While the problem of figuring out how to operate the ship during the long journey was solved, the developers still struggled to find a way to reduce the ship’s total weight to ensure the ship’s return to Earth while in accordance with the approved supplies requirements. The routine calculations for the necessary spaceship supplies were made by the experienced planners and logisticians who were located a floor below, and didn’t fit into the takeoff weight of the experimental long-haul journey. To make these calculations, a separate group of classified specialists was formed to assess the most extreme conditions the flight could undergo. Much like the staff from the old department, they worked in secret during the preparation activities of the classified department to prevent information from leaking to the people, as it often happens.
Thanks to the on-board artificial intelligence, it was decided to down the size of the crew to half, and as for the miners of the wonder-weed, all of them were to be left on the planet, possibly euthanizing them (if there is no other method) so they can’t prevent the last working shuttle from taking off into orbit, where the mother ship is to be waiting for them at all times. During the flight to Hopus, the computer is to put all passengers onboard into hibernation for four years, supplying their sleeping chambers with a special concentrated gas consisting of all necessary nutrients while they are asleep. Trial experiments on prisoners had shown satisfying results – eighty percent of the subjects had survived after an almost two-year sleep, and sixty five percent of the survivors were still capable of doing the necessary physical labor. All these measures allowed reduce the load by three quarters and additionally double the ship’s payload of the precious cargo.
It had been decided to assemble the interstellar ship piecemeal in lunar orbit and use shuttles to deliver the necessary resources to it – fuel, water, oxygen, and flight foods.
This measure would reduce the amount of fuel necessary for decelerating when returning to Earth and getting caught by its gravitational orbit.
Valentin Valentinovich, the head of the development team working on the flight conditions for the starship, became so overzealous that he offered additional radical measures to the executive management.