky that represented everything Humanity was and ever would be, and it was small; and from there he looked at his hometown, the place the Stone in his idle fantasies yesterday could have unshaped and remade into whatever he imagined with a Wish, and it was so tiny he couldn't even see it from there. In the empty vastness of Space, it was all just so, hopelessly, meaninglessly, depressingly small.
"...Huh," said Jon, shrugging off the usual existential dreads and getting back to work.
"I wish I had..." he read the table, "406 million meters of Space Elevator Cable at the base here." If he was going to have to adjust the length of the Elevator anyway, then there wasn't really a lot of reason not to have the whole length of Earth-Moon distance available, he figured.
So, 406 million meters was just a number to Jon. He hadn't thought very hard about what that would actually look like.
What it actually looked like was a veritable mountain of Cable, a conical pyramid of neatly wrapped cord that was as big at the base as the world's largest sporting stadiums, and inclined up to its tip at nearly a 45 degree angle. It was easily bigger than the Great Pyramid at Giza and would have been a wonder of the world if it had been built by human hands.
It was also entirely contained within the Magic Bubble. Jon frowned. "I wish the cable had a sheath to protect it from meteors and space dust."
And just like that it had a sheath to protect it from meteors and space dust. It would have been a wonder of the world etc.
"I also wish there were some small electrical wires for power and data transmission wrapped together with the Elevator Cable, for communication with the Lifting Rocket." This was Jon thinking ahead a little bit; he wasn't going risk himself being aboard the Lifting Rocket, but with a literal connection between the rocket and Luna Luna, there was no reason it couldn't be monitored and remotely controlled from down there, even when it was well outside the Magic Bubble. The stone flashed, and even though there wasn't any obvious indication anything happened, the electrical cables were there.
... Truth be told, Jon was starting to seriously think about the Lifting Rocket, looking at the Spectacular Summit of Space Cable he'd just wished up. Even in the Moon's reduced gravity, he had a feeling there was no way a Rocket big enough to lift all that mass was feasible, maybe it wouldn't even fit in the Magic Bubble. Even if it did, he had to worry about the Rocket's own Thrust possibly snapping the Cable, if he just naively pulled the rope taut between the Rocket and the Winch.
A partial answer presented itself fairly quickly: he could just use the Stone's Magic Power to accelerate the Cable from down there at Luna Luna. Maybe have the Lifter just lift one end of the Cable up while it was all still slack on the ground, and then Wish that the Spool of Cable would already be spinning at high speed when he called it into existence? He had to motorize it anyway. The vision of that whole mountain flying in place at Lunar Escape Velocity was kinda terrifying, but he could always just take shelter in the base for safety.
Still... That reduced the size of the rocket necessary for sure, but he'd seen movies. Rockets that took even just tiny little humans to the Moon and back were HUGE, and almost all of their weight was just fuel. If he ended up having to tell the Rocket to change course or something after it left the Magic Bubble, that would dig into those precious fuel reserves, and if they turned out to be insufficient, it could be disaster. But then, it wasn't like he could get around the need for the Rocket to carry its own power source.
Then Jon smacked himself. He had JUST wished for a Power Cable to be connected to the Rocket from Luna Luna! That supplied it with Electrical Power, at least. Couldn't he pipe up Rocket Power through the Cable, too? He thought for a moment about whether it was unrealistic to expect to pump Fuel all the way up to Space from down there, but he quickly realized this was the Moon. It didn't have the Gravity to retain any kind of atmosphere, and if the Lifting Rocket was Gas-Powered, even a little Pressurization down at Luna Luna would be enough to get the job done. It was still probably better to use a lighter Gas for this, just to reduce the weight to lift, but if his fuel was something like Hydrogen he was sure he could make a pump work.
And if it was Hydrogen he was using for fuel...
"I wish the Elevator Cable also had a Tritium Fuel Pipe embedded in its core. I further wish there were a Nuclear-Powered Rocket Thruster at one end of the Cable which uses Tritium from the Pipe as Fuel."
And, POOF. There it was. One of Humanity's first ever nuclear fusion reactors, and the First to have a practical use outside of research. Mount Cable itself had changed significantly: Jon had expected it to maybe be a little bigger and thicker to accommodate the new pipes, but it had more than doubled in size and now absolutely dwarfed the Great Pyramids in scale. He later found out when Earth Scientists got to examine it that apparently it wasn't just a Pipe called to existence in there now: the Pipe had sorta fused with power Cable, and now the entire length of the Space Elevator was some kind of Linear Particle Accelerator that shot ionized Tritium and Deuterium into the Fusion Chamber at almost light speed. The Fusion Chamber itself would eventually revolutionize Nuclear Fusion Technology when Humanity got its hands on it, for reasons that, to be frank, Jon would never really understand. Something about it using an exceptionally clever way to basically keep a Star confined with electromagnetic resonance and the Rocket's own exhaust? That sort of thing was waaay above his pay grade.
What Jon actually cared about in the moment was that now, he had a Lifting Rocket, and more than that he had a Lifting Rocket that was smaller, lighter, and more powerful than he dared to imagine. Granted, it was still almost as big as his Earth House had been, and shaped more like a funny-looking oyster mushroom with the Cable for a stalk than it did the Stereotypical Launch Rocket, but frankly, Jon was expecting a Cone-tipped Skyscraper to blip into existence just now. That something as small as this would do to lift the entirety of Mount Cable to Space was kinda astounding.
"I wish the Lifting Rocket was powerful enough to lift the Elevator to Space?"
Nothing happened. Jon hadn't expected anything to happen, though: he just wanted assurance that the Thruster powered by a fucking artificial star was strong enough to get it done. As a matter of fact...
"I wish there were weights attached to the Lifting Rocket, heavy enough that the Cable won't snap at liftoff." A beat. "... and also light enough that the Cable doesn't snap when the Rocket gets close to earth."
The Stone flashed this time, although not much really happened; there just spawned in a ring of heavy metal around the lower edges of the "mushroom".
"I wish the Lifting Rocket also had cameras, and sensors, and systems for steering. I also wish there were a safe, underground Command Center at Luna Luna Base, to which is sent the Data from the sensors etc., and from which the ship can be remotely piloted via the Elevator's data cables."
From his vantage point up on the Lunar Surface, not much seemed to happen, apart from the Rocket getting a little extra decor, and the other end of the Elevator Cable anchoring itself to a relatively distant point on the surface of the Moon. He considered wishing himself back inside to check out the Command Center, but no, there were still things to do up here.
"I wish the Lifting Rocket were mounted to a Launch Pad at the right angle to send it and the Cable down toward Earth."
When the Stone finished, there was a very tall, wide, rather skeletal metal framework jutting up from the Moon's surface, at the apex of which laid the Rocket now. It was, impressively, a little taller than Mount Cable, and the Elevator Cable itself now dangled behind and led towards the summit, taking a little off the top to flatten it out a bit. Curiously to Jon at first, it didn't seem to be pointing toward Earth; it was aiming much lower, almost horizontally across the Lunar Surface, and for a moment Jon wondered if he worded his wish wrong.
"Oh, right. Gravity." Spaceships don't travel in straight lines, they're deflected and curved about by Gravity and Coriolis Forces and so on. This particular Rocket had to worry about tension from the cable too, he realized. He didn't know the math, but he trusted the Stone to figure out the trajectory he was wanting, to get to Geostationary Orbit.
Just a few more chores, now. "I wish the Power Plants at Luna Luna were beefy enough to electrically support the Lifting Rocket in flight. I wish there were a big supply of Hydrogen Fuel stored underground, with pumps to get it up to the Lifting Rocket. I wish all the utilities were connected to the Cable accordingly. Finally, I wish the Buggy were in the garage, and that I were in the Command Center and dressed appropriately for launch."
More Solar Dishes erupted from the ground, and suddenly Jon was in a big room, its walls plastered with camera feeds and sensor readouts, and Jon himself was seated in a comfy-if-utilitarian-looking office chair pulled up to a keyboard, mouse, and various control panels on a desk, all wireless. The accompanying monitor seemed to be the entire wall. He had no idea where the actual computer core was, and wasn't particularly interested in finding out.
One of the Control Devices before him, naturally, was a big glowing red button under a plastic cover, labeled LAUNCH. Jon took a deep breath and opened up said cover.
