About 25 years ago, some engineer came up with a brilliant use for an EM shield, translucent metal, artificial gravity fields and a beach. At least that was the model I was on. To whoever that was that created these things, thank you! Here’s my experience on one of these marvels.

So, Allister, my friend at the university, called me up and said, lets go for a ride. I said, ok, I didn’t have any work to do anyway. We met outside and drove over the DC regional space port. We didn’t have time for an Space Elevator, so we commissioned a rocket transport to take us to a station that I hadn’t heard of before. Allister called it the Bubble Station. I thought it was an odd name, it really didn’t look like a bubble. It was an odd design, five type three Bigelow modules stacked horizontally on top of each other. From each junction point there were four long docking collars extending outward for about a mile in seperate directions. Attached to each collar were anywhere from two to a half a dozen, what can only be described as, bubbles. They were, of course, Bubble Yacht’s. For some reason I just had never gotten to see these things. Allister told me that they are exclusively for the ultra rich. There were only around 100 of these things in existance.

How we, two ordinary universities professors, were getting on this thing was simply beyond me. And I didn’t ask once. I didn’t want to spoil the moment with the logistics of how this moment came to be. We docked with the station and made our way to collar 5. The ride on the space car was almost as intense as the whole experience.  We went by three other yachts on our way to ours. They were sights to behold. Each one was roughly 1 acre and each one had totally different interiors. Allister would later tell me that there were other models on differen collars that were much smaller. The acre sized ones here were the biggest on this station. But that someone had once built a ten acre bubble yacht. Incredible! No one ever talks about it so I’m sure it’s hidden away in some corner of the system. A mini-translucent bubble world.

The first we saw had a small forest on it! I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. Something as simple as a forest. There was a nice lodge and a small cottage. I could see birds flying through the trees and even some squirls in the trees. I even spotted a large tree house up in the trees. There didn’t seem to be anyone home but I could only imagine what it would be like to drift through the heavens sitting on that porch.

The second ship had two structures on it. One was large house with a partial roof. If you have your own atmosphere, why do you need a roof after all. The other building was, amazingly, what looked like a farm building. I couldn’t tell how far it went down but it went up nearly to the top of the bubble. Little bit of an eye sore if you ask me but the intention is clear. This bubble was meant to be self sustaining. Some billionare’s idea to detach one day and sail off never to be heard from again most likly.

The third ship was stunning. There was a small island in the center of the ship. Water surrounded. There were a few small row boats and even a three man sail boat on the water. Imagine that, a boat inside a bubble floating through space. I could see a few people sitting on the boats, one of them waved.

We made it the end of collar five, got out of the car and went to the docking ring. A few moments through the interlock chambers and there we were. On a beach. In a bubble. In Space. Wow. This one was just as neat as the others. A small beach, small amount of water to simulate an ocean and a few small cottages lining the shore. It was simply incredible.

The owner of the bubble came out to greet us. Or at least I thought it was the owner, he seemed like he was. He immediatly introduced himself simply as Tom and began to give us a tour. He never asked who we were, he must have already known. Tom walked us along the beach, describing the construction of the ship, how the EM fields work, the translusent metal, the propulsion system built beneath us. It was really incredible to hear about these ships. Aparantly, most of the big ones are our in the system somewhere. A few are even serving as ultra luxury hotels.

It was to my dismay that we weren’t going to go anywhere. The ride on the bubble ship was more of a sitting on the beach and looking at the view of earth below us. Still very neat. What’s even neater is Tom told us that sometimes they’ll suspend the gravity and let you float around a bit. They have to lock down the water so it doesn’t go all over the place and do a few safty procedures but it would be very cool to experience.

We sat on the beach for awhile and headed home. It was a fun day to be sure. As soon as I got home I started this post. I’ll be looking for one of the hotels next. I think I want to plan a vacation to a bubble hotel, I saw that one is currently at the Jupiter system. That would be an amazing view!