Rocheworld
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-->Rocheworld (1990), also known as The Flight of the Dragonfly (1984) is a science fiction novel by Robert Forward in which he uses a light sail propulsion system to set the crew on an interstellar mission. The spaceship and crew of 20 have to travel 5.9 light-years (ca. 34 trillion miles) to the double-planet that orbits Barnard's Star, which they call Rocheworld.
Forward's Light Sail Propulsion System
The light sail system consists of three functional parts: a powerful laser, a large focusing lens, and a giant space-sail. The idea behind the solar-sail is that the laser provides a small force on the sail when it reflects the light. This small force increases the acceleration of the spaceship. With the ship's primary source of energy coming from the outside, it would not be limited to traveling distances that it had enough fuel for.
The light used in the system was an array of a thousand laser generators, which were focused through lenses and aimed at the sail. The lasers provided up to 1500 terawatts of power. Two different lenses were used to magnify the laser beams. The acceleration lens was 100 km in diameter and was able to accelerate the ship at 0.01g. The deceleration lens was 300 km in diameter and was able to decelerate the ship at 0.1g. Although these boosts of accelerations are relatively small, over time they add up to enormous speeds.
To catch the energy, Forward used a 1000 km in diameter circular aluminum sail. The sail resembles a flattened doughnut with the doughnut hole visible but still intact. That is, the 300 km center sail could be separated from outer as needed. When traveling to Rocheworld, the entire sail was used. When the ship needed to decelerate the smaller sail is separated from the larger outer sail. The large sail focused the light onto the smaller sail, which applied “the brakes” so to speak.
Using the Light Sail Propulsion system, the spaceship Prometheus continued to accelerate for 20 years traveling 2 light years distance toward Barnard star before going into coast mode and traveling an additional 20 years time at a constant speed at .2C covering the remaining 4 light years (ca. 23 trillion miles).
Flouwen
Flouwen are the alien creatures in the book. They are the sole inhabitants of planet Eau. Flouwen are blob-like, happy-go-lucky aliens that spend their days surfing waves and working on difficult mathematical problems.
Flouwen appear to be giant colored jellyfish in the ammonia oceans of Eau. Like earthly jellyfish, they are amorphous, colored blobs of jelly. Texture and form, however, are where the similarities end. Flouwen are highly intelligent, sexless, and do not appear to physically age. They are able to communicate and see in the water by means of sonar. They are also able to see outside the water by morphing their jelly bodies into crude lenses of some sort, which they use to methodically track the stars. Flouwen are also capable of morphing themselves into a hard rock like substance when they feel the need think about a difficult problem for an extended period.
Flouwen can grow quite large over time. This excess bulk can be shed during a peculiar breeding ritual where large flouwen gather in a circle and spin off pieces of themselves to create a new flouwen. Because they are created out of indistinguishable pieces of their parents, they are born fairly intelligent. One of the aliens, Warm✽Amber✽Resonance, is said to be over five hundred Eau seasons in age. Warm✽Amber✽Resonance refers to other flouwen that are much older than it, such as Sour#Sapphire#Coo.
Flouwen possess mathematical abilities far exceeding our own. Despite their intellect, they lack any desire to make real use of it, other than to work on math problems or to study the stars; they just don't see the point of studying anything else. They do not have any concept of technology. They refer to the spaceship Dragonfly as a giant talking rock or Floating⊗Rock.
Flouwen do not appear to have any type of social structure. Younger flouwen seem to have a great deal of free time on their hands. The older flouwen are often missing for long periods of time in rock form solving mathematical problems. The elders seem to be more respected by the others. Possibly because mathematics is one of the few things they are interested in and care about, it brings some type of admiration from the others.
Although flouwen do not seem to physically age, it's possible that they reveal their age by the amounts of time they spend contemplating in rock form. Perhaps the actual population of the flouwen is much large than it appears, because there are many off working on problems. Some may never find solutions to their problems so they will never return (thus, completing their life cycle). (The flouwens' time to solve a problem is limited due to the fact that they will slowly weather away as time passes.)
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