Day 0: It has been 10 years since the development of FTL ships. No one had ever imagined that humans would travel faster than light one day. It was thought to be impossible throughout our history but now it is a reality.
Since we left the solar system and visited other star systems, alien life was discovered. Some were primitive while some were far more advanced than us. We were summoned by the Galactic Federation and granted a membership.
Though a species that is a member of the Galactic Federation has to pay a membership fee every decade, we were exempted from it for the next century as we humans were new and still underdeveloped.
Since then, all scientists on Earth have been focusing on ways to improve the FTL engine. Meanwhile, other group of people have been mining Mars for resources as the resources on Earth were not enough for one massive project that was proposed in the UN.
The project was to make a massive FTL capable ship which would transport a large amount of people somewhere distant. Somewhere no one from The milky way had reached. The andromeda galaxy.
I have been training for the past 5 years to fly this ship along with 11 other pilots. We will be working in shifts to control the direction of the ship until we reach The andromeda. Tomorrow is the big day when we leave Earth.
Day 1: So today is the day. When we will make history. All of us pilots had a draw to determine our order of shifts. I was lucky to have the first shift. I will be the one to launch the ship that will rewrite history.
The launch from Earth went smoothly. All 1000 of the crew were cheering when we had the take off. We slowly left the Earth’s atmosphere and I increased the velocity. We were headed towards the center of our galaxy from where we would leave the galaxy
As soon as we were slightly farther than The moon, I instructed all crew to fasten their seatbelts and hold anything near them tightly. When I received the signal that everyone were ready, I switched on the FTL engines and we blasted off faster than light.
The distance to the center of milky way was about 25,000 LY from Earth. With our velocity, it would take about 50 years to reach there. The whole time will be spent just adjusting the course of our flight so we won’t crash into a star. That would be a horrible death.
Day 2: Since I had a few days off, I decided to take a trip around the ship. There are a lot of crew members aboard but each of them are necessary. Some are mechanics who will fix the ship while some are farmers who will produce the food for the entire crew. Some are cooks while some are tailors. The most essential are probably the doctors and the teachers.
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Each and every one of them have undergone a special training for space travel. I’m pretty sure this training will be mandatory for all humans within the next century as jobs outside the planet will attract more people.
The ship has various areas. There are the farms that grow crops with the help of artificial light. The crops also help by providing oxygen. There are trees here and there as well to produce Oxygen. They are the most efficient for this task.
There is a hospital in one area and a school in another. The school is not currently functioning but we’re pretty sure that we will be welcoming a lot of new faces on the ship very soon.
Then there is a compost production plant in a separate room where all food waste and any dead person is allowed to decay to produce fertilizer. This way, we can recycle all the nutrition and reuse them. Even the feces are recycled.
Day 3: Yesterday, I couldn’t complete my tour of the ship so I completed it today. The next important area was the water treatment plant. Since we cannot get fresh water, we loaded a huge quantity of water from Earth. The same water is purified and reused. There is more water than we can use but it’s wise to conserve it.
The most important part of the ship must be the nuclear reactor. It supplies power to the entire ship. Should it stop working, everyone will die so it is constantly maintained by a group of skilled personnels.
Lastly, we have the engine. It’s the single greatest achievement of humanity. It uses a controlled nuclear fission reaction to propel the entire ship forward. The first few tests failed turning the test area into a nuclear wasteland. This was also the reason why we didn’t turn on the FTL engine right at the beginning.
This ship alone contains almost all of the radioactive materials on Earth as well as some from Mars. This is a huge gamble, wasting all our resources on a single ship. But should this succeed, we humans will reach a level not achieved by any other species.
Day 6301: It’s been a long day. I have been teaching my children how to fly the ship because they will be the next generation of pilots once my generation retires. My daughter is catching things pretty quickly but my son is struggling to understand the basics.
Maybe he is not interested in becoming a pilot. I guess I will tell him that he can pursue any occupation he is interested in. I’ll arrange for him to learn under a suitable crewmate.
Day 7583. Tomorrow my June bug is getting married. Peter's son is next in line for a post in engineering and with June at the helm they'll make a great pair. They say, although not sure if they are serious, that they want to honeymoon on the lower decks. I've been there. Not much to see other than the ship's engines so they must be pulling my leg.
Day 7584 They were not pulling my leg. Weirdos.
Day 12,468: It is becoming more difficult to spend the time every day. I’ve been flying this ship for more than 34 years now. I’m tired of this. A few more days and I can retire peacefully, after passing the baton to my daughter.
Day 12,471: Today my father retired from his role as a pilot. I’m taking over his spot. He insisted that I continue his logs as a record for the future generation.
As I was going through the logs, I realized that it has already been 34 years since the ship started its journey from Earth, a place where I belong but have never been to. I’ll never get the chance to visit my home planet.