The first satellites.
The initial drive towards the Zone was performed by the German Union, using a well constructed and durable satellite, launched from Earth, and used the slingshot effect of the Moon’s gravitational pull to accelerate itself towards the Zone at a much faster speed that any of the Union’s competitors.
The German satellite “Karl†reached the border areas of the Zone on the 24th of August 1968, making them the first Nation to have reached a truly interstellar object, and as Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger said in his speech to the Volkstag:
“We may not be the first on the Moon, nor the first in space, but we got our first, and that is the important issue here, and unlike our competitors, we do this for science, not glory or prestige.â€
The German scientists where shocked when they managed to get the first data down from the satellite, the organic material discovered by Dr. Miriam, was not just organic, it was alive.
The Zone was a biosphere, filled with utterly alien life, the Germans where ecstatic; life somewhere else in the Sun system was an amazing discovery.
The “Karl†hadn’t been equipped to do any actual entry into the Zone, thus getting any samples from the Zone itself was still not a possibility.
The “Karl II†launched a few months later did take this into consideration, and was equipped to handle the alien atmosphere of the Zone, using “Karl†as a relay, it would send raw data back to Earth, for processing, it was also equipped with cameras, as the Germans wanted to show something to the world, other than simple numbers.
The pictures send back where amazing, the Zone’s atmosphere is thick with life, almost like under the sea on Earth, the lack of any meaningful gravity created huge forests of plankton, and odd creatures with shapes beyond anything Earth could ever produce.
The “Karl II†acquired over 700 samples during its operations, which took over two months. The vast amounts of data returned to Mission Command in Frankfurt, took the Germans two years to process, and also created a regular renaissance for the diminishing biological fields.
“Karl II†ceased transmission when it encountered the largest life-form ever seen, a vast creature, shaped vaguely like a whale, swam by the satellite, and struck it head on with it’s head, destroying the satellite utterly.
Still, the transmissions of the event, proved just as valuable as every other piece of data send.
The sheer size of the creature, where later estimated to be in the excess of seven hundred meters, making it truly vast, and quite powerful, as the “Karl II†had been shielded quite well.
That’s all for the initial findings, join us at a later date, as we explorer the Phantom Zone more.