Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars
Page 21
“Although historical evidence”: Melissa M. Battler et al., “The ‘Us versus Them’ phenomenon: Lessons from a long duration human Mars mission simulation.” In 62nd International Astronautical Congress 2011, IAC 2011, pp. 32–37. 2011.
“In Partisan of Things”: Francis Ponge, “Notes for a Seashell,” Partisan of Things, 41.
“We felt this”: Ann Druyan quotes come from a 2007 episode of Radiolab: www.wnycstudios.org/story/91520-space
“The record holds”: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/07/hear-douglas-rushkoff-and-davi.html
“When people talk”: Voyager’s path: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/multimedia/pia17461.html#.XaPSmZNJGgA
“A letter always seemed to me like immortality”: http://archive.emilydickinson.org/correspondence/jclark/l788.html
“Around noon”: “Spektr of Failure,” https://sma.nasa.gov/docs/default-source/safety-messages/safetymessage-2010-11-08-mirprogresscollision.pdf?sfvrsn=17ae1ef8_4
“The space station began”: Mir de-orbit: https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/multimedia/deorbit.htm
DREAMS OF MARS, DREAMS OF EARTH
“theory about the solar system’s early days”: “Jupiter’s Smashing Migration May Explain Our Oddball Solar System,” Space.com, March 23, 2015, www.space.com/28901-wandering-jupiter-oddball-solar-system.html
“Mars was hype, the moon was real”: This seems like something the poet Dia Felix might have said, and probably is.
“Grass by the Home”: The English translation by Boris Anisimov can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxq1LYCJdM. The original Russian version (with different English translation in the YouTube notes) can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uZvWgupoJI
“Later, in, 1698”: Christiaan Huygens, Cosmotheoros: or, Conjectures Concerning the Inhabitants of the Planets (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale ECCO Print Editions, 2018).
“Even persistent skepticism”: E. E. Barnard in a letter in 1894: “I have been watching and drawing the surface of Mars. It is wonderfully full of detail. There is certainly no question about there being mountains and plateaus. To save my soul I can’t believe in the canals as Schiaparelli draws them. I see details where he has drawn none. I see details where some of his canals are, but they are not straight lines at all. When best seen these details are very irregular and broken up … I verily believe … that the canals … are a fallacy and that they will so be proved before many favorable oppositions are past.”
“Did not stop the popular hope”: William K. Hartmann and Odell Raper, “The new Mars: the discoveries of Mariner 9”; prepared for the NASA Office of Space Science. Washington, DC: Scientific and Technical Information Office, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1974.
“Lovell turns to the camera”: “Happy Birthday Mother”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOKGCutAMZ8&t=1133s
“It was a chance view”: Earthrise, a New York Times documentary, at www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000005831656/earthrise.html
“Borman said”: “The Not-So-Great Unknown,” This American Life, 655: August 24, 2018, www.thisamericanlife.org/655/transcript
“I wonder if”: Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981).
“In February of 2018”: You can track the orbit of the Tesla Roadster at www.whereisroadster.com
“Yusaku Maezawa”: Loren Grush, “SpaceX will Send Japanese Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the Moon,” The Verge, September 17, 2018, www.theverge.com/2018/9/17/17869990/elon-musk-spacex-lunar-mission-ticket-moon-passenger-bfr-falcon-yusaku-maezawa
DEEP TIME, DEEP SPACE
“I wrote my first”: Katie Greene, “Mars or Bust!” Science News, November 26, 2005, 346.
“The oldest terrestrials”: Just a theory: “What Did the Moon Look Like from Earth 4 Billion Years Ago?” Forbes, July 11, 2018.
“Even back in the ’60s”: Don Edward Wilhelms, To a Rocky Moon: A Geologist’s History of Lunar Exploration (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993).
“Of those, more than”: Ethan Siegel, “Pieces of Mars Have Landed on Earth,” Forbes, September 9, 2018.
“People older than forty”: “Why Does Time Seem to Speed Up with Age?” Scientific American: www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-time-seem-to-speed-up-with-age
“The neuroscientist David Eagleman”: “The Possibilian,” New Yorker, April 25, 2011.
“Virginia Woolf, in Orlando”: Selected Works of Virginia Woolf (Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions, 2012), 444.
For better or worse”: “When the Standardization of Time Arrived in America,” Smithsonian, December 19, 2016.
“Consider Fiddler Dick”: Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet (New York: Bloomsbury, 2007), 50.
“A Journal of Physics paper”: E. Moreva et. al.,“Time as an Emergent Property of Quantum Mechanics,” Journal of Physics Conf. Ser. 626 012019.
“I looked into it”: “V-2: The Nazi rocket that launched the space age,” BBC, September 7, 2014, www.bbc.com/future/article/20140905-the-nazis-space-age-rocket
“When you ask questions”: More information on the 100-Year Starship Symposium can be found at https://100yss.org/
By far the most compelling”: More information about Philip Lubin’s Starshot project can be found at www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/outreach/media-links/starshot
“About six months”: Kate Greene, “What Will Make Interstellar Travel a Reality,” Slate, April 13, 2016, https://slate.com/technology/2016/04/an-100-million-investment-might-make-it-possible-to-reach-alpha-centauri-in-20-years.html
“The author Robert”: Robert Macfarlane, Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit (New York: Vintage, 2009), 157.
HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
“But then in February”: “When a Mars Simulation Goes Wrong,” Atlantic, June 22, 2018.
“There may be more”: “Hawaii’s Mars Simulations Are Turning into Moon Missions,” Atlantic, November 20, 2018.
“It’s a procedure”: “Lawmakers Grill SpaceX, Boeing on Safety of Commercial Crew Capsules,” Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2018.
“Shortly thereafter, Jim”: Bridenstine on Musk: www.marketwatch.com/story/nasa-chief-says-elon-musks-pot-smoking-did-not-inspire-confidence-2018-11-29
“Cost of a crewed Mars mission”: The 7.7 trillion dollars number comes from https://theweek.com/articles/479867/federal-reserves-breathtaking-77-trillion-bank-bailout. This amount is so striking, so mind-boggling, that I felt it was important to source it. The rest of the “cost poem” comes from personal experiences and easily google-able references.
“In 2018, SpaceX made roughly”: Michael Sheetz, “SpaceX Is the No. 1 Rocket Company by Revenue, with $2 Billion Last Year, Jefferies Estimates,” CNBC.com, May 20, 2019, www.cnbc.com/2019/05/20/spacex-revenue-2-billion-from-rockets-last-year-jefferies-estimate.html
“The company says”: Price per ton on SpaceX rocket versus an Ariane rocket: The Motley Fool, “Europe Complains Spacex Rocket Prices Are Too Cheap,” www.fool.com/investing/2018/06/02/europe-complains-spacex-rocket-prices-are-too-chea.aspx
“The rocket—called BFR”: Estimates of cost of BFR: Loren Grush, “The Easiest Way for Elon Musk to Raise Money for SpaceX Might Be Tourism,” The Verge, September 18, 2018, www.theverge.com/2018/9/18/17873332/spacex-elon-musk-yusaku-maezawa-space-tourism-bfr-crew-dragon
“What’s more, India”: Kate Greene, “Why India Is Investing in Space,” Slate, March 17, 2017, https://slate.com/technology/2017/03/why-india-is-investing-in-space.html
“China is also”: Joan Johnson-Freese, “China Launched More Rockets into Orbit Than Any Other Country,” December 19, 2018, www.technologyreview.com/s/612595/china-launched-more-rockets-into-orbit-in-2018-than-any-other-country/
“The price I paid for the price I didn’t pay” is a modification of a phrase Jill would use when talking about our San Francisco rent-controlled and infrequently maintained apartment: “The price we paid for the price we didn’t pay.”
“It�
�s a deeply researched story”: Jonathan M. Karpoff, “Articles-Public versus Private Initiative in Arctic Exploration: The Effects of Incentives and Organizational Structure,” Journal of Political Economy. 109 (1): 38. 2001.
EXITS AND AIR LOCKS
“The first practical” manned space station patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3144219A/en?q=space&q=station&oq=space+station
“It wasn’t until 1966”: The patent for a space station air lock: www.google.com/patents/US3386685
“Today, the air lock”: More information about the ISS air lock at www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/joint-quest-airlock
“Open the door, there we are.”: Dia Felix, “The Heavy Pour,” Columbia Journal 57, Spring 2019.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kate Greene was the crew writer and second-in-command on the first simulated Mars mission for the NASA-funded HI-SEAS project. A poet, essayist, and former laser physicist, her work has appeared in multiple publications and radio shows. She’s taught writing at Columbia University, San Francisco State University, and the Tennessee Prison for Women. She lives in New York City. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
I. INTRODUCTION
II. ASTRO-GASTRONOMY
III. ON BOREDOM
IV. THE STANDARD ASTRONAUT
V. GUINEA-PIGGING
VI. ON VESSELS
VII. ON ISOLATION
VIII. ON CORRESPONDENCE
IX. DREAMS OF MARS, DREAMS OF EARTH
X. DEEP TIME, DEEP SPACE
XI. HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
XII. EXITS AND AIR LOCKS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of nonfiction in which dialogue has been reconstructed to the best of the author’s recollection.
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
ONCE UPON A TIME I LIVED ON MARS. Copyright © 2020 by Kate Greene. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.stmartins.com
Illustrations by Jess Anthony
Cover design and illustration by Jonathan Bush
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-15947-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-15948-9 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250159489
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First Edition: 2020