by Энди Вейр
First, I patched it up, then I cut strips of spare canvas to place over the seam. Now it has double-thickness and double sealing resin all around. Maybe that’ll be enough. At this point, I’m kind of guessing. My amazing botany skills aren’t much use for this.
I’ll test it again tomorrow.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 436
I’m out of caffeine pills. No more Martian Coffee for me.
So it took a little longer for me to wake up this morning, and I spent most of the day with a headache. One nice thing about living in a multi-billion dollar mansion on Mars: Access to pure oxygen. For some reason, a high concentration of O2 will kill most headaches. Don’t know why. Don’t care. The important thing is I don’t have to suffer.
I tested out the bedroom again. I used the same process as yesterday. This time it held. So is that good? I don’t know. That’s the shitty part of failure analysis. If the bedroom fails while I’m sleeping in it, I’ll die. How long will it last?
Hopefully, if it developed a leak, it’d be slow enough that I could react. But you never know.
After a few minutes standing around in my EVA suit, I decided to make better use of my time. I may not be able to leave while the bedroom is attached to the airlock, but I can go in to the rover and close the door.
Once I did that, I took off the uncomfortable EVA suit. The bedroom was on the other side of the airlock door, still fully pressurized. So I’m still running my test, but I don’t have to wear the EVA suit.
I wanted a good long test (I arbitrarily picked 8 hours) so I was trapped in the rover until then.
I spent my time planning the trip. There wasn’t much to add to what I already knew. I’ll bee-line to Mawrth Vallis, then follow it until it ends. It’ll take me on a zig-zag route, but mostly toward Schiaparelli.
After that comes Arabia Terra. Each crater represents two brutal elevation changes. First down, then up. I did my best to find the shortest path around them. I’m sure I’ll have to adjust the course when I’m actually driving it. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
Mitch took his seat in the conference room. The usual gang was there: Teddy, Venkat, Mitch, and Annie. But this time there was also Mindy Park as well as a man Mitch had never seen before.
“What’s up, Venk?” Mitch asked. “Why the sudden meeting?”
“We’ve got some developments,” Venkat said. “Mindy, why don’t you bring them up to date.”
“Uh, yeah,” Mindy said. “Looks like Watney finished the balloon addition to the trailer. It mostly uses the design we sent him.”
“Any idea how stable it is?” Teddy asked.
“Pretty stable,” she said. “It’s been inflated for several days with no problems. Also he built some kind of… room.”
“Room?” Teddy asked.
“It’s made of Hab canvas, I think,” Mindy explained. “It attaches to the rover’s airlock. I think he cut a section out of the Hab to make it. I don’t know what it’s for.”
Teddy turned to Venkat. “Why would he do that?”
“We think it’s a workshop,” Venkat said. “There’ll be a lot of work to do on the MAV once he gets to Schiaparelli. It’ll be easier without an EVA suit. He probably plans to do as much as he can in that room.”
“Clever,” Teddy said.
“Watney’s a clever guy,” Mitch said. “How about getting life support in there?”
“I think he’s done it,” Mindy said. “He moved the AREC.”
“Sorry,” Annie interrupted. “What’s an AREC?”
“It’s the external component of the Atmospheric Regulator,” Mindy said. “It sits outside the Hab, so I know when it disappeared. He probably mounted it on the rover. There’s no other reason to move it so I’m guessing he’s got life support online.”
“Awesome,” Mitch said. “Things are coming together.”
“Don’t celebrate yet, Mitch,” Venkat said. “This is Randall Carter, one of our Martian meteorologists. Randall, tell them what you told me.”
Randall nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Kapoor.” He turned his laptop around to show a map of Mars. “Over the past few weeks, a dust storm has been developing in Arabia Terra. Not a big deal in terms of magnitude. It won’t hinder his driving at all.”
“So what’s the problem?” Annie asked.
“It’s a low-velocity dust storm,” Randall Explained. “Slow winds, but fast enough to pick up very small particles on the surface and whip them up in to thick clouds. There are five or six of them every year. The thing is, they last for months, they cover huge sections of the planet, and they make the atmosphere thick with dust.”
“I still don’t see the problem,” Annie said.
“Light,” Randall said. “The total sunlight reaching the surface is very low in the area of the storm. Right now, it’s 20% of normal. And Watney’s rover is powered by solar panels.”
“Shit,” Mitch said, rubbing his eyes. “And we can’t warn him.”
“So he gets less power.” Annie said. “Can’t he just recharge longer?”
“The current plan already has him recharging all day long,” Venkat explained. “With 20% of normal daylight, it’ll take five times as long to get the same energy. It’ll turn his 45 sol trip in to 225 sols. He’ll miss the Hermes flyby.”
“Can’t Hermes wait for him?” Annie asked.
“It’s a flyby,” Venkat said. “Hermes isn’t going in to Martian orbit. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to get back. They need their velocity for the return trajectory.”
After a few moments of silence, Teddy said “We’ll just have to hope he finds a way through. We can track his progress and-”
“No we can’t,” Mindy interrupted.
“We can’t?” Teddy said.
She shook her head. “The satellites won’t be able to see through the dust. Once he enters the affected area, we won’t see anything until he comes out the other side.”
“Well…” Teddy said. “Shit.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 439
Before I risk my life with this contraption, I need to test it.
And not the little tests I’ve been doing so far. Sure, I’ve tested power generation, life support, the trailer bubble, and the bedroom. But I need to test all aspects of it working together.
I’m going to load it up for the long trip, and drive in circles. I won’t ever be more than 500 meters from the Hab, so I’ll be fine if shit breaks.
I dedicated today to loading up the rover and trailer for the test. I want the weight to match what it’ll be on the real trip. Plus if cargo is going to shift around or break things I want to know about it now.
I made one concession to common sense: I left most of my water supply in the Hab. I loaded 20 liters; enough for the test but no more. There are a lot of ways I could lose pressure in this mechanical abomination I’ve created, and I don’t want all my water to boil off if that happens.
On the real trip, I’m going to have 620L of water. I made up the weight difference by loading 600kg of rocks in with my other supplies.
Back on Earth, universities and governments are willing to pay millions to get their hands on Mars rocks. I’m using them as ballast.
I’m doing one more little test tonight. I made sure the batteries were good and full, then disconnected the rover and trailer from Hab power. I’ll be sleeping in the Hab, but I left the rover’s life support on. It’ll maintain the air overnight, and tomorrow I’ll see how much power it ate up. I’ve watched the power consumption while it’s attached to the Hab and there weren’t any surprises. But this’ll be the true proof. I call it the “Plugs-out test.”
Maybe that’s not the best name.
The crew of Hermes gathered in The Rec.
“Let’s get through status quickly,” Lewis said. “We’re all behind in our science assignments. Vogel, you first.”
“I repaired the bad cable on VASIMR 4,” Vogel reported. “It was our last thick gauge cable. If another such problem occurs, we w
ill have to braid lower gauge lines to carry the current. Also, the power output from the reactor is declining.”
“Johanssen,” Lewis said. “What the deal with the reactor?”
“I had to dial it back,” Johanssen said. “It’s the cooling vanes. They aren’t radiating heat as well as they used to. They’re tarnishing.”
“How can that happen?” Lewis asked. “They’re outside the craft. There’s nothing for them to react with.”
“I think they picked up dust or small air leaks from Hermes itself. One way or another, they’re definitely tarnishing. The tarnish is connecting the micro-lattice, and that reduces the surface area. Less surface area means less heat dissipation. So I limited the reactor enough that we weren’t getting positive heat.”
“Any chance of repairing the cooling vanes?”
“It’s on the microscopic scale,” Johanssen said. “We’d need a lab. Usually they replace the veins after each mission.”
“Will we be able to maintain engine power for the rest of the mission?”
“Yes, if the rate of tarnishing doesn’t increase.”
“All right, keep an eye on it. Beck, how’s life support?”
“Limping,” Beck said. “We’ve been in space way longer than it was designed to handle. There are a bunch of filters that would normally be replaced each mission. I found a way to clean them with a chemical bath I made in the lab, but it eats away at the filters themselves. We’re ok right now, but who knows what’ll break next?”
“We knew this would happen,” Lewis said. “This ship is designed for a 396 day mission, and we need to make it last 898. We’ve got all of NASA to help when things break. We just need to stay on top of maintenance. Martinez, what’s the deal with your bunkroom?”
Martinez furrowed his brow. “It’s still trying to cook me. The climate control just isn’t keeping up. I think it’s the tubing in the walls that brings the coolant. I can’t get at them because they’re built in to the hull. We can use the room for storage of non-temperature-sensitive cargo, but that’s about it.”
“Where have you been sleeping?”
“In Airlock 2. It’s the only place I can be without people tripping over me.”
“No good,” Lewis said, shaking her head. “If one seal breaks, you die.”
“I can’t think of anywhere else to sleep,” he said. “The ship is pretty cramped, and if I sleep in a hallway I’ll be in people’s way.”
“Ok, from now on, sleep in Beck’s room. Beck can sleep with Johanssen.”
Johanssen blushed and looked down awkwardly.
“So…” Beck said, “You know about that?”
“You thought I didn’t?” Lewis said. “It’s a small ship.”
“You’re not mad?”
“If it were a normal mission, I would be,” Lewis said. “But we’re way off-script now. Just keep it from interfering with your duties and I’m happy.”
“Million-mile-high club,” Martinez said. “Nice!”
Johanssen blushed deeper and buried her face in her hands.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 444
I’m getting pretty good at this. Maybe when all this is over I could be a product-tester for Mars rovers.
Things went well. I spent five sols driving in circles; I averaged 93 km per sol. That’s a little better than I’d expected. The terrain here is flat and smooth, so it’s pretty much a best-case scenario. Once I’m going up hills and around boulders it won’t be nearly that good.
The bedroom is awesome. Large, spacious, and comfortable. On the first night, I ran in to a little problem with the temperature. It was fucking cold. The rover and trailer regulate their own temperatures just fine, but things weren’t hot enough in the bedroom.
Story of my life.
The rover has an electric heater that pushes air with a small fan. I don’t use it for anything because the RTG provides all the heat I need. I liberated the fan and wired it in to a power line near the airlock. Once it had power all I had to do was point it at the bedroom.
It’s a low-tech solution, but it worked. There’s plenty of heat, thanks to the RTG. I just needed to get it evenly spread out. For once, entropy was on my side.
I fell in to a routine pretty quickly. In fact, it was hauntingly familiar. I did it for 22 miserable days on the Pathfinder trip. But this time, I had the bedroom and that makes all the difference. Instead of being cooped up in the rover, I have my own little Hab.
The procedure is what you’d expect. After waking up, I have a potato for breakfast. Then, I deflate the bedroom from the inside. It’s kind of tricky, but I worked out how.
First, I put on an EVA suit. Then I close the inner airlock door, leaving the outer door (which the bedroom is attached to) open. This isolates the bedroom, with me in it, from the rest of the rover. Then I tell the airlock to depressurize. It thinks it’s just pumping the air out of a small area, but it’s actually deflating the whole bedroom.
Once the pressure is gone, I pull the canvas in and fold it. Then I detach it from the outer hatch and close the outer door. This is the most cramped part. I have to share the airlock with the entire folded up bedroom while it repressurizes. Once I have pressure again, I open the inner door and more-or-less fall in to the rover. Then I stow the bedroom, and go back to the airlock for a normal egress to Mars.
It’s a complicated process, but it detaches the bedroom without having to depressurize the rover cabin. Remember, the rover has all my stuff that doesn’t play well with vacuum.
The next step is to gather up the solar cells I’d laid out the day before and stow them on the rover and trailer. Then I do a quick check on the trailer. I go in through its airlock and basically take a quick look at all the equipment. I don’t even take off my EVA suit. I just want to make sure nothing’s obviously wrong.
Then, back to the rover. Once inside, I take off the EVA suit and start driving. I drive for almost 4 hours, and then I’m out of power.
Once I park, it’s back in to the EVA suit for me, and out to Mars again. I lay the solar panels out and get the batteries charging.
Then I set up the bedroom. Pretty much the reverse of the sequence I use to stow it. Ultimately it’s the airlock that inflates it. In a way, the bedroom is just an extension of the airlock.
Even though it’s possible, I don’t rapid-inflate the bedroom. I did that to test it because I wanted to find where it’ll leak. But it’s not a good idea. Rapid inflation puts a lot of shock and pressure on it. It would eventually rupture. I didn’t enjoy that time the Hab launched me like a cannonball. I’m not eager to repeat it.
Once the bedroom is set up again, I can take off my EVA suit and relax the rest of the day. I mostly watch crappy 70’s TV. I’m indistinguishable from an unemployed guy for most of the day.
I followed that process for four sols, and then it was time for an “Air Day”.
An Air Day turns out to be pretty much the same as any other day, but without the 4 hour drive. Once I set up the solar panels, I fired up the Oxygenator and let it work through the backlog of CO2 the Regulator had stored up.
Once it was done, my test run was complete. It converted all the CO2 to oxygen, and used up the day’s power generation to do it.
The test was a success. I’ll be ready on time.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 449
Today’s the big day. I’m leaving for Schiaparelli.
The rover and trailer are all packed. They’ve been mostly packed since the test run. But now I even have the water aboard.
I spent the last several days running full diagnostics on everything. The Regulator, Oxygenator, RTG, AREC, batteries, rover life support (in case I need a backup), solar cells, rover computer, airlocks, and everything else with a moving part or electronic component. I even checked each of the motors. Eight in all, one for each wheel, four on the rover, four on the trailer. The trailer’s motors won’t be powered, but it’s nice to have backups.
It’s all good to go. No problems that I can see.
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The Hab is a shell of its former self. I’ve robbed it of all critical components and a big chunk of its canvas. I’ve looted that poor Hab for everything it could give me, and in return it’s kept me alive for a year and a half. It’s like The Giving Tree.
I performed the final shutdown today. The heaters, lighting, main computer, etc. All the components I didn’t steal for the trip to Schiaparelli.
I could have left them on. It’s not like anyone would care. But the original procedure for Sol 31 (which was supposed to be the last day of the surface mission) was to completely shut down the Hab and deflate it. NASA didn’t want a big tent full of combustible oxygen next to the MAV when it launched, so they added the shutdown process to the mission.
I guess I did it as an homage to the mission Ares 3 could have been. A small piece of the Sol 31 I never got to have.
Once I shut everything down, an eerie silence was all that remained. I’ve spent 449 sols listening to the heaters, vents, and fans. But now it was dead quiet. It’s a creepy, eerie kind of quiet that’s hard to describe. I’ve been away from the Hab before, but always in the rover or an EVA suit. There’s always some kind of machinery in operation.
But now there was nothing. I never realized how utterly silent Mars is. It’s a desert world with practically no atmosphere to convey sound. I could hear my own heartbeat.
Anyway, enough waxing philosophical.
I’m in the rover right now. (That should be obvious, with the Hab main computer offline forever.) I’ve got 2 full batteries, all systems are go and I’ve got 45 sols of driving ahead of me.
Schiaparelli or bust!
Chapter 22
LOG ENTRY: SOL 458
Mawrth Vallis! I’m finally here!
Actually, it’s not an impressive accomplishment. I’ve only been traveling 10 sols. But it’s a good psychological milestone.
So far, the rover and my ghetto life support are working admirably. At least, as well as can be expected for equipment being used ten times longer than intended.