“Go home! We can’t do that. Mum will be worried!” Markus looks at his dog.
“Please Rufus, can you wait here for us? I promise we’ll be back in an hour, at the most.”
Rufus, a clever canine, leaves the rocket tower with his ears drooping. He feels unfairly treated being excluded from the new adventure. But at least he can go check if the mouse is still around to play with… and instanly he catches sight of the mouse and starts to chase it. Around and around they run until the mouse squeezes in to the rocket room just as the door closes. Rufus is left behind.
4
Markus and Mariana’s mother is cleaning up in the garden when she hears a load rumble. She looks up and after standing gob-smacked for a few seconds she calls to her husband:
”The Pettersson teenagers have just gone too far this time! Huge fireworks, in the middle of summer! Why?”
”Was that what that was!” their father calls from inside the house. “Lucky that Markus and Mariana don’t play with those kids next door, they’re only ever up to no good.”
But Markus and Mariana are already out in space with Uncle Albert. They look down at the beautiful Earth below them. They can mostly see blue and white of the oceans and the clouds, but sometimes they can make out the green of forests and the red of deserts. The Earth is getting smaller and smaller as Uncle Albert’s antiproton engine increases their speed.
“Uncle Albert, I don’t understand,” says Markus.
“What?”
“All those times I’ve seen astronauts in space, on TV and in pictures, they’re always weightless and hovering around as if they could fly, or maybe swim in the air. But we aren’t weightless. It feels just like on Earth. Markus is disappointed.
”No, that is because we are still accelerating, we are increasing our speed all the time. The acceleration feels just like gravity and it was my favourite scientist Albert Einstein that pointed out that acceleration and gravity are precisely the same thing.*5 I built the rocket to constantly accelerate so that it feels like on Earth. This way, we will soon reach Mars, our first stop. But halfway there we have to turn the Moona-Lisa around to slow down with the same force so that we can land softly on Mars.”
“Why Mars?” asks Mariana.
”Well, Mars is such an exciting planet, with all its red sand and some uncommon ice and a little, little air. One day I am sure the people will live there and built cities and even find a way of getting more air so that they don’t need spacesuits to walk outside. In a few hundred years or so. Mars is also just far enough for the first test flight. It is the closest planet to the Earth, away from the sun. And I also want to play some jokes on space scientists on Earth,” Uncle Albert adds mischievously.
The children gaze out of rocket’s window at the Earth which is growing smaller and smaller until finally it is just a dot, just like all the other planets and stars on the night sky. For a while, two dots seem to be close to each other, it is the moon circling the Earth. But it is not long before Uncle Albert calls out:
“We are almost halfway there. Are you ready?”
”Ready for what?” asks Mariana.
Suddenly she lifts from the floor.
”I’m floating! I’m flying! Look, look!” Markus shouts, laughing.
Mariana does somersaults in the air and looks blissfully happy:
“Oh, this is the most fun I have ever had.”
”I thought you might like being weightless. But maybe I should have mentioned that you should buckle up? I must have forgotten.” Uncle Albert is buckled into the pilot seat and adjusts the levers.
”Now that I have turned the engine off we can have fun for a while. But then I have to turn the spaceship so that we can start to decelerate.”
”Okay, okay, but wait a while!” Markus and Mariana shout.
“Watch out so you don’t get nauseated, it’s easy to get travel sickness from the weightlessness in the beginning.”
”No problem,” Markus says, sure of himself. “I’ve never been seasick, not even when we were out sailing in gale winds.”
”Lucky you,” says Uncle Albert, “but space sickness is different and it doesn’t help if you’ve never been seasick.”
”Look!” Mariana points towards the window with one hand whilst trying to hold herself steady with the other.
“Oh, that mouse” Uncle Albert groans, “will I never be rid of it?”
“The mouse!” Markus screams. ”How did that get on here?”
“Poor thing, look at it wiggle and struggle. It probably doesn’t think weightlessness is as fun as we do.”
Markus gives himself a small push and glides over to the mouse, catching it in his hands.
“I think he likes me. Look how happy he is. Uncle Albert, we’ll have to take care of the mouse now, won’t we?”
Uncle Albert sighs. ”Yes, I guess we have no choice. Lucky it’s such a small mouse, so that our food, water and air supply won’t run out.”
“We have to give it a name,” says Mariana. “Max, I think. Max the Mouse, sounds good, right?”
And that’s how Max the Mouse embarked on the longest journey a mouse has ever made – come to think of it – the longest journey a human has ever made too.
Uncle Albert stays in the pilot seat while the children play in weightlessness. Max also joins in after a while. Mariana soon gets thirsty and turns on the water tap. Water pours out, forming a ball which floats around the cabin. Mariana chases it with her mouth but when she catches it, it splashes all over her face. Everyone laughs so much they nearly pee in their pants. Uncle Albert takes a small bag from his pocket.
“Here,” he says. ”This may be better.”
He then takes two small red things and sends them away to Markus and Mariana. They float slowly in a straight path toward the children as if being pulled by strings.
“Raspberry sweets!” Mariana bursts out.
”Of course Uncle Albert would bring his favourite sweets!” Markus laughs and stretches out opening his mouth as wide as he can so that the sweets can float into his mouth.
They continue to send sweets back and forth until the whole bag is gone, and they twirl and bounce around the rocket like bouncy balls, laughing and shouting. But soon the fun is over.
“We have to start the engine again,” says Uncle Albert. ”Otherwise we’ll miss Mars. Buckle up!”
But Uncle Albert, being a bit of a scatterbrain, doesn’t check if Markus and Mariana are in their seats. Instead he turns on the engine.
Markus, who was up on the ceiling spinning, crashes to the floor with a bang.
“Ouch! Take it easy!”
”Oops, excuse me, uuhh, I thought you had buckled up like I told you.”
“Peep, peep, peep,” Max joins in, and it sounds like he’s laughing, although it is unclear whether it is because he can finally use his legs to walk again or because Markus fell down.
5
The Moona-Lisa is approaching the red planet.
“Wow, Mars looks like one big desert,” says Mariana.
”Except that it has valleys and mountains.”
“That’s right,” says Uncle Albert. “The solar system’s highest peak is on Mars. It is called Olympus Mons and is 27 kilometres high.”
“Wow, three times higher than Mount Everest! Can we land on it?” Markus wonders. “Then we would have been higher than anyone else,” he adds hopefully.
“No,” says Uncle Albert, “we don’t have time. We are going to visit a Mars intruder.”
“What do you mean?” asks Mariana. “There aren’t any Martians, are there?”
“No, no life has been discovered here yet, but there are still intruders in some sense,” Uncle Albert answers calmly. “Buckle up tight! We are about to land.”
This time Uncle Albert checks to see that both Markus and Mariana are properly fastened in before he begins to manoeuvre the rocket towards Mars’ surface.
”This will be my first landing,” he calls over the roaring of
the rocket engine, ”so it may be a bit bumpy.”
And it is bumpy. Very bumpy. They bounce up a few meters and the rocket almost falls over as it hits the ground a second time. Markus and Mariana are afraid for a few minutes, but then the Moona-Lisa settles and is still.
“Hmm, well, welcome to Mars,” mutters Uncle Albert who is a little disappointed with his landing. He continues: “Markus, behind that hatch there are spacesuits for us. We’ll need to wear them when we go outside. Here on Mars the air is more than a hundred times thinner than on Earth and contains almost no oxygen, the gas we humans need to breathe.”
“But how are the intruders that you were talking about managing?” Mariana wants to know.
“Ahh, but they are robots. Did I not mention that? Robots sent here from Earth with other Mars landings.
”Uncle Albert, I can’t find any spacesuits,” Markus calls from the cupboard.
”What! Don’t tell me I forgot them!”
”It wouldn’t be the first time,” mutters Mariana quietly.
”But they’re here!” says Uncle Albert and pulls out a green suit. “How could you miss them?”
”Green!” Markus is surprised. ”Spacesuits should be white or orange, they always are on photos and TV. Of course I wasn’t looking for something green!”
“Aahh, but that is because we are going to be green Martians,” Uncle Albert chuckles. “Here, put your suits on so we can go outside.”
Uncle Albert has even sown nametags on the spacesuits, so the children quickly find their own. When the suits are on and sound-isolating helmets in place they cannot hear each other. Instead, they communicate by radio. It crackles slightly as Uncle Albert asks:
“Is everybody done? Okay, I’m opening the hatch. Mars here we come!”
”Stop! Wait.” Markus pulls on Uncle Albert’s sleeve just before he presses the hatch button. “Max the Mouse! We can’t leave him in here. When we open the hatch all the air will be sucked out.”
“Oh, good thinking Markus! But how will we solve that? I don’t have a mouse suit with me.”
”I know,” says Mariana, ”he can sit on my shoulder and look out through the helmet. The helmet is big enough and I have some extra space.”
“Hmm, maybe I made your suit a bit too big,” says Uncle Albert, mostly to himself. “But okay… if we can catch him.”
Markus has gone over to the rocket pantry to look.
“Cheese!” he says triumphantly. “Look! What luck that you brought cheese, Uncle Albert.”
“Max, Max, come here, smell! Yummy cheese!”
Instantly Max pops out of corner where he was watching the strange humans put on their odd green suits. But the cheese is tempting, because he has gotten quite hungry. Max allows himself to be picked up and crawls into Mariana’s helmet. And finally Uncle Albert can open the rocket’s hatch.
All three look out into the deserted, but magnificently beautiful, orange and red desert landscape. Mariana looks down and asks:
“Uncle Albert, how will we get down to the ground? It’s too high! Where is the ladder?”
“No problem! We’ll jump.”
“Jump? In these suits?” Markus is aghast.
“Of course! Haven’t you thought how light you are here on Mars? Mars is quite a bit smaller than Earth, so gravity is only a third of what it is at home. At home I weigh 78 kilos, but here I only weigh 26! And when I jump my speed going towards the ground will only be a third of what it is on Earth. We are actually one and a half meters up, but it will feel like jumping from half a meter.*6
Uncle Albert has barely finished talking before he jumps. It looks strangely slow, and even though he doesn’t hit the ground very hard, he still lands on his bottom. Markus and Mariana have a good laugh because it looks so funny.
“Ha ha, very funny. It’s not easy in this big spacesuit. You try.”
But the children do just fine and don’t fall. Uncle Albert looks almost disappointed. They walk towards a hill a few hundred meters away. They are so light they almost bounce instead of walking.
“Bounce, bounce, bounce,” Markus calls happily. “I only weigh 12 kilos here, ha ha ha.”
Mariana suddenly starts laughing so hard she can hardly breathe.
“What’s up with you? What’s so funny now?” Markus asks.
”Its Max! Max, stop it, stand still! Ha ha. Max is running around in the helmet and his whiskers are tickling my nose. And I can’t catch him. And I can’t scratch my nose either. Ha ha. Stop it Max!”
Markus looks into her helmet. He sees Max running around on the visor looking out. Markus knocks on the visor and speaks a few calming words to Max.
“Okay Max, take it easy. It’s okay. Tsss, tsss. Calm down.”
Strangely enough, the little mouse seems to listen to Markus and settles down. He looks at Markus curiously and then at the surroundings.
“Thanks Markus,” Mariana gasps. “I don’t know how much more of that I could take.”
Uncle Albert, the most eager of them all, has already made it to the top of the hill.
“Ha! There it is, just as I thought. Come and see!”
The children hurry to Uncle Albert who is pointing at something strange in the distance.
“It looks like a car!” says Mariana.
“It is Spirit: a robot car, or rover, that the US space agency NASA has sent here,” Uncle Albert explains. “It has been driving around on Mars for years exploring the planet. Spirit takes pictures with a camera and takes samples from the earth on Mars for testing.*7
“How do they steer it?”
“With radio signals from Earth. And Spirit isn’t the only robot on Mars gathering information and taking pictures. More have come over the years. All the information is sent as radio and TV signals to scientists on Earth. Most of all, they want to know if there is life on Mars. And now we are going to play a trick on them!”
Uncle Albert laughs to himself as he stands in front of Spirit’s camera and waves into it.
“In ten minutes a scientist at NASA will be choking on his coffee, hohoho. Now they know that there is life on Mars and that green Martians really do exist. Ha ha ha.”
Markus and Mariana can’t remember when they last heard Uncle Albert laugh so hard, but they know that he is a devoted prankster. Maybe that’s why their parents don’t always approve of him?
“Why in ten minutes?” Markus asks.
“I know,” says Mariana quickly. “We are so far from Earth that it will take light ten minutes to reach it.”
“Quite right. And radio signals are a kind of light, so they travel at the same speed. *8
The three Mars explorers and freeloader Max in Mariana’s helmet make their way back to Uncle Albert’s antiproton spaceship. But not until both Markus and Mariana have waved, jumped and danced in front of Spirit’s camera. Max wiggled his tail and hoped that one of his mouse friends in the forest could see him. At the rocket Uncle Albert takes out a spade and a small bucket.
“But Uncle Albert, do you want to play in the sand? I guess this place is like a giant sandbox, but you are a little old for this, don’t you think?” teases Markus.
”No, but I am as curious as all the other scientists about whether there exists, or has existed, some kind of simple life form here on Mars. Small bacteria for instance. So we’ll bring some sand back to Earth which I can analyse in the lab at home.”
Uncle Albert starts digging, taking some sand here and there and putting it in the bucket, while the children help each other climb back into the Moona-Lisa.
6
Uncle Albert starts up the rocket engines and in a flash they have left Mars. After a minute or two they catch a glimpse of the planet’s two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos. But soon the spaceship leaves both Mars and its moons far behind.
”Look to your left! Soon we will be passing Jupiter, the solar system’s biggest planet. It is like a giant ball of gas. Do you see the storm in the middle of the planet? It is called the Great Dark S
pot and is double the size of the Earth. It has been active for several hundred years.
“Ooo, lucky we’re not landing there.”
“And over there I see Saturn. The rings are so clear.” Mariana looks out of the right window with Max.
They can’t see the two last planets, Uranus and Neptune, because they are on the other side of the sun.*9
“Do you know it takes 165 years for Neptune to revolve one lap around the sun and that it is 30 times further from the sun that the Earth,” says Mariana to Markus.
“Cool, how do you know that?”
”Check it out! I found Uncle Albert’s rocket computer and there’s tons of exciting things to read and look at.”
The children browse the computer and read about this and that. The information is mostly about planets and stars, but there are also fun articles about geography and history. They find a cool article about dinosaurs.
“Oh, it would be so cool to meet a real dinosaur,” Markus sighs.
Mariana has gone up to Uncle Albert who seems busy with something he is peering into.
“Uncle Albert, what are you doing? And where are we headed?”
“Look here!” he says. “It’s the spaceship’s telescope. It is several times better than the Hubble telescope*10. I built it myself,” he adds proudly.
”I don’t doubt it. But what are you looking at?”
“I’m looking for small planets.”
“How small? And why only small planets?”
“Well, not tiny. The fact is I’m looking for planets about the size of the Earth, because that’s where I think there’s the biggest chance of finding life of some kind.”
“Little green aliens!?” shouts Markus, delighted.
”Well, who knows? But I hope to find something exciting. Our first destination is Sirius.”
“Sirius is the brightest star seen from Earth and it is located approximately eight and a half light years away. So it’s one of the stars closest to Earth.”*11
The Space Journey Page 2