The Federation of Worlds had put the old space program NASA out of business centuries ago.  The Federation had warp drive starships, and could go anywhere in the Solar System at half the speed of light.  But humanity did not go outside the Solar System.  The year is 2999.

     The Federation had a NASA museum in Florida.  Rockets had been obsolete for centuries.  The warp drive engines were a lot better and faster and safer than rocket engines.  Astronomy got a lot better over the centuries and just one month ago the Federation found a small planet twenty-one light years from Earth.  The gravity of this new planet was one fourth that of the Earth, and the new planet was a quarter Earth's size.  The planet was found to be made mostly of gold, and the atmosphere, mostly oxygen, was a lot thicker than Earth's atmosphere.  The planet orbited two yellow stars, both the size and type of the Sun.  The Federation gave the planet a name.  They called it “Eden”.

     The Federation decided to build a robot starship that would have three zeppelin probes to explore the atmosphere of Eden.  They would have one satellite orbiting above the atmosphere, looking down at the planet, and then lots of relay satellites.  The three probes and the orbiting satellite in contact with the starship would be Mission Control.

     The Federation planned to name the mission control ship after the first man in space back in the 20^th Century, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and the satellite after the first satellite that went up in orbit around the Earth back in the 20^th Century, Sputnik.

     The Federation found out that Radon, the Cyborg Pterodactyloid Man, and Grif, the Griffin Man, and Radon's butler Cadbery had been frozen in ice back in the 21^st Century, and that Cadbery was the son of Yuri Gagarin.  It was just as fair as that the first man to go into space was a Russian, for the first man on Planet Eden to be the son of Yuri Gagarin.  They heard, too, that Radon was the first living thing with wings on its body to fly across the North Atlantic Ocean.  So he had to be one of the three zeppelin probes, and Grif would be another.

     So the work started at the old space program to build the starship Yuri Gagarin, staffed by computers.  They located Radon, Grif and Cadbery out where they were frozen and removed all of the intelligence from their organic brains, installing an artificial intelligence consciousness.

     The Federation of Worlds was able to build in orbit just like the starships before them.  But they built at the old NASA space center.  But with the four warp drive engines it could not get off the ground at the space center.  So they had to use six Saturn Five rockets to lift the Starship Gagarin and all of the probes and satellites into space.

     Then they found three of the old obsolete space shuttles at the old NASA space center.  So they put Radon, Grif and Cadbery as the zeppelin probes in the cockpits, then installed the old obsolete shuttles at the side of the front end of the starship.  It took three months to build Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's starship at the old space center.

     Now came the big day to launch the starship and his mission control staff computers, and Radon, Grif and Cadbery and the zeppelin probes and satellite Sputnik to go and explore Eden.

 

     Here at the old space center of NASA it was New Year's Eve and the opening of the 31^st Century, and the countdown would soon start that would launch Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's starship and his probes to Planet Eden.  The countdown would begin on 12:00 on the new year's day of 3000.

     The King of Mars City on Planet Mars and the President of the Federation of Worlds were in the same old mission control that launched the Saturn Five to the Moon back in 1969.  The President said to the King, “It was here that the first men went to the Moon.  But back in the 20^th Century the only way to travel in space was with rockets, and it cost too much to go into space then.  Then the trailer beam first came out.  It was centuries before.  It had more power to launch into space and to break from the Earth's gravity, and was more affordable, too.  It was how the Federation could get the parts into space to build all of the starships and spaceships and anything else wanted in space affordably.   Then warp drive came out.  With warp drive engines all the starships could go at half the speed of light.  Back in 1969 it took the three men three and a half days just to get to the Moon.  Now there were a lot of moon bases and mines on the moon, and it was a great place for astronomy.  The far side of the moon was an astronomers' paradise.  There were lots of telescopes on the far side of the moon.  It was a telescope there that discovered Planet Eden.”

     The King said, “Well, all Martians are really Earthlings.  I was born in Mars City and I'm a real Martian.  But all Martians are humans just like you.  It was centuries ago when the first man landed on Mars.  It was work and study, and then return to Earth.  Then after that, through the years, a lot of people went to Mars and stayed there.  The Earthlings became Martians on Mars.  They started with bases and developed towns over the centuries.  The first city on Mars became Mars City as we know it today.  But it was NASA that got these Martians to Mars.

     “Now on Mars City there's a museum of the probes, landers and orbiters.  It has a movie theater that shows all the old science fiction movies about Martians and UFOs and Martians attacking Planet Earth.  But just like I said before, really Martians are Earthlings.”

     The President of the Federation said, “Space is a big place.  Since humans first got into their start in the 20^th Century, travel has gotten faster and easier.  It took Voyager 12 years to get to the planet Neptune.  Now you can get there in two days by warp-drive starships.  Then the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were explored.  But these planets have no surface to land on.  They are balls of gas.  But over the centuries the Federation has gotten a lot of space stations orbiting these planets,  and  they have put a lot of bases on their moons.

     “But there is only one planet in the Solar System that the Federation has bases on, a small planet, the farthest from the Sun, and the coldest.  Our sun from there is only a star.  The name of that planet is ‘Pluto'.

     “The name of the first observatory was ‘Man in the Moon'.  The place where the first man landed on the moon back in 1969 is a park.  The Federation dug up the three astronauts but did not open their coffins and vault.  The Federation thought their graves should be on the Moon.

     “The Lunar Lander had a broken switch that started the rocket engine and they might have been trapped on the moon.  But one of the astronauts used a pen to hold the switch  on.  So they fired the engine and it got them off the moon.  But their graves should be on the moon by the Lunar Lander, even though they got back to Earth.  There is a park on the moon named after those three astronauts.”

     The countdown had begun.  The President was going to make a speech.  He described the history of the space program and said why the ship had its name and why the components had the names they had.  “Space is a big place.  One year an observatory of the moon discovered Planet Eden twenty-one light years away from your home planet Earth.  One half the speed of light is 93,000 miles a second.  It will take the starship Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and his mission control staff computers and Radon, Grif and Cadbery and Sputnik and the relay satellites forty-two years just to get to the planet Eden, one way only.  And the first thing it will do after getting there is to phone home and keep transmitting back to our home planet Earth.  But the transmission will take twenty-one years just to get back to Earth.  So the first transmission will get back sixty-three years from now.  Most of us will be dead before it comes, but our children and their children will get all the information, and their children will go one way to the planet Eden.  I will not see the first transmission in my lifetime.  But my kids will in their lifetimes.”

     After the President of the Federation of Worlds had finished his speech, all of humanity in the Solar System cheered and liked his speech a lot!!!

     The time is 6:00 PM on December 31, 2999.  Radon and Grif had been put in the cockpits of the old obsolete space shuttles by the small warp drive sky shuttles.  All of the fuel tanks of the old obsolete Saturn Five rockets were full.  This would be the last time that rockets would be used to go in space.  A lot of people were present to watch the launch.  It was the best way to start the new year and the 31^st Century.  Minutes to launch, then ninety seconds, then one minute, then 45 seconds, then thirty.   Then 20. 19, 18…5,4,3,2,1, 0.  All six Saturn Five rockets were firing.  All four warp drive engines of the starship of Cosmonaut Yuri  were on line and at full power working with the six Saturn Five rockets to launch it off the ground.

     The President of the Federation said, “Now we have a liftoff.”  And the starship was on its way to Eden. “So humanity will explore and survey this golden planet that is a lot cleaner and healthier than our home planet Earth.”

     All six Saturn Five rockets were firing.  A lot of smoke was coming from the first stage.  It was off the launch pad and clearing the tower.  It climbed to the clouds and passed the clouds in the troposphere, then left the troposphere and went into the stratosphere, then through the ozone layer at a height of thirty-one miles, then into the mesosphere, fifty miles up.  Half through the mesosphere, three hundred miles up, all of the fuel of the first stage was gone.  The ship automatically broke off all six of the first stage rockets, then started firing up the second stage and entering the ionosphere, four hundred miles up.  Just before getting to the exosphere, six hundred miles up, all of the fuel in the second stage was expended, so the second stage was dropped and the third stage began firing up.  It was seven hundred miles aloft.  At the top of the outer part of the Earth's atmosphere the third stage was broken off, eight hundred miles up.  They entered space from the exosphere.

     The six Saturn Five rockets had done their job.  They were in orbit going around the Earth.  The first, second and third stages of the rockets  were falling back to Earth and into the Caribbean Sea just north of the island of Jamaica.  They sank to the bottom of the blackness of the Caribbean Sea forever.

     The Gagarin was using the warp drive engines to get up to high orbit 1.000 miles up.  The Gagarin turned off the warp engines to get into orbit.  Then it contacted the President of the Federation of Worlds.  It was in orbit and waiting to be sanitized so it would not bring Earth's germs to planet Eden.

     There was a giant cheer back in the old mission control.  The President radioed back verifying the transmission.  Then he said, “When the first men returned to Earth in 1969, NASA had them in an enclosed room in case they had germs from the Moon on them.  But they were clean.  NASA discovered that our home planet's moon was a dead rock.  Back in the 19^th Century, H.G. Wells wrote a classic science fiction story called WAR OF THE WORLDS, about Martians attacking and taking over our home planet.  All your weapons could not stop them.  Humanity would be destroyed by the Martians.  But as the Martians got out of their machines in our home planet's atmosphere, they all died because they had no disease-resistant systems.  There have been a lot of science fiction stories like it.  But all of the real Martians on Mars are humanity.  Martians are humanity come from Earth.  WAR OF THE WORLDS is science fiction.  But at the present time there is a fear that the life on a small golden planet twenty-one light years away will be destroyed by our Earth germs.  So the Federation of Worlds prefers being safe to being sorry.  So before the starship departs from orbit it will be sanitized.”

     The Federation began sanitizing the Gagarin and its probes.  Space was the best place to do this, because there was no air in a vacuum outside the Earth's atmosphere and the heat of the sun was a lot stronger and would destroy most of the Earth's germs.  They were being thorough and it was a hard job, but finally it was finished and Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin awaited the launch window breaking out of Earth's influence to head to Eden.

     There was six hours to the launch window departing for the twenty-one light year journey to the planet Eden.  The President of the Federation was going to make a speech to all of humanity in the Solar System.

     “Starship Yuri Gagarin is in orbit around our home planet Earth.  Back in the 20^th Century in 1961 the first man went into space, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.  The real cosmonaut came back to Earth in 1961.  But the Starship Yuri Gagarin is not coming back to our home planet.  It is going one way to a small planet one fourth the size of ours, with a quarter of the gravity of our world.  Most of Eden is gold and it has a lot more oxygen than our home planet.  It orbits two stars.  It's a small star system with three planets in it, one inner planet and two outer planets.  It has two gas giant planets.  The outer is the size of Uranus and the other is just the size of Neptune.  Like the Solar System, they have an asteroid belt, but there are a lot fewer asteroids in it.  The gas giant planets will have names.  The outermost will be named Eve, then the next planet between Eve and the planet Eden is named Adam.  So there's three planets in their system, two gas giant planets and one small rocky planet.

     “Like our home planet Earth, Eden is in the ‘Goldilocks Zone'.  It' s  just at the right orbit that orbits its two suns like one sun.  Our planet orbits 93,000,000 miles, but Eden orbits 100,000,000 miles.  There will be more solar heat and light from two suns.  The Goldilocks Zone is 7,000,000 miles further than the same zone in our system.”

     All of the people in the Solar System liked this speech a lot.

     In its Earth orbit the starship was waiting for the launch window.  The countdown was on.  After the count, the starship turned on all four of its warp drive engines and broke out of Earth's orbit.

     Just after breaking out of orbit, the starship passed the moon.  It took twenty minutes.  Then it headed to Venus and passed it.  Then it headed to Mercury and passed it.  Then it passed the north pole of the Sun and headed past the orbits of Mercury, Venus and Earth on the other side of the Sun.  Then it headed toward Mars.

     Just before it made the flyby of Mars, the King of Mars City and all of the Martians on Mars wanted to see and record the flyby.  So the King called the Gagarin.  “As the King of Mars City and all of the Martians on my home planet Mars, I say that there are a lot of Martians who want to see and record your flyby.  I saw your launch from the old space center of NASA live with my two eyes.  So I would like to see your starship fly by over the sky of Mars City.” 

     The Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin said to the King, “I have been programmed to do the flyby just outside of Mars' atmosphere over Mars City.”

     The starship flew by over the atmosphere of Mars and all of the Martians were looking up, using their telescopes and recording it too.  The flyby was also recorded by the space stations orbiting Mars.  When it had passed, the King made a speech to all of humanity in the Solar System, saying  “I saw the flyby of the Starship Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin over Mars City.  Mars is the new planet for humanity to live on.  The Earth's moon was the first place for humanity to have bases outside the home planet.  But the Earth's moon is not a real planet.  It is a moon that orbits our home planet.  But our planet Mars is the first real planet that humanity came onto.  And Mars City started as the first Mars base from our home planet the Earth.

     “Those first people who stayed on Mars bore their kids here, and that's how the first Martians got on Mars from planet Earth.  And over the centuries we have made the atmosphere of Mars like the Earth's atmosphere.  But it was a lot of hard work to have that oxygen and at the same time to warm up the atmosphere so you can go outside without wearing spacesuits.  Over the centuries Mars City has grown a lot.  Back in the 21^st Century it was the first base on Mars.  Then over the centuries that base grew into a village and that village grew into a town.  Then the town grew into a city and it's the biggest city on Mars.  And now the starship is on its way to planet Eden, twenty-one light years away.  This is the 31^st Century and as Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin gets to planet Eden it is like back in the 21^st Century.”

     All of humanity in our Solar System liked the king's speech a lot!!!

     Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin called to the King of Mars City and said, “I like your speech a lot.”

     The king said, “Well, all of the Martians on Mars wish you and Radon, Grif and your son the best of luck on planet Eden.”  Then the ship left Mars' orbit and went out of the Goldilocks Zone and into the asteroid belt.

     When the ship was just out of the inner planet in the asteroid belt, a part of the equipment it had, a force field to protect the ship from asteroids and comets, became activated.  If the asteroids and comets were small, the field could push them aside.  If big, a computer program would automatically make the starship go around them, then automatically go back on course.  So as the starship got in the belt he tested the force field and software program.  And it worked great.  And the ship needed that a lot!!  It was a long way to go to the planet Eden.

     Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin got out of the asteroid belt and entered the range of the outer planets.  The first outer planet the ship flew by was the biggest planet, Jupiter.  Part of the flyby was to pass the four moons first discovered by the man who invented the telescope, Galileo.  It passed three of the moons, then got to the innermost moon, Io.  Then it flew past the Galileo volcano observatory space station.  That was the safest  place to study all of the volcanoes on Io first discovered by Voyager probes back in the 20^th Century.  Next the ship flew over Jupiter's atmosphere, flying over the giant Red Spot.  It was a giant storm in Jupiter's atmosphere that had been blowing for centuries and would be blowing for centuries to come.

     Departing from Jupiter, it headed for the ringed planet Saturn.  It wasn't the only gas giant planet that had rings.  Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune also had them.  But Saturn had the biggest rings.  Galileo had discovered the rings of Saturn.  The ship wanted to make a flyby of Saturn's biggest moon, Titan, and the Huygens space station before getting to Saturn.  It flew first over the rings and then between Saturn and the rings, then got to the other side of Saturn and flew over Saturn's rings on the other side.

     After it did the flyby of Saturn it headed to the planet Uranus.  It passed between the planet and its rings, then headed for Neptune.  It flew over Neptune's north pole and then flew past Neptune's moon, Triton.  Then it headed for the last planet, Pluto, passing between it and its small moon.  Finally the ship was outside the Solar System.  It had a 42-year trip ahead of it.

     The Federation President had been accompanying the craft in a ship of his own, but seven million miles after they passed Pluto he stopped and called to the Gagarin and said, “This is as far as I can go and I cannot go with you to Eden.  I am eighty-five years old and I would pass away before I got to Eden.  But our children and their children's children will set foot on the first Earthlike planet outside the Solar System.  In fact back in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries NASA did send robot probes out to the planets in our own system and surveyed all of them.  The radio transmissions only took hours to go to the probes.  But Eden is a different matter.  It takes twenty-one years.  That's why the Federation of Worlds has a lot of artificial intelligence staff computers.  Cadbery will touch the planet Eden just like his father, the real Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, touched space for the first time in 1961.  You will be dormant and stay in orbit and the three zeppelin probes will get back in.  After the surveillance of the world is done you will go into dormant and stay in dormant until the first humans come to planet Eden.  We will wake you and your staff computer and probes in the future.  As the President of the Federation of Worlds I speak for all of humanity in saying that we wish you the best of luck for all the great discoveries that you and your probes will make.”

     Then the President's starship turned back to Earth.  But the Yuri Gagarin was going to Eden and starting now to power up four warp drive engines to full power at 93,000 miles a second, half the speed of light.  But the trip was still forty-two years.

     As it continued on its way they encountered an old space probe that was launched from Earth in the 20^th Century.  It was a Pluto flyby and got the first real close pictures of Pluto and its small moon.  They flew past the old New Horizon space probe.  Then they encountered Voyager Two, which had gotten the first close-up pictures of Jupiter and Saturn and their many moons.  Voyager Two had first discovered geysers on Triton.  It had a lot more of them than Earth.  They flew past the Voyager Two space probe, then encountered an old probe launched by NASA, Deep Space One, the first space probe that had a plasma drive engine.  These, like rocket engines, had become obsolete.  But they were the engines that led to warp drive engines.  They passed the Deep Space One, and Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin fired up his reactor at full power, all four of his warp drive engines.  Then he put Radon, Grif and the son of Yuri Gagarin, and the mission control staff computers, to sleep.  Their work would be needed when the starship got to Eden, as the surveying, mapping, exploring and discoveries needed to be done.  Only the master computer would stay on for forty-two years.

      After that length of time had passed, Starship Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin arrived at the system of Planet Eden.  It entered the system, passing first the outermost gas giant, planet Eve, the size of Uranus and the smaller of the two gas giants.  Then it passed Adam, a gas giant the size of Neptune.  As it passed these planets it launched satellites named after the planets as probes to study the planets and their moons and rings, and to report their discoveries to the Gagarin's mission control staff computers.

     Passing Adam, the Gagarin went into the asteroid belt and then entered the Goldilocks Zone.  At last, after forty-two years, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin could see the planet Eden on his monitor screen.  EDEN!!!  The Gagarin reversed the four warp drive engines to slow down.  Then he flew over the outer atmosphere, or exosphere, of Eden's north pole.  The head shield that had been on the front end of the starship had to be discarded.  It had done its job protecting the Yuri Gagarin from asteroids and comets.

     Just 100,000 miles from Eden, the Gagarin wanted to get in orbit between Eden and the two suns, but orbiting the suns, so Gagarin could see the day side of the planet all the time.  Then he had his solar cells out to get all the electricity to run all of his own computers, the master control computer and staff mission control computers.  Now the Gagarin was a space station orbiting the two suns of the Eden system, just a hundred thousand miles above Eden and orbiting beside it.

     The first thing the Gagarin had to do was “PHONE HOME”!!  And the master control made its first discovery:  the sun of Earth was the north star of Planet Eden.  That would make it a lot easier to find our home planet Earth from Planet Eden.  So Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin deployed his giant television transmitter to look like a giant satellite dish on the starship's top.  Now the Gagarin was a space station.

     The Gagarin deployed all of the solar cells for all of the electricity needed to power all the mission control staff computers and all other needs too.  Then he deployed all the relay satellites to go into orbit and go around at the same speed as the planet was spinning, forming a sphere around the planet.  All the twenty-four relay satellites were deploying their solar cells to power the relay satellites.  These relay satellites had three jobs.  The main job was communication so as the three zeppelin probes, Radon, Grif, and Cadbery, could communicate to the Gagarin as they explored and surveyed the planet.  They would transmit   to the closest relay satellite to them, which would relay it to the Gagarin.  The communication could be returned the same way.  The second job was for the weather.  If any storm was threatening to the probes, they could go above them into the stratosphere until the storm passed, then return to the planet.  The third job was GBS so all three probes would have a global map of Eden.  The relay could not map the planet at all.  In a closer orbit only one satellite could do the mapping.  The name of the satellite that would explore and survey and map the planet was SPUTNIK!!!

     Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and his mission control staff computers deployed satellite Sputnik to go into orbit around Eden.  Sputnik deployed his solar cells to get electricity from the four solar cells from the light from Eden's two suns.  Then Sputnik deployed his two satellite dishes, one to communicate to the relay satellites and one to point down to the planet so Sputnik could stay in full communication with the planet survey.

     Then Sputnik turned on his camera and started looking down on Eden, doing his survey.  First he studied Eden's atmosphere, comparing it to the thickness of Earth's atmosphere, but Eden, one fourth the size of Earth, was four times more compressed in terms of atmosphere than Earth.  The ozone layer was a lot thicker and stronger than Earth's.  The staff computers had a theory that the ozone layer was thicker because there was a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere, and with two suns the sunlight was two times stronger, so the planet evolved a strong ozone layer because there was a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere.

     Sputnik then looked past the atmosphere and studied the planet's surface.  The gravity was one fourth that of the Earth, fifty per cent stronger than the Earth's moon.  Sputnik studied what the planet was made out of.  Mostly it was made out of gold.  Eden is a golden planet and then there were a lot of diamonds on the surface of the planet.  Then Sputnik studied the climate.  Mostly it was a desert planet, but the north and south poles were tropical.  The staff computers at mission control had a theory.  With the sunlight two times stronger it was too hot for the tropics to be on Eden's equator as on Earth, so they were at the poles.

     Sputnik began looking for life on the planet.  It found what it was looking for.  There was a lot of fungus life.  The computers had a theory.  With an atmosphere rich in oxygen, it was good for fungus life but bad for plant life.  The plant life could get carbon gas mainly from the fungus life, so it did not suffocate to death.

     Then Sputnik looked for animal life and found a lot of animals.  It discovered that most of the animal life there were dinosaurs.  It was a big discovery to see living dinosaurs on Eden.  They are extinct on Earth, but on Eden they formed most of the animal life.  For the first time, humanity could see living dinosaurs.  What a discovery this was!!  Sputnik zoomed in his camera from orbit to see close up to the dinosaurs.  But it discovered that the dinosaurs were much smaller than those which were alive on planet Earth.  They had a theory as to why they were smaller.  Each generation of dinosaurs had gotten smaller because of a lack of food over the centuries. Those on Eden were 100^th of the size dinosaurs had been on Earth.

     Sputnik also discovered animals of fantasy on Eden.  Dragons, griffins,  phoenix birds.  Then Sputnik discovered Archaeopteryx, a lot of them.  They were where all birds came from.  On Earth they were extinct with the dinosaurs.  But on Eden they were alive in great numbers.

     In looking down on Eden, Sputnik discovered giant canals on one side of the planet.  Canals are not nature, they are of artificial make, and only an intelligent life form makes canals.  Sputnik also discovered the fossils of mermaids and ocean life.

     Then the staff computers of mission control had a theory.  In the past, Eden was an ocean planet.  Over the centuries the oceans evaporated.  As the H2O evaporated, the heat of the two suns cut the hydrogen from the oxygen, and the oxygen stayed in the atmosphere, which got thicker and thicker.  Now the oceans were gone, but Eden did have one small ocean, and there were small lakes and rivers on the planet.  There was one big lake with yellow water, and there were giant geysers on islands in the lake, whose shores teemed with plant life and fungi.  About this the staff computers at mission control had a theory.  As the oceans evaporated over the centuries, the mermaids tried to save their lives and their society by digging giant canals.  But the hard work couldn't save them and their society from extinction.  There was a city that had been that of the extinct mermaids.  So the staff computers studied the extinct city.  The intelligent life on Eden had been the mermaids, but the society was extinct centuries ago, and there was no intelligent life in Eden.

     Sputnik studied more and more of the planet along with the staff computers of mission control of the master control of the Gagarin.  It discovered erupting volcanoes.  But a satellite has its limits.  Only by having probes down on the planet could the real exploring and discovery work be done.  The master control computer looked at the global map of Eden, and deployed Yuri's son Cadbery to land and touch planet Eden.  Master control then detached the old obsolete space shuttle of Cadbery the son of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.  Gagarin had been the first to touch space, starting space travel, and now his son would be the first to touch a planet outside the Solar System.

     The shuttle entered the exosphere and then the ionosphere and then the mesosphere.  It was heating up by friction entering the atmosphere.  Just as the shuttle entered the stratosphere, it EXPLODED!!!!!!  The first contact between Earth and Eden fell into many pieces all over the ground on Eden.

     But the Federation of Worlds was prepared for these probe failures.  The Gagarin detached Grif's shuttle from the space station and it headed to the planet.  By the time Grif got into the stratosphere, the Gagarin was detaching Radon's shuttle and it headed for the planet.  As it entered the mesosphere, Grif entered the troposphere and flew over a forest made up mainly of Saturn trees and some skyscraper trees.  Grif was going to land his space shuttle on a field in the forest.  He did and when it stopped sliding it had slid a mile and was beside a Saturn Tree.  Grif said to the Gagarin, “Greetings from Planet Eden, twenty-one light years from Earth.  We are here!!!”

     The Gagarin received the message and sent it onward to Earth.  At last humanity had touched the first planet outside the Solar System.  They could move on to a new world.

     Grif opened the cockpit and got out.  He had to get himself together.  He inflated a giant bag on his back.  As it was inflating it was shaped like a teardrop on its side, with its bottom in the front end of the zeppelin probe.  There were a lot of solar cells on the teardrop bag.  This got electricity from the two suns.  They had batteries to store the electricity at night.  Both had a small reactor as the secondary power plant to keep them running all the time.  After the bag was fully inflated and floating in the air, Grif tested his four robot arms, made of simulated plastic muscle.  About a quarter of a mile away a Zeppelin Dilophosaurus was watching Grif from just behind a hill.  Grif's sensors sensed movement but could not see it.  So Grif started out to meet Radon fifty miles to the north.

     When Grif got there, Radon had his bag fully inflated too.  Both had lots of small probes.  Radon deployed his beetle probe, good to go into places too small and dangerous for Radon or Grif to explore.  Radon used his robot arm to get his beetle probe back and put it away.  Then he deployed one of his Frisbee probes.  Both Radon and Grif had fast-moving camera Frisbee probes.  They could go at the same speed as a bullet and fly in the air.  It was handy to have more eyes for Radon and Grif to explore and survey Eden.

     As they used their probes, a Dilophosaurus watched and got scared of the camera Frisbee probe.  All of the probes were battery-powered and rechargeable.  The camera Frisbee ran out of power and landed on the ground.  Radon used his robot arm to put it away.

     The last test of the zeppelin probe was if they encountered any intelligent life on the planet.  They did a hologram.  Four shapes, then our galaxy or solar system, then the three planets seen from ours, then Earth, showing the Earth's moon.  The pictures were both sexes of the humans of humanity.  Then pictures of people's faces.

     Grif's sensors picked up movement but Grif still could not fully find the source of the movement.  The Dilophosaurus was still too far away.  But the two were fully ready to start their work of exploration and surveillance.  They were in a forest of Saturn Trees.  The computers named them that because it was like the planet Saturn and its rings.  The trees rose eighty feet from the ground, the roots alone.  The computers had a theory.  The roots had a giant mass to hold up.  The spheres had to be hollow or full of a sponge stuff.  They might have a lot of fungus life inside the spheres.  Radon used his thruster to fly up to the top part of a Saturn Tree, then deployed two of his simulated plastic muscle arms, and looked inside the sphere of the tree.  He told the computers, “Your theory is right.  A lot of oxygen in Eden's atmosphere makes it tough for all plant life, so the trees evolved a means of getting carbon gas from the fungus, and the plant's leaves protect the fungus from the sun.  What a discovery!!”

     Radon deployed his beetle probe on the ground to walk under the Saturn Tree.  It walked under the roots that held up the tree's planet sphere.  Then it looked up with its camera and saw the south pole of the sphere of the tree.

     Then Grif the zeppelin probe flew past Radon and over a small pond.  He saw fish swimming in the water.  The wind had blown him to the other side of the pond.  A Cobra Tyrannosaurus Rex saw him and flicked his forked tongue.  Grif thrust up in the air out of reach.

     Radon saw this and wanted to investigate, so he got a little closer and saw that the creature was a lot longer than the Earth Tyrannosaurus.  It had a giant hood like a cobra.

     The tyrannosaurus went after Radon, but he went higher.  It tried again for Grif.  Both were out of reach.  It was so mad it roared and jumped up and down.  Then it turned its back on the two.  Grif could see from the rear view that it had the same markings as a cobra back on Earth.  He saw also bioluminescent lighting on the back of its hood and tail.  The staff computers would thus call this life form “Cobra Tyrannosaurus Rex”.

     The dinosaur turned back to regard them.  He had eating them in mind and was looking at Radon.  Grif discovered a Chameleon Maiasaura eating chocolate beans off a Chocolate Factory Tree.  Its tail was the same as a chameleon's back on Earth.  Its eyes were the giant eyes of a chameleon and it moved like one does.  Its tongue was the same too, in use now.  The tyrannosaurus saw it also and wanted to eat it, so it ran after it, but the chameleon saw it with its giant moving eyes and ran for its life!!!!!!  Both were running at speeds of sixty miles an hour and the zeppelin probes were left in the dust.

     Radon launched a camera Frisbee probe, which detached itself from his back and flew off to investigate this alien dinosaur chase.  It could travel at three times the speed of sound if need be.  The tyrannosaurus got above the back of the chameleon and was going to bite behind his head.  But the chameleon had a way to save its life—by making sharp turns that made the tyrannosaurus fall behind.  The chase was still on and running in a forest of skyscraper trees.   Another sharp turn caused the tyrannosaurus to fall down, but it got back on its feet and renewed the chase.  But it could not run any more and the chameleon escaped being his dinner.  “What a discovery!!!”  Frisbee probe #1's battery ran out and it fell on the ground, so Radon flew up and, using his simulated plastic muscle arm, he got it back to recharge.

     The staff computers of mission control of the Gagarin had to make a report of this alien dinosaur chase.  Its report was that eat or be eaten was the same on Eden as on Earth.  The first life forms ate plants or fungus, then meat-eating forms wanted to eat them.  Eden was the same way.  There were food chains on both planets.

     The computers wanted to find where the son of the real Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Cadbery, had crashed.  They'd call the new alien dinosaur “Chameleon Maiasaura”.

     The place where Cadbery had crashed was seventy miles north of the probes.  The two headed to the crash site.  As they headed there they saw the first sunset they'd seen on the planet.  It was better viewing than an Earth sunset because there were two suns.  When both had set, Radon said to Grif and all of the computers, “Back in the 21^st Century as I was flying across the North Atlantic Ocean, I watched two sunrises and sunsets.  But here I've seen two suns setting and one sunset.  It's a lot better with two suns, a real treat.  On Earth the sunsets and rises were real treats for the eyes to see from the ocean.  But it's BETTER here with two suns!!!!”

     There were a lot of diamonds and giant ones too on Eden, and it was a golden planet as well.  There was glowing light from the diamonds.  The computers had a theory and fixed a mistake of the people on Earth.  During the day most of the diamonds took in light and at night they emitted it, showing a lot of colors, a great light show to see on Eden.  Some of the dinosaurs had bioluminescent lighting on their bodies.  There must be an interchange of lighting.

     At last the probes located Cadbery.  The shuttle he had on board was fully destroyed, leaving a lot of pieces all over the field.  It was late at night so they had their headlights on.  As their probes floated over a giant diamond, they found Cadbery.  Radon told the staff computers and the master control computer, “Back in the 21^st Century in London Cadbery had come into town to start a new life and he was looking for a job.  Then I did hire him as my butler and he was the best butler I had.  He helped me win England's first soccer cup and I got my soccer ball balloon and started my trip around the world.  He came with me to go around the world twenty-one light years from Earth.  His brain was put in the artificial brain of the zeppelin probe like mine and Grif's.  The last thing that Cadbery said is that the Federation of Worlds were naming the robot starship after his father, the first man to touch outer space. ‘As the son of the first man to go into space, I want to be the first man to touch the first planet outside our solar system.'  Well, Cadbery got what he had wished for.  But he died and I am so upset that he died for it.  But like his father he is the FIRST.”

     The computers made a memorial for Cadbery and both Radon and Grif's probes had a watch on Cadbery the rest of the night into dawn.

     As the two suns rose over the horizon the computers reprogrammed Radon's and Grif's artificial computer brains.  They were now to split up according to the master program.  The software programs were that Radon would go to the north half of the planet to explore, survey and study the eco system and the plant and fungus life.  Grif would do the south end of the planet with the same purpose.  They were to study all the alien dinosaurs and animals of fantasy on Planet Eden.

     It had been a giant treat to see the two suns rising.

     Radon told Grif and the staff computers, “It's our job to explore this planet, which is a quarter the size of Earth, but it will take a lot of time.  As artificial brains, we can keep working 24/7 all the time day and night.”

     Grif said, “It's going to be a lot of work.  After it's all done, you and me will go back into the old obsolete space shuttle and go to sleep or dormancy after our hard work.  But I don't know how long we and the computers will stay dormant before the first humans will come to Eden.  That may be years and years or a century or two.” 

     The two went their ways.

     Grif flew over hot vents and geysers and pools of hot boiling water.  He needed more hydrogen gas in his gas bag to stay in the air.  He got hydrogen from the mist off the boiling water in the hot pool.  He deployed the beetle probe at its edge.  He thought he saw fish swimming there.  The computers had a theory.  In the past Eden was an ocean planet, millions of years ago, and over the centuries the two suns evaporated the oceans and most of the water went up in the atmosphere and into space.  Now it was mostly a desert planet.  The hot pools were what was left of the hot vents on Eden.

     Grif retrieved his equipment and flew away from the hot vent pools, going south. Radon was flying north about three hundred miles away.  He entered a forest of skyscraper trees.  The forest floor around the trees was covered with golf ball fungus on tees.  The golf balls were as big as beach balls.  The tees were two or three feet high and the spheres were close together.  Radon deployed his beetle probe to explore under the spheres and to look up the tees holding them up.  It found one just growing out of the ground.  It was small and only the top half was above the ground.  Then the probe saw a baby skyscraper tree growing out of the ground.  It looked like the top of the Chrysler building.  Radon thought it was just like the Saturn Trees, they had a parchment with fungus to get carbon gas from fungus.  He floated to twin skyscraper trees that looked like the World Trade Center.  He used his simulated plastic arms to move the window leaves and look inside.  He saw to its center and found the elevator shafts and yes there was lots and lots of fungus in them.

     His sensors sensed motion in the sky and he saw gliding Iguanadons attaching to the sides of the skyscraper trees and sucking sap out of them.  They didn't have full wings, mostly skin attached to the front and back legs, just like the small flying lizards on Earth.  The skin was used for gliding.

 

     After discovering life on planet Eden, Radon discovered death there.  He found a dying Iquanadon on the ground.  The computers asked, “Death from what?”  Radon used his plastic arm to get his probe back and recharged it, then left the small forest and flew north.

 

     The satellite Sputnik discovered something big on the south side not far away from Grif.  The master control computer told Grif to investigate.  Grif flew east, then twelve miles south, over a small mountain.  In a valley he discovered a herd of Pipe Organ Triceratops at a small river.  They were colliding as they ran toward the river.  Grif heard music as they got there coming from their frills.  He zoomed in and looked at these frills and saw holes in back of the top part, through which they were blowing air.  That's how they could communicate with one another.  The big males fought each other over the rights to mate with the females, making loud music as they did so.  They were the size of a cow on Earth.  The staff computers thus gave them their name.

     At the same time the zeppelin dilophosaurus was flying to the herd, and it scared the pipe organ triceratops away.  Grif saw them run away and his sensors picked up the motion of the dilophosaurus moving behind a hill.  Grif flew to the hill.  Another of the same flew past and bumped Grif and spun him around.  But his sensors could not get a full fix on the movement.  They sensed in all directions to find the source of the movement.  Then Grif heard loud hissing sounds behind the hill and he flew to investigate.

     As he got behind the hill he saw two two-legged stegosauri fighting over territory.  The stegosauri were the size of ponies on Earth and had lots of bioluminescent lighting on their bodies, mostly on plaits and the sides.  The two were fighting over territory.  The colors of the lighting changed as they fought.  The computers had a theory.  Because of a lack of food, they got smaller and smaller over the centuries.

     As Grif watched, one of them gave up and ran away and the other hissed loudly with the bright colors of bioluminescent lighting changing fast too.  Then the stegosaurus looked at Grif.  Grif thought it might be intelligent because of its lighting communication.  He displayed the hologram screen to the stegosaurus and it watched the four shape symbols moving on the screen.  A zeppelin dilophosaurus was moving just behind Grif.  The stegosaurus saw it and got scared and ran away.  Grif's sensors sensed it and he turned around and saw if for just three seconds before it clawed his leg,  and Grif went offline.

     The master control computer of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin tried to contact Grif for the next twenty-four hours but got no replies.  It transmitted to the Federation of Worlds that the zeppelin probe of Grif had gone offline, cause unknown!!

     Radon had discovered something new on the top of the world trade center skyscraper tree and he zoomed in to the flying alligator on its top.  Its legs had evolved from four to two and its front legs became arms, like the flying iguanodons.  Their size was the same as a baby alligator on Earth.

     He wanted to see the alligator close up, so he sent a camera Frisbee probe to it.   It saw the camera Frisbee as a threat and jumped from the roof and glided to the probe.  Then it hit the probe and destroyed it over the top of a Saturn tree.  Then it glided past and under Radon and landed on the side of an Empire State Building skyscraper tree.  As it climbed its claws were so tight that the sap was bleeding out of the tree.  As it got to the top it just jumped off and glided past Radon, landing on the ring of a Saturn tree.  Radon told the computers, “I didn't know the alligators on Eden could be a danger to all of the trees on this planet.  But I remember seeing Iguanadons sucking sap out of the trees.  I think the alligators are setting up to attack the igandadons.  I didn't see this, but I do remember seeing a dead iguanadon on the ground.”

     So the staff computers would call this life form Eden's flying alligators.  Radon flew away, watched by the alligator on the ring of the Saturn tree.

     About five miles north he flew over a field of giant umbrella mushrooms.  At the far side he saw three hills with baby skyscraper trees and baby chocolate factory trees and coffee cup trees.  He sent Frisbee probe number two to investigate this.  The hills started to move side to side.  This could be a quake on planet Eden.  But the hills were off the ground and standing on four legs and had tails and heads.  Their heads had a flat frill and three horns.  It was the size of a football field and they were giant triceratops.  The trees were on the back of the triceratops Radon saw rise and walk.

     The computers had a theory that the giant triceratops had had a partnership with the skyscraper and other trees.  Radon X-rayed it and found a giant septic bladder inside it and the trees had roots going inside it into the septic bladder.  The trees ejected sugar into the triceratops' blood stream.  The computers called this life-form “Hybrid Triceratops”.  Radon flew beside them.  They walked slowly.  He saw one eating an umbrella mushroom.  He got a lot of pictures of it for the computers.  After he left the herd he flew down a cliff and down over a small river which had white water and he saw giant diamonds in it.  He flew over a field of umbrella mushrooms and entered a forest of skyscraper trees.  The forests were in small pockets.  The computers had a theory about this.  It was harder for plant life to live on this planet, and that's why forests in small pockets were scattered all around Eden.

     In orbit, the satellite Sputnik detected a storm just as Radon entered the forest.  It was blowing at thirty miles an hour.  It didn't look dangerous, but the atmosphere was thick.  The zeppelin probe was blown aside, then all around the forest, crashing into the skyscraper trees.  Radon got scared of this and did not want to have his gas bag ripped open.  So he used his thruster and thrust up in the air out of and over the forest.  He got out of the troposphere and into the stratosphere to get out of the storm.  He told the computers, “I am mad at the weather.  I have to wait it out and stay in the stratosphere until it passes.  I do not want to lose all my hydrogen gas.  I want to keep exploring and surveying Eden.”

     The storm ended as it started.  Just before descending Radon  released two weather balloons to monitor the weather.  Then he flew back down to the forest and went back to work.

     He looked at a lot of mushrooms on the forest's floor.  Then his sensors detected movement in the air.  He saw flying iguanadons.  They passed him and lit on the trees to suck sap.  Then Radon saw the flying alligator was looking at the iguanadons on the skyscraper tree staying on top of a smokestack of a chocolate factory tree.  The alligator glided toward an iguanadon and landed on its back.  It bit its neck and killed it.  It pulled if off the skyscraper tree and it fell to the forest floor.  The alligator jumped on the tree, then parachuted down to the forest floor.  Then it ate the iguanadon.

     The computers had a theory.  The flying alligators got the population of flying iguanadons under control, keeping them from destroying all the trees.

     Radon flew out of the forest and into a small canyon where he saw waterfalls coming out of the canyon's walls.  It flowed into a river at the bottom of the canyon, which flowed into a giant cave.  Radon entered the cave's front part with his spotlights on and saw that the rapids inside the cave flowed down a giant waterfall.  He could only go over the top part of the giant waterfall.  He flew from one side of it to the other.  Its width was six times longer than Niagara Falls.  His microphones heard a giant loud roar of falling water.

     The staff computers at mission control had a theory.  Most of the water in Eden was underground like well water.  Mars was somewhat like Eden.  Most of the water on Mars was underground too.  Before the Federation warmed Mars up, all of the water was frozen underground and at the poles too.  So far Earth had the most water.  It had more than Mars and Eden together.  Radon told the computers, “I do not know how deep that waterfall in the cave is.  I think it can go down hundreds or thousands of feet, or even miles and miles.  It's amazing to see a giant waterfall inside a giant cave.  What a discovery!!!”

     He flew north out of the canyon.  Over a big field his sensors detected a new thing on his radar.  He flew closer to a herd of mixed dinosaurs in the field.  As he got closer they all ran away, but not from Radon.  It was a flock of jet pterodactyloids who wanted to drink their blood.  They had four bladders on their wings with valves which sucked air in.  When the bladders were full, back valves opened and forced the air out.  Most of the pterodactyloids on Eden had this jet power.

     They could not attack the adults, so they looked for babies, who ran to the adults for protection.  Radon saw a baby Maiasaura too far from the herd.  As it ran back a jet pterodactyloid flew fast and low and stabbed it with his beak, then flew up in the sky fast.  Radon launched a camera Frisbee to investigate.

     He saw that the  jetters worked as a team.  When the first dropped the baby, a second flew down and caught it.  When the second dropped it the first caught it.  Finally the second dropped it and flew away and it fell by the nest where it lived.  The mother had been watching this and saw it fall.  She got so upset she started to roar.

     At the same time the camera Frisbee probe went dead and landed beside the dead baby.  Radon flew to the spot to get it back.  The mother thought he was one of the aggressors and did not want him at her nest, so she attacked him.  Radon had a plan.  He would let the mother chase him, then fly back to where the probe was and grab it.  About a third of a mile away he turned and flew back to the nest.  He grabbed the probe and recharged the battery.  When he passed the nest the mother was throwing diamonds at him.  He told the staff computers about it.  “The mother thought that I was a threat.  She could rip my gas bag and destroy me.”

     He got to a field that had giant spike ball mushrooms and detected a lot of electrical sparks from them.  Then he saw a flock of archaeopteryx and phoenix birds flying over them.  They discharged electricity and zapped the birds as they flew overhead.  Radon wanted to investigate this.  He told mission control about it.  “I have to be careful,” he said.  “There are two dangers.  The first is that the high electricity zaps will fry my computer brain.  The second is I am full up of flammable hydrogen gas.  The sparks will explode my gas bag and it will destroy me in a giant fireball.  So I will use my beetle probe to explore and investigate these giant alien mushrooms.”

     He deployed the probe on the ground.  The  probe walked to the mushrooms.  But they zapped it with a lot of electricity.  It got overheated and Radon walked it away.  But his sensors found that it was too hot to take back.  He had to wait an hour for it to cool down.  He retrieved it and flew north.

     As he flew, the master computer looked at the pictures from the satellite Sputnik and saw a lake of yellow water with lots of white foam.  It looked like a beer mug.  There was a lot of green on the island and the edge of the lake that looked like a beer mug.  So master control contacted Radon and over-rode his software, then provided a new software program.  He was to investigate the lake.  Twenty-one miles from it he entered a forest of skyscraper trees and saw a lot of phoenix birds flying around.  The biggest skyscraper tree in the forest was a world trade center tree.  Radon told master control, “I see a lot of phoenix birds and their nests, and I see some dragons in this forest.  So I want to investigate this eco system.”

     Most of the phoenix birds who flew in from the west side of the forest had frogs in their claws.  The dragons had frogs in their claws too.  Radon went to the world trade center skyscraper tree, the biggest of them all.  He saw mother phoenix birds sitting on their eggs and adult phoenix birds feeding their chicks.  He saw a lot of dragons' nests with baby dragons in them too.  There were a flock of phoenix birds in the skyscraper trees, most of which were brown.  He told the staff at mission control, “Just like on Earth, most of the male birds are more colorful than the females.  The male birds are singing for the females.  A lot of them are showing off by having their wings and tails flashing off their colors to get female phoenix birds and I want to see this.”  So he hid over a ring of a saturn tree.

     There were a lot more male phoenix birds than females.  They were singing and showing off their bodies to the females, and were fighting each other about having sex with them.  They used claws and beaks and pulled out feathers.   The ones that lost flew away.

     One of the birds who had lost wanted to have that female phoenix bird, so it flew about three hundred feet in the air and flew down fast at the winner, who was having sex with the female.  His beak hit him in the right eye.  His whole beak got stuck inside the other's skull.  The two were stuck together as they rolled off the female, flapping their wings.  The marauder pulled his beak out and the other, defeated, flew away.  Radon launched a camera Frisbee to keep up with it.  But it could fly no more and fell to the ground, and then died.  The other was having sex with the female, with the blood of the other still upon it.

     Radon told the computers, “Most animals live by their instincts and the most common instincts are ‘food and sex'.  Just like on Earth, the males fight over the females.”

     He got his camera probe and flew back to the forest.  He saw a lot of species of phoenix birds and a lot of archaeopteryx birds too, flying in and out of the skyscraper trees.  Most of the birds were on the west side of the forest.  He saw teenage birds of both types flapping their wings for their first flight.  Some of them fell on the ground.  There were a lot of small dragons waiting there to eat them.

     Radon told the computers, “Just like on Earth, the birds' behavior is the same.  Nesting and laying their eggs, sitting on them waiting for them to hatch, and feeding their chicks.  The lake that Sputnik discovered is twenty-one miles west of this forest.  I think most of the adult birds got food from that lake to feed their chicks.  When they come to be adults they flap their wings and take their first flights.  Some fall on the ground and the small dragons eat them.  Before I go to the lake I want to study the eco system of this forest.”

     He deployed the beetle probe in the biggest skyscraper tree and it went inside to study the birds' nests.  The probe discovered the nests and saw the eggs being tended.  It watched food being flown in, then saw them going to the elevator shaft and bathroom.  Radon said, “The best thing that I saw is the chicks need to go to the bathroom and go by instinct to the elevator shafts, then back to their nests.  I saw the partnership between the trees and the birds.  I have been in other forests of skyscraper trees and seen the fungus in the elevator shafts.  But in this forest the eco system is different than the others.  The elevator shafts have no fungus in them, but are hollow.  In the floor branch are the birds, and the trees can get carbon gas from them, and fertilizer, mostly from the babies who instinctively go to the elevator shafts. The trees evolved protection for the birds.  There are spikes at the bottom, the lobbies of the trees, to keep dragons and all other predators out.  The trees need the phoenix and archaeopteryx birds for carbon gas and fertilizer.  What a discovery!!!”

     Just four floors down from Radon's probe, a drop of water on the floor branch was focusing light from the two suns.  It burned on the dry straw of the nests.  It burned a small hole in the straw.  First smoke came out of the straw and then a small fire got started.  It grew fast and burned a group of nests in the tree.  It was burning up and down the world trade center skyscraper tree.  All of the adult birds flew out of the burning tree, but all of the chicks were trapped in it.  Just before the fire got to the beetle probe, Radon could see three phoenix birds tucking their heads under their wings, hiding from the fire.  Then the fire got to them.  The high heat destroyed Radon's beetle probe.  Radon got away from the burning tree and could hear on his microphone sounds of baby birds screaming in pain.  Some of the adults flew back in the tree.  They caught on fire themselves.  After an hour the fire slowly died out.  Radon flew down and investigated the aftermath.  He told the computers, “That was a big surprise!  The adults have been bringing in straw over the centuries.  They do not know that a lot of straw is a fire bomb and burns like a giant blowtorch.  Then after the fire I saw a lot of burned and dead phoenix and archaeopteryx chicks in the ashes.  There's a myth that a phoenix arises from its ashes, but on planet Eden, just like on Earth, fire kills anything and causes death to all.  I have watched the burned dead phoenix birds in the ashes and I do not see the dead phoenix birds rise from the ashes.  So like all life on Eden and Earth, death is part of life.  Some of the adult birds crying over their lost chicks…some people say animals do not have feelings.  But animals do have feelings, and I see it, too.  The chicks are not the only ones.  I lost my beetle probe too. I'm going on to the lake, twenty-one miles west from this forest, now.”

     Radon proceeded to Beer Lake.  He could see it when he was two miles away.  “The water is colored yellow and it is the biggest lake on Planet Eden.  This lake is the size of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes back on Planet Earth.  I see lots of white foam of the yellow water of this lake and I see lots of geysers and steam by the lake shore.  And I see the plant life.”

     When he arrived he saw lots of Saturn Trees.  These were growing in the lake water just off the shore.  His sensors detected carbon gas floating off the lake.  He flew up to one of the trees and deployed his beetle probe to go inside the sphere of the Saturn tree.  He told the computers, “This lake is rich in carbon gas and the Saturn trees do not have no fungus of any kind.  But where's the carbon gas coming from?”  He saw a lot of giant geysers all around the shore and flew to one of them and saw lots of yeast fungus all around the lake shore and at the base of all the geysers.  He saw lots of barley plants and hops plants and other small plants around the base of the geysers.   As he got close, his sensors detected alcohol in the geyser mist.  The geysers shot out hot water.  A lot of white foam in the lake was coming from them.

     Radon deployed the zeppelin probe at the edge of this lake to find out what was in the water.  The beetle probe walked to the water to take a test sample.  In its own laboratory the probe discovered a lot of alcohol in the water.  Then Radon had a giant discovery and told the staff computers at mission control and the master control computer on the Gagarin that the whole lake was a giant beer brewery.

     “As I first came in, the lake shore, as far as the lens could see, were a lot of geysers.  My theory is that the geysers acted on the yeast over the centuries, formed a slow brew.  I saw a lot of the same plants under water just below me off the lake shore.  The lake is rich in carbon so the plants evolved to a partnership with the yeast for carbon gas to live on.   I know how  beer is brewed.  First you have your barley and hops and other plants mix with the yeast and water and brew it.  After the brewing is done you age it.  It has to be put in a storage tank for fermentation.  Then it's beer and can be packaged in three ways, in bottles or cans or kegs.  Then the beer is consumed by consumers.  But here on Eden with a lake the size of Lake Erie, a great passage of time has the effect of fermentation.  I have a name for the lake and the name of this lake is BEER LAKE!! What a discovery!!!”

     Radon wanted to explore Beer Lake but as a zeppelin probe he could not go under water.  But the beetle probe could do more than walk on the ground. It could swim and dive under water as a submarine to explore the beer lake.  It would find out if there was any life in the water.  Radon flew out about twenty feet from the shore and deployed the beetle probe to explore the depths of Beer Lake in the beer water and see what discoveries could be made.  The probe swam on the surface and then dived down to head for the bottom of the lake.

     As it went down in the beer water, it passed under the water plants and yeast.  At two hundred feet there were no more plants and there was low light.  After five hundred feet there was no sunlight from the two suns.  Then it turned on its lights and radar to explore the lake.  Two thousand feet down it discovered cracks in the walls sloping down to the bottom.

     Then Radon said to the staff computers at mission control, “The cracks are intake ports to suck in beer waters to replace the beer water that's used to boil and shoot up the geysers.”

     The probe went deeper and deeper.  It was one mile down.  At last it had gotten to the bottom.  Seven miles to the west it detected something big.  It swam to a hot vent and discovered tube worms, red in color.  Black smoke blew out super hot beer water.  The probe had discovered a new eco system at the bottom of the lake.

     Radon said to the staff computers, “Back on Earth at the bottoms of oceans there's hot vents, super-heated sea water and an eco system that does not need sunlight to keep alive.  But here on Planet Eden at the bottom of Beer Lake there is a type of eco-system like on Earth but instead of sea water is beer water.  The beetle probe did see tube worms and just like on Earth tube worms is most of the life of the hot vent eco system.  What a discovery!!”

     The probe saw lots of bioluminescent lighting all over this hot vent.  Then it saw fish that had bioluminescent light.  On the east side of this hot vent it saw more bioluminescent lights down a hill.  As it went deeper, the beer water pressure imploded the beetle probe and destroyed it.  Radon said to the computers, “Like on Earth there are life forms where sunlight cannot reach.  Then they make their own light, that's BIOLUMINESCENT LIGHTING.”

     Radon saw flocks of phoenix and archaeopteryx birds fly from the east of Beer Lake.  He saw them catching beer frogs with their claws and beaks, then flew back to the forest of skyscraper trees twenty-one miles west of Beer Lake.  He saw a lot of beer frogs on giant lily pads that looked like bottle caps.  He flew to the beer frogs, but they saw him and thought he was a predator and jumped in the water.  He knew he'd scared them away.  So he flew out one mile into the lake and zoomed in on the lily pads as they came back.  He knew he was too close to them, but he wanted to study them, so he deployed another beetle probe to study them.  By this probe he saw lots of the big male frogs making sounds and the sound is sudwiser sudwiser sudwiser  calling out for female beer frogs.  There were a lot more males than females.  Then they were all fighting each other for the females.  They were jumping and pushing and biting each other and this had been going on for hours.  Then the fight was over and the losers swam away.  Then the small groups of male beer frogs could have the females.  Then the females were making a sound and the sound was light light light.  Then they all swam under the giant bottle cap lily pads.