Charybdis
From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.
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| Charybdis debris | |
| Affiliation: | NASA |
| Type: | Explorer |
| Gross Vehicle Mass: | 1,500 metric tons |
| Drive Type: | Block D gaseous-core fission reactor |
| Net Delta-Vee: | 7.44x103 NVP |
| Crew: | 15 |
| Status: | Destroyed |
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| Charybdis mission patch. | |
The Charybdis was a mid-21st century NASA exploratory shuttle, launched from Earth on July 23, 2037, under the command of Colonel Stephen G. Richey.
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[edit] NASA Crew
- Richey, mission commander
- Evans
- Schmitt
- Cernan
[edit] Mission
The Charybdis was Earth's third manned attempt to travel beyond the Sol system. The ship's mission objectives included:
- Survey of deep extra solar environment to distance of 100 AU;
- Interaction of solar magnetic field at heliopause;
- Long-duration crew habitation;
- USAF electric-fields experiment module adaptability study (interagency co-op program)
[edit] Lost Contact
On February 7, 2038, NASA lost contact with the Charybdis following the failure of the ship's telemetry system. The official NASA report read:
- "Vehicle systems at telemetry cutoff indicated thrust abnormality. Vehicle attained 12x solar escape velocity 2.56 hours earlier than planned. Assumed vehicle was lost with consumables run out, 20% possibility of crew survival with hibernation systems at low usage mode D.S. tracking history. Follow up mission Jacob resulted in negative track."
Although unknown to NASA at the time, the Charybdis had been swept out of the solar system and all of the crew, except Richey, were killed. Richey awoke to find himself in a facsimile of the novel "The Hotel Royale" on a planet unknown to him. He later surmised that the Charybdis was contaminated by an alien lifeform which infected and killed all personnel except himself. Out of remorse, the aliens recreated the Royale for Richey to live. He would continue to live there for the last 38 years of his life.
In 2365, pieces of a strange vessel were discovered in the upper atmosphere of Theta 116 VIII by a Klingon cruiser passing near the Theta 116 system. The remains of the ship were later investigated by the USS Enterprise-D, which beamed a piece of debris aboard containing some sort of unknown markings. These markings were later determined to be those of an American flag and the NASA logo. Metallic analysis later confirmed the markings' origin. Further analysis determined that the debris came from the Charybdis, corroborated by the discovery of Colonel Richey's corpse and journal in The Hotel Royale on the planet's surface.
[edit] Appendices
[edit] References
[edit] Background
The mission patch for Charybdis was actually the mission patch for the Apollo 17 lunar mission, which was the last mission to take men to the Moon. The names on the patch are for Eugene Cernan, Commander, Harrison Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot, and Ronald Evans, Command Module Pilot.
The name of the vessel, Charybdis (along with Scylla) were sea creatures in Greek mythology that lived in a cave near the Straits of Messina.
It should also be noted that the NASA "worm" logo seen on the debris is today no longer in use, having been retired in 1992.
