Martian Summer

by Andrew Kessler

  After midpoint, the strategic science lead’s day goes from merely frustrating to maddeningly complicated. (These are technical distinctions.) Now Mike incorporates data from downlink into the hypothetical plan he is putting together. Then he adjusts the plan based on the actual data and makes an educated guess about what he thinks will come back in tomorrow’s plan. Once he feels confident about his guesswork, he’ll make sure all the activities are validated and make a list of which blocks the team might still need if they want to execute his plan. Will it all fit in the predicted power constraints? Hopefully. Does it seem likely something will go wrong? What’s the fallback plan?

  Today Mike needs to identify which is the best sample for divot images. He wants input from Ray. So we go track him down. He’s remote. Let’s call him. This job is part accountant, part bush tracker. We hunt down scientists and then carefully notate the responses to our queries in the plan.

  Mellon notices that the location favored by the science team to take a sample doesn’t have a recent DEM (digital elevation map). But the Neverland footwall does. That might be a better location. This is a simple change in the plan, and might keep the already-overtaxed RA team from total meltdown. Having a thoughtful SSL can make or break your sol.

  I continue to shadow Mellon, but he moves fast. I thought I was good at stalking, but I still have a lot to learn. After a quick bathroom break, I can’t find Mike for almost half an hour. Space waits for no man.

  AT THE PLANNING MEETING, A CURIOUS NEW ACTIVITY GETS DEBATED.

  “But what if it gets stuck in the scoop?” an engineer asks. The geologists want to turn over a rock. This makes the systems engineers nervous. This isn’t like ice getting stuck in the scoop. If a rock gets stuck, it doesn’t melt. It just stays there and the RA is kaput. The mission is over.

  “But we’ve already moved a rock,” someone from the geology group says, referring to the traffic accident when the RA hit the rock called Alice.

  “I suppose we could call that practice,” Rich Volpe from the RA says. And Joseph already started the testing process. He’s probably in the PIT working on it right now.

  A contingent of geologists and engineers discuss the dangers of moving a rock and what scientific benefits it will yield. The conclusion: you find interesting stuff under rocks.

  As the strategic science lead, Mike Mellon is an impartial custodian of the long-term plan. He’s also waited five years for an opportunity like this. He has to responsibly balance his tactical workload with his deep desire to turn over a Martian rock. He very much wants this rock-flipping activity, but he’s not going to force it into the plan without proper due diligence.

  “You often find salts under rocks in the Antarctic,” he says. Where there are salts, interesting discoveries are made, like perchlorate. Mike Hecht asks Mellon how the salt gets under the rocks. The conversation turns to atmospheric precipitants. Before we’re pulled back to the realities of the long day ahead of us, Carol asks if maybe they’d be better off putting an icy sample in MECA rather than flipping the rock.

  “No,” Richard Quinn says, “that would not be an appropriate sample.” MECA needs dry material. He thinks ice would dilute the sample in an unpredictable way and give inaccurate readings.

  “I have some happy news,” Heather Enos says. “We’ve gone eight sols without any TEGA problems.” That’s something to feel pretty good about. No signs of any more TEGA-killing short circuits.

  Mellon says we need to move on. Testing the rock flip is already under way with our friend Phoenix II down the hall. They can make their decision based on the results.

  “YOU WANT TO SEE SOME ROCK FLIPPING?” JOSEPH CARSTEN ASKS ME from behind the barrier in the PIT.

  Heck, yeah!

  Using the Phoenix arm to peer beneath a rock is a very slow process; arduous even. Rolfe and Joseph are on hour seven of their test. They managed three attempts so far. They are in pretty good spirits, considering. Rolfe says he’s a bit scared about something going wrong.

  “I’m not worried,” Joseph says. “I can guarantee success under these PIT conditions.”

  Which, of course, is a guarantee of nothing. I don’t know why he’s so confident. In the three attempts made over the last seven hours, only one was successful.

  “Most of the time we’re just working out how not to push the rock,” Joseph says.

  “The science team says they don’t want pushing. We have to flip it,” Rolfe tells me.

  Otherwise they will disturb the soil, and that’s not good.

  Carsten painstakingly resets the fake Martian scenery, carefully combing the faux Martian regolith for his next try. He measures the distance of the rock from the trench. Then he carefully grooms the dirt. And when everything is prepared to his exacting specifications, he presses the test rock firmly in place. It looks just like the images we see on Mars. He calls out some commands and coordinates to Rolfe, who works the controller.

  “Okay, ten cm,” Joseph says. And then “yes, three radians.”

  After another two hours of testing and documenting various approaches, heights, depths, and lots more of Rolfe’s home-baked cookies, I decide it’s time to go. I have to return to my core activity: shadow Mike Mellon. I find him in the conference room. He’s still going through the science team’s requests for future activities. Making sure there’s an optimal number of activities, power usage, and data volume. I sit with him while he works. Like rock flipping, it’s a slow detail-oriented task. But I want to soak in as much of the job as I can. You never know when they might need a backup strategic science lead. After a fifteen-hour day, Mellon feels like he’s done all he can. He’ll hand off the sol 72 plan to the science lead, and tomorrow they’ll work through it one more time in shift I. Then they’ll send it to the shift II team for coding and then transmission to the spacecraft.

  MIKE HECHT AND CAROL STOKER DISCUSS THE PRESS CONFERENCE AT Carol’s desk.

  “He [Craig Covault] forced NASA to respond because Aviation Week is an important channel for them and he’s a veteran journalist and generally reliable,” Mike Hecht says.

  Hecht says Covault had a good relationship with NASA. He thinks the article was a sort of betrayal.

  Carol asks Mike Hecht if he remembers an incident when a reporter at a cocktail party overheard some drunken evidence that NASA had new evidence for life on Mars.

  “She went home and ran with the story and then NASA actually issued a press release that said ‘No new evidence for life on Mars,’” Carol says incredulously.

  “We should be giving the media headlines, not the other way around,” Mike Hecht says. They agree that the story is complicated and needs to be managed better.

  “You can’t do science by press release,” Carol says.

  The press conference seems to satisfy NASA. If Sara’s stress level is any indication, things are better. The reaction from everyone else is as expected. The tin-hat folks continue to discuss the coverup, but the mainstream media no longer thinks Phoenix is hiding aliens. So while there’s still a bit of lingering resentment, the story is put to bed. I follow shortly after.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THAT’S THE PLANET I SAW ON TV

  SOL 71

  I HAVE VERY FEW SPACE BUCKS IN MY MARTIAN ACCOUNT AND I OWE rent. I bunk with the Danes, and it would be a shame to get them all evicted because I can’t cough up the rent money. Earthly problems have no place in space. But they are a real distraction.

  You may wonder how a person supports oneself on a Mars mission like this. The scientists all have university affiliations and NASA funding. They file for grants, and some get help from their governments. These same pools—or puddles—of money are not available to independent stowaways like me. My lavish lifestyle eating flavored oatmeal packs and binge-drinking 25-cent honor-bar coffees is NOT the result of a NASA earmark funded by your tax dollars.

  Long before Phoenix blasted into space, when I first met Peter and knew that I was going to beg, borrow, and steal
to be a part of his space dream, I started saving my pennies. But I also suggested a scheme for a semi-brilliant (I thought it was brilliant; others not so much) prime-time Mars TV show, featuring the Phoenix Lander team and, of course, Peter Smith. This show would offer the world unprecedented, 24-hour, high-definition access to the mission. It would be like this book but … ah … better. It’s Big Brother: Mission Control. And you could have watched TV this whole time instead of forcing your brain to participate in this archaic eye-straining activity.

  The conceit for the show was so awesome because instead of arguing over which vapid housemate might get kicked out, our show’s dramatic hook would be live Martian discovery. It couldn’t fail. Smith and his team would be big stars and kids everywhere would come to science class with a new zest for learning.

  “Hey, that’s the planet I saw on TV!” children would excitedly say whenever they looked into the night sky. Peter was excited. The Discovery Channel liked it too. Then, through a little TV magic of their own, they “improved” on the awesome brilliance of the project and replaced it with something they felt more comfortable: a two-hour documentary geared at the folks who already loved the mission. They thought, wouldn’t it be amazing if we just had scientists talk about the mission against changing backdrops!? “YES!” they told themselves and high-fived each other. They thanked me and said they’d handle it from there. I could see myself out. Not that I’m bitter. (That’s just my usual tone of voice.)

  They did offer me a consolation prize. I could work with some sweet-natured television friends of theirs and they’d pay me a small producer’s fee. That would be enough budget to stay with the team for ninety sols (and give me a unique chance to be a spectator on the making of a documentary based on a TV show that never got made). Perfect.

  Unfortunately, the production company they hired is filled with mean people who just bounced a check and—unbeknownst to them—just put the whole Danish team at risk by getting them kicked out of their corporate home for non-payment. Now I have to spend the morning on the phone trading insults. And that means I’m not paying attention to the mission. So on behalf of the production company—who shall remain nameless—I apologize for the distraction.

  Also, the bounced check is relevant, I swear. Why? It’s a symbol, a wake-up call that the fat times are over. I can’t live off the old discoveries. I have to be scrappy and lean and use the next fourteen sols to learn something new. I must push past this crushing Mars lag and get at the heart of the mission. I email Peter. We need to meet. He says no problem. Excellent.

  AT KICKOFF, DOUG MING WELCOMES THE TEAM. JOE STEHLY, WHO JUST last week trained to be the downlink lead, has a new job: shift lead. Big promotions keep coming to reward some of the junior team members who worked tirelessly in the background for the last few years. This gives them a brief taste of leadership roles and real Mars experience. It’s Joe’s first night, and he looks a little nervous.

  “There are many new people in key positions today, myself included. So please be patient,” he says. I detect a pleading tone in his voice. Don’t worry, Joe, there are some senior managers standing by to lend a hand.

  Today’s plan features a new TEGA delivery. That’s what we need. But there are issues, large and small. There will have to be several “go” or “no-go” decisions that must come quickly after we get our downlink.

  One big non-TEGA concern is that the LIDAR (the pew! pew! pew! laser beam that measures dust and clouds in the atmosphere) overheats. Until they figure how to keep it cool, they don’t want to risk burning out the laser or possibly the whole lander. But I can’t help but think about a story Jim Whiteway told. Back when they were rushing to deliver LIDAR, there was a test gone bad: the LIDAR overheated and caught fire.

  “I didn’t sleep for two months,” Jim says. Everyone is always saying stuff like that on this mission. But Jim really didn’t sleep. He worked 23-hour days and his graduate students did their best to keep up. His blood pressure was through the roof and he was a real mess. Even Jim’s doctor told him that he was facing serious health issues—like he was going to kill himself—if he didn’t start sleeping more. JPL suggested that the Canadian team should quit; they’d never make the deadline. Jim refused. Somehow they made it work.

  Are the Canadians trying to burn down Phoenix?

  “The LIDAR is fine. It just gets too warm during the day,” Clive Cook, one of Jim’s grad students, says.

  “So far, all the LIDAR activities were in the morning or afternoon. It’s these midday events that give us trouble. So, it’s not unexpected that it’s overheating. It has a lot of thermal protection,” Clive explains. This insulation protects it from the cold. The LIDAR can’t take off these coats when it gets too hot.

  “Wow, the data story looks great,” Doug says, looking at the PSI plan for the next sol. His comment elicits a smile from Mike Mellon. It only took him fifteen hours to make sure everything fit. And I was there to shadow him!

  THE LAST SOL ON MARS TIME WILL BE SOL 76 (PLANNING SOL 77). JUST a few days from now, when we go back, things are gonna get a little weird. And you should be prepared for that. Because we’re out of sync with the Earth clock, timing is tricky. As it stands, shift II on sol 76 ends early in the morning. So if we started on Earth time the following sol, shift II would end and then immediately start again.

  “We have to have a little compassion,” Joel says with a smile. So in the name of mercy, we’re going to skip part of a sol. There’s a half-day transition. Sol 76 is a Sunday. And we’ll take Monday morning off, so shift II can sleep for a few hours. Then on Monday, shift I will start at 12:00 p.m. Shift II will start a few hours later.

  Then Tuesday, we will get to work at 9 a.m. and the shift will proceed just like a regular Earth day. But it will not be a regular day for us. We work while Phoenix works. This is different than usual. So far, we worked while Phoenix slept so the lander would have a fresh plan on waking. Now that we’re out of sync, it’s called a restricted sol. On a restricted sol, the plan is sent to Mars without much knowledge of what Phoenix actually did versus what was planned. For instance, if the RA safes, we won’t know it: we uplink blind to the results of the RA activity. There will be times when data starts to come down just as they are about to send up a new plan. And the new plan will be misguided or contain activities for instruments that are safed (and are un-executable). It will be tempting to make last-second adjustments. Be warned: it’s dangerous.

  “We’ll have to exercise restraint if we find something cool,” Doug says. There’s a lot of concern, and some anger, about how everyone will do their jobs on Earth time. Transition is complicated. Team members are tired and weary from Mars time, but the mission will slow dramatically when we move back. We might cut our productivity in half.

  “It’s the humane solution,” Joel explains. “We have to structure sols for earth time and deconstruct certain jobs so that they make sense.” There all kinds of odd problems cropping up.

  “It’s not often you have to distribute the physical hardware of a mission,” he says. We have to figure out which facility owns which computers. Plus, the IT team configured these systems to account for ITAR restrictions and SOC-based users. That has to change. Then there’s the issue that none of the planning software was optimized for a distributed mission. The software all resides on computers at the SOC, and it requires some additional features if hundreds of users from all over the world need to access it remotely. The software was coded this way to save money. But now all the band-aid solutions to get Phoenix on the ground with very little money are proving very painful to pull apart. They have a shaky infrastructure and a great mission, but that’s better than great infrastructure and no mission.

  Ray Arvidson, who is telecommuting in from his office at Washington University, St. Louis, says he can’t hear over the phone.

  “Speak up!” Ray says.

  There is a funny noise coming from Ray’s end. It sounds like he’s jumped into a pool.

 
“Ray might have just been abducted by aliens,” someone says. Everyone laughs.

  “They’re finally taking him home,” Bob Denise says. Or the remote operations infrastructure is already collapsing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  FORTY MINUTES BACK

  SOL 75

  IT’S SUNDAY NIGHT AND OUR LAST DAY ON MARS TIME. I HAVE MIXED feelings. Abandoning my Mars watch will relieve the brain cloud, but the renewed ability to think clearly is tinged with sadness. With an untested new workflow and so little time left, there likely won’t be any more big moments of dramatic discovery. I spend my time thinking about this bittersweetness while I wait for Peter. I have lots of time to rhapsodize, as he’s over an hour late.

  I spend more time thinking. Mars time, the mission, how I can get my Peter Smith scoop and feel good about my work here this summer.

  “Are you ready to order?” the waiter asks. Then I have dinner. And I wait. And another hour.

  “Can I get you another?”

  Sure. No problem. And dessert.

  Peter is two hours and forty-five minutes late for dinner. I think he forgot. But it’s a nice night.

  I probably should have been at the SOC anyway. That’s the lesson here. There’s always more work to do at the SOC. When you leave, bad things happen. Besides, three hours late for dinner isn’t so bad.

  Peter arrives and my resentment is fleeting. He has a good excuse about mission management or something. Soon we just hang out and drink. We’re joined by a colleague, Catherine Patterson, the woman who introduced us back when Phoenix was still being assembled on Earth. We talk about his golf trip, the NASA controversy; we catch up. There is even one point when Peter distinctly says he likes me. It was in the context of not wanting to say too much in front of reporters for fear of making a fool of himself.

  “Reporters can take what you say out of context,” he says. “Sometimes I’m just too open,” he says.