As discussed in both Losing Mars and my earlier novel, Retrograde, the extremely fine dust on Mars represents a serious health challenge for astronauts. A recent study looking at Moon dust, which is a close equivalent to the dust found on Mars, found that as it’s “ground to a powder fine enough to be [easily] inhaled [it] killed up to 90 percent of both [lung & brain] cell types… [and] so effectively researchers couldn’t measure the DNA damage [it caused!].” Sound strange, but dust management will be a big deal for future explorers.
The orbital comments within this novel are based on an article by the Planetary Society, and mission planning for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. All orbital calculations were done using WolframAlpha and the OrbitSimulator which place the L1 Lagrange point for the Mars/Phobos system at 16 km above the surface of the tiny moon. As previously noted, Stickney Crater is 9 km 6 miles in diameter, with a depth of several kilometers, while Phobos as a whole has a diameter of 23 km 14 miles. Being only 16 km from the surface at L1, it would feel as though the Redstone was going to crash, but the mass of Mars would hold the craft stable in a gravitational tug-o-war.
I settled on pyrite as the bogus explanation for the alien device encountered in the novel because it is an utterly astonishing mineral and looks entirely artificial. It really is just as incredible as is described in this story. Google it and you’ll see images of dozens of silver cubes stuck together at odd angles. Pyrite looks alien, often appearing as a perfectly formed cube embedded in a rock. It looks artificial, but it’s natural.
NASA loves acronyms. Future explorers on Mars probably won’t have SMURFs, QUIRCs, WASPs and T-RECS, but these are legitimate acronyms used by NASA and ESA, etc. Unfortunately, there’s no VeRST, although there should be.
The Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London really has developed a way of using magnets to interfere with brain pathways, simulating a stroke and making it impossible to speak, while patients can still sing because a different part of the brain controls that activity, so this provided a nice means of explaining away what happened to the astronauts when they entered the Chinese vessel.
Various points about the thermal dynamics of spacesuits and spacecraft are based on Quora posts by science fiction author Stuart Hardwick. Even though space is insanely cold, vacuums are wonderful insulators as demonstrated by the vacuum flasks we use to keep coffee and tea warm for hours, hence, somewhat surprisingly, keeping cool is more of a challenge than freezing in space.
I really enjoyed writing the epilogue for this book as I was born during the space race. I was two years old when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon. Of course, I have no recollection of that, but I do remember watching launches related to Skylab and Voyager, as well as Viking landing on Mars. For me, though, the Apollo missions were consigned to history and I only ever heard astronauts talk about them at various anniversary milestones. Over the decades, there were sadly less and less of them to celebrate. I’ve tried to capture some of that reality in the epilogue, especially their frustration with ridiculous conspiracy theories.
One interesting side note from the chapter Space Lesbians is that there really is no such thing as normal. Studies in the 50s & 60s looking at male pilots and “the ideal woman” quickly came to the conclusion that averages are entirely misleading. Roll all our average measurements together and rather than ending up with a generic one-size-fits-all, you arrive at an entirely unrealistic model for men and women. There is no norm. We’re all unique in every respect, from height to sexuality. Strange, but true.
At times, I’ve been criticized for “jumping on the [liberal] bandwagon” on topics like gay rights and Black Lives Matter across a number of books, but, honestly, it’s the 21st century—the cruelty that still dominates how we humans deal with each other is petty and myopic. Any contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species will expose not only a vast technological gulf, but a moral one as well. There are blind spots we all have, liberal and conservative. We’ve made tremendous strides over the past few centuries, but we’re still in our infancy as far as actually having a civil civilization goes. Just this morning I read about Anthony Avalos, a ten year old boy in the US who was beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend for saying he was gay. Words fail me. In our society, minorities are unfairly and unjustly demonized, and that stigma has heartbreaking consequences. I dream of a world where names like Anthony Avalos, Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin are famous as scientists, doctors, musicians and artists, not victims.
Writing is a risky business. No book is a sure bet. For every reader who reaches out to say they’ve enjoyed one of my stories, there are plenty more ready to cast stones. Given my track record when it comes to reviews, I suspect the thorny point for most will be the flight from Shepard to Phobos and complaints about the book dragging at that point. Too much orbital dynamics. Yes, I could have magic’d them into orbit with some super duper sci-fi wonder space drive, but there are two problems with that approach. First, rapid-pace stories miss the essence of what good storytelling is about—character. Second, realism builds credibility. As much as I can, I try to craft stories that have a semblance of realism.
Another question I suspect might arise is, “How credible is it that Mission Control or those at Shepard base would keep what happened to the taikonauts hidden from the crew of the Redstone?” In works of fiction, it all seems so simple—tell them everything. In reality, there are degrees of uncertainty and even different management styles that come into play in complex scenarios like this—as demonstrated when the Space Shuttle Columbia was struck by foam during its ill-fated launch in 2003.
Back in the Mercury days, NASA realized micromanagement lead to disasters and so decentralized decision making into flight teams, coordinated by a Flight Director (who’s not actually onboard the relevant spacecraft), but the danger then becomes having an ill-informed crew. In the case of Columbia, the Flight Control Team talked itself out of any danger, despite warnings to the contrary, and based on that the Flight Director decided not to inform the crew of a launch incident that ultimately cost them their lives.
Hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback. In the heat of the moment, these things are NEVER clear cut. Often, the overriding concern is to remove confusion from the decision making process. We are, by nature, imperfect. The Space Shuttle Columbia was doomed roughly a decade before that foam actually struck, back when management decided (against engineering advice) that foam strikes damaging tiles were trivial. Nothing could have been done after that ill-fated launch. Once they left the launch pad, it was too late. Should they have been told about the damage? I think, yes, but I understand why they weren’t and I’ve tried to capture that same kind of complex frustrating uncertainty in Losing Mars.
Again, thank you for taking the time to read Losing Mars. Please leave a review online. Your opinion of this novel counts far more than mine, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story.
All the best,
Peter Cawdron
Brisbane, Australia
2018
Losing Mars Page 29
