Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1)

by Gregory Gates

  “Bitch.”

  The audience howled.

  Abby smiled. “It makes a good first impression. Tends to quickly put folks in the proper frame of mind.”

  Leno laughed and pounded his fist on the desk. “Yeah, I can imagine. Susan, you’re the medical doctor?”

  Susan nodded. “Yes.”

  “I presume a doctor is needed on this, uh, venture, because it’s dangerous?”

  Susan smiled. “Yes, dangerous would be an appropriate description.”

  “How dangerous?”

  Susan laughed. “Numerically? I don’t know. I’d say our odds of returning alive are, maybe, fifty-fifty.”

  There was an audible gasp from the audience. Leno sat silent for a moment, then nervously joked, “That sounds worse than rush hour on the Hollywood freeway.”

  Jeff laughed, “Which is kind of the whole point. Sue’s right, it is dangerous. There is a lot than can go wrong. Indeed, we may not make it back. But, as you say, the same applies to commuting on the freeway. Honestly though, if any of us believed for a moment that we wouldn’t be coming back, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be going.” He shook his head. “Contrary to what some in the news media – and Congress – are suggesting, this is not a suicide mission; we do want to come back.”

  Leno turned to the camera, “We’ll be back in a minute.”

  Following the commercial break, Jay turned back to Jeff. “Now, I have to ask, um, your crew is, uh, all women.”

  Jeff smiled and glanced at the other four. “Uh, yep. They are indeed.”

  Leno laughed. “Well, I suppose if I were going to Mars, three good looking women wouldn’t be my last choice for crew members. Something to do on those cold Martian nights?”

  The audience laughed.

  Jeff smiled again. “It’s a fair question. But honestly, it’s simply luck of the draw. As you may imagine, there was a long list of requirements for crew selection; not the least of which was compatibility. We’re going to be gone for two and half years and, during that time, we’re going to have to get along – all of us. And in the final analysis, aside from their not inconsequential intelligence, education, and talent, Gabe, Abby, Sue, and myself, just seem to have a very good personality fit. We get along. And the fact that they’re all women is, well, irrelevant. That’s just the way it is and there’s really nothing else to be read into it.”

  The audience applauded.

  “Okay,” Jay continued. “Now, you have a launch coming up pretty soon, right?”

  “Yes, very soon. Six weeks from tomorrow, we hope.”

  “You must be pretty excited about that.”

  “Oh, indeed we are. This will be the first of four launches that week in which we’ll be sending up a fair portion of the items we’ll need to live on the planet.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well the first launch will be a navigational aid and communications platform that we call Pathfinder. And its initial purpose will be to provide landing guidance on Mars for all our remaining loads, as well as us when we get there, rather like a navigational beacon, or VOR, at an airport. There is no GPS on Mars, so this is our alternative. We’d prefer not to have all our supplies scattered over a 1,000 square miles of Martian landscape, and the best way to avoid that is to give everything an electronic target to aim for. Once we’re on the planet Pathfinder will serve as a communications relay, both for us on the surface and for communications with Earth. The following three launches later that week will be the first of our cargo. I’ll let Gabe detail that.” He turned to Gabe. “You want to go over the manifest. The short version will do.”

  Gabe nodded and smiled. “Yes, what we’ll be sending up with those three launches will include the first three of our nine planned habitat modules, an airlock, a Sabatier reactor – a chemical plant that will convert Mars’ atmospheric carbon dioxide into methane and water, which we can further convert into oxygen and hydrogen – a large field of solar cells for energy, a remote control rover, a mobile habitat that we’ll use for exploration, and a year and a half’s supply of food. Also with this launch we’ll be testing a previously untried means of landing materials on the planet; a bent biconic lifting body.”

  Jay looked at her with raised eyebrows. “A bent what?”

  “A bent biconic lifting body. It’s a little hard to explain. It’s an atmospheric entry aeroshell that provides lift in Mars’ thin atmosphere and can be steered… sort of.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Habitat module? Sounds like a dorm room.” Leno grinned.

  Gabe smiled. “A very small dorm room. The habs, which are affectionately referred to in the industry as tuna cans, are round, about twelve and a half feet in diameter, and seven feet high. They’re made of a carbon-fiber and Kevlar laminate inner pressure shell and a thin aluminum outer shell with an inch and a half of aerogel insulation in between. Our complex in the Margaritifer Basin will ultimately consist of nine interconnected modules; four bedrooms, kitchen, a combination bathroom and laundry, a common room which will also hold all our communications equipment, a lab, and a suitroom with airlock, where we’ll change into and out of our space suits for activity on the surface. Additionally, we’ll have a mobile habitat – sort of a small Airstream trailer – that we can tow behind one of the rovers for surface exploration, and a Plexiglas greenhouse in which we’ll attempt to grow some fresh vegetables.”

  “I’m curious, how much food does it take to feed four people for the time you’ll be there and, what will you be eating?” Jay asked.

  “About 13,000 pounds,” Gabe replied. “So far as our cuisine is concerned, a lot of lobster tails and beluga caviar would be good, but it will mostly be freeze dried items to keep the weight down.”

  Jay grinned. “So it’s not like you’ll have a five-star restaurant up there?”

  “No, probably not.”

  “Okay, I’m staying here. It sounds to me like you’re going to need a pretty big rocket.”

  Jeff grinned. “There isn’t one big enough. Even the giant Saturn V used in the Apollo program doesn’t come close.”

  “So, how do you do it?”

  “Well, given what’s commercially available today in heavy-lift launch vehicles, it will probably require twelve launches.”

  “Twelve?”

  “Yes.”

  “I expect that’s going to require a fair amount of gas.”

  “Yes indeed. Abby, you want to talk about gas?”

  Jay laughed. “Nice guy. Gabe gets to talk about food, Abby gets the gas.”

  Abby laughed and nodded. “That’s usually how it works out. Um, on average – and it varies a bit between launch vehicles – it takes about 22 pounds of fuel to launch one pound of payload into low Earth orbit; what we call LEO, typically 100 to 400 miles in altitude. So, a 50,000 pound payload would require around 1.1 million pounds of fuel to LEO. Now once you’re in LEO, you still need to get to Mars. That requires another burn – called a TMI, or Trans-Mars Injection – that takes another 1.2 pounds of fuel per pound of payload. So, from the launch pad here on Earth to Mars, not including the fuel it takes to slow down once you get there and actually land on the planet – a 50,000 pound payload takes not quite 1.2 million pounds of fuel.”

  “About like driving a Dodge Viper across town?”

  Abby laughed. “Yeah, about. But it gets worse. The problem is the 60,000 pounds or so of fuel that is needed for the TMI of a 50,000 pound payload. From here on Earth that 60,000 pounds of fuel counts as payload, since you have to get it up into LEO to use it. It takes another 1.3 million pounds of fuel just to get that off the ground and into LEO. So, all told, to get a 50,000 pound payload from the launch pad to Mars, requires around two and a half million pounds of rocket fuel.”

  “And how much is your payload?”

  “Actual, uh, stuff that we’ll be using, around 260,000 pounds. Including boosters, we estimate the total launch weight to be right around a million pounds.”

  Jay looked at he
r with surprise. “So, in total, how much fuel will all this require?”

  Abby sighed. “Oh boy, uh…” she turned to Gabe, “… I dunno, twenty…”

  Gabe nodded, “About twenty-four.”

  Abby turned back to Jay. “Yeah, about twenty-four million pounds, give or take a million.”

  “Twenty-four million pounds! How many gallons of gas is that.”

  “Well, about six pounds per gallon so, four million gallons.”

  Jay grinned. “Premium or regular?”

  Abby laughed. “I think you’d have to call it premium. Mostly we’ll be using bipropellants; that is, an oxidizer – usually LOX, liquid oxygen, though in some cases N2O4 or dinitrogen tetroxide – and a fuel – either liquid hydrogen, RP-1 or Rocket Propellant 1, essentially kerosene, and a few others, depends on the application. The Reaction Control Systems – RCS – for attitude and steering will generally use a monopropellant like hydrazine. Not stuff you’re gonna find down at the corner gas station.”

  Jay shook his head. “Susan – bringing you into this – how long will it take you to get there?”

  Susan smiled. “Us? 195 days, give or take a couple hours. We’ll be flying what’s called a Type 1 trajectory, which will take us less than half-way around the sun. The cargo missions will be flying a Type 2 trajectory, or more than half-way around the sun. Type 1 trajectories are faster but require more fuel, and we don’t really want to spend any more time in space than we have to. We’re anxious to get there.”

  “Okay, so when will you get there?”

  Susan glanced at Gabe. “Help.”

  Gabe smiled. “We should arrive in orbit around a quarter to seven in the evening Eastern Daylight Time on October 3rd. Then we’ll make two complete orbits of the planet and land, at least according to the current flight plan, at around ten p.m. Eastern time on October 5th three years from now.”

  “And you know that now?”

  “Oh yes. It’s all just mathematics.”

  “And who does the math?”

  “Well, it’s done by computers.”

  Jeff chuckled. “And then she double-checks the computers, because she can do it in her head.”

  Leno laughed and looked at Gabe. “Wait a minute. You can do this kind of math in your head?”

  Gabe grinned sheepishly and nodded. “Uh huh, though not as many significant digits as the computers can.”

  Jeff smiled. “She’s very handy to have around.”

  “I guess. Gabe, could I interest you in helping me balance my checkbook?”

  Gabe laughed. “Orbital mechanics and quadratic equations I can do. Checkbooks?” She shook her head, “Not so much.”

  Jay turned to Chrissie. “Now, Chrissie, you’re not going, right?”

  Chrissie nodded and shrugged. “Right.”

  “Would you like to?”

  Chrissie smiled. “Oh yeah!”

  “Why?”

  Chrissie smiled softly and looked at the floor for a moment, then back at Jay. “It’ll probably sound trite to many people but simply put: to boldly go where no man has gone before. Put another way, why are we here? To be kept like sheep or to…” she waved off into the distance, “… explore the far horizon. Personally, I choose the latter.”

  The audience applauded.

  Jay nodded. “So, what will you be doing while they’re gone?”

  “I’ll be in charge of our Mission Control Center in Newport.”

  “So you’ll be in constant communications with them?”

  “Well… yes and no. This isn’t like the Apollo lunar missions. During Apollo, the one-way communications delay was, at most, about one and a half seconds. And the only time they were out of communications was when they passed behind the moon, and loss of signal was generally around three quarters of an hour. Once the crew arrives at Mars, one-way communication delays will be anywhere from nine to twenty-two minutes, depending on Earth’s and Mars’ orbital positions. And, when Mars is in conjunction, that is, on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, we’ll have no communications at all for a period of two to three weeks, depending on the level of solar activity.”

  Leno turned back to Jeff. “Out of communications with Earth for two to three weeks? That doesn’t bother you?”

  Jeff shook his head. “No. By that point in time we will have been on the planet for more than nine months and will kind of be used to living on our own.”

  “A minute ago you said, six weeks, ‘you hope’. Why, ‘hope’?”

  Jeff nodded. “Well, aside from potential mechanical problems with the launch vehicles and weather at the Cape, there are still some, uh, individuals – particularly in government – that are opposed to the mission going forward.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The FAA regulates our airspace, which you have to go through to get into space proper, and international treaties regulate space and beyond, including Mars. And a host of other government entities have stuck their fingers in the pot as well. For example, four years ago, the state of California laid claim to the Apollo 11 landing site on the moon by adding it to the State Historical Registry. The fact that the site is not in California, or the United States, or even on this planet, doesn’t seem to bother Sacramento in the least. And there are some in our government and others around the world that just don’t think private citizens should be going into space – and, more to the point, Mars – without their permission, if at all. Governments love to regulate things, and this is one of them. Now, we’ve met the letter of the law for every U.S. and international regulatory requirement for our scheduled December launches. But for some, that’s still not enough. Some in Congress, for example, are still objecting to the entire mission on the simple basis that it’s not being conducted by NASA. However, since NASA has no plan for a manned Mars mission, the argument would in fact seem to be opposition to anyone going. The other complaint regards planetary protection. An international treaty spells out the requirements for protecting both Mars and Earth from forward and backward contamination. Now, though we’ve met cleanliness and sterility requirements for the upcoming launches – at enormous expense, I might add – we will not be able to meet those requirements for the eventual crew launch, since we can’t meet the sterility requirements without killing the crew in the process; which we kind of object to.”

  Leno frowned. “That sounds like quite a Catch-22?”

  Jeff grinned. “You have no idea. Sterility requirements for sending something to Mars essentially call for baking it at 250ºF for a week. Um, we object.”

  Some in the audience laughed nervously.

  “But, if we can’t meet those requirements, neither can anyone else. So, as currently written, international treaty effectively makes manned missions to Mars impossible since the requirements can’t be met without first killing the people that you plan on sending. And, owing to that, again some people object to this first launch because, they argue, it cannot be followed up by the crew launch two and a half years from now. It is indeed the ultimate Catch-22. And all in spite of the fact that none of our Mars exploration to date has turned up any evidence of life on Mars, past or present. Now, certainly there are plenty of folks that seem to desperately hope we do find some lifeform on Mars, but every indication is it’s simply a dead rock in space. In fact, exhaustive testing here on Earth has repeatedly demonstrated that Mars is the perfect killer. Without suitable protection, the planet’s combination of atmosphere, caustic soil, low temperature, and high levels of ultraviolet radiation will kill anything – ANYTHING – in about 15 seconds.”

  Leno grimaced. “And you’re looking forward to visiting this vacation paradise?”

  Jeff laughed. “Well, we’re going suitably prepared. Still, even that does raise an interesting conundrum. Just for argument’s sake, supposing there is some lifeform that can survive on Mars. What gives us here on Earth the authority to regulate it?”

  “And I thought filing taxes was tough.”

  The audience laugh
ed with Jeff. “It’s a challenge.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Well, barring last minute action by Congress to prohibit our use of launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, we have every intention of going ahead with the December launch. So far as the international treaty on Mars is concerned, that will have to be modified before anyone ever goes to Mars; so they may as well do it now since we’re standing at the gate waiting to go. We’ll see.”

  Jay shook his head. “Well I wish you the best of luck.”

  “Thank you.”

  The audience stood, cheered and applauded.

  Jeff held up his finger. “Jay, I’d like to make one other point if I may. Planning for the Mars Science Laboratory began in 2003, it was approved in September 2006, launched in November 2011, and finally landed on Mars about 14 months ago. Eight years in development. With our launch in December, we will have completed the first major step on our mission in seventeen and a half months. So far, the MSL has traveled about six miles. During its two year planned mission it will travel somewhere between twelve and twenty-five miles. Our rovers can travel in excess of twenty-five miles an hour and have effectively unlimited range. The MSL weighs 1,850 pounds and is the heaviest manmade object ever landed on Mars. Our cargo payload that will be launched in December weighs a bit over twenty-seven tons and constitutes a complete livable habitat. And finally, the MSL cost the taxpayers something in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion. What we will be landing on Mars in less than a year cost a little more than one-tenth of that. So, this will no doubt sound a little self-serving,” Jeff grinned, “and it is, but if government will just get out of the way and allow human ingenuity to take its course, there’s no limit to what we can do. And we can do it faster, better, and cheaper.”

  The audience again leaped to its feet and applauded loud and long.

  “Alright, now I know you have to fly back to the east coast tonight but, before I let you go, Gabe, I understand that when you’re not designing rockets, you play the piano.”

  Gabe grinned sheepishly and nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “Well, we happen to have a piano here,” the curtains on stage parted unveiling a grand piano. “Can we get you to play something for us?”