The Enceladus Mission: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  Martin looked toward the bow and then the stern. The hatch for the hub of the ring had remained open. That was also a clever engineering trick. When he had pressed the Open button, the rear hatch had also opened. Martin now could look back through the corridor, all the way to the entrance of the garden module. Everything seemed fixed. Here, one did not notice the rotation, even though the hub was still turning around its axis ten times a minute.

  The handles Martin held also served a second purpose. At the outside of this module there were large, barrel-shaped water tanks. There was no better shielding against cosmic radiation than that. In the event Mission Control registered a strong surge of solar radiation, all of the astronauts would move to this module, which would serve as a shelter. If the eruption lasted very long, the crew members could strap themselves to these handles so an involuntary movement during sleep would not make them drift around. Until now, there had been no solar flares, but statistically they would have to expect two or three such events during their journey.

  Even if Mission Control always gave them advanced warning, Martin’s cancer risk would have increased by at least 500 percent by the time he returned to Earth. The fact that he was even considered for the mission was due to his genes, which gave him a higher than average resistance against radiation damage. Cosmic particles were constantly penetrating his body and damaging cells. His body would try to repair them, but that would not always be possible.

  Without the active shielding around the spacecraft, the crew would never be able to survive the trip. It was similar to the invisible shield that made life on Earth possible. The lines of Earth’s magnetic field, which surround our planet, prevent a large percentage of high-energy particles from reaching the surface. A part of the electrical energy provided by the DFD engines powered superconducting electromagnets that in turn generated a field that snugly surrounded ILSE. This at least kept off all charged particles, though it could not protect against neutral ones. ILSE was the first spaceship with an active shield, as this type of protection had not been considered necessary for the much shorter trips to Mars.

  Martin pulled on the handles, which immediately provided him with a forward impulse. He reminded himself, If I do not show up soon, Jiaying will be annoyed. By now, he knew quite well how she would react. She will press her lips together, yet will still try to smile so as not to appear impolite. It was a strange look, and Hayato would have laughed about it in a very non-Japanese manner. Martin crossed the module they called the lab. It was a mixture of workshop and storeroom. There was nothing they could research scientifically, but equipment failed at regular intervals, and they would try to fix it here. As their supply of spare parts was limited, they sometimes cannibalized other devices for this purpose. They probably would find suitable spare parts in the cargo containers, but these containers were attached to the outside of the ship, and an EVA (ExtraVehicular Activity) was quite involved. Everything they needed from outside was put on a list that probably would be acted on in about a month.

  The ‘dining room,’ or command module, where Jiaying was waiting for him was at the very front. The inside looked like a sphere, the outside like a cone with a blunted tip. It was a Dragon capsule by SpaceX. The interior had been completely refurbished. This space did not attempt to create a sense of up and down. The workstations there, two terminals and two control seats, appeared to be randomly placed. When you sat at a computer, you might see a colleague floating in space at any angle.

  In order to reach the dining table, Martin had to walk down at a 90-degree angle from the module, at least from his perspective. There, a metal table had been either bolted or welded to the surface, it was hard to see which. Jiaying waved at Martin as he floated around the corner. For her, he seemed to come from the side, not from above. The slim Chinese woman had strapped herself into her chair. She was the only person who had brought along a cushion from Earth. Her mother had embroidered it for her, although there was no real need for her soft cushion, since the straps would gently press her backside against the surface of the chair. Cutlery and dishes were made of magnetized metal, and therefore stuck firmly to the table, rather than floating around in the capsule.

  Jiaying smiled with lips pressed tightly together, just as he had expected. He was late. Her dark brown eyes gave him a cool look.

  “Good morning, Martin.” She was the only person on board who pronounced his name correctly, Mar-TEEN.

  “Good morning.” He had only a vague idea of how her name should sound. Jiaying raised and lowered the pitch of her voice in a way he could not follow. When he said ‘Ji-a-jing,’ it sounded strangely flat and wrong, so he avoided this if possible.

  “Sorry you had to wait.”

  “Never mind,” she said, shrugging. Martin was glad he was not able to read thoughts. She could have started with her own breakfast, though. That would have been not only impolite, but also against the rules.

  Jiaying had already placed Martin’s breakfast on the table, and now moved it closer to his plate.

  “Thanks,” he said, and reached for a tube. Things belonging to him were marked by a small purple sticker. Before the launch, all of the astronauts had been able to select their own menus. The others sometimes swapped food. That offered variety, a change in their routine, they told him. Martin could not understand this. It is illogical. After all, I selected for myself exactly the meals I like best. The so-called variety would be a negative deviation.

  “Would you like to exchange anything?” asked Jiaying, nevertheless. This is probably part of her politeness program, Martin thought.

  He shook his head. “No thanks,” he said. Both of them chewed their food. I should probably say something now, shouldn’t I? Jiaying smiled at him. It seemed she wanted to encourage him. He looked at her. The problem is, she is pretty. I cannot talk to pretty women. Damn. They continued to chew their food. There was still an inscrutable smile on Jiaying’s face. She did not appear to mind that he said nothing.

  The psychologists had indeed put a lot of effort into this. The mission planners must have feared the crew members would turn on each other if the food did not match their expectations. Compared to what was offered on a space station in Earth orbit, the supplies stored on ILSE were gourmet-quality food. This comparison actually said quite a bit about the tolerance all those astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts had for suffering. Martin, for instance, could not only choose among tubes and cans, and dried food that was mixed with water to form a flavored mush, but he could have breakfast almost like on Earth.

  There are rolls! Martin was delighted. They were actually freeze-dried, shrink-wrapped balls of dough heated in a special machine until they got crisp. According to Marchenko, this process used the know-how of a supermarket chain. Unfortunately, Martin was not allowed to cut the fresh rolls with a knife. The risk of crumbs floating away would have been too great. However, he could use a special tube to squeeze a paste onto the roll, and the paste was available in four flavors; sausage, cheese, jam, and chocolate spread. Then he would put the mini-roll into his mouth, together with the packaging, which was also edible. This was cumbersome, but it was the closest he could get to the original flavors this far from Earth. Furthermore, he was not in a rush. Having breakfast together counted as a part of his work period, even though they rarely had any real work to do afterward.

  “Did you notice that Amy and Hayato...” Jiaying’s voice trailed off without finishing the sentence. Martin was surprised by the sudden sound. He must have shown this because Jiaying laughed. Martin almost choked on his roll.

  “I—what? Amy—and Hayato?” He managed to get that out after regaining his composure. “No, she just checks on him because he has problems.” This simply cannot be, he thought. Hayato would have certainly told me, because after all, he is my only friend here. Friend. How strange that sounds. Shouldn’t we all be friends? Or a large family? he contemplated.

  “I have been watching them,” Jiaying said.

  “Watching?”


  “Just by chance it happened. I wanted to check something in the garden module, and they were in the rear corridor, touching each other.”

  “Touching?” Martin was angry at himself. Why do I keep repeating things like a stupid little monkey? I want to come across as a clever guy.

  “To be more precise,” Jiaying continued, “they at first held hands, facing each other. And then he placed a hand on her behind. It seemed pretty clear to me.”

  “Well, you really took a close look,” Martin said. Jiaying blushed, which he had not intended. I hope she did not misunderstand me. “That is… I mean, you must have been scared seeing someone or something you did not expect.”

  “That’s true,” Jiaying said.

  “If that is true...” Martin pondered. “Oh, never mind. I mean, what would she see in him? He is so quiet.”

  “It seems like he has some secret, which would make him interesting. And he is good-looking, too.”

  Hayato was supposed to be good-looking? Martin had never noticed it. Unlike Marchenko, Hayato had never been adored by women on Earth, at least as far as he knew.

  “Yes? What is good-looking about him?” Martin wondered, am I good-looking, at least in Jiaying’s eyes?

  “He is well-built and has mastered several martial arts, Marchenko told me. And there is something profound in his eyes.”

  This was more than Martin wanted to know. Even if he exercised more in the future, his slim body would never become broad-shouldered. Tonight he would stand in front of the mirror trying to look more profound.

  “How do we want to divide up the work?” asked Jiaying with another mysterious smile. Martin had to avert his eyes while she sucked her noodles out of the vacuum pack, the required method for consuming cooked noodles in space.

  This was a rhetorical question. First of all, Jiaying was the boss of their two-person team, and secondly, they had no choice. The psychologists had mandated in the rulebook that all decisions should be made unanimously, if possible.

  “Well, I will take care of the garden, and you can clean,” Martin replied. Today was Wednesday, when Martin always did garden work. Tomorrow he would have to clean. All six of them had come up with these plans. It was not important to him what he did to kill time. Initially, the mission planners had considered giving them real research projects, like visiting one of the larger planetoids on their way through the asteroid belt. In the end, the idea had been rejected due to the risk and the time involved. Therefore, there would be no real diversion until ILSE approached the orbit of Saturn.

  “That’s fine,” Jiaying said. “Have fun. And if you see Hayato or Amy...” She winked at him instead of finishing the sentence. Martin started to get curious.

  “See you at noon,” he said.

  The garden, as the crew called the greenhouse module, was located in the rear section of the ship. It had been built in the home country of Martin’s mother, Germany. Since the Chinese had taken the lead in constructing vehicles and robots, the diligent Germans had focused again on the true resource of their country, the fertile soil. Due to global warming, the vegetation periods in the Northern hemisphere had increased so much that now two harvests per year were easily possible.

  The module’s official designation was ‘EDEN.’ Martin had forgotten what the acronym stood for. This place certainly does not resemble the Garden of Eden. It reminded Martin more of a surreal, musty-smelling basement full of pipes. The biological equilibrium was quite fragile. Every day the crew fought to control the rampant microflora.

  Martin undressed in front of the airlock into the garden. Due to the heat and the moisture they had agreed to work in their underwear, although this wasn’t a decency problem because only one astronaut at a time was scheduled to work in the garden. If he remembered correctly, Francesca had suggested this because the high humidity and the low oxygen content in the EDEN module made her sweat. What might the psychologists be saying about that? he wondered. At the order of the commander, the Siri AI had turned off the surveillance cameras in this part of the spaceship. Martin sometimes imagined Siri or Watson secretly observing the human crew during garden work.

  In NASA jargon the garden was called a CELSS or Closed Ecological Life Support System. The instructor on Earth had been skeptical of the entire concept. Earth itself, he had said, was so far the only example for a CELSS staying stable within certain limits for billions of years. If they succeeded in turning a spaceship into a closed, stable ecosystem, even interstellar voyages would become possible, assuming the crew showed enough patience. However, the difficulty in keeping such a system stable increased as available space decreased. This did not keep the ESA specialist from at least trying. It didn't matter whether the garden really functioned, recycled oxygen, and produced fresh food, it would provide the crew with a different important resource: work.

  Before launch, no one had dared to predict what the 30 square meters of garden, spread over several levels, would really be useful for. Of course, the biologists had selected plants with short growing periods and high harvest yields, meaning a high percentage of edible biomass in relation to the overall mass of the plant. Martin already had harvested the first batch of lettuce, beets, and spinach. He actually did not like any of these vegetables, but compared to the freeze-dried food, they tasted fantastic. Will I ever be able to dig out the potatoes that require more than three months to grow? he wondered. He was pessimistic about the carrots. The soil microorganisms are going crazy again.

  It had been obvious it would not be easy to grow food. Due to the missing gravity, the roots of plants had no target when they searched for nutrients and water. That also applied to moisture. With normal irrigation methods, the water would simply cover the surface and the area below it would stay dry. This was the reason they had decided on a kind of aquaculture. Above the roots, the plants were surrounded by a kind of elastic collar. The roots spread through a coarse-grained mixture of minerals rinsed with a nutrient solution. The solution consisted mostly of urine, the liquid gold of space gardeners, which added a very special smell to the atmosphere in the EDEN module. The problem was, the artificial soil was inhabited by legions of microscopic creatures, and their reactions could not be predicted. Even if they had disinfected everything beforehand, the plants themselves would have introduced new bacteria. Agriculture could never be sterile.

  Right now, the smell here was much stronger than expected, as if they had recently sprayed liquid manure. Amy had been trying to locate the culprits for days, but so far without success. Maybe that’s why she was in the garden with Hayato, to check up on it, Martin thought. Jiaying might have been mistaken. I can't imagine the commander and the engineer... he shook his head and focused on his tasks again.

  A strain of bacteria must have become dominant and exterminated other bacteria. Now this strain proliferated as long as the necessary resources were available. Afterward, the ecosystem would tilt in the other direction. Maybe they would be lucky and the right strains would prevail. The plants definitely did not like the current soil climate. They had stopped growing, and their leaves were changing color. Martin did not quite know where to start. Amy’s instructions had been vague—intervene when he thought a plant had no chance of survival.

  Therefore, he always did a quick check at the start of his shift. He took the daylight lamp from its wall mounting so he could see the colors of the leaves in the natural spectrum. The light emitted by the walls and the ceiling was specifically adapted to the needs of the plants. Then he started to walk past the rows. The garden was a simple tube with an exterior diameter of about two meters and a length of nine meters. The ‘ceiling’ was suspended, and all the utility lines ran above it. At the ‘floor’ there was a path, with storage cabinets below it. The plant’s beds were installed on the exterior walls and two shelves stretching across almost the entire length, with up to six plants stacked on top of each other.

  Martin decided on a vertical-horizontal search strategy. He therefore looked a
t each shelf from bottom to top first, then moved in and reversed the direction. He did not do this because he thought it more efficient, but because it was easier on his knees. At the end of the 16-meter path he had statistically analyzed the color, form, and size of the leaves for the six currently growing types of plants. During his first check-ups he still used the PlantGrowth app of his Universal Pad in order to calculate the existing biomass, but by now he could do this in his head. Plus, he did it better than the app, which he proved by measuring the volume of 20 plants with the good old displacement method. The camera in his head seemed to work better than the 3D cam of the Pad.

  He did not have to write anything down. He possessed a good memory, and always had, except for faces. He quickly noted that, concerning the development of the most important features, 15 percent of the plants reached 15 percent of the respective median value. If he said it this way to Jiaying, she would laugh. Even though she was a biologist, or maybe because of it, he had to translate his thoughts for her. How should he express this? Maybe this way: one in six plants was brown.

  Martin decided to follow the commander’s instructions. This meant getting rid of 27 plants, representing two fresh dinners for the entire crew—a real loss. Of course he did not really know whether the affected plants would die, although if he waited too long, nothing new could grow in these spots. First Martin had to clear the required space, and then Jiaying would plant the seeds or bulbs, probably in the afternoon while he struggled on the elliptical trainer. The astronauts took whatever was needed for new plants from special storage containers below the floor of the garden. In a truly closed system they would save a part of the harvest for planting the next generation.