Author's Note - What I love about Space 1999 on Big Finish is it fleshes out so many issues and details about the original series and it also gives Commissioner Simmonds new opportunities to grow. Please let me know what you think.
Our Future is in Space.
Commissioner Simmonds seethed a little bit at how Petra had dismissed him in favour for a potted account of how space exploration had come about; despite being an adult and despite his political experience, Simmonds had always and would likely always possess the streak of taking dismissals and any kind of annoyance seriously. It was written into his genetics. There was nothing he could do about it.
After he'd had the mind to check the mike and recording and sending equipment was shut off, although he deliberately wrenched it away from his office desk with a satisfying tear of wiring, Simmonds muttered to himself, "Stupid cow. Her pet account didn't describe the Ultra probe, the Sun Probe, or the Alpha Centauri radio telescope, or the plans to use Moonbase Alpha as a launch platform to send rockets on a exploration mission to the outer solar system, or the 20-year project to send people to explore the Oort Cloud," Simmonds snorted to himself as he thought about that program with a faint smile, adding wryly, "Granted, I don't know if I'll live to see that particular moment, but I'd love to see that occur. But it will only come about if the Meta Probe is launched and if it goes as planned. Of course, with Koenig taking charge and Gorski coming back to Earth, I can't see any problems arising."
Simmonds mentally sneered as he thought about Gorski's lack of real progress in tackling the strange phenomena that was suddenly attacking the astronauts testing for the Meta Probe, he also snarled at the one-dimensional view Space 1999 news was taking with the whole Meta project. They were no better than the Guardian newspaper in Britain. Short sighted, one dimensional and always took the short term view rather than anything else with nothing positive crossing into the line. All they talked about when it came to space exploration was the sheer cost that amounted to it. They didn't care about the International Sick-Bay space station which was built in orbit above the Earth and used as a laboratory to study viruses and bacterias and illnesses on Earth that people on Terra Firma had never been able to conquer. They didn't care about the discoveries into maglev technology which had enabled countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa to build a massive transport network making transport indefinitely easier. What about the solar probe research? Thanks to that, everyone knew the precise means of inducing a fusion reaction which was going a long way to discovering fusion power on Earth, and if it worked out then the fusion reactor would make fission reactors a thing of the past, generating an infinite supply of energy for the human race.
But the Meta Probe was special. Even if the signal coming from the planet, which the boffins claimed was not a natural anomaly but an artificial one. For a decade now, Simmonds had been working with many of the Council who were farsighted enough to see that Meta needed to be reached and quickly. They had the technology to make interstellar travel possible, although faster-than-light was impossible to his mind, but the Queller drive would take a group of astronauts and scientists to Meta on a journey which would last 5 years, and it would be another 5 years before the expedition ship returned home. It would be the longest space flight in human history, and during the trip the probe was designed and programmed to take scans of space as they travelled. These scans would reveal gravitational waves, radiation spikes, and maybe even other solar systems that were as yet out of reach of their best telescopes.
But Simmonds had gained a lot of resistance from the public, from the Space Commission Council itself, and from the media who criticised him for embarking on this long-term space exploration project. They criticised the commission for embarking on it due to the very high cost. Petra and the rest of Space 1999 news service had made it their life's goal by attacking him over every single thing that went wrong with the project. Each time an experiment went wrong, it was 'well, they'd poured $100,000,000 into the experiments, money that should have been given to something more worthwhile. Okay, Simmonds could understand their point of view, but those in the know knew how important the Meta mission was. If the signal was correct, then it proved there were aliens out there, and if that true then they might be on the cusp of taking their first steps into the universe properly. Sometimes, in fact every single day when he walked into his office in either the morning or the evening, Simmonds was frustrated by the decision to hush up the news of the signal, perhaps if it was revealed more scientists and private investors could make a contribution to the space program and maybe provide enough money to fund space exploration missions for years to come. Perhaps if they did that, one of the Space Commissions age-oldest ambitions that was, as yet, a long way away from being fulfilled could be.
Space tourism.
If the issues with getting ships and people off of the ground in a more cost effective way than they were in this day and age, then perhaps people would be travelling into space, maybe even book into a hotel above Earth where they could watch as their planet rotated gently on its axis, and why not travel to Mars or the moon? What about cargo and freight, mining the asteroids and solving the shortages of metals and chemicals. What about the gas giants? The chemicals they could tap into could solve millions of problems, and even some scientists speculated on bacteria specifically adapted to living within the gas giants could exist.
Simmonds knew he was but one of a handful of people who knew the only way the human race could persevere and endure would be if they ventured into space, but every single time a space exploration project was announced and money was called in to fund the project, there were protests and criticisms. And they never let you forget it if a project was a failure, either. Simmonds remembered only too well when the Ultra Probe failed a decade ago. It was one of the biggest space expeditions in human history. A probe ship would travel beyond the solar system to a world only a fraction of the distance compared to the five light years that Meta was. But the Ultra probe had been a success in how the Commission had built a ship powered by Queller drive, whereas the dangerous form of engine had only powered probes that were unmanned robots. The Ultra probe had proven interstellar flight was, more or less, safe for humans.
In this case, the Meta Probe was the result of many of the answered questions about radiation, gravity, and suspended animation issues, on top of doubts and questions relating to the Queller drive, but the whole project was important for Simmonds because he wanted to be the one remembered in human history for pushing the boundaries on space exploration, but what he did not want to be remembered for was being a Space Commissioner who kept space exploration at a minimum and allowed the opportunities to just pass them by because they were worried about money. That was the mistake of his predecessor and Simmonds had been relieved to get the fool's job, and as a result he had pushed for small research projects aimed at getting humans into space.
Simmonds might have been a politician but he was a listener. He knew that the longer humans stayed on Earth, in one place, there was a chance they would then go extinct. Why couldn't they see space was the future of the human race? Oh well, in a few days time, they would see the Meta ship launched, and in a decade from now they would learn one of the biggest questions in human history would be answered.
Did alien life exist?
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