Mission Mars

by Janet L. Cannon

“You have no appreciation for the arts,” said Katenka with a sad shake of her head.

  “What do you say, Athanasius?” Anita asked the last member sitting at the poker table. Dr. Athanasius Linden was almost out of anything to bet with, so it was simple courtesy to ask. But instead of declaring himself out, he flipped his cards face down and left the table without a word.

  “What’s up, Doc?” the captain called after him.

  He didn’t answer as he stepped into the corridor of Pegasus and headed toward the long-term storage in the next pod. Due to its series of wheeled pods, which ensured that both artificial gravity and any breach in the hull could be quickly sealed, minimizing loss, the name ‘Pegasus’ was chosen.

  Before launch, someone had written ‘Mars or Bust’ on the hull to proclaim their mission to the cold, uncaring stars in outer space. The phrase had meant to be a tribute to the old pioneers, but the Chinese government chose to be offended, saying it was an affront to the brave souls who had died on Zhúlóng-3. That particular disaster, a costly lesson, had underlined the fact that a human expedition to Mars had to be an international endeavor, not a singular one.

  In order to smooth relations between nations, Li Yunhe had been chosen to be the negotiator between the nations, earning her nickname “The Diplomat.”

  As the poker game continued, Athanasius could be heard opening locker doors, rummaging for something. Calvin yelled at him. “You playing or not?”

  “Give me a minute!” Athanasius yelled in returned.

  As they waited for his return, Calvin idly stacked the candy bar stakes into a little pyramid and commented, “So much for the utopian, currency-free society we’re supposed to be founding.”

  “Yeah, where were we when we abandoned the chips? Week three?” asked Anita.

  “It’s not money; it’s just dessert,” protested Ranbir.

  “And chores and movies and shower time,” added Yunhe. “We did what your basic post-apocalyptic society does—get rid of the middle man and go straight for what the currency stood for in the first place.”

  Katenka bit into a slice of the sweet lime she had won from Anita’s personal research project with exaggerated enjoyment. “Mmm, middle-man-free currency,” she purred.

  “Exactly,” said Anita. “That is the point of all this, isn’t it? To cut out all the useless waste back on Earth and create something where everyone is making a positive contribution?

  For example, I’m the one who’s making sure you don’t all drop dead of scurvy,” she said, pointing at the lime in Katenka’s hand.

  “Arghh, avast me harties,” growled the captain, “thar be fresh fruit off the port bow!”

  They all chuckled, and then Ranbir asked, “Who do you think is going to make the cut for the next crew?” It was an old speculation, but a common topic of conversation as they all wondered which of their colleagues back on Earth would get the chance to join them on Mars.

  “That Kalnietis kid should make the cut, as soon as he’s legal,” said the captain.

  “No way, Eric,” objected Calvin, “they’ll still want people to go through some sort of academic program, or at least have some expertise in a service career first to gain the necessary skill set.”

  Captain Eric pointed his finger to the group. “This is the kid who taught himself English by watching old episodes of Star Trek. He’s got that level of…” He glanced around the table, “dedication all Martian explorers should have.”

  “No need to sugar coat it,” said Yunhe as she arranged a pile of chocolate candies by color. “You can call it what it is: obsession. And yeah, I agree, he’s got it.”

  “Kalnietis may be young, but the Selection Committee would love to have someone like him, in order to check off some more boxes on their diversity list,” said Anita.

  “And provide good publicity to prove the crazies in the Middle East can’t control the world,” Katenka added.

  Yunhe gestured at the ship around her. “I still can’t believe that fatwa against Mars travel was issued before most of this was even invented. They clearly don’t have enough real work to do. Who has the time to sit around making laws against things that weren’t even possible?”

  “More folks on Mars the merrier, I say,” said Calvin cheerfully.

  “Are we setting up a scientific base, or the Martian branch of the United Nations?” huffed Ranbir, an old compliant, as he unwrapped a caramel Galaxy bar. He’d worried loudly—and often—before the mission that too much focus on diversity would keep them from ever deciding on a final crew.

  “Why not both?” sang out Anita and Katenka at the same time. Both women laughed.

  “If they don’t pick Kalnietis by the second or third mission, he’ll just stowaway in one of the storage lockers,” said Calvin.

  “Which, if the cargo master didn’t figure it out, it wouldn’t say much about him,” sniffed Anita disdainfully. “I know the weight of this ship down to the last seed.”

  “You better, considering you insisted on going through our luggage three times over,” said Ranbir. Almost a year later and he was still miffed that his underwear ended up becoming an internet meme. It was when Anita had a news crew shooting a fluff episode on the mission preparation, following her around as she weighed personal items for the cargo manifest. The reporters had gleefully broadcast Ranbir’s Martian Manhunter boxers to the world.

  “Every little bit counts,” said Anita sweetly.

  “You watch … next trip, they’ll have personal allotments of way more than sixty-four ounces,” declared Calvin.

  “What, like seventy instead?” asked Yunhe with a raised eyebrow. “I still can’t believe you tried to spend all four of your personal pounds on a cat.”

  “‘Cute, but useless’,” the captain snorted. “That was the Personal Cargo Committee’s final ruling. Eric slammed his hand down on the table. “And so it was written, and so it shall be.”

  “Still,” mused Anita, frowning, “you’d think that having a cat on board would have been well worth the extra weight. Plus, imagine the number of clicks the internet site would have garnered.”

  “Yes, nothing gets the internet’s attention like pictures of cats. Think of what pictures of Cat In Space! would do for the Mars colony web traffic,” said Ranbir.

  “The committee stuck to their Rule of Three,” said Yunhe. “If everything on board has to serve at least three purposes, click bait, and the psychological benefits of stroking cat fur are only two.”

  “Possible food source,” deadpanned Katenka.

  Calvin chuckled. “I can already hear the screams from Earth.”

  “Yeah,” added Ranbir, “sponsors would be dropping us left, right, and center.”

  Katenka looked back down at her cards and studied them as if she was rethinking her choice to stay in. “Amundsen ate his dogs on his way to the South Pole, you know.”

  “Amundsen didn’t have cameras documenting every step of the journey,” Anita pointed out dryly. “So, no cats allowed—less we eat them.”

  “So, we’ll just have to live with our storage container of ReadeeMeals,” said Katenka.

  “Oh good,” said Calvin, rolling his eyes.

  “They’re not so bad once you get used to them,” said Eric, the voice of experience. “ReadeeMeals are just the civilian versions of the military’s MREs, and are also good for just about forever.”

  “And,” added Calvin, “even after generations of think tanks and experimentation, they are still only slightly palatable.”

  “I’ll have you know, I once spent an entire summer camping in the Rockies and eating nothing but ReadeeMeals. The paella dinners were delicious. Really! And a lot easier to pack than assorted pots, pans, and chopping boards.”

  “Speaking of storage, what is Athanasius up to back there?” asked Calvin.

  “You aren’t trying to bet your Nobel, are you?” Katenka called out to him.

  “That’s no good, Athanasius!” Anita yelled, “I already got one!” />
  “And I have two!” grinned Ranbir.

  “That second one was a team award—I don’t think that counts,” teased Calvin.

  “If we’re betting medals, any takers for my Olympic Gold?” Yunhe put a finger to her lips in mock thoughtfulness. “I don’t believe any of you have one of those.”

  “Being a gymnast is nothing to brag about when you have access to zero gravity,” said Katenka.

  “Says the woman who made such a big deal about being the first ballerina to go to Mars,” shot back Yunhe.

  Katenka chortled. “Anything to sound different in the application video. Still, someday, who knows? The Mars Mikhaylova Ballet School has a nice ring to it.”

  At that point Athanasius came back to the table and plunked down a blue bio-suit boot, scattering slips of paper and stacks of candy. “I bet my first step on Mars,” he said as he sat back down.

  The jovial atmosphere plummeted into silent shock, as if there were a breach in the hull. All the crewmembers stared at Athanasius.

  There was a long silence as all the crew contemplated Athanasius bid.

  After a long and arduous process, the Landing Order and Protocol Committee, after carefully weighing every factor to determine the order each team member would exit the craft after landing on Mars, they’d chosen Athanasius Linden. Dr. Linden, their decree explained, with his many degrees, awards, training, and experience, had a brilliant scientific mind. And he hailed from a country that had donated generously to the mission. Of course, aside from also possessing an eloquence of speech, he was photogenic. And for publicity purposes, that never hurt.

  Finally, Anita asked, “Can you do that?” The shock and the delight in her tone was hard to miss.

  “Well, it is his boot,” said Calvin, glancing back at his own hand with a surly smile.

  There was a pause, and then the captain weighed in. “Let’s play some cards.”

  As it turned out, Anita did have the best hand. And she triumphantly clumped around the ship with the one boot on until it was time for sleep-shift.

  Week 14 of Manned Mission to Mars

  Everyone kept flicking their eyes at Anita during the game. She wore a constant smile as she played, well aware that everyone was waiting for her to bet the boot. But, she only bet dessert rations and shower time. Of course, no one had thought it necessary to mention in their previous report or video log to the officials back on Earth about what had previously been bet, lost, and won in the last game.

  As the game progressed, the crew began throwing in their most creative high stakes: ‘Personal Weight Allotments’ in future cargo runs from Earth to Mars, ‘Naming Rights to Future Discoveries’, ‘Joy Rides’ in the to-be-assembled rover, currently in storage.

  “Shall I just bet the shirt off my back?” Calvin finally said as he stared at the ludicrous pot of promises heaped up in the middle of the table.

  “Strip poker?” asked Yunhe innocently.

  “We’ve all seen each other naked,” scoffed Katenka.

  “Besides, I believe all our indoor clothes are technically the property of Lululemon Athletica, since they paid for them,” noted Eric mildly.

  “And they are racking up in sweet success with their Mars Mission collection,” added Ranbir.

  Prior to launch, they had all been required to pose in their donated MM indoor wear for photo shoots. And now, each crewmember was forever immortalized in life-sized cardboard cutouts stationed in every Lululemon store.

  “Well, what else are you supposed to wear when you ‘exercise like an astronaut’?” grinned Yunhe, referring to the new fitness craze the mission had inspired.

  “Yes, because a forty-five minute Pilates class is exactly like training 24/7 at the Utah base,” scoffed Anita.

  “Meanwhile,” Calvin said, trying to steer the conversation back to the betting pool, “our exosuits were generously donated by Boeing, with no promotional strings attached.”

  “Except they were promised that their research about air pressure would be top priority. And were given a massive tax write off,” pointed out Katenka.

  “Ah, the crass material world we leave behind us!” Calvin added.

  Katenka raised her reengineered bottle of re-purified water. “To Mars!” she toasted.

  Everyone raised their water bottles. “To Mars!” They all clinked the bottles with as much joy as if they were toasting the New Year with champagne at the Ritz.

  Anita plunked the boot on the table. “To walking on Mars,” she said with a smirk. Immediately everyone focused intently on their cards.

  Week 17 of Manned Mission to Mars

  Katenka demonstrated an old Russian folk dance that involved quite a lot of kicking. The better to show off the shiny blue boot she wore in a post-game celebration.

  As the others watched her, Anthanasius, providing the vocal equivalent of a band with more enthusiasm than skill, folded the table up for the night, while Calvin picked up the cards to put away for the week. With his eyes never leaving the cards, he shuffled the deck, and said to Athanasius, “You don’t like the committees very much, do you?”

  Anthanasius paused, as if merely inspecting the table for any last smudges of chocolate, and then said blandly, “I think deciding history by committee has never led to anything good.” He carefully wedged the folded table back into the slot in the wall. “Why ever do you ask?” His question revealed his butter-would-melt-in-his-mouth voice that made him so great for interviews.

  “Just checking,” said Calvin, his smile nearly imperceptible. He flicked the cards in a concentrated waterfall from one hand to the other and then proceeded to shuffle them with the same meditative calm of a Buddhist monk. “Our weekly card game is a mix of skill and luck, a perfect description of our little adventure, eh, boy-o?”

  “This mission has been planned out to the second,” said Anthanasius, a slight edge to his voice. “Without just at least a little human chaos added to the mix, we might as well be another group of rovers completing yet another unmanned Mars mission.”

  As Katenka’s boot went airborne, narrowly missing Ranbir’s head, Calvin said, “Well, we got chaos.”

  Week 21 of Manned Mission to Mars

  The crew sat and stared at their main telepresence screen as the host of the latest ‘live’ educational program being filmed back on earth prompted the audience to ask questions of the crew. Weekly interviews and other programs were still held to keep Earth up-to-date on the Mission Mars: Building Red mission. The audience could ask direct questions of the crew, which they all usually enjoyed. This interview was aimed at a young audience to educate school children about the Mars Mission and give them the chance to speak with the Mars crew. Most questions so far had been queries about food preparation, waste management, and gravity.

  “And now,” the TV host continued, “we have another question from a young lady in our audience. Carole, age 9, from Ainsworth Elementary School, what is your question my dear?”

  The little girl stood up. “What does ‘Betting the Boot’ mean?” Without hesitation, she explained. “Last week, Dr. Fitzsimmons used it when Dr. Li Yuhne and Dr. Chadha were explaining how the ship would land.”

  This student apparently had ears like a bat. It seems she’d overheard Calvin talking about the game in the background.

  There was a split second of horrified silence, then Calvin began to rattle off, “Well, that’s an easy one, Carole. You heard me using an old expression from County Cork to describe the accuracy of Dr. Chadha’s course corrections, since our initial landing trajectory was incorrect. It means to be so sure of something, that you’d bet your boots on it and risk squelching around in the mud with bare feet.” Smile, smile for the camera.

  “Well done,” said Athanasius when the cameras were turned off.

  Calvin shrugged with false modestly. “It’s not the first time I’ve talked me way out of a jam. It’s in the blood.”

  Week 28 of Manned Mission to Mars, Landing Day

  The Pegasu
s was designed to have the front section break off when they reached orbit and become the landing shuttle. The crew had checked and doubled checked, and triple checked their final landing calculations that morning, as did Mission Control on Earth. They had to make sure they landed at the supply depot. Otherwise.… But no one wanted to think about that.

  The site was already equipped with twenty tons of supplies that had been sent ahead of Pegasus’s departure in unmanned missions. The heavily shielded cargo pods had been precisely positioned to take advantage of Mars massive underground caves, which had been found to offer a temperate environment for its new residents, as well as protection from radiation. And the possibility of eventually finding potable water underground.

  Separate pods supported different needs. One, filled with water, another food, and yet another, genetically altered plants that grew with little sunlight or water, and held the promise of life-sustaining oxygen. Lab equipment and construction gear in others.

  It was found, after years of study, that the pods initially designed to become the crew’s first housing, could possibly be decimated by meteor showers. So, after much debate, it had been decided that the pods would become a source of solar energy and were redesigned with solar panels that would harness the energy of the sun, as well as the heat of meteors and stars charging through the atmosphere at millions of miles an hour.

  Several days prior to landing, the crew would activate the giant solar panels encased beneath the outer shield of each pod for protection during the journey to Mars. Once all systems were go and the captain triggered the switch, their life on Mars would begin.

  They all had memorized the order of how everything was to proceed once they landed. And even though they’d practiced the sequence of landing on Earth time and again, the crew knew there was always the possibility of a glitch. So, as they propelled closer to Mars, the crew went over the order of each segment of how their habitat would proceed upon landing.

  The first to come to life—the biopod. It was centered between all the other pods and held the genetically engineered and altered oxygen-generating plants. The external shield would detach just above the solar panels and slide horizontally away from the pod. Then like a finely-orchestrated symphony, as the solar panel raised skyward above the pod and locked into place, the outer shield would slide beneath the panel—this time, descending just enough to create a space between the inner shield and the outer shield. Then, curved panels attached beneath the inner shield would curve up and connect to the outer shield, lock, and create a hollow space and vacuum, and thereby collect energy and provide another layer of protection for its occupants. Then, if all went well, gateways surrounding the biopod would extend and lock onto each pod encircling it, creating a single community of pods. And finally, tubes, for water distribution, return, and cleansing and disbursement of oxygen and filtering, and the return of carbon dioxide to the biopod to aide the growth of plants, would take place. If all went well.