The Next Continent

by Issui Ogawa

The image Caroline had selected showed dark mottling over the silver surface of the panel, as if it had been blackened with candle soot. “This looks like dust contamination. How did it happen?”

  “Carol, I have Arizona,” said Craig.

  “Plug me in.” The face of an LPL research scientist came up. Caroline didn’t waste time with greetings. “We think the solar array may have been contaminated with regolith. Did you run simulations on anything like that in your moon garden?”

  “Panel contamination? I’ll check right away.”

  LPL’s “moon garden” was a large-scale mock-up of the Liberty Island site, identical in every respect to the actual terrain, using lunar regolith stimulant. The use of simulated environments for each of their space missions with identical hardware and terrain was a time-honored NASA practice. When a problem developed far off in space, NASA used these environments to grasp the details of the problem and develop responses. By using a twin of the Apollo spacecraft, they had been able to mount a successful rescue effort when Apollo 13 was stricken on its way to the moon. For the Mars Pathfinder rover tests, NASA had built a “Mars garden” based on data collected twenty-one years earlier by the Viking orbiter.

  LPL’s moon garden was populated with rovers and recharging stations. Progress on the lunar surface was being faithfully replicated. Five minutes later, the scientist was back.

  “All vehicles are keeping well clear of the arrays. The landers touched down a safe distance from the panels, so we wouldn’t expect to see contamination from that source.”

  “Then what did that? There’s no wind on the moon. Show me the map.” A view of the garden appeared on Caroline’s lenses, with current rover locations and past routes superimposed. The rovers were indeed keeping well clear of the solar power arrays. Lambach had just finished running a calculation of trajectories the regolith might have taken after being kicked up by movement across the surface, but his analysis also indicated that this was not the source of the contamination.

  “I don’t understand. Did someone…?” Caroline pressed a finger to her chin, lost in thought, then suddenly looked up. “Joe! Get me a smaller-scale map.”

  “A standard surface map?”

  “No, something that includes the Japanese base. There’s one on their website. I want to see the two maps superimposed.”

  Lambach downloaded Sixth Continent’s map and resized it to mate with the map of Liberty Island. When the controllers saw the result on the monitors, the room fell silent.

  “When the hell did they do this?”

  Sixth Continent was under construction on the Earth-facing side of Eden Crater. Since the moon maintained one face toward Earth, a base built on that side would have a fixed sight line for communications.

  But NASA faced the same constraints. To harvest Eden’s ice, they would have to source power from outside the crater, and unless they deployed multiple communications satellites in polar orbit, they would have to build on the side facing Earth. This meant that Liberty Island and Sixth Continent would have to be relatively close to each other.

  The problem was, how close? The merged map showed that the distance between Sixth Continent and Liberty Island had shrunk to a mere two hundred meters. To make things worse, the closest modules to Sixth Continent were Caroline’s five solar arrays.

  “It was them! Their operations sprayed regolith onto our site! They contaminated our array and shut down our power. Didn’t they notice they were doing this?”

  “When we deployed the panels, Sixth Continent was at least a kilometer away.” Lambach traced a line on the map with his finger. Caroline nodded.

  “I know. That’s why we figured it would be safe to put the arrays there. There was nothing on their website about plans to build any closer.”

  “At the time, no. Siting a permanent landing area depends on the terrain. They can’t make a final decision till they’ve been working on the surface for a while.”

  “Great. So all they thought about was picking a spot where their own arrays wouldn’t be contaminated, and they put their landing area right next to us.”

  “Not exactly. We didn’t notice they were so close. They probably didn’t notice either. No one’s using IFF transponders up there. As far as the Japanese are concerned, our rovers could be terrain features. And vice versa.”

  “This is all academic. They created the problem. We’re going to lodge a complaint—” Caroline paused, took a deep breath, and counted to five.

  “But…before we do that, we need to think of a solution.”

  “Anger management?” said Lambach.

  “I’m trying. I can’t afford to do anything hasty on this project.”

  For Caroline, being tapped to direct unmanned operations on the surface—in effect, to be Liberty Island’s Phase One administrator—was a huge professional coup. The reason for her selection was, of course, NASA’s change in direction: the Mars project had suddenly been replaced by a lunar research base. In the process, the head of the Mars faction had lost influence. Caroline, whose support for the moon faction within NASA had relegated her to a subordinate role, suddenly found herself in the spotlight.

  Caroline was well aware that her promotion was based on chance political developments. She did not want to lose her composure. That would only prompt people to doubt her abilities.

  “Those panels were designed for Mars. All we did was change the power settings. Mars has sandstorms, so Wolf’s team must’ve planned for contamination. What was the recovery protocol?”

  “The assumption was that the panels would be scoured by the same sand that contaminated them. In the Martian ops plan, the panels were to be oriented at the optimum angle to promote autodecontamination.”

  “So what are the odds that our panels might decontaminate the same way? They’re within ten degrees of vertical. Couldn’t the regolith just drop off?”

  This was a question with no easy answer. Caroline put out calls to LPL and research facilities across the United States. The answers came from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and from Northrop Grumman in New York.

  Glenn Research Center had the world’s largest space environment simulation chamber, and their staff had deep experience in the effects of exposure to vacuum conditions. GRC’s response: friction between regolith particles thrown up from the surface had probably generated a static charge, causing them to stick to each other. The charge would persist in the airless environment.

  Northrop Grumman’s response came from a staff member who had worked on the design and construction of Apollo lunar landing modules. The smallest regolith particles were as fine as flour. In the moon’s one-sixth gravity, there was little chance they would drop off the panels of their own weight. The astronauts who walked on the moon couldn’t prevent regolith from contaminating the O-rings on their EVA suits. This prevented them from removing their suits inside their lander, and after lifting off from the surface they had to struggle to avoid carrying dust particles into the command module. The only way to decontaminate the panels would be to have a human on scene to dislodge the regolith by pounding on the rear of the panels.

  Caroline was hardly surprised by this analysis, but she had still hoped a solution might be found. Now that hope had been dashed.

  “Back to square one,” she said with a sigh. She bit her lip in frustration but wasn’t ready to give up. As Grumman had noted, with humans on-site there would be any number of options for removing the regolith. Simply waiting for Liberty Island’s manned phase would solve the problem. The overall project would be delayed, not stopped.

  Still, she wanted to solve this immediately if at all possible.

  NASA’s members were steeped in the legacy of their predecessors, whose originality, ingenuity, and adaptability had enabled them to resuscitate dying probes in the far reaches of space. If Method A was unsuccessful, they tried Method B or C. If those didn’t work, they kept searching, racking their brains until they found a way. This unshakable determination had co
me to be known as “the right stuff.” NASA owned it, and Caroline was a rightful heir to that legacy. She thought she had it; she hoped she did.

  The next step was a brainstorming call between her staff in the Unmanned Operations Support Room and personnel from a cross section of other departments in JPL. Several solutions were proposed and immediately shot down. Use the minirover that deployed the arrays to shake off the regolith? The rover was not designed to perform gyrating motion or finely calibrated acceleration/deceleration. Proposal rejected. Try the same thing with one of the transport rovers? Too much power. The rover would probably topple the panels, and it lacked sensors to warn when that was about to happen. Proposal rejected. Haul one of the landers to the array location and use its small amount of remaining propellant to direct a blast of thrust at the panels? With no atmosphere, the force of the thrust stream would be very hard to calibrate. If the engine were fired too close to the arrays, it would destroy them. Proposal rejected. Alternate joule heating with radiative cooling by applying intermittent current to the panels, causing the surface to expand and contract? Excessive current could overheat the distribution circuits. In any case, there was no power source. Proposal rejected.

  “This is not acceptable. Come on, people! This is NASA!”

  Silence descended on the conference. Finally Lambach spoke. “Carol, there is a way. It’s very simple.”

  “Then why hasn’t someone proposed it?”

  “Because we’re NASA. Because we want to solve this on our own. The solution I’m talking about is right next door.”

  “I see.” Caroline was silent for a moment. “The Japanese. You want to ask them to solve the problem for us.”

  “Yes,” said Lambach quietly. “Their multidozers are capable of shaking our arrays without knocking them over. Of course, their equipment was built to completely different specifications. The problem we’re facing doesn’t allow for much direct human intervention. We’ll have to leave it to the AI, and that makes it even more challenging. But it’s not impossible if we share data. And one of the guys at Johnson told me Frontier helped them on one of their missions. If we bring that into the discussion—”

  “That’s not on the table. We’re not going to do these guys a favor, say ‘no strings attached,’ and then show up later to collect the bill.”

  “Then we won’t bring it up.” Lambach reached for the hotline to NASA headquarters in D.C. “Let’s ask Ringstone to summit with the head guys on the Japan side. It’ll be risky for them to use valuable gear in an unscheduled operation. But I think Ringstone can convince them.” He started to pick up the phone.

  “Wait.” Caroline put her hand over the receiver. She had removed her sunglasses. Her blue eyes were shining. “Not yet. I’ve got to think this through.”

  “Carol, this isn’t defeat. If we succeed, you’ll be praised for making a wise call.”

  “I know. But…I wonder what Wolf will say.”

  “Carol?” Lambach looked at her with concern.

  Dr. Wolfgang Valkhoven had been mission director of the Mars project. Just a year ago, it had been NASA’s flagship mission for the first half of the twenty-first century—a tremendous undertaking on which to stake their—and America’s—reputation. Now the mission had been completely eclipsed by Liberty Island. The five billion dollar Mars Ambassador’s failure to make a landing on the surface was just one factor in that eclipse. Political factors had also dimmed Valkhoven’s star, including a failed presidential reelection bid by the mission’s chief booster.

  In the wake of these events, Caroline and the members of the Liberty Island project had risen in NASA, but it was mostly because Valkhoven’s team had lost power and another team had had to step up to the plate. They had been liberated from the shadows. It was a tremendous stroke of luck.

  But those who had replaced them in the wings were full of resentment. Naturally the chief representative of this faction was Wolf Valkhoven himself. If he and his allies could have their way, they would be back onstage, and they were waiting expectantly for Caroline to stumble. To seek help openly from the Japanese would be political suicide. But—

  “I think Wolf would understand,” said Lambach.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Caroline shook her head in disbelief.

  “We’re cogs in a machine, Carol,” Lambach said quietly. “You, me, and everyone here. Our missions have gotten too large for any one person to take all the credit or all the blame. All we can do is be good cogs and try to keep this giant machine from falling apart. The politicians and the bureaucrats decide where the machine goes.”

  “I’m aware of that. Wolf suffered more than any of us because of those people. How could he approve of our going to the Japanese for help?”

  “Because he suffered.” Lambach nodded, as if he were trying to convince himself. “We’ve got to solve this here, at our level. Sixth Continent is on scene, and they have capabilities we don’t. If we call on them, we can recover from this problem. Don’t you see? We’re the ones who make the call here. Not the politicians or the bureaucrats.” He paused. “Wolf is a scientist, same as us. He’ll understand. If his nose gets bent out of shape, I’ll talk sense into him.”

  “You expect me to believe he’ll see the Japanese as colleagues?” Caroline’s mouth opened in stark disbelief. “Whatever gave you that idea? His project—which just happens to be frozen at the moment—is a lot more important to him. Anyway, the real question is whether I can see the Japanese as colleagues.”

  “Carol, I don’t think personal animus has a place here—” Lambach stopped in midsentence. When he had signed on to work with this aggressive mission manager, she had told him a bit of personal history. She had also asked him to keep it confidential.

  Caroline fixed him with a cold stare. “They didn’t have a manned spacecraft of their own, so they bought my father’s seat on the shuttle. And now they’ve rendered our arrays unusable. Please tell me where I’ve gone off the rails, Joe.”

  “I’m sorry, Carol. I misspoke.” Lambach waved his hand, as if to wave away his earlier words, but he did not yield. “As mission administrator, which is more embarrassing—having a project canceled for political reasons or losing it because of an accident? Look at this objectively. Are you really going to pass on an option that could help us recover?”

  Caroline stared at him for a long moment. “So you’re asking whether I’ll be able to face myself, much less everyone else.” She looked down for a long moment, then put her sunglasses back on.

  “All right. As long as there’s something we can do about it, let’s not waste time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lambach nodded with relief and picked up the hotline.

  “MR. AOMINE, you have an outside call.”

  The speaker in the ceiling repeated the announcement. Sohya slid out from under a multidozer and wiped metal dust from his face with a cloth. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.”

  “Leave her to me. I’ll have this wrapped by the time you get back.” The maintenance engineer closed the lid of the dozer’s motherboard compartment and waved a hand in assurance.

  Sohya exited through double metal doors, then an air lock. The magnetic shielding chamber was paneled with metal plates to screen out all geomagnetic and electromagnetic energy. This allowed tests on multidozer performance under different simulated conditions. Naturally, his wearcom would not function inside the chamber.

  Sohya was in the multidozer manufacturing facility and proving ground at the foot of Mount Fuji. The facility was also central control for the dozers already on the surface. On top of his responsibilities for directing surface operations, Sohya was helping to improve the next generation of multidozers currently under construction.

  Once outside the chamber, Sohya stepped into a nearby data processing center. All the terminals were busy, so he had to take the call on a bench in the corridor. He found Tae smiling back at him from his wearcom monitor.

  “Hello, Sohya. Are you busy at the moment?�
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  “I was just about finished anyway,” said Sohya. “Starting with Dozer 8 we’re going to use slightly thinner shielding. That will allow us to increase its leverage.”

  “Sounds good. Listen, I couldn’t get hold of Mr. Iwaki. I need someone who knows the front line,” said Tae. Obviously this wasn’t a personal call. Sohya was about to make a joke about his disappointment on that score, but what she said next banished that thought instantly.

  “We’re conferencing with Ringstone at NASA.”

  “NASA? You’re joking!”

  “Mr. Gotoba and Mr. Yaenami are waiting too. We’re just about to start.”

  “But, Tae—”

  Sohya’s wearcom display divided into five cells, each with a face. He hurriedly composed himself.

  “Hello, Administrator Ringstone. This is Tae Toenji speaking.”

  Her accent was polished King’s English, belying the fact that she’d learned the language in California.

  “Greetings to all of you in Japan,” answered Ringstone. “I’m calling with an important request. This discussion is off the record, so I would appreciate your candid opinion. First, let me introduce Caroline Cadbury from JPL. Caroline is operations director for the unmanned phase of Liberty Island.”

  “Hello, everyone.” The same bald American Sohya had seen on the web yielded the floor to a blond woman. In a businesslike tone she began outlining NASA’s problem. When she had finished, she looked up from her documents and spoke directly into the camera. “I’d like to emphasize that this problem was caused by the proximity of your landing sites. I hope you will fully bear in mind your responsibility as you consider our request.”

  “Carol, let’s set that aside for the moment,” Ringstone said with an uneasy chuckle. Then he turned to his audience. “We’re prepared to render you assistance if you encounter problems. We regard this as an obligation, given our preeminent position in space exploration.”

  Ryuichi broke in, “You sounded pretty preeminent in that press conference.”

  “You saw that? Well, that puts me in a difficult position.” Ringstone rubbed his pate, then slowly executed a formal bow, Japanese-style. “We would deeply appreciate your assistance. As humans, and as fellow strivers toward the stars.”