by Simon Coates
Total distance: 240 miles
Vertical Height Gain: 14 miles
Olympus Mons has a unique shape due to the way it naturally formed millions of years ago. The first section is a climb up the vertical cliff face along the service road which has been created as a zigzag pattern. The road here is 50 miles long, with an average gradient of 10%. The corners come at around one mile intervals, with the gradient increasing to around 15%, the straights feature a gradient of around 9-10%. The second section, which leads to the finish, is 190 miles long, is completely straight, with a gradient of a consistent 5%. From ground level to the very summit of the climb, the temperature drops consistently. The ambient temperature is around 10 degrees at ground level, at the top it will be minus 50 degrees or lower. The finish point will be a line across the road, with the riders led into the service area and taken into the scientific building for medical check-up. Only with the all clear given by the staff on duty will the competitor be allowed to leave the building and return back to ground level.
Course description
Course Code MOM400
START at end of layby on the road leading off the base road of Olympus Mons, just before the sign "No unauthorised vehicles beyond this point". This road is signposted as 'Olympus Mons Service Road'. Continue on this road for approximately half a mile to the base of the Olympus Mons climb. Continue on this road to ascend the first section of Olympus Mons to reach the first summit. Continue on this road for the next 100 miles to the official checkpoint where breathing apparatus will be provided to all riders. This is a mandatory stop for no less than ten minutes. Continue on the road to the FINISH which is just before the Olympus Mons Scientific Building.
The following notices are the specific rules around the event.
- The event will be ridden under general rules regarding the conduct of time trial racing. Riders will set off at one minute intervals and are not allowed to draft other riders.
- At various points on the course, the 'split times' of the riders will be relayed to the support crews. If they do not wish to be given this information, then they must inform the organisers before the start of the race.
- Each rider must have an appointed support crew. There is a maximum of two vehicles allowed per rider. No drafting of the support car is allowed by the rider.
- The rider may be given help as necessary by their appointed support crew. At no point must the vehicle be driven forwards whilst the rider is inside the vehicle.
- At around 150 miles, there is a checkpoint where riders are required to take on board the breathing apparatus. This is a mandatory stop. To eliminate riders gaining an advantage here, the stop will be enforced for ten minutes for each rider.
- The rider may stop at any point on the course, but when resuming they must restart where they stopped.
- Riders will be classified as official finishers if they finish their ride no less than twelve hours after the winner. Riders outside of this time limit will be permitted to complete their climb of Olympus Mons, but will be classified as a 'Non-Official Finisher'.
- On finishing the race, the rider will be taken into the medical area immediately, to be checked over by the various medical staff present.
- Official results will be announced when all necessary compliance tests and checks are complete.
- Crews will be issued with distress beacons which may be deployed in the event of some sort of emergency to the rider or crew that requires extra help over and above what they can deal with themselves. In such an event, riders and their crews are advised to employ this emergency facility at the earliest opportunity, as due to the nature of the terrain, help can take much longer to arrive than normal.
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Transport in Space - the Public Highway
When human travel in space to the Moon and Mars started to become a routine affair, it became clear that a more formal system had to be set up to allow the traffic to move smoothly to and from their destinations. This ended up becoming the formalised public highway in space, which has grown in importance over the decades to the present day as public space travel has become popular, as private ownership of spaceships has increased.
The main routes are Earth to the Moon, the Moon to Mars and Earth to Mars, and vice versa. The system employed to ensure safe passage is with a type of laser beam which is invisible to human eyes, but is detected by spaceships which sets the most direct route at that precise time to the direction of travel. As the celestial objects move in their various orbits, the highway constantly changes. Within the travel area inside the laser beams, impact detection systems spot potential problems such as meteorites and other space debris and signal to the spaceships so that avoiding action can be taken. The highway is being constantly upgraded to take the increased volume of traffic, so that travel can continue as efficiently as possible. However, accidents do happen, which leads at times to traffic jams in space with multiple spaceships hovering at a standstill until the highway is clear.
Outside the normal routes, there is no highway as such, for example for someone wanting to travel to Neptune or beyond. However, public spaceships are generally not designed to travel outside of Earth and Mars orbital planes, so anyone taking a spaceship outside of these areas does so at great risk.
There is a speed limit of 300,000mph which applies to public spaceships and is rigidly enforced. There are discretions applied, such as to emergency vehicles, that can travel at greater speeds. Also, during special events, such as Formula X races, the highway used for a race will be completely closed. There are also special events such as the speed record attempt by the Palatia-Sonnar X1 spaceship when the highway will also be closed.
The Spaceship Industry – Personal Spaceships