The employees of Deyo Plastics worked double shifts. There was talk
of triple shifts if NASA increased the order again. No one minded. The
overtime pay was spectacular and the funding was limitless.
Woven carbon thread ran slowly through the press, which sandwiched
it between polymer sheets. The completed material was folded four times
and glued together. The resulting thick sheet was then coated with soft
resin, and taken to the hot-room to set.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 114
Now that NASA can talk to me, they won’t shut the hell up.
They want constant updates on every Hab system, and they’ve got a
room full of people trying to micromanage my crops. It’s awesome to
have a bunch of dipshits on Earth telling me, a botanist, how to grow
plants.
I mostly ignore them. I don’t want to come off as arrogant here, but
I’m the best botanist on the planet.
One big bonus: Email! Just like the days back on Hermes, I get data
dumps. Of course they relay email from friends and family, but NASA
also sends along choice messages from the public. I’ve gotten email from
rock stars, athletes, actors and actresses, and even the President.
The coolest one is from my alma-mater, the University of Chicago.
They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially
“colonized” it. So technically, I colonized Mars.
In your face, Neil Armstrong!
I go to the rover five times a day to check mail. They can get a
message from Earth to Mars, but they can’t get it another 10 meters to the
Hab. But hey, I can’t bitch. My odds of living through this are way higher
now.
Last I heard, they solved the weight problem on Ares 4’s MDV. Onceit lands here, they’ll ditch the heat shield, all the life support stuff, and a
bunch of empty fuel tanks. Then they can take the seven of us (Ares 4’s
crew plus me) all the way to Schiaparelli. They’re already working on my
duties for the surface ops. How cool is that?
In other news, I’m learning Morse Code. Why? Because it’s our back-
up communication system. NASA figured a decades-old probe isn’t ideal
as a sole means of communication.
If Pathfinder craps out, I’ll spell messages with rocks, which NASA
will see with satellites. They can’t reply, but at least we’d have one-way
communication. Why Morse Code? Because making dots and dashes with
rocks is a lot easier than making letters.
It’s a shitty way to communicate. Hopefully it won’t come up.
All chemical reactions complete, the sheet was sterilized and moved
to a cleanroom. There, a worker cut a strip off the edge. Dividing the
strip in to squares, he put each through a series of rigorous tests.
Having passed inspection, the sheet was then cut to shape. The edges
were folded over, sewn, and resealed with resin. A man with a clipboard
made final inspections, independently verifying the measurements, then
approved it for use.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 115
The meddling botanists have grudgingly admitted I did a good job.
They agree I’ll have enough food to last till Sol 900. Bearing that in
mind, NASA has fleshed out the mission details of the supply probe.
At first, they were working on a desperate plan to get a probe here
before Sol 400. But I bought another 500 sols of life with my potato farm
so they have more time to work on it.
They’ll launch next year during the Hohmann Transfer Window, and
it’ll take almost 9 months to get here. It should arrive around Sol 856.
It’ll have plenty of food, a spare Oxygenator, Water Reclaimer, and
comm system. Three comm systems, actually. I guess they aren’t takingany chances, what with my habit of being nearby when radios break.
Got my first email from Hermes today. NASA’s been limiting direct
contact. I guess they’re afraid I’ll say something like “You abandoned me
on Mars you fuckwits!” I know the crew is surprised to hear from the
Ghost of Mars Missions Past, but c’mon. I wish NASA was less of a
nanny sometimes. Anyway, they finally let one email through from
Martinez:
Dear Watney: Sorry we left you behind, but we
don't like you. You're sort of a smart-ass. And
it's a lot roomier on Hermes without you. We have
to take turns doing your tasks, but it's only
botany (not real science) so it's easy. How's
Mars?
-Martinez
My reply:
Dear Martinez: Mars is fine. When I get lonely
I think of that steamy night I spent with your
mom. How are things on Hermes? Cramped and
claustrophobic? Yesterday I went outside and
looked at the vast horizons. I tell ya, Martinez,
they go on forever!
-Watney
The employees carefully folded the sheet, and placed it in an argon-
filled airtight shipping container. Printing out a sticker, the man with the
clipboard placed it on the package. “Project Ares-3; Hab Canvas; Sheet
AL102.”
The package was placed on a charter plane and flown to Edwards Air
Force Base in California. It flew abnormally high, at great cost of fuel, to
ensure a smoother flight.Upon arrival, the package was carefully transported by special
convoy to Pasadena. Once there, it was moved to the JPL White Room for
probe assembly. Over the next 5 weeks, engineers in white bodysuits
assembled Presupply 309. It contained AL102 as well as 12 other Hab
Canvas packages.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 116
It’s almost time for the second harvest.
Ayup.
I wish I had a straw hat and some suspenders.
My re-seed of the potatoes went well. I'm beginning to see that crops
on Mars are extremely prolific, thanks to the billions of dollars worth of
life support equipment around me. I now have 400 healthy potato plants,
each one making lots of calorie-filled taters for my dining enjoyment. In
just ten days they’ll be ripe!
And this time, I’m not replanting them as seed. This is my food
supply. All natural, organic, Martian-grown potatoes. Don’t hear that
every day, do you?
You may be wondering how I’ll store them. I can’t just pile them up;
most of them would go bad before I got around to eating them. So
instead, I’ll do something that wouldn’t work at all on Earth: Throw them
outside.
Most of the water will be sucked out by the near-vacuum; what’s left
will freeze solid. Any bacteria planning to rot my taters will die
screaming.
In other news, I got email from Venkat Kapoor:
Mark, some answers to your earlier questions:
No, we will not tell our Botany Team to “Go
fuck themselves.” I understand you’ve been on your
own for a long time, but we’re in the loop now,and it’s best if you listen to what we have to
say.
The Cubs finished the season at the bottom of
the NL Central.
The data transfer rate just isn’t good enough
for the size of music files, even in compressed
formats. So your request for “Anything, oh god
ANYTHING but Disco” is denied. Enjoy your boogie
fever.
Also, an uncomfortable side note... NASA is
putting together a committee. They want to see if
there were any avoidable mistakes that led you to
being stranded. Just a heads-up. They may have
questions for you later on.
Keep us posted on your activities.
-Kapoor
My reply:
Venkat, tell the investigation committee
they’ll have to do their witch-hunt without me.
And when they inevitably blame Commander Lewis, be
advised I’ll publicly refute it.
Also please tell them that each and every one
of their mothers are prostitutes.
-Watney
PS: Their sisters, too.
The presupply probes for Ares-3 launched on 14 consecutive days
during the Hohmann Transfer window. Presupply 309 was launched third.
The 251 day trip to Mars was uneventful, needing only two minor course
adjustments.After several aerobraking maneuvers to slow down, it made its final
descent toward Acidalia Planitia. First, it endured reentry via a heat
shield. Later, it released a parachute and detached the now expended
shield.
Once its onboard radar detected it was 30 meters from the ground, it
cut loose the parachute and inflated balloons all around its hull. It fell
unceremoniously to the surface, bouncing and rolling, until it finally
came to rest.
Deflating its balloons, the onboard computer reported the successful
landing back to Earth.
Then it waited 23 months.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 117
The Water Reclaimer is acting up.
Six people will go through 18 liters of water per day. So it’s made to
process 20. But lately, it hasn’t been keeping up. It’s doing 10, tops.
Do I generate 10 liters of water per day? No, I’m not the urinating
champion of all time. It’s the crops. The humidity inside the Hab is a lot
higher than it was designed for, so the Water Reclaimer is constantly
filtering it out of the air.
I’m not worried about it. Water is water. The plants use it, I use it. If
need be, I can piss on the plants directly. It’ll evaporate and condense on
the walls. I could make something to collect it, I’m sure. Thing is, the
water can’t go anywhere. It’s a closed system. Plus, I made like 600 liters
from MDV fuel (remember the “explosive Hab” incident?). I could take
baths and still have plenty left over.
NASA, however, is absolutely shitting itself. They see the Water
Reclaimer as a critical survival element. There’s no backup, and they
think I’ll die instantly without it. To them, equipment failure is
terrifying. To me, it’s “Tuesday.”
So instead of preparing for my harvest, I have to make extra trips to
and from the rover to answer their questions. Each new message instructsme to try some new solution and report the results back.
So far we’ve worked out it’s not the electronics, refrigeration system,
instrumentation, or temperature. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be a little hole
somewhere, then NASA will have 4 hours of meetings before telling me
to cover it with duct tape.
Lewis and Beck opened Presupply 309. Working as best they could in
their bulky EVA suits, they removed the various portions of Hab canvas
and lay them on the ground. Three entire presupply probes were
dedicated to the Hab.
Following a procedure they had practiced hundreds of times, they
efficiently assembled the pieces. Special seal-strips between the patches
ensured air-tight mating.
After erecting the main structure of the Hab, they assembled the three
airlocks. Sheet AL102 had a hole perfectly sized for Airlock 1. Beck
stretched the sheet tight to the seal-strips on the airlock’s exterior.
Once all airlocks were in place, Lewis flooded the Hab with air and
AL102 felt pressure for the first time. They waited an hour. No pressure
was lost; the setup had been perfect.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 118
My conversation with NASA about the Water Reclaimer was boring
and riddled with technical details. So I’ll paraphrase it for you:
Me: “This is obviously a clog. How about I take the it apart and check
the internal tubing?”
NASA: (After 5 hours of deliberation) “No. You’ll fuck it up and
die.”
So I took it apart.
Yeah, I know. NASA has a lot of ultra-smart people and I should
really do what they say. And I’m being too adversarial, considering they
spend all day working on how to save my life.I just get sick of being told how to wipe my ass. Independence was
one of the things they looked for when choosing Ares astronauts. It’s a
13-month mission, most of it spent many light-minutes away from Earth.
They wanted people who would act on their own initiative, but at the
same time, obey their Commander.
If Commander Lewis were here, I’d do whatever she said, no
problem. But a committee of faceless bureaucrats back on Earth? Sorry,
I’m just having a tough time with it.
I was really careful. I labeled every piece as I dismantled it, and laid
everything out on a table. I have the schematics in the computer, so
nothing was a surprise.
And just as I’d suspected, there was a clogged tube. The Water
Reclaimer was designed to purify urine and strain humidity out of the air
(you exhale almost as much water as you piss). I’ve mixed my water with
soil, making it mineral water. The minerals built up in the Water
Reclaimer.
I cleaned out the tubing and put it all back together. It completely
solved the problem. I’ll have to do it again some day, but not for 100 sols
or so. No big deal.
I told NASA what I did. Our (paraphrased) conversation was:
Me: “I took it apart, found the problem, and fixed it.”
NASA: “Dick.”
AL102 shuddered in the brutal storm. Withstanding forces and
pressure far greater than its design, it rippled violently against the
airlock seal-strip. Other sections of canvas undulated along their seal-
strips together, acting as a single sheet, but AL102 had no such luxury.
The airlock barely moved, leaving AL102 to take the full force of the
tempest.
The layers of plastic, constantly bending, heated the resin from pure
friction. The new, more yielding environment allowed the carbon fibers to
separate.
AL102 stretched.Not much. Only 4 millimeters. But the carbon fibers, usually 500
microns apart, now had a gap eight times that width in their midst.
After the storm abated, the lone remaining astronaut performed a full
inspection of the Hab. But he didn’t notice anything amiss. The weak part
of canvas was concealed by a seal-strip.
Designed for a mission of 31 sols, AL102 continued well past its
planned expiration. Sol after sol went by, with the lone astronaut
traveling in and out of the Hab almost daily. Airlock 1 was closest to the
rover charging station, so the astronaut preferred it to the other two.
When pressurized, the airlock expanded slightly; when depressurized,
it shrunk. Every time the astronaut used the airlock, the strain on AL102
relaxed, then tightened anew.
Pulling, stressing, weakening, stretching...
LOG ENTRY: SOL 119
I woke up last night to the Hab shaking.
The medium-grade sandstorm ended as suddenly as it began. It was
only a category 3 storm with 50kph winds. Nothing to worry about. Still,
it’s bit disconcerting to hear howling winds when you’re used to utter
silence.
I’m worried about Pathfinder. If the sandstorm damaged it, I’ll have
lost my connection to NASA. Logically, I shouldn’t worry. The thing’s
been on the surface for decades. A little gale won’t do any harm.
When I head outside, I’ll confirm Pathfinder’s still functional before
moving on to the sweaty, annoying work of the day.
Yes, with each sandstorm comes the inevitable Cleaning of the Solar
Cells. A time honored tradition by hearty Martians such as myself. It
reminds me of growing up in Chicago and having to shovel snow. I’ll
give my dad credit; he never claimed it was to build character or teach
me the value of hard work.
“Snow-blowers are expensive,” he used to say. “You’re free.”
Once, I tried to appeal to my mom. “Don’t be such a wuss,” Shesuggested.
In other news, It’s seven sols till the harvest, and I still haven’t
prepared. For starters, I need to make a hoe. Also, I need to make an
outdoor shed for the potatoes. I can’t just pile them up outside. The next
major storm would cause The Great Martian Potato Migration.
Anyway, all that will have to wait. I’ve got a full day today. After
cleaning the solar cells, I have to check the whole solar array make sure
the storm didn’t hurt it. Then I’ll need to do the same for the rover.
I better get started.
Airlock 1 slowly depressurized to 1/90th of an atmosphere. Watney,
donning an EVA suit, waited for it to complete. He had done it literally
hundreds of times. Any apprehension he may have had on Sol 1 was long
gone. Now it was merely a boring chore before exiting to the surface.
As the depressurization continued, the Hab’s atmosphere compressed
the airlock and AL102 stretched for the last time.
On Sol 119, the Hab breached.
The initial tear was less than 1 millimeter. The perpendicular carbon
fibers should have prevented the rip from growing. But countless abuses
had stretched the vertical fibers apart and weakened the horizontal ones
beyond use.
The full force of the Hab’s atmosphere rushed through the breach.
Within a tenth of a second, the rip was a meter long, running parallel to
the seal-strip. It propagated all the way around until it met its starting
point. The airlock was no longer attached to the Hab.
The unopposed pressure violently launched the airlock like a
cannonball as the Hab exploded. Inside, the surprised Watney slammed
against the airlock’s back door with the force of the expulsion.
The airlock flew 40 meters before hitting the ground. Watney, barely
recovered from the earlier shock, now endured another as he hit the front
door, face first.
His faceplate took the brunt of the blow, the safety glass shattering
into hundreds of small cubes. His head slammed against the inside of thehelmet, knocking him senseless.
The airlock tumbled across the surface for a further 15 meters. The
heavy padding of Watney’s suit saved him from many broken bones. He
tried to make sense of the situation, but was barely conscious.
Finally done tumbling, the airlock rested on its side amid a cloud of
dust.
Watney, on his back, stared blankly upward through the hole in his
shattered faceplate. A gash in his forehead trickled blood down his face.
Regaining some of his wits, he got his bearings. Turning his head to
the side, he looked through the back door’s window. The collapsed Hab
rippled in the distance, a junkyard of debris strewn across the landscape
in front of it.
Then, a hissing sound reached his ears. Listening carefully, he
realized it was not coming from his suit. Somewhere in the phone-booth
sized airlock, a small breach was letting air escape.
He listened intently to the hiss. Then he touched his broken faceplate.
Then he looked out the window again.
“You fucking kidding me?” He said.