4 Vesta

Places in Fenspace

4 Vesta
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Planetary characteristics
Orbit	aphelion 384.72 Gm, perihelion 321.82 Gm
Diameter	578×560×458 km
Surface Gravity	0.022G outside handwaved chambers
Year	1325.15 days
Day	solar: 0.2226 days
Mean Temperature	min -188 °C, max -18 °C outside handwaved chambers
Atmosphere	none outside handwaved chambers
Water/Ice Index	0% outside handwaved chambers
Population (2013)	Unknown
Political Affiliation	Fenspace Convention
Government	Meritocracy (Novyi Petrovichi), Direct Democracy (other settlements)
Capital	Novyi Petrovichi

The brightest asteroid in Earth's sky, Vesta has a reputation of being one of Fenspace's "university towns", where knowledge is prized above the usual indicators of success.

History

Vesta was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on March 29, 1807, and named after the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth. It was the fourth of the first four asteroids to be discovered.

Fans of Issac Asimov, watching the arguments between the Browncoats and Heinleinians over "ownership" of Ganymede, acted quickly to establish a claim on Vesta. They built the first post-secondary educational institutions in space, the Vesta Institute of Biochemistry and the Vesta Institute of Robotics, the two fields of study most associated with Professor Asimov.

Geography

The second-most-massive body in The Main Belt (after 1 Ceres), Vesta has a 460-kilometer-diameter crater near its south pole, believed to have been created in a collision less than one billion years ago. The floor of the crater is 25 km below the rim; this protection from Solar and Jovian radiation and the ease of locating the feature from space led early Fen settlers to locate Novyi Petrovichi (Vesta's first permanent settlement) there.

The Belters funded construction of the Vesta Beam, a massive communications laser at Vesta's North Pole, in the early days of Vesta's settlement. This was one of the main communications relay points in Fenspace before the Wizards' InterWave communications hub at 476 Hedwig made long-range lightspeed communications obsolete. It is still used for local communications where a lag of one or two seconds doesn't matter.

In order to keep Vesta's skies as clear as possible (and because the Asimov Fen who founded Novyi Petrovichi respected their favourite author's fear of flying), a monorail was built to connect the Vesta Beam installation and Novyi Petrovichi. Smaller settlements, including Little Brooklyn on Vesta's equator, have sprung up along the track's course.

NASA launched the Dawn probe to Vesta on September 27, 2007. Their original plan was to have it map Vesta from August 2011 until May 2012, then proceed to Ceres; however, Fen expansion into the Solar System and Soviet Air Force exploration missions in The Main Belt made that plan redundant. Dawn is currently in orbit around Vesta, having been retrofit to serve as a communications relay.

Government

Vesta as a whole is a representative democracy. Any group of five hundred residents can choose one of their number to represent them in the Vestan Assembly, but no person may be a member of more than one such group. The Vestan Assembly meets in Novyi Petrovichi and chooses its own Speaker to lead the Assembly.

Novyi Petrovichi is a meritocracy. Administrators are selected by examination; anyone is free to take the examination, and the successful examinees serve for three-year terms. There is no limit to the number of consecutive terms an administrator may serve, as long as he, she, or it continues to pass the examinations.

Little Brooklyn, the Vesta Beam installation, and the other settlements on Vesta are small enough that they can use various flavours of direct democracy for their day-to-day government. Little Brooklyn employs a Chairperson whose job is to liaise with other governments and set the agenda for the town's weekly meetings, while the staff of the Vesta Beam installation decide everything by referendum.

Vesta and all Vestan settlements have signed the Articles of Convention.

Trivia

Well-known Senshi geneticist Leda Swansen graduated at the top of the first class through VIB's genetics program in 2010.