“But what if the spacecraft walls were damaged?” you ask. The walls might have gotten warped or thinned from the heat of the fire. And if you try repressurizing the compartment too soon, you could blow a hole in the spacecraft.
“We’ll do a survey with a remote camera and use the sensors to make sure the walls are okay first,” Aneesa replies. “It should be fine.”
You’re glad Aneesa sounds sure of herself, but you’re not so sure about going ahead with her plan, especially without Commander Wen’s go-ahead. You wish the communications system was working so you could speak to him about the process.
But that gives you an idea.
What if you did an emergency space walk to rescue your other crewmates? You could put on a space suit, do a space walk, and deliver space suits to the stranded crew members so they can leave the command module they are stuck in and come back with you. That way Commander Wen can lead the team in restoring the burned hab module, and be the one to decide when to repressurize it.
“Aneesa, I could do a space walk and get the crew,” you say. “That way we can have Commander Wen and the rest of the team help us fix the hab module.”
“Are you serious?” Aneesa says. “You’ve never done a space walk before!”
“I know, but I practiced walks underwater during training and through virtual reality software,” you reply. “Everyone has to try it for real sometime.”
“But you haven’t had a chance to go through all the pre- space-walk preparations, which makes it riskier for you than usual. Are you sure you want to take the chance?” she asks.
Even as she’s cautioning you, you can hear the hope in Aneesa’s voice that your plan might work—and solve the problem of getting the crew back. At the same time, maybe she’s right, and it is too dangerous for you to do the space walk in a hurry, without all the usual preparations. The idea of rushing into your very first space walk makes your stomach churn. Yet you’re not comfortable about going ahead and repressurizing the module either. What if you guys mess up?
Right now you have to make a choice. Do you work with Aneesa to repressurize the module, or do you go on a space walk to bring back the crew?
WORK TO REPRESSURIZE THE MODULE.
TAKE YOUR FIRST SPACE WALK TO BRING SPACE SUITS TO YOUR TRAPPED CREWMATES.
You start your way around the cliff. The rocky terrain of Mars seemed a whole lot more scenic when you weren’t stranded on it for as long as you have been. Now you’re sick of looking at dust and rubble. You miss the grass and greenery of Earth, and you imagine being at the beach, splashing in the water and feeling the sun on your face.
You kick up some Martian stones with your space boot and wonder what resources might be lying around that you and your team haven’t had a chance to discover yet. At the moment, you don’t even care. You just want to get back to base. But the cliff seems to be getting wider with each step you take!
As you trudge along, you start to feel a little light- headed. Is this fatigue setting in? The energy bar you had is long gone, and you haven’t had a meal in twelve hours. Plus, you’ve been walking for what seems like forever. A few moments later, you feel short of breath and a headache coming on, and you are forced to stop and sit down. Beep! You look down at your suit. Warning: low oxygen.
You tap at it, but there’s no mistaking this signal. Your tank is low—which means you are running out of oxygen! This trek has taken way longer than you ever expected, or are outfitted for, and your tank is going to be empty in a few minutes. You take a few final deep breaths as you start to feel even more light-headed and, after a minute…black out.
You leave the area to let Victoria and Aneesa work on the electrolyzer. But you can’t help but fidget as you wait and keep watching the clock. Victoria said you only had twenty-four hours of reserve oxygen, and then things get really critical. Twenty-two hours to go.
After nervously checking the other systems on board the spacecraft and trying to stay out of the way for the next couple hours, you head back to where Victoria and Aneesa are, to peek in and see if you can lend a hand. Victoria sees you looking in and gives you thumbs-up.
“I think we’re almost there,” she says. “We might have figured out the problem.”
“Great! Just give me a shout if you need my help,” you reply. You start to relax a little and decide to catch up on some reading, to help you take your mind off things.
You realize you must have drifted off to sleep when you suddenly awaken to the sound of another BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
The reserve oxygen is running out!
You rush over to the electrolyzer and find the rest of the crew crowded around Victoria and Aneesa.
“I thought we got it working again, but something isn’t right,” Victoria says in a panicked voice. “I don’t know what else we can do!”
“How about if I try to build that emergency electrolyzer?” you suggest.
“Yes, please!” says Commander Wen. “Why didn’t you try that hours ago?”
You look over at Victoria, who mouths a big “sorry” to you. But sorry isn’t going to cut it. Although you and Nico make a valiant effort to pull off the fastest do-it-yourself electrolyzer in history, you just don’t have enough time. You take a deep breath, while you still can.
“Hey, Nico, I think we should try to make the water electrolyzer, just in case,” you whisper to your friend.
“Okay, tell me what to do,” he says. You knew you could count on Nico!
The water electrolyzer is going to split the oxygen out of water and store it. You explain the steps: You’ll fill a container with water and mix the right amount of sodium hydroxide, an electrolyte, into it. Then you’ll connect two leads to a battery and put the ends of the leads into the water. After bubbles form on each lead, indicating the hydrogen and oxygen, you’ll perform electrolysis with a Hoffman voltameter. Nico already knows that the voltameter is a series of tubes. Water and electrolyte go into one tube, and then oxygen and hydrogen gas come out of another. You connect the output tube to a tank that will store the gas.
Everything goes smoothly, and a couple hours later, you’ve successfully created a do-it-yourself electrolyzer! The oxygen reserves on board are slowly being replenished. You and Nico watch the monitor moving in the right direction and give each other high five! Victoria and Aneesa still don’t seem close to a solution for the main electrolyzer.
“Excuse me, guys?” you interrupt as they huddle around the machine.
“We’re working on it!” Victoria says, without looking up.
“I was just going to tell you—” you begin, but Victoria cuts you off.
“We’ll let you know when we’ve got it going again,” she says quickly.
“Actually, we went ahead and made the backup electrolyzer!” you say.
Now you’ve got their attention.
“Is it working?” Aneesa asks.
“Yup,” Nico says, barely containing his glee.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Victoria shouts.
“We’re still hours away from fixing this thing!” Aneesa adds.
“Well, now you can relax and take your time,” you say, relieved you went ahead with the plan. And so is everyone else, because the others aren’t able to get the main electrolyzer fixed until after things would have gotten really dicey. The good news is, they do get it fixed eventually, and you can all breathe easy the rest of the journey to Mars.
CONTINUE...
It’s been three months since your landing on Mars. You’ve gotten into the routine of living and working on the base, but still, at some point during each day, you stop for a second and look around, marveling that you’re really here.
Surprisingly, getting settled and making the base feel like home has been pretty easy. The colonists you’ve met are friendly, and with so much work to do, the days are just flying by. Your first assignment has been to work with Julie, to help construct the domes that make up the heart of the colony.
There are several domes alre
ady—the spaceport where you landed, the central dome, the greenhouse dome, the warehouse dome, and more. All of them are connected, creating a little town where you can work, live, and play without having to go out into the Martian frontier.
But the downside is—you’ve been dying to get out into the Martian frontier! Other team members have been out on field expeditions, scouting for resources, collecting samples, and surveying the landscape. You know your construction work is no less important—and you’re excited to help build the first dedicated medical dome—but you find yourself complaining to Julie that you’re itching to get some Martian dust on your boots!
And then, a few days later, Julie approaches you.
“Hey, listen. I have access to a rover, and I want to get out on the frontier and do something big,” she says.
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“Well, as a biologist, my biggest dream is to find evidence of early life on Mars, and I have some good ideas about where there might be some fossil evidence.”
“Wow,” you say.
“I need a hand collecting the samples. Will you come with me? This isn’t an authorized trip, so it’s off the books,” she adds.
Hmm. It sounds really tempting. You love the idea of going exploring. It’s making you restless to be confined indoors all the time, and you don’t know when you’ll have another chance like this. Plus, what if you do make a really important discovery? You’d get to be part of it! At the same time, you’re reluctant to go without getting authorization first. You’ve always tried to play by the book, and don’t want to break any rules.
“You have to decide now,” Julie says. “I have to leave right away, or I won’t have enough time to get where I need to go.”
DECIDE TO GO WITH JULIE.
PASS AND KEEP ON WORKING.
You decide to support Nico and keep searching for ice a little longer. Since you’re on the northern part of the planet, the odds of finding ice here are higher. You concentrate your search in shaded areas, like crater crevices and caverns. It turns out that Nico’s scouting instincts are really good— because in less than half an hour, you find a big ice deposit!
“You rock, Nico!” you say. “This is great!”
“We’ll both really rock when we drive back into base with a big chunk of ice!” Nico replies with a grin.
Nico’s right. The ice is no good to you as a discovery alone—the key is to get it back to base so it can be used. You thought you’d just mark the spot and have another team come back to extract it. But, as usual, Nico has bigger ideas: explosives.
“We can use the dynamite I brought to blast off a piece to show everyone,” he suggests.
You’re not so sure. Dynamite is a highly unstable substance, and you’ve never used it before. A lot of things could go wrong. But Nico’s extremely confident. And he is a mechanical mastermind…
SKIP THE DYNAMITE AND MARK THE LOCATION OF THE ICE FOR ANOTHER TEAM.
USE THE DYNAMITE TO BREAK THE ICE.
“Hey, Nico, if you think it’ll help, I can give you a hand tomorrow morning with the telerobots,” you offer.
Nico’s face lights up. “That’s so cool of you,” he responds. “Thanks!”
Early the next morning, you join Nico in the warehouse dome where the telerobots are laid out in a row. Telerobot is just a fancy name for robots that are controlled by humans with remote controls. They’ve been used on Mars since the very beginning of the planet’s exploration, starting with the Sojourner telerobotic rover, which landed on Mars back in 1997 and received commands from drivers back on Earth. From then on, the use of telerobots on Mars really took off. The latest robots have better sensors, cameras, and controls, and can do much more than ever before.
“Try this one out,” says Nico, handing you a controller for a robot that looks like a small tank with roller wheels, a head, and arms. “But be careful, these things are worth more than you are!”
You take the controller gingerly and slowly turn the knob, making the robot move a little. You manage to make it jerk along a crooked line, and don’t let it bump into anything.
“You drive like my grandmother,” Nico laughs, taking the controller from you.
You watch in amazement as he makes the robot zip around the warehouse, making turns that would impress a professional race car driver.
“Wow!” you sputter. “I see you’ve played with these before.”
“Sure,” says Nico. “These things are amazing. But the best part is that we can always improve them and make them able to do even more.”
He shows you sketches of designs he’s come up with to add new features to some of the telerobots, which would make them go even faster.
“Wow,” you say again. “They already go pretty fast. They’ll really zoom with your designs!”
“Yeah, but I just don’t have enough time to spend on the new designs with all the other work we have to do,” Nico says.
“Well, I’m here to help you get through it,” you reply.
After a couple days of working on the robots, you start to get the hang of them and move them around easily. You also realize that with a little creativity, you could make them do much more than just go fast. You’ve been thinking about some design changes of your own that you’d like to try out.
Feeling excited about your ideas, you mention them to Nico. You’re surprised and disappointed when he brushes them off.
“But Nico, don’t you think these changes could come in handy? Wouldn’t they make the robots more human-like in their abilities?” you ask.
“I guess so,” Nico says. “But let’s work on these speed modifications. Then we can race!”
You’re not sure what to say. Speed is fun, but you think the robots go fast enough already. And making them faster isn’t really adding anything different. With your designs, you’d be able to make the robots do new stuff, and you think that’s even cooler. But, you remind yourself, you’re only working on the robots at all because of Nico. Part of you feels like you should do what he wants, so he doesn’t get disappointed— and it would be fun to race. At the same time, you’d like to spend the time you have trying out your own ideas, and would like Nico to help you. You’re just not sure how he’ll react if you push the issue.
AGREE TO HELP NICO WITH HIS DESIGN CHANGES.
TELL NICO YOU’D LIKE TO WORK ON YOUR OWN IDEAS.
You’re going to have to get some backup fast, before she brings down the whole dome! You should have gotten help when you had the chance. Now you’ve let this goat cause a lot of damage, to the mission and to your reputation. You don’t know how you’re going to make this up to Julie. And it looks like you’re going to have to do some work rebuilding this dome. You won’t be getting out of this greenhouse anytime soon. And that makes you feel pretty baa-aad.
You and your crewmates sit around the damaged rover waiting for help to arrive. You try to think of something to say to help take everyone’s mind off the fact that you are stranded in the Martian desert, without communications capabilities, and without knowing if a rescue team is ever going to find you.
“Hey, Cooper, maybe I could beat you at one of your workout challenges now,” you say.
“Oh yeah? Let’s go!” he laughs weakly.
You can’t think of anything else lighthearted to say. Everyone is just waiting nervously. As the minutes go by, you can’t help but think about how you hope you didn’t join the Junior Astronauts program only to be marooned on your first expedition and die in the Martian frontier!
It’s already starting to get a lot colder. The external thermometer on your space suit reads that the temperature outside has dropped drastically over the last hour. As the minutes go by, it’s going to get even colder and colder. Your space suit will keep you warm for a while, but it’s going to need to be recharged to keep heating you, especially if you’re sitting around. If you guys were on the move, your bodies would sweat and generate their own heat.
“If the rescue team do
esn’t get here soon, we’re going to need to do something to keep warm,” you tell the others.
“I know. I’ve been thinking about it. What if we plug our suits into the battery of the rover and use that for extra power?” Victoria suggests.
“But we also need to use the rover battery for light,” Cooper says. “If we plug in our suits, we won’t have any light, and that’ll make it harder for the rescue team to find us.”
Not to mention you’d be sitting in the extreme cold and darkness of the Martian night.
“Maybe we could rip the lining out of the rover’s propellant tanks and wrap it around ourselves to keep warm,” Cooper continues.
“I’ve never heard of that,” Victoria says. You haven’t heard of it either, but maybe it would work. The lining is made out of multilayer insulation, which could keep you warm if you wrap enough of it around yourselves.
“I won’t be able to help you guys with either plan. I’m so sorry,” Cooper says. He’s trying not to wince from the pain in his leg, but you can see that he’s really uncomfortable.
You think about everything you know about both options. You have the power of the rover to use, but it would be nice to save it for light. You could try the insulation, but you’ve never done it before. What’s the best choice? Cooper is looking to the two of you to decide, since you’ll be doing the work. You glance over at Victoria, who is rubbing her head and still looks a little out of it. She doesn’t seem like she’s in the best position to make the call right now. Somebody is going to have to make a decision. And right now, that somebody is you.
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