Martian Summer

  “I thought they were going to throw away that sample after the President called,” Joseph says. They nod knowingly.

  After hitting the refresh button a few hundred times, it works. Finally there are images of the delivery.

  “It’s got stuff in it,” Ashitey says. He does a little on-the-fly color correction to the images to improve the view.

  “Hmm. Now I’m not so sure,” Ashitey second-guesses himself. He looks intently at the screen. From somewhere down the hall, clapping and cheering break his concentration. It’s coming from the MECA office.

  Ashitey and Joseph head over to investigate. They look happy and we crowd in their office. The cheering and smiling faces don’t convince the RA team. They want proof.

  “We should see if material spilled around the WCL drawer,” Joseph says to a MECA engineer. They head back to their office.

  “Well, if Mike Hecht looks this happy, there’s nothing to worry about,” Ashitey says. He changes his mind again and decides that yes, there is probably a working sample.

  THE SOC IS FULL. THERE ARE 20 STUDENT INTERNS VISITING, A documentary crew, and some NASA HQ folks. I wonder if one of them is Ramon de Paula, our NASA minder. Ashitey and I stand in the back and wait for midpoint to start.

  “Why are there so many kids sitting on buckets?” Ashitey asks. I tell him they’re students being mentored by Peter and John Hoffman.

  “Hmm, that’s interesting,” he says facetiously. “If I were you, I would consider putting that in chapter 10.”

  No, sir. Lucky chapter 13. But thanks for the advice.

  INSPIRED BY DARA SABAHI’S PASSIONATE ADVICE ON RISK, I SEND Peter an email asking for specific permission to get into some senior management closed-door meetings. This short-circuit crisis makes me realize that life in the SOC is fleeting. It’s time to act. I need to get inside to get the story. He writes back:

  The leadership caucus meetings are not open meetings.

  Peter

  So much for that. I guess Peter thinks I’ll get a better story if I have to work for my insider NASA secrets. Either that, or I’m doing it wrong.

  THE SOC SECURITY DOOR FLIES OPEN. A MAN COMES RUNNING IN.

  “Where … is … Peter … .Smith … ?” He asks at full volume. There are a few uncomfortable laughs and then silence. “I NEED to find … Peter Smith.” He breathes heavily even though he’s only run about ten or fifteen feet.

  Everyone looks around at each other. He pokes his head in offices, over cubicles, and around corners. No one is really sure what to make of this guy. “Ahhh … I think he’s in a meeting,” Mike Mellon finally says after a long awkward pause.

  “CUT!” This guy says. He looks disappointed.

  Sara Hammond escorts a TV crew through the SOC for some science show. “This guy, Josh, is supposed to be the next Crocodile Hunter; he’s some kind of survival expert,” she says—even though his Wikipedia page says he grew up in Manhattan.

  “Please be mindful and stay out of people’s way,” Sara says to the crew. They’re not paying attention.

  “Geez, they don’t really let things happen, do they? Sooo stagey,” she says to me quietly.

  The film crew tromps around. They continue to make lots of noise and get in the science team’s way. Sara does her best to rein them in.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  IN A SCRAPE

  SOL 42

  We are on a scraping mission to collect permafrost. Today’s core activity paves the way for a TEGA delivery. A group gathers to look at the first scrape images. I push in behind them. The series of pictures makes a time-lapse film. The sequence shows material being pushed into a line. But then it disappears.

  “Is it ice scraped up, or just dirt being pushed around by the scoop?” someone asks. One real possibility is that the ice is just too hard to scrape—even for a titanium blade. The images are inconclusive. Last night we stayed late debating how much documentation we would need to convince NASA that scraping in the bottom of the trench works. These are the images we’re looking at now.

  In the robot arm camera office, Morten Madsen, Walter Goetz, and Line Drube stare at the same scrape images. They will make a recommendation to proceed if they believe there is enough material in the scoop for a delivery. The SSI camera team does the same thing. Chris Shinohara comes into the RAC office.

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “We’re not sure yet. We need some time,” Morten says.

  Chris leaves. Morten, Walter, and Line stare. They speak to each other in Danish. Walter used to live in Copenhagen. So they’re used to communicating that way. It’s hard to know if they’re happy or sad about what they see. But the smile-to-frown ratio isn’t good. Chris comes back.

  “We’re all waiting. Post something!” he says.

  “A priori, it’s not looking good,” Walter says to Chris in his heavy German accent. “Even if we have the material, I say, it’s not enough for a delivery. Maybe we are wrong. That would be good.”

  “Well, I think there’s sample in the scoop. And it’s enough for TEGA,” Chris says in disagreement.

  “Unfortunately, our RAC divot images provide no help,” Walter complains to Chris.

  “Well, RAC and RA changed the exercise. It was not communicated to management, and the mission managers were not comfortable with the changes,” Chris says sharply.

  “That’s a waste of resources,” Walter says.

  The fight is over a series of close-up images dreadfully out of focus. Walter and Bob Bonitz worked all day—when they should have been sleeping—to write the code for the images. They made a heroic effort to capture the closest images that the RAC can take. The plan put the scoop blade as close to the imager on the robot arm as the geometry and flight rules allow. Joel Krajewski decided the blade was too close to the scoop. If somehow a rock or something was sticking out from the tip of the scoop, it might damage the lens on the RAC. He deemed it an unacceptable risk. Just before the plan was finalized, Joel asked the sequencing engineer to tilt the scoop back and provide a margin of error. Moving the scoop changed the focal length.

  “The images we spent our night perfecting are out of focus—worthless!” Walter declares.

  This is where fatigue affects the mission—a breakdown in communication leads a scientist and an engineer to make different assumptions. It sets the team back a day. They would have had an easy decision if they’d communicated on these photos, but they didn’t; so, regardless, we don’t have them.

  From what we do have, it’s difficult to tell what’s in the scoop. Are we seeing a shadow, a small new sample, or old dirt in the scoop? I’m glad it’s not my decision.

  “I’m sorry,” Morten says. “Let’s speak English so everyone can participate.” I tell them I don’t want to disturb.

  “You can disturb us any time you need to,” Walter says. They switch to English. Walter believes it’s important for outsiders to bear witness to the mission. He’s not afraid to say it, either. One sol he stopped me in the hall and put his hand on my shoulder. Then Walter looked deep into my eyes and said, “You are the most important person here. You make us … vat’s the verd? … eternal …” And then he walked away.

  Of course, when it becomes clear that there is no good choice here, frustration mounts. They switch back to Danish, where it’s easier to colorfully express frustration.

  Shinohara comes back a third time. He asks for a comparison between the images taken on sol 38 and today to see if there is new material or it’s just old stuff that’s stuck.

  Ray joins. He and Chris decide they can’t continue until someone makes an executive decision.

  “Scraping works or it doesn’t. I want evidence or an argument for or against,” Chris says. The RAC starts to fill with mission managers and engineers.

  “Technically, the images are great. But they don’t help us,” Walter says. Chris gives him a what-the-hell-does-that-have-to-do-with-anything look. Walter has a tendency to go off on tangents. He t
hinks there’s a beauty in the mechanics of the image. Who wouldn’t want to share that with colleagues? He can’t help that he’s a curious fellow. It makes him a good scientist and a fascinating guy. But there’s a lot of pressure to get a plan finished and not a lot of time for musing. Chris loses patience with him. I’m not sure Walter even notices.

  “Oh, maybe those might be particles,” Walter says. Then he backs down. “Probably not.” Either way, he still thinks the images are really great in spite of being useless.

  “After 43 days living like this, you expect nerves to fray,” Joel Krajewski tells me. We stand around waiting for someone to decide: go or no go. There’s a lot of foot traffic between the RAC office and downlink. The problem is escalated up the chain of command. There’s too much at stake and not enough evidence. Now it’s up to the mission managers to decide if the test was a success and ask NASA to move ahead.

  Nilton Renno asks how many scrapes they made. Joseph Carsten says there was a total of eighty.

  “Maybe we made a discovery of some really hard new material,” Nilton Renno says. Joseph and Ashitey give Nilton a blank stare.

  “That was a joke,” he says dryly. He laughs.

  “Oh, I have an idea,” Nilton says to himself and walks off.

  “This is going to be exciting,” Joseph says.

  NILTON RENNO’S BIG IDEA IS NOT A BREAKTHROUGH DISCOVERY. IT’S a new joke. He wants to include it in a presentation he’s working on. But before he springs a joke on a larger audience, he wants to test its humor value.

  “No one is really laughing yet, but I think it could be funny,” he says. The rest of the SOC might be in crisis mode, but Nilton has something else in mind. He’s like Columbo: you think he’s on the completely wrong track and then he surprises everyone.

  “I think what’s missing is a good image of an obelisk,” Nilton says. “That will sell the joke,” he says. After a quick search, he finds his image. Nilton heads to the printer to collect his printout. Leslie Tamppari is standing at the printer. She volunteered to be subject number 1. Nilton gives it a go. He shows her the obelisk. She doesn’t laugh.

  Nilton heads back to his computer. Tenacity, if not humor, is one thing he has in spades. He searches for a better image. Finally, he’s happy and heads back to the printer.

  “I found the problem,” he tells me. “Now I reversed the key events in the build-up to the punch line.” Now he needs a new subject. He walks over to Mike Hecht; he shows Mike piece of paper number one. Then he shows him the picture of the obelisk from 2001 at the Phoenix dig site. Get it? It’s like we’ve just found the buried obelisk and that’s why it’s hard and black and we can’t scrape it up.

  “Haha!” Hecht laughs out loud. Success! Nilton smiles and returns to his desk.

  KAREN MCBRIDE TELLS ME I NEED TO TALK TO RAMON DE PAULA, THE mysterious NASA heavy lurking somewhere in Mission Control. I scan badges every day to look for Ramon, but nothing yet. Karen worked with Ramon de Paula and Bobby Fogel to oversee the mission for NASA. But she quit after a difference of opinion created a rift between them.

  “They don’t care about science. It comes down to political appointments and ass-kissing. It’s a miracle Phoenix got done at all. It’s by the grace of the team’s hard work,” she says, railing against her former colleagues.

  “Bobby Fogel and Ramon de Paula never even once called Peter for a sit-down before going to the top about the TEGA concerns,” Karen McBride says. She’s not the only one to point out this omission.

  She objected to how they were doing business and refused to work with them. Now she’s here for moral support. That makes her Ramon’s foil, fighting to keep NASA on the up-and-up.

  “Ramon is here too,” Karen says. She doesn’t want me to just hear one side.

  “Get the whole story, talk to Ramon,” she says. “Be careful, though.”

  PETER AND JOEL DISCUSS THE PROCESS FOR MOVING FORWARD. HQ is going to want a new plan. Should they just rasp? Rasp and scrape? These all need to be tested. They’ll spend the rest of the day outlining a plan, and then Peter will make sure that NASA is on board.

  Chris is busy trying to figure out why the RAC went into safe mode after it took the images they were arguing over earlier.

  “There may have been an error in the sequence,” he says. He starts to explain what went wrong when Heather Enos interrupts.

  “This is not funny, Chris,” she says. She holds up a sheet of paper. It reads “TEGA Memorial.” At the top, the word “Report” had been replaced with “Memorial.”

  “It’s kind of funny,” Chris says. Heather walks away. Chris says midpoint will happen on schedule. Shinohara goes to see if the RAC and SSI teams are ready.

  Midpoint starts at 10:05 p.m. local Tucson time. It’s 4:01 p.m. on Mars. Nearly on time. The SSI team reports that the images don’t show much of a pile in the scrape documentation. Walter Goetz gives the RAC opinion. He agrees that there’s not enough material for a delivery.

  “Engineering-wise, we took a great image,” he says. “We planned four images, but we have no way of knowing these particles weren’t there before. The instrument is healthy.” Mission managers agree, the material is too hard to scrape. They will not get enough material for TEGA if they only scrape. It’s time to use the rasp. Over the next week, they’ll prepare the little drill at the end of the scoop to excavate permafrost on Mars. Bob Bonitz thinks it’ll take about seven sols before they’re ready. For now, they’ll complete the wet chemistry experiments and prepare the atomic force microscope.

  NILTON RENNO GIVES HIS PRESENTATION. IT’S ABOUT DUST STORMS on Mars. We learn a bit about how surface material moves around the planet. Then the big moment comes, the joke. Set up. And cue the obelisk… .

  He gets some laughs. Moderate success. It’s Nilton’s effort to lighten the mood in the SOC.

  “I heard people under stress don’t like jokes,” he tells me later. “So it was a little experiment.”

  The joke may only evoke a moderate response, but the dust talk sparks a conversation about the center versus the boundaries of polygons. This is a recurring debate about what makes a good sample. Which begs the question, how do we discover Mars. It’s a calm interaction. Everyone agrees that no matter where we look, one thing is certain: polygons on Mars are great. No debate. No arguments. They are great.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  POWERS OF TEN

  SOL 43

  THE SOC IS MOSTLY EMPTY TODAY BEFORE SHIFT. NILTON CHATS in Portuguese with a nervous-looking fellow who looks kind of familiar. Is this the Brazilian love-child of Peter Lorre and Steve Buscemi … here … talking with our Nilton Renno?

  “Have you met Ramon de Paula?” Nilton asks me.

  No. This guy? He is the enforcer NASA sent to do its dirty work. Ramon is not nearly as intimidating as I imagined. His fidgeting and small frame don’t match the image of a tough guy I’d constructed. Nilton tells Ramon I’m doing a “special project” for Peter to document the mission. Does he suspect that I’m a rogue infiltrator here to sneak a peek at the soft, fleshy underbelly of mission life? Nah.

  “It’s important to get the story out. I’m glad you’re here to help,” he says. He’s so friendly. Maybe it’s a ruse to draw me out. I’ve seen Three Days of the Condor, you sly devil. I know how this works.

  “It’s important to understand Mars in order to understand Earth. They were once very similar and now they are so different,” Ramon says. He says there are a few books on the subject that really inspired him. I’m so desperate to look interested and figure out his angle, I can’t remember a single title he mentioned.

  Ramon de Paula is the NASA project executive whom Karen McBride told me to talk to, and here he is. How can I be enemies with someone who is so nice? Nilton and Ramon chat for a bit, and then he walks away.

  Ramon is here to get the dirt on TEGA. Cordiality be damned. Maybe he is happy I’m here, and Peter is doing the right thing with his media outreach. Nevertheless, I’m going to
suspect the worst so as not to complicate my cosmology of NASA. I can’t rewrite that whole July 4th rant. He must be here early trying to chat up Nilton and squeeze some info out of him. Unfortunately for him, Nilton doesn’t engage in gossip. He just tells you what he thinks. And that’s what gets him into trouble.

  “WE HAVE A GOOD DAY AHEAD OF US. I’D LIKE MARK LEMMON TO SHOW something,” says Doug Ming, today’s science lead.

  “This is the full mission success and deck pan,” Lemmon says. It’s the entire 360-degree view of Mars stitched together from hundreds of high-resolution images. Looking out over the lander deck is the sparse rock-speckled landscape stitched together in full color. This is my chance to lose myself in the Martian ideal. Uneven bits of rocks, with sharp edges, poke out of the polygons. It goes on forever. The reddish-brown rock-speckled landscape looks like toasted almond pieces poking out of a milk chocolate shell. The Martian arctic is a Dove bar. Everyone claps.

  “Good morning. I’ll be your shift lead. Now let’s hear from our TDL,” Richard Kornfeld says, eager to get started. Our data manager is Jim Chase. He speeds through a list of data packets and error reports. There are a few SSI images missing, but everything seems to be healthy. Jim recovered nicely from his tangle with Julia Bell and doesn’t miss a beat. Data should arrive in fifteen minutes or so. We get instrument updates and break.

  THE MECA OFFICE CHEERS ABOUT SOMETHING. IT’S THE TECP. WELL, A little movie of the TECP needles inserted into the soil. Sticking just the needles in the dirt without jamming them is not easy. Everyone seems a little surprised that it worked. We congratulate Ashitey with kind words and handshakes. We need something to celebrate.

  “Management didn’t have a lot of confidence you could do it. Even with noisy DEMs from SSI, you got it,” Deborah Bass, the Deputy Project Scientist from JPL, tells Ashitey.