AUDIO LOG: SOL 119
RECORDING:
I’ve been laying here for a little while, trying to figure out what
happened. I should be more upset, but I took a pretty good whack to the
head. It had a calming effect.
So…
Well, ok.
I’m in the airlock. I can see the Hab out the window; it’s a good 50
meters away. Normally, the airlock is attached to the Hab. So that’s a
problem.
The airlock’s on its side, and I can hear a steady hiss. So either it’s
leaking or there are snakes in here. Either way, I’m in trouble.
Also, during the… whatever the fuck happened… I got bounced
around like a pinball and smashed my faceplate. Air is notoriously
uncooperative when it comes to giant, gaping holes in your EVA suit.
Looks like the Hab is completely deflated and collapsed. So even if I
had a functional EVA suit to leave the airlock with, I wouldn’t have
anywhere to go. So that sucks.
I gotta’ think for a minute. And I have to get out of this EVA suit. It’s
bulky, and the airlock is cramped. Besides, it’s not like it’s doing me any
good.
AUDIO LOG: SOL 119
RECORDING:
Things aren’t as bad as they seem.
I’m still fucked, mind you. Just not as deeply.
Not sure what happened to the Hab, but the rover’s probably fine. It’s
not ideal, but at least it’s not leaky phone booth.I’m wearing Beck’s EVA suit. I haven’t worn my own since Sol 6
when I got shish-kabobed. Beck’s suit was about the right size and didn’t
have a hole in it. Why does that matter right now? Because, unlike my
original suit, this one still has an unused patch kit.
Don’t get excited. It won’t do the suit any good. The patch kit is a
cone-shaped valve with super sticky resin on the wide end. It’s just too
small to deal with a hole larger than 8cm. And really, if you have a 9cm
hole, you’re going to be dead way before you could whip out the kit.
Still, it’s an asset, and maybe I can use it to stop the airlock leak. And
that’s my top priority right now.
It’s a small leak. With the faceplate gone, the EVA suit is effectively
managing the whole airlock. It’s been adding air to make up for the
missing pressure. But it’ll run out eventually.
I need to find the leak. I think it’s near my feet, judging by the sound.
Now that I’m out of the suit, I can turn around and get a look…
I don’t see anything… I can hear it, but… it’s down here somewhere,
but I don’t know where.
I can only think of one way to find it: Start a fire!
Yeah, I know. A lot of my ideas involve setting something on fire.
And yes, deliberately starting a fire in a tiny, enclosed space is usually a
terrible idea. But I need the smoke. Just a little wisp of it.
As usual, I’m working with stuff that was deliberately designed not to
burn. But no amount of careful design by NASA can get around a
determined arsonist with a tank of pure oxygen.
The EVA suit is made entirely of non-flammable materials. So is the
airlock. My clothes are fireproof as well, even the thread.
I was originally planning to check the solar array, doing repairs as
needed after last night’s storm. So I have my toolbox with me. But
looking through it, it’s all metal or non-flammable plastic.
I just realized I do have something flammable: My own hair. It’ll
have to do. There’s a sharp knife in the tool-kit. I’ll shave some arm hairs
off into a little pile.
Next step: oxygen. Back when I turned the hydrazine into water, I had
tubing, garbage bags, and all sorts of other luxuries. I won’t haveanything so refined is a pure oxygen flow. All I can do is muck with the
EVA suit controls to increase oxygen percentage in the whole airlock. I
figure bumping it to 40% will do.
All I need now is a spark.
The EVA suit has electronics, but it runs on very low voltage. I don’t
think I could get an arc with it. Besides, I don’t want to tear up my suit’s
electronics. I need it working to get from the airlock to the rover.
The airlock itself has electronics, but it ran on Hab power. I guess
NASA never considered what would happen if it was launched 50 meters.
Lazy bums.
Plastic might not burn, but anyone whose played with a balloon
knows it’s great at building up static charge. Once I do that, I should be
able to make a spark just by touching a metal tool.
Fun fact: This is exactly how the Apollo 1 crew died. Wish me luck!
AUDIO LOG: SOL 119
RECORDING:
I’m in a box full of burning hair smell. It’s not a good smell.
On my first try, the fire lit, but the smoke just drifted randomly
around. My own breathing was screwing it up. So I held my breath and
tried again.
My second try, the EVA suit threw everything off. There’s a gentle
flow of air coming out of the faceplate as the suit constantly replaces the
missing air. So I shut the suit down, held my breath, and tried again. I had
to be quick; the pressure was dropping.
My third try, the quick arm movements I used to set the fire messed
everything up. Just moving around makes enough turbulence to send the
smoke everywhere.
The fourth time I kept the suit turned off, held my breath, and when
the time came to light the fire, I did it very slowly. Then I watched as the
little wisp of smoke drifted toward the floor of the airlock, disappearing
through a hairline fracture.I have you now, little leak!
I gasped for air and turned the EVA suit back on. The pressure had
dropped to 0.9 atmospheres during my little experiment. But there was
plenty of oxygen in the air for me any my hair-fire to breathe. The suit
quickly got things back to normal.
Looking at the fracture, it’s pretty tiny. It would be a cinch to seal it
with the suit’s patch kit, but now that I think about it, that’s a bad idea.
I’ll need to do some kind of repair to the faceplate. I don’t know how
just yet, but the patch kit and its pressure-resistant resin is probably
really important. And I can’t do it bit by bit, either. Once I break the seal
on the patch kit, the binary components of the resin mix and I have 60
seconds before it hardens. I can’t just take a little to fix the crack.
Given time, I might be able to come up with a plan for the faceplate.
Then, I could take a few seconds during that plan to scrape resin over the
airlock fracture. But I don’t have time.
I’m down to 40% of my N2 tank. I need to seal that fracture now, and
I need to do it without using the patch kit.
First idea: Little Dutch Boy. I’m licking my palm and placing it over
the crack.
Ok… I can’t quite make a perfect seal, so there’s airflow… getting
colder now… getting pretty uncomfortable… ok fuck this.
On to idea number two. Tape!
I have duct tape in my tool box. Let’s slap some on and see if it slows
the flow. I wonder how long it will last before the pressure rips it. Putting
it on now.
There we go… still holding…
Lemme check the suit… Readouts say the pressure is stable. Looks
like the duct tape made a good seal.
Let’s see if it holds…
AUDIO LOG: SOL 119
RECORDING:It’s been 15 minutes, and the tape is still holding. Looks like that
problem is solved.
Sort of anticlimactic, really. I was already working out how to cover
the breach with ice. I have 2 liters of water in the EVA suit’s “hamster-
feeder”. I could have shut off the suit’s heating systems and let the
airlock cool to freezing. Then I’d… well whatever.
Coulda’ done it with ice. I’m just sayin’.
All right. On to my next problem: How do I fix the EVA suit? Duct
tape might seal a hairline crack, but it can’t hold an atmosphere of
pressure against the size of my broken faceplate.
The patch kit is too small, but still useful. I can spread the resin
around the edge of where the faceplate was, then stick something on to
cover the hole. Problem is, what do I use to cover the hole? Something
that can stand up to a lot of pressure.
Looking around, the only thing I see that can hold an atmosphere is
the EVA suit itself. There’s plenty of material to work with, and I can
even cut it. Remember when I was cutting Hab canvas in to strips? Those
same sheers are right here in my tool kit.
Cutting a chunk out of my EVA suit leaves it with another hole. But a
hole I can control the shape and location of.
Yeah… I think I see a solution here. I’m going to cut off my arm!
Well, no. Not my arm. The EVA suit’s arm. I’ll cut right below the
left elbow. Then I can cut along its length, turning it into a rectangle. It’ll
be big enough to seal the faceplate, and it’ll be held in place by the resin.
Material designed to withstand atmospheric pressure? Check.
Resin designed to seal a breach against that pressure? Check.
And what about the gaping hole on the stumpy arm? Unlike my
faceplate, the suit’s material is flexible. I’ll press it together and seal it
with resin. I’ll have to press my left arm against my side while I’m in the
suit, but there’ll be room.
I’ll be spreading the resin pretty thin, but it’s literally the strongest
adhesive known to man. And it doesn’t have to be a perfect seal. It just
has to last long enough for me to get to safety.
And where will that “safety” be? Not a damn clue.Anyway, one problem at a time. Right now I’m fixing the EVA suit.
AUDIO LOG: SOL 119
RECORDING:
Cutting the arm off the suit was easy; so was cutting along its length
to make a rectangle. Those sheers are strong as hell.
Cleaning the glass off the faceplate took longer than I’d expected. It’s
unlikely it would puncture EVA suit material, but I’m not taking any
chances. Besides, I don’t want glass in my face when I’m wearing it.
Then came the tricky part. Once I broke the seal on the patch kit, I
had 60 seconds before the resin set. I scooped it off the patch kit with my
fingers and quickly spread it around the rim of the faceplate. Then, I took
what was left and sealed the arm hole.
I pressed the rectangle of suit material on to the helmet. I held it
firmly with both hands while using my knee to keep pressure on the
arm’s seam.
I held on until I’d counted 120 seconds. Just to be sure.
It seemed to work well. The seal looked strong and the resin was
rock-hard. I did, however, glue my hand to the helmet.
Stop laughing.
In retrospect, using my fingers to spread the resin wasn’t the best
plan. Fortunately, my left hand was still free. After some grunting and a
lot of profanities, I was able to reach the tool box. Once I got a
screwdriver I chiseled myself free (feeling really stupid the whole time.)
Using the arm computer, I had the suit overpressurize to 1.2
atmospheres. The faceplate patch bowed outward, but otherwise held
firm. The arm filled in, threatening to tear the new seam, but stayed in
one piece.
Then I watched the readouts to see how airtight things were.
Answer: Not very.
The suit is designed for 8 hours of use. That works out to 250ml of
liquid oxygen. Just to be safe, the suit has a full liter of O2 capacity. Butthat’s only half the story.
The rest of the air is nitrogen. It’s just there to add pressure. When the
suit leaks, that’s what it backfills with. The suit has 2 liters of liquid N2
storage.
It absolutely pissed the air out. In 60 seconds it leaked so much it
pressurized the whole airlock to 1.2 atmospheres.
Let’s call the volume of the airlock 2 cubic meters. The inflated EVA
suit probably takes up half of it. So it took 5 minutes to add 0.2
atmospheres to 1 cubic meter. That’s 285g of air (trust me on the math).
The air in the tanks is around 1 gram per cubic centimeter, meaning I just
lost 285ml.
The three tanks combined had 3000ml to start with. A lot of that was
used to maintain pressure while the airlock was leaking. Also, my
breathing turned some oxygen in to carbon dioxide, which was captured
by the suit’s CO2 filters.
Checking the readouts, I have 410ml of oxygen, 738ml of nitrogen.
Together, they make almost 1150ml to work with. That, divided by 285ml
lost per minute…
Once I’m out of the airlock, this EVA suit will only last 4 minutes.
Fuck.
AUDIO LOG: SOL 119
RECORDING:
Ok, I’ve been thinking some more.
What good is going to the rover? I’d just be trapped there instead. The
extra room would be nice, but I’d still die eventually. No Water
Reclaimer, no Oxygenator, no food. Take your pick; all of those problems
are fatal.
I need to fix the Hab. I know what to do; we practiced it in training.
But it’ll take a long time. I’ll have to scrounge around in the now-
collapsed canvas to get the spare material for patching. Then I have to
find the breach and seal-strip a patch in place.But it’ll take hours to repair and my EVA suit is shit.
I’ll need another suit. Martinez’s used to be in the rover. I hauled it
all the way to the Pathfinder site and back, just in case I needed a spare.
But when I returned, I put it back in the Hab.
Damn it!
All right, so I’ll need to get another suit before going to the rover.
Which one? Johanssen’s is too small for me (tiny little gal, our
Johanssen). Lewis’s is full of water. Actually, by now it’s full of slowly
sublimating ice. The mangled, glued together suit I have with me is
Beck’s; my original suit has a hole in it. That just leaves Martinez and
Vogel.
I left Martinez’s near my bunk, in case I needed a suit in a hurry. Of
course, after that sudden decompression, it could be anywhere. Still, it’s a
place to start.
Next problem: I’m like 50 meters from the Hab. Running in 0.4g
while wearing a bulky EVA suit isn’t easy. At best, I can trundle 2 meters
per second. That’s a precious 25 seconds; almost an eighth of my 4
minutes. I’ve got to bring that down.
But how?
AUDIO LOG: SOL 119
RECORDING:
I’ll roll the damn airlock.
It’s basically a phone booth on its side. I did some experiments.
I figured if I want it to roll, I’ll need to hit the wall as hard as
possible. And I have to be in the air at the time. I can’t press against some
other part of the airlock. The forces would cancel and it wouldn’t move at
all.
First I tried launching myself off one wall and slamming in to the
other. The airlock slid a little, but that’s it.
Next, I tried doing a super-pushup to get airborne (0.4g yay!) then
kicking the wall with both feet. Again, it just slid.The third time, I got it right. The trick is to plant both my feet on the
ground, near the wall. Then I launch myself to the top of the opposite
wall and hit with my back. When I tried that just now, it was enough
force and leverage to tip the airlock and roll it one face toward the Hab.
The airlock is a meter wide, so… sigh… I have to do it like 50 more
times.
I’m gonna have a hell of a backache after this.
AUDIO LOG: SOL 120
RECORDING:
I have a hell of a backache.
The subtle and refined “hurl my body at the wall” technique had some
flaws. It only worked one out of every 10 tries, and it hurt a lot. I had to
take breaks, stretch out, and generally convince myself to body-slam the
wall again and again.
It took all damn night, but I made it.
I’m 10 meters from the Hab now. I can’t get any closer, cause the
debris from the decompression is all over the place. This isn’t an “all-
terrain” airlock. I can’t roll over that shit.
It was morning when the Hab popped. Now it’s morning again. I’ve
been in this damn box for an entire day. But I’m leaving soon.
I’m in the EVA suit now, and ready to roll.
All right… ok…. Once more through the plan: Use the manual valves
to equalize the airlock. Get out and hurry to the Hab. Wander around
under the collapsed canvas. Find Martinez’s suit (or Vogel’s if I run in to
it first). Get to the rover. Then I’m safe.
If I run out of time before finding a suit, I’ll just run to the rover. I’d
be in trouble, but I’d have time to think and materials to work with.
Deep breath… here we go!
LOG ENTRY: SOL 120I’m alive! And I’m in the rover!
Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but I’m not dead, so it’s a win.
Equalizing the airlock went fine. I was out on the surface within 30
seconds. Skipping toward the Hab (the fastest way to move in this
gravity) I passed through the field of debris. The rupture had really sent
things flying, myself included.
It was hard to see; my faceplate was covered by the makeshift patch.
Fortunately, my arm had a camera. NASA discovered that turning your
whole EVA-suited body to look at something was a strenuous waste of
time. So they mounted a small camera on the right arm. The feed is
projected on the inner faceplate. This allows us to look at things just by
pointing at them.
I had to look at a rippled, messed-up version of the outside world. The
faceplate patch wasn’t exactly smooth or reflective. Still, it was enough
to see what was going on.
I bee-lined for where the airlock used to be. I knew there had to be a
pretty big hole there, so I’d be able to get in. I found it easily. And boy is
it a nasty rip! It’s going to be a pain in the ass to fix it.
That’s when the flaws in my plan started to reveal themselves. I only
had one arm to work with. My left arm was pinned against my body,
while the stumpy arm of the suit bounced freely. So as I moved around
under the canvas, I had to use my one good arm to hold the canvas up. It
slowed me down.
From what I could see, the interior of the Hab is chaos. Everything’s
moved. Entire tables and bunks are meters away from where they started.
Lighter objects are wildly jumbled, many of them out on the surface.
Everything’s covered in soil and mangled potato plants.
Trudging onward, I got to where I’d left Martinez’s suit. To my
shock, it was still there!
“Yay!” I naively thought. “Problem solved.”
Unfortunately, the suit was pinned under a table, which was held
down by the collapsed canvas. If I’d had both arms, I could have pulled it
free, but with only one I just couldn’t do it.Running low on time, I detached the helmet. Setting it aside, I
reached past the table to get Martinez’s patch kit. I found it with the help
of the arm-camera. I dropped it in the helmet and hauled ass out of there.
Stumbling to the rover, I barely made it in time. My ears were
popping from pressure loss just as the rover’s airlock filled with
wonderful 1-atmosphere air.
Crawling in, I collapsed and panted for a moment.
So I’m back in the rover. Just like I was back on the Great Pathfinder
Recovery Expedition. Ugh. At least this time it smells a little better.
NASA’s probably pretty worried about me by now. They probably
saw the airlock move back to the Hab, so they know I’m alive, but they’ll
want status. And as it happens, it’s the rover that communicates with
Pathfinder.
I tried to send a message but Pathfinder isn’t responding. That’s not a
big surprise. It’s powered directly from the Hab, and the Hab is offline.
During my brief, panicked scramble outside, I saw Pathfinder was right
where I left it, and the debris didn’t reach that far out. It should be fine
once I get it some power.
As for my current situation, the big gain is the helmet. They’re
interchangeable, so I can replace my broken-ass one with Martinez’s. The
stumpy arm is still an issue, but the faceplate was the main source of
leaks. And with the fresh patch kit, I can seal the arm with more resin.
But that can wait. I’ve been awake for over 24 hours. I’m not in any
immediate danger, so I’m going to sleep.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 121
Got a good night’s sleep, and made real progress today.
First thing I did was re-seal the arm. Last time, I had to spread the
resin pretty thin; I’d used most of it for the faceplate patch. But this time
I had a whole patch kit just for the arm. I got a perfect seal.
I still only had a one-armed suit, but at least it didn’t leak.
I’d lost most of my air yesterday, but I had a half-hour of oxygen left.Like I said earlier, a human body doesn’t need much oxygen. Maintaining
pressure was the problem.
With that much time, I was able to take advantage of the rover’s EVA
tank-refill. Something I couldn’t do with the leaky suit.
The tank-refill is an emergency measure. The expected use of the
rover is to start with full EVA suits and come back with air to spare. It
wasn’t designed for long trips, or even overnighters. But, just in case of
emergency, it has refill hoses mounted on the exterior. Inside space was
limited already, and NASA concluded most air-related emergencies
would be outdoors.
But refilling is slow, slower than my suit was leaking. So it wasn’t
any use to me. Now, with a solid suit capable of holding pressure,
refilling the tanks was a breeze.
After refilling, and making sure the suit was still not leaking, I had a
few immediate tasks to take care of. Much as I trust my handiwork, I
wanted a two-armed suit.
I ventured back in to the Hab. This time, not being rushed, I was able
to use a pole to leverage the table off Martinez’s suit. Pulling it loose, I
dragged it back to the rover.
After a thorough diagnostic to be sure, I finally had a fully-functional
EVA suit! It took me two trips to get it, but I got it.
Tomorrow, I'll fix the Hab.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 122
The first thing I did today was line up rocks near the rover to spell
“A-OK”. That should make NASA happy.
I went in to the Hab again to assess damage. My priority will be to get
the structure intact and holding pressure. From there, I can work on fixing
stuff that broke.
The Hab is normally a dome, with flexible support poles maintaining
the arch, and rigid, folding floor material to keep it flat. The internal
pressure was a vital part of its support. Without it, the whole thingcollapsed. I inspected the poles, and none of them had broken. They’re
just lying flat is all. I’ll have to re-couple a few of them, but that’ll be
easy.
The hole where Airlock 1 used to be is huge, but surmountable. I have
seal-strips and spare canvas. It’ll be a lot of work, but I can get the Hab
together again. Once I do, I’ll re-establish power and get Pathfinder back
online. From there, NASA can tell me how to fix anything I can’t figure
out on my own.
I’m not worried about any of that. I have a much bigger problem.
The farm is dead.
With a complete loss of pressure, most of the water boiled off. Also,
the temperature is well below freezing. Not even the bacteria in the soil
can survive a catastrophe like that. Some of the crops were in pop-tents
off the Hab. But they’re dead, too. I had them connected directly to the
Hab via hoses to maintain air supply and temperature. When the Hab
blew, the pop-tents depressurized as well. Even if they hadn’t, the
freezing cold would have killed them.
Potatoes are now extinct on Mars.
So are earthworms and soil bacteria. I’ll never grow another plant so
long I’m here.
We had it all planned out. My farm would give me food till Sol 900.
A supply probe would get here on Sol 856; way before I ran out. With the
farm dead, that plan is history.
The ration packs won’t have been affected by the explosion. And the
potatoes may be dead, but they’re still food. I was just about to harvest,
so it was a good time for this to happen, I guess.
The rations will last me till Sol 400. I can’t say for sure how long the
potatoes will last until I see how many I got. But I can estimate. I had 400
plants, probably averaging 5 potatoes each: 2000 taters. At 150 calories
each, I’ll need to eat 10 per sol to survive. That means they’ll last me 200
sols. Grand total: I have enough food to last till Sol 600.
By Sol 856 I’ll be long dead.