Lin's bizarre claim was such a non-sequitur as it intruded into Andrea's thoughts that it took her a moment to formulate a response. Making use of their text chat she eloquently entered “?”. Lin responded with a bark of laughter tinged ever so slightly with her own feelings of disbelief. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the high altitude drone you sent up earlier, so I saw its readings the moment it reached its service ceiling. I applied the equation to estimate the size of a planet based on the observed curvature of the horizon, as I assume you intended. Even with our current lack of certainty about the drone’s elevation from sea level, and atmospheric refraction errors that will need more work to account for, I’ve got a low-ball estimate for the size of this world of at least 328 trillion square kilometers! That’s the surface area equivalent of well over half a million human habitable worlds, at a minimum!”
Andrea stumbled to a stop for a moment. “That’s insane! That means the diameter can be measured in astronomical units! How are we only experiencing 0.98 gravities on average? How is a structure this large, and this lacking in density, not being torn apart by tidal forces from the system’s star? This is amazing! This one world can contain as many living beings and ecosystems as hundreds of thousands of star systems. It’ll be the work of generations to even begin exploring this place! No wonder the distances Olan Lunere and Unla-Ela were giving seemed unusually large, their ‘known world’ is already at least the size of a couple of normal habitable planets.” Lin interjected before Andrea could continue. “Hold on, I know this is exciting but we are basing this on a lot of assumptions, so let’s not get too carried away speculating and planning just yet. Once we’ve settled our more immediate concerns with the locals and their politics we can build out the infrastructure to launch some low altitude satellites for orbital mapping, long range communication, and much more accurate measurements of the world's size."
Andrea resumed her course towards her landing site and the waiting drones. "All right, all right. I'll try to contain my excitement, but only a little bit! Speaking of too much excitement, Will the heavy lift drone and transport pod be finished for tomorrow? I’d rather not continue swinging around in the open air as I travel." Lin responded with a groan “I already told you it would take a couple of days, are you going to start asking ‘are we there yet’ now too?” Andrea, glad to have Lin lighten the mood, laughed “You better watch out or I just might.” reached the clearing and met up with the waiting formation of combat drones. The leading pair were already dangling their towing connectors for her to clip onto. In less than 30 seconds Andrea was secured to the tow lines and rising through the narrow hole in the canopy over the clearing, as the wedge of combat drones ascended.
As Andrea began her return flight, Lin found herself contemplating yet another important project that required additional equipment to be manufactured. While she had admonished Andrea not to get ahead of herself with the question of the planet's titanic size, Lin couldn't help but spend some time brainstorming how best to go about setting up a satellite launching site while still trying to remain relatively unobtrusive. Lin wanted to ensure that when it eventually came time to launch satellites they would be able to do so in complete secrecy. While Andrea had managed to establish a good baseline of relations with what appeared to be two significant local powers, their incipient conflict with a third local power put Andrea and Lin in an awkward position. Lin was well aware that, particularly when war was involved, good intentions and promises frequently wound up holding little weight against the possibility of seizing an advantage over one's enemies. Lin had no intention of revealing any more of their technology to any of the local factions.
While the locals' capabilities seemed more impressive than Lin had initially expected, much of the more impressive features seemed based on their harnessing of the strange phenomena found on this world. From everything Lin had seen so far, she and Andrea were making use of technology that was in many respects superior to what was available locally. Frankly Lin felt that they had already shown off a little too much for her comfort. She worried that, especially in the face of a major war, even the factions with which they had a tentative positive relationship would be tempted to try and steal or seize new technology from them, let alone this third faction with which they had no relations whatsoever. Naturally she anticipated they would approach first with offers of trade, however sharing technological information was one of the actions the Surveyor Corps explicitly prohibited during early contact with unknown beings. It was agreed, among an overwhelming majority of their experts, that leading with cultural and purely scientific exchanges were a far safer way to build rapport and judge the intentions and character of strangers before any chance of providing them with something they might later regret sharing.
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Lin’s thoughts moved from camouflaged launch facilities to the more complicated question of how, or if, they might manage to get satellites to work. The moment she started seriously thinking about the question a significant issue quickly became obvious. Assuming her estimate of the planet’s size was anywhere close to accurate, the orbital period of anything they launched into a low orbit would be measured in months or years, a chain of hundreds or possibly thousands of satellites would be required to form even a narrow band of continuous coverage, something that Lin thought was both infeasible for their mission timescale and would stretch, beyond any reasonable interpretation, the idea of minimizing construction and resource extraction. Lin would have to find workable alternatives to the usual quick and easy satellite network.
A series of non-orbiting high altitude platforms kept in space by electrodynamic propulsion tethers was possible, assuming there was enough of a magnetic field for the craft to interact with. So far Lin had been able to detect a moderate magnetic field everywhere their drones had gone, but there was no guarantee that it extended into space far enough to be useful for the platforms. The magnetic field would need to be of sufficient strength at an altitude well clear of the practical edge of the atmosphere, since electrodynamic propulsion tethers would be a huge source of drag unless they were in the vacuum of space. Another option would be sending a smaller number of satellites to a much higher orbit allowing them to maintain continuous contact around the circumference of the enormous planet. Unfortunately this solution would require a significantly more robust launch platform to carry the satellites far enough out. Since the 'planet' was larger than many stars, the distance at which the satellites would have to orbit in order to allow a small network to remain in continuous contact would be commensurately astronomical. Launching heavy duty spacecraft from a planetary surface could be described in many ways, neither subtle nor low impact was one of those. Stepping back for a moment Lin considered that she had two main goals she wanted to fulfill with satellites or suitable replacements. First she wanted additional verification and refinement on the estimate she had made of the planet's size. Second Lin wanted to dramatically increase their mapping, surveillance, and communication capabilities. The relatively slow high altitude drone sweeps were simply not a practical solution to mapping the vast area they were now presented with, nor would they make for a practical communication relay system when they began to travel farther from their base near the aperture.
By the time Andrea was landing at the base camp, Lin had settled on vacuum aerostat platforms as a good intermediate solution that would achieve both of her primary goals. A fairly significant number would be required since their altitude would be limited to the upper reaches of the atmosphere but, unlike the open question about the magnetosphere, Lin knew for sure that there was an atmosphere which was all a vacuum aerostat needed to shoot up like a cork to the edge of space. Lin had also realized that the vacuum aerostat platforms would have no need for dedicated launch facilities and lift vehicles. Once manufactured they merely needed to be placed in the open and they could begin pulling a vacuum in their main lift envelope allowing them to rise all the way to their operational altitude and remain there for years, barring damage or malfunction. That neatly eliminated any concerns about trying to disguise a launch complex. If needed Lin could gradually assemble platforms with just the output of her current fabrication equipment.
When Lin found herself beginning to calculate the number of vacuum aerostats needed to provide mapping, surveillance, and communication coverage she realized she was falling into the trap she had warned Andrea about and getting ahead of herself. It was time to take a break. Lin shifted most of her attention into a small maintenance drone and directed it to the table top where Andrea had just settled down to eat after having cleaned up from her trip through the valley. The duo set aside work and spent the evening unwinding, chatting and playing games. Tomorrow they'd be hard at work preparing for the future, but for tonight they'd decided to enjoy the present.