by Andy Weir
may be dead, but they’re still food. I was just about to harvest, so it was a good time for this to happen, I guess.
The rations will last me till Sol 400. I can’t say for sure how long the potatoes will last until I see how many I got. But I can estimate. I had 400 plants, probably averaging 5 potatoes each: 2000 taters. At 150 calories each, I’ll need to eat 10 per sol to survive. That means they’ll last me 200 sols. Grand total: I have enough food to last till Sol 600.
By Sol 856 I’ll be long dead.
Chapter 15
Project Iris
[08:12]WATNEY: Test.
[08:25]JPL: Received! You gave us quite a scare there. Thanks for the “A-OK” message. Our analysis of satellite imagery shows a complete detachment of Airlock 1. Is that correct? What’s your status? Include your personal health and Hab equipment.
[08:39]WATNEY: If by “detachment” you mean “shot me out like a cannon” then yeah. Minor cut on my forehead. Had some issues with my EVA suit (I’ll explain later). I patched up the Hab and repressurized it (main air tanks were intact). I just got power back online. Primary air and water tanks were unharmed. The rover, solar array, and Pathfinder were out of blast range. I’ll run diagnostics on the Hab’s systems while I wait for your next reply. By the way, who am I talking to?
[08:52]JPL: Venkat Kapoor, in Houston. Pasadena relays my messages. I'm going to handle all direct communication with you from now on. Check the Oxygenator and Water Reclaimer first. They’re the most important.
[09:05]WATNEY: Duh. Oxygenator functioning perfectly. Water Reclaimer is completely offline. Best guess is water froze up inside and burst some tubing. I’m sure I can fix it. Hab’s main computer also functioning without any problems. Any idea what caused the Hab to blow up?
[09:18]JPL: Best guess is fatigue on the canvas near Airlock 1. The pressurization cycle stressed it until it failed. From now on, alternate Airlock 2 and 3 for all EVAs. Also, we’ll be getting you a checklist and procedures for a full canvas exam.
[09:31]WATNEY: Yay, I get to stare at a wall for several hours! By the way, the farm is dead. I’ve recovered as many potatoes as I could and stored them outside. I count 1841. That will last me 184 days. Including the remaining mission rations, I’ll start starving on Sol 584.
[09:44]JPL: Yeah, we figured. Working on it.
“It’s Sol 122,” Bruce said. “We have until Sol 584 to get a probe to Mars. That’s 462 sols, which is 475 days.”
The assembled department heads of JPL furrowed their brows and rubbed their eyes.
“First they needed a presupply way ahead of schedule,” Bruce continued. “Now they need it even more ahead of schedule.”
He stood from his chair. “The positions of Earth and Mars aren’t ideal. The trip will take 414 days. Mounting the probe to the booster and dealing with inspections will take 13 days. That leaves us with just 48 days to make this probe.”
Sounds of whispered exasperation filled the room. “Jesus,” someone said.
“It's a whole new ballgame,” Bruce continued. “Our focus is food. Anything else is a luxury. We don't have time to make a powered-descent lander. It'll have to be a tumbler. So we can't put anything delicate inside. Say goodbye to the all the other crap we'd planned to send.”
“Where's the booster coming from?”asked Norm Toshi, who was in charge of the reentry process.
“The EagleEye 3 Saturn probe,” Bruce said. “It was scheduled to launch next month. NASA put it on hold so we can have the booster.”
“I bet the EagleEye team was pissed about that,” Norm said.
“I'm sure they were,” Bruce said. “But it's the only booster we have that's big enough. Which brings me to my next point: We only get one shot at this. If we fuck it up, Mark Watney dies.”
He looked around the room and let that sink in.
“We do have some things going for us,” he finally said. “We have some of the parts built for the Ares 4 presupply missions. We can steal from them, and that'll save us some time. Also, we're sending food, which is pretty robust. Even if there's a reentry problem and the probe impacts at high velocity, food is still food.
“And we don't need a precision landing. Watney can travel hundreds of kilometers if necessary. We just need to land close enough for him to reach it. This ends up being a standard tumble-land presupply. All we have to do is make it quickly. So let's get to it.”
[08:02]JPL: We've spun up a project to get you food. It's been in progress for a week or so. We can get it to you before you starve, but it'll be tight. It'll just be food and a radio. We can't send an Oxygenator, Water Reclaimer, or any of that other stuff without powered descent.
[08:16]WATNEY: No complaints here! You get me the food, I'll be a happy camper. I've got all Hab systems up and running again. The Water Reclaimer is working fine now that I replaced the burst hoses. As for water supply, I have 620L remaining. I started with 900L (300 to start with, 600 more from reducing hydrazine). So I lost almost 300L to sublimation. Still, with the Water Reclaimer operational again, it's plenty.
[08:31]JPL: Good, keep us posted on any mechanical or electronic problems. By the way, the name of the probe we're sending is “Iris”. Named after the Greek goddess who traveled the heavens with the speed of wind. She's also the goddess of rainbows.
[08:47]WATNEY: Gay probe coming to save me. Got it.
Rich Purnell sipped coffee in the silent building. Only his cubicle illuminated the otherwise dark room. Continuing with his computations, he ran a final test on the software he'd written. It passed.
With a relieved sigh, he sank back in his chair. Checking the clock on his computer, he shook his head. 3:42am.
Being an astrodynamicist, Rich rarely had to work late. His job was to find the exact orbits and course corrections needed for any given mission. Usually, it was one of the first parts of a project; all the other steps being based on the orbit.
But this time, things were reversed. Iris needed an orbital path, and nobody knew when it would launch. A non-Hoffman Mars-transfer isn't challenging, but it does require the exact locations of Earth and Mars.
Planets move as time goes by. A course calculated for a specific launch date will work only for that date. Even a single day's difference would result in missing Mars entirely.
So Rich had to calculate many courses. He had a range of 25 days during which Iris might launch. He calculated one course for each.
He began an email to his boss.
Mike, he typed, Attached are the courses for Iris, in 1-day increments. We should start peer-review and vetting so they can be officially accepted. And you were right, I was here almost all night.
It wasn't that bad. Nowhere near the pain of calculating orbits for Hermes. I know you get bored when I go in to the math, so I'll summarize: The small, constant thrust of Hermes's ion drives is much harder to deal with than the large point-thrusts of presupply probes.
All 25 of the courses take 414 days, and vary only slightly in thrust duration and angle. The fuel requirement is nearly identical for the orbits and is well within the capacity of EagleEye's booster.
It's too bad. Earth and Mars are really badly positioned. Heck, it's almost easier to-
He stopped typing.
Furrowing his brow, he stared in to the distance.
“Hmm.” he said.
Grabbing his coffee cup, he went to the break room for a refill.
“I know you're all busy,” Teddy said, “so let's make this fast. I need status on Project Iris from all departments. Venkat, let's start with you.”
“The mission team's ready,” Venkat said. “There was a minor turf war between the Ares-3 and Ares-4 presupply control teams. The Ares-3 guys said they should run it, cause while Watney's on Mars, Ares-3 is still in progress. The Ares-4 team points out it's their co-opted probe in the first place. I ended up going with Ares-3.”
“Did that upset Ares-4?” Teddy asked.
“Yeah, but they'll get over it. They have 13 pre
supply missions coming up. They won't have time to be pissy.”
“Mitch,” Teddy said to the flight controller, “What about the launch?”
“We've got a control room ready,” Mitch replied. “I'll oversee the launch, then hand cruise and landing over to Venkat's guys.”
“Media?” Teddy said, turning to Annie Montrose.
“I'm giving daily updates to the press,” she said. “Everyone knows Watney's fucked if this doesn't work. The public hasn't been this engaged in ship construction since Apollo 11. CNN's 'The Watney Report' has been the #1 show in its time-slot for the past two weeks.”
“The attention is good,” Teddy said. “It'll help get us emergency funding from Congress. Maurice, how's the booster?”
“It's all right for now,” said Maurice Stein, Director of Pad Operations. “But it's not ideal. EagleEye 3 was set to launch. Boosters aren't designed to stand upright and bear the stress of gravity for long periods. We're adding external supports that we'll remove before launch. It's easier than disassembly. Also the fuel is corrosive to the internal tanks, so we had to drain it. In the mean time, we're performing inspections on all systems every three days.”
“Good, good,” Teddy nodded. “Now for the big question: Bruce? How's Iris coming along?”
“We're behind,” Bruce said with a tired shake of his head. “We're going as fast as we can, but it's just not fast enough.”
“I can find money for overtime,” Teddy offered.
“We're already working around the clock.”
“How far behind are we walking about?” Teddy asked.
“We've been at it 29 days; so we only have 19 left,” Bruce explained. “After that, the Pad needs 13 days to mount it on the booster. We're at least two weeks behind.”
“Is that as far behind as you're going to get?” Teddy asked. “Or will you slip more?”
Bruce shrugged. “If we don't have any more problems, it'll be two weeks late. But we always have problems.”
“Give me a number,” Teddy said.
“15 days,” Bruce responded. “If I had another 15 days, I'm sure we could get it done in time.”
“All right,” Teddy said. “Let's create 15 days.”
Turning his attention to the Ares-3 Flight Surgeon, Teddy asked “Dr. Keller, can we reduce Watney's food intake to make the rations last longer?”
“Sorry, but no,” Keller said. “he's already at a minimal calorie count. In fact, considering the amount of physical labor he does, he's eating far less than he should. And it's only going to get worse. Soon his entire diet will be potatoes and vitamin supplements. He's been saving protein-rich rations for later use, but he'll still be malnourished.”
“Once he runs out of food, how long until he starves to death?” Teddy asked.
“Presuming an ample water supply, he might last three weeks. Shorter than a typical hunger strike but remember he'll be malnourished and thin to begin with.”
“Remember,” Venkat interjected, “Iris is a tumbler; he might have to drive a few days to get it. And I'm guessing it's hard to control a rover when you're literally starving to death.”
“He's right,” Dr. Keller confirmed. “Within 4 days of running out of food, he'll barely be able to stand up, let alone control a rover. Plus, his mental faculties will rapidly decline. He'd have a hard time even staying awake.”
“So the landing date's firm,” Teddy said. “Maurice, can you get it on the booster in less than 13 days?”
Maurice pondered. “Well... It only takes 3 days to actually mount it. The following 10 are for testing and inspections.”
“How much can you reduce those?”
“With enough overtime, I could get the mounting down to 2 days. That includes transport from Pasadena to Cape Canaveral. But the inspections can't be shortened. They're time-based. We do checks and re-checks with set intervals between them to see if something deforms or warps. If you shorten the intervals, you invalidate the inspections.”
“How often do those inspections reveal a problem?” Teddy asked.
A silence fell over the room.
“Uh,” Maurice stammered. “Are you suggesting we don't do the inspections?”
“No,” said Teddy. “Right now I'm asking how often they reveal a problem.”
“About one in twenty launches.”
“And how often is the problem they reveal a would-be mission-failure?”
“I'm, uh, not sure. Maybe half the time?”
“So if we skip the inspections and testing, we have a 1 in 40 chance of mission failure?” Teddy asked.
“That's 2.5%,” Venkat said, steeping in. “Normally, that's grounds for a countdown halt. We can't take a chance like that.”
“ 'Normally' was a long time ago,” Teddy said calmly. “97.5% is better than zero. Can anyone think of a safer way to get more time?”
He looked around the table. Blank faces stared back.
“All right, then. Speeding up the mounting process and skipping inspections buys us 11 days. If Bruce can pull a rabbit out of a hat and get done sooner, Maurice can do some inspections.”
“What about the other 4 days?” Venkat asked, still frowning at skipping inspections.
“I'm sure Watney can stretch the food to last 4 extra days, malnutrition notwithstanding,” Teddy said, looking to Dr. Keller.
“I-” Keller started. “I can't recommend-”
“Folks,” Teddy interrupted. “I understand your positions. We have procedures. Skipping those procedures means risk. Risk means trouble for your department. But now isn't the time to cover our asses. We have to take risks or Mark Watney dies.”
Turning to Keller, he said “Make the food last another 4 days.”
Keller nodded silently.
“Rich,” said Mike.
Rich Purnell concentrated on his computer screen. His cubicle was a landfill of printouts, charts, and reference books. Empty coffee cups rested on every surface; take-out packaging littered the ground.
“Rich,” Mike said, more forcefully.
Rich looked up. “Yeah?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Just a little side project. Something I wanted to check up on.”
“Well... that's fine, I guess,” Mike said, “but you need to do your assigned work first. I asked for those satellite adjustments two weeks ago and you still haven't done them.”
“I need some supercomputer time.” Rich said.
“You need supercomputer time to calculate routine satellite adjustments?”
“No, it's for this other thing I'm working on,” Rich said.
“Rich, seriously. You have to do your job.”
Rich thought for a moment. “Would now be a good time for a vacation?” He asked.
Mike sighed. “You know what, Rich? I think now would be an ideal time for you to take a vacation.”
“Great!” Rich smiled. “I'll start right now.”
“Sure,” Mike said. “Go on home. Get some rest.”
“Oh, I'm not going home,” said Rich, returning to his calculations.
Mike rubbed his eyes. “Ok, whatever. About those satellite orbits...?”
“I'm on vacation,” Rich said without looking up.
Mike shrugged and walked away.
[08:01]WATNEY: How's my care package coming along?
[08:16]JPL: A little behind schedule, but we'll get it done. In the mean time, we want you to get back to work. We're satisfied the Hab's is in good condition. Maintenance only takes you 12 hours per week. We're going to pack the rest of your time with research and experiments.
[08:31]WATNEY: Great! I'm sick of sitting on my ass. I'm going to be here for years. You may as well make use of me.
[08:47]JPL: That's what we're thinking. We'll get you a schedule as soon as the science team puts it together. It'll be mostly of EVAs, geological samples, soil tests, and weekly self-administered medical tests. Honestly, this is the best “bonus Mars time” we've had since the Opportuni
ty lander.
[09:02]WATNEY: Opportunity never went back to Earth.
[09:17]JPL: Sorry. Bad analogy.
The Whiteroom was abuzz with activity as technicians sealed Iris in to the specially-designed shipping container.
The other two shifts watched from the observation deck. They had rarely seen their own homes in two months; a makeshift bunkroom had been set up in the cafeteria. Fully a third of them would normally be asleep at this hour, but they did not want to miss this moment.
The shift leader tightened the final bolt. As he retracted the wrench, the engineers broke in to applause. Many of them were in tears.
After 62 days of grueling work, Iris was complete.
“The launch preparations are complete,” Annie Montrose said to the press room. “Iris is ready to go. The scheduled launch is 9:14am.
“Once launched, it will stay in orbit for at least three hours. During that time, mission control will gather exact telemetry in preparation for the trans-Mars injection burn. Once that's complete the mission will be handed off to the Ares-3 presupply team, who will monitor its progress over the following months. It will take 414 days to reach Mars. ”
“About the payload,” a reporter asked, “I hear there's more than just food?”
“That's true,”Annie smiled. “We allocated 100 grams for luxury items. There are some handwritten letters from Mark's family, a note from the President, and a USB drive filled with music from all ages.”
“Any disco?” someone asked.
“No disco,” Annie said, as chuckles cascaded through the room.
CNN's Cathy Warner spoke up “If this launch fails, is there any recourse for Watney?”
“There are risks to any launch,” Annie said, “but we don't anticipate