What a big change it was.

Impact of FTL improved speed. 

The Early Years.

 

From 2015 to 2020 the best speeds we could manage were in the range of 1 LY / week.  This made interstellar travel possible, but not so great as you may think. A trip to a near by star, 6 LY away was nearly a 2 month voyage to get there and 2 months to come home.  With a month or two spent investigating the star system, the entire mission would take about half a year.  Better than a journey of 60 or 600 years for sure.

Now we must remember that the Rangers were rather small star ships. With a crew of 10, on a 6 month mission things could seem very confined. A lot of that time was quite horribly dull. Flying through hyper space there simply is not much to do. Also the Neutonic radiation does cause minor irritating effects in most people.  After several days, people got very irritable because of the symptoms they were experiencing,  so an occasional rest brake in real space is required. These provided a welcome chance to do work, like taking astronomic sensor sweeps.   

For the long range expeditions the ship and crew were often stretched to the limit.  To explore a star 15 Ly away was a voyage of 5 months just to get there. With 2 months spent doing survey work and 5 months to return home, the entire mission look about a year.  The crews thought it was worth the effort if there was a habitable or nearly habitable planet to check out at the destination system. They were much less enthusiastic about going to look at a few gas giants and asteroid belts.

Crew Perspective

We want to stress to the reader what these early missions were often like. Long and dull, stuck in a tin-can with the same people for many months, eating the same condensed food packs. The novelty of seeing a brand new star system soon wore off the experienced scout crew. Most of the mission time was spent perusing some hobby work.

Crews were of course rotated, with a minimum of 3 months off before their next mission. Priority was given to keeping people together who wanted to stay together. A mission review psychologist would look for personality conflicts that were over the expected levels.

All Ranger crews were volunteers. Many having space training on the early Earth to Orbit craft. Many having some military background before joining the UN-EDC. Navy ship captains, especially submarine officers were usually given commands. Although a space craft is nothing like a ship, the experience of handling a crew is similar in both situations. As the pool of volunteers was large, the missions important and the number of crew postings rather low, the selection process was tough. However as the reality of star ship life became known and the glamor faded, the selection rules had to be relaxed, especially for the cargo hauling jobs.  

The Big Change

 

In 2020 the brake through in FTL tech allowed us speeds of around 1 LY / day.  This was a huge event, cutting travel times greatly. Although testing was a bit rough, some unexpected problems were encountered, the first ships with the new speed entered service in 2022. They made all the existing star ships basically obsolete.

The 6 LY trip now could be made in one week. Want to visit a star 22 LY distant, you can get there in one month. The issue of packing enough food for a year long mission dissolved quickly. Planners at UN exploration command started talking about missions to multiple systems, instead of the usual "there & home" mission profile.

Moving Forward 

 

It is rather hard to explain just how much the practical side of space travel has opened up since 2020. Not only do we have faster ships, we also greater access to them. Because up until that time, the UN tightly regulated all FTL tech and simply did not allow anyone but official missions to depart our solar system.

The UN still maintains supreme authority over issues of settlement and development. But it has opened the door to Nations, Corporations and even individuals (if they can afford it) to explore and develop other star systems, with in a frame work of rules.

The crew consideration "Can you handle months of confinement?" is basically gone. There are still qualification exams for operating a star ship, you must know what you are doing, but the restrictive nature of the entire field is reduced.