by Jim Melanson
“For real?”
Hlef smiled again, wrapped her long arms around Achael, and hugged her tightly, “You’re my sister Achael. I love you without limits. One of the things I love about you is how responsible you are, and how incredibly gutsy. I may not always agree with you, but I always admire you.” She kissed her on the cheek, then stepped back, and crossed her arms again.
“Come on,” Hlef said, “let’s go get our spanking. Remember, we have a date in the commissary!”
They stepped through the door to the offices, Hlef taking the lead. Major Billy Harper, the Lieutenant General’s Adjutant, looked up from his desk in his office as the ladies entered the reception area. When they stopped to present themselves to the civilian receptionist (who’s security clearance was higher than the President’s), the tall, muscular, tanned, black-haired, black-skinned, former track and field star came out of his office.
“Welcome down-side ladies,” he said with a smile. As they were all the same rank, the rules of formality were a bit relaxed.
“Billy,” Hlef smiled, “Good to see you.” She knew how nervous Achael was, so she wanted to run as much interference as she could until Achael went into the Dragon’s den.
He nodded in acknowledgement, “The General’s expecting you, Achael.”
The two smiling women with dark wrap-around sunglasses just stood there, their arms crossed in front of them, smiling for a moment longer than comfortable. They looked at each other, and then looked back at Billy.
“Just Achael?” Hlef asked with a smile frozen on her lips.
“Yes, she was only expecting Achael. But I’m sure she is going to be absolutely thrilled to have you here for a visit Hah-Lef,” he never could say her name right. “Would you care to wait in my office while Achael gets yelled at a lot?” he said with an apologetic and commiserating smile on his face. He’d been on the wrong end of Rosewood’s ire more than once himself.
The girls smiles were frozen on their faces. Hlef looked down at the ground and chuckled a bit as she looked back up at Achael. She leaned a bit closer to her and in a very quiet voice she said through smiling lips and gritted teeth, “I’m going to fraking kill that son-of-a-bitch.”
Rosewood’s office door flew open at that moment and the compact, athletic old woman stood looming in the door frame. She wasn’t smiling.
“You two, my office, NOW!”
AtmoGen
I had a quick protein shake for lunch, still mulling over what the General’s exchange really meant for the mission. Shaking it off and deciding to compartmentalize it, I’d worry about it when I didn’t have other things more pressing to worry about. I got on with the work manifest. I was now at item number thirty-seven of forty-one items, “Atmospheric Generator Initialization and Full Umbilical Connection”
When the AtmoGen had first arrived and been towed into place by Big Dawg, it had a single unprotected hose connected to the W-Hab by Big Dawg and Little Dawg, working together. The AtmoGen had a small production/test system in place that provided a trickle supply of breathable air to the W-Hab for system testing and validation. This was the system that I had put on bypass this morning. This trickle supply would actually have met all the needs of a single person, but I needed to get the unit fully operational as part of my proof of concept mission. The trickle system would then become my backup system.
Once the AtmoGen was running at spec, I then had a lot of testing to do. Actually, the computers had a lot of testing to do, I just had to be there as the expensive on-call service tech. With my full surface Activity Suit and jumpsuit all donned and sealed, K-Bar on my hip, and Energy Weapon slung over my shoulder; I picked up the small toolkit and exited the airlock to the surface, closing the airlock door behind me. Navy slide down the ladder, one handed (still so very, very cool); and I was on my way.
I walked around the W-Hab to the backyard and headed towards the AtmoGen plant. It was about 100 metres away. The trickle feed hose was going to be replaced with an armoured hose, but that was the last step of the system conversion. I stopped every 10 metres or so, and did a scan of the sky as far as I could see. Nothing ominous, nothing shimmering. Reaching the AtmoGen, I dropped my toolkit and walked around it. The trickle system equipment port was open, as it should be, and a rectangular framed equipment carriage (the size of a bar fridge) was sticking out of it. This was the test system that extracted the O2 at the rate of about 400 ounces (just shy of two litres of O2 and ten litres of nitrogen) per hour. The full system, once in full operation, would produce 12 litres of oxygen, and 53 litres of nitrogen per hour. In addition to this, separate equipment inside would also be separating carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen (O2) from the carbon dioxide (CO2) at a slower rate; to be used as rocket fuels for the SRV’s (Sample Return Vehicles).
As I walked around the structure of the space craft that was now going to be a processing station, I inspected the six ground anchors. After the craft had landed, Mission Control had sent the requisite commands that one at a time, installed the ground anchors. These were six tubes inside the craft that had openings through the floor/bottom of the craft/station. Small sealed explosive charges blew sharp pointed iron spikes (5 cm in diameter and 3 metres long) down into the regolith. Once in place, a secondary charge forced a firing pin down into the centre of the two part spikes which drove “teeth” out sideways into the regolith. These ground anchors were to keep the relatively light weight AtmoGen plant in place against high winds. In fact, only three of them were needed for the proper holding power, but it appeared that all six had functioned properly and were in place. That thing wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, even in Martian hurricane force winds (90 to 100 km/hour).
Returning to the side of the AtmoGen facing the Habitats, I reached up above the nacelle skirting, and opened the human-sized access hatch, pulled out and installed a small ladder, and climbed inside. On this arriving space ship, the nacelle skirting was only about three feet high. The final RAD engines were much smaller than the others because, by comparison, this unit hardly weighed anything, regardless of how tall it was (9 metres high). This unit was not, and didn’t need to be, pressurized, so I just left the hatch open. There was just enough room for me, inside the processing plant, to stand on a small square of decking, and reach everything I had to reach for normal start up and maintenance operations.
First I checked the battery levels. The solar collectors built into the top of the hull had been doing their job, and the batteries, in their solar powered heated compartment were completely topped up. The first thing I did was activate the electricity generating system. The AtmoGen required a lot more than the solar cells and batteries could provide. Flipping the correct switches and pressing the correct buttons caused four exterior panels to open up, high up on the top of the AtmoGen craft/station. The shape of the AtmoGen station provided a sharp curve at the top resulting in an almost flat “roof”.
Next I extended the wind collectors. From each of the four openings, two poles extended straight up in the air with cylindrical objects at the end of them. They extended just enough to be clear of the top of the AtmoGen plant. Each cylindrical object was 25 cm in diameter and 80 cm long. They had composite discs and barrel ends, at each end. These composite discs were joined by 24 angled vanes that were just a bit over 5 cm wide. The extended poles holding the wind harvesters passed up through a hole in the middle of the flat discs and were capped with a larger nut at the top to keep the harvesters in place. The bottom disc of the harvesters had powerful magnets around the centre hole, which were matched by a ring of opposite polarity magnets on the armature itself. Inside the wind harvester vane assemblies, there were a series of wires that would push against a series of spiky arms extending outwards from the centre line armature. When the wind harvester was turned, those wires pressed against the spiky arms, which caused the pole’s core connecting rod to be turned. This turning connecting rod, protected below the wind harvester by an outer metal pipe shell, turned the 10 kW turbines insid
e the AtmoGen station. Due to the lack of resistance on the wind harvesters, thanks to the powerful magnets and free floating design, they had 58.5% efficiency, limited only by Betz law.
These were miniature versions of what I needed to set up in the coming days for the Wind Collector Farm and Energy Distribution System. Regardless of their smaller size, this station’s high efficiency mini wind farm along, with some highly advanced and very efficient turbines, produced 40 kW of electricity per hour with a wind speed of only 15 km/hour. To put this in perspective, the eight 10 kW turbines produce approximately 900 kWh of electricity per day, or just over 325,000 kWh per year. That means this small AtmoGen facility would produce enough electricity for over 280 homes had it been on Terra. This was twice the energy that it actually needed for the atmosphere and RSV fuel extractions. The overage was planned as a backup for the Habitats in case something catastrophic happened to the yet-to-be-installed Wind Collector Farm. Redundancy in space.
Once the arms were up and spinning, the readings on the controller panel showed they were producing electricity at a wild rate. This would make things much easier. I flipped another switch, felt a soft thunk through the deck plate, and leaned outside to look. Ladder rungs had extended from the side of the station, right beside the access hatch. I unstrapped and removed the Boot Box from the small storage rack inside the AtmoGen station control area, attached it to a small tether on my utility belt, and climbed up the oversized rungs. I didn’t need my toolkit as the Boot Box had everything I needed in it. I was happy with myself; I actually remembered this next part of my training very clearly.
Once on the top of the station, I reached in the Boot Box and pulled out a safety tether. I opened a small hatch near the centre of the roof. It had a hardpoint connection inside it. I connected the safety tether to a D-ring on my belt with an oversized carbineer clip, and attached the other to the hardpoint connection inside the small open hatch with another oversized carbineer clip.
Sand and wind is an ever-present commodity on Mars. A lot of design time and dollars have been spent accounting for this. The prevalence of the sand was one of the reasons our Colony was going to be relying so heavily on wind power, with solar power only as a backup. The NASA rover Spirit had been enjoying a mission far longer than planned, until it got stuck in the sand. Within a year, the build-up of sand on the solar panels caused its ultimate demise. Wind storms and dust devils had occasionally cleaned the panels for both Spirit and the sister rover Opportunity; but once Spirit was stationary, it wasn’t enough. As the Colony’s solar cells were all stationary, rather than making it a daily maintenance chore that would only get bigger and bigger as the colony grew; that would occupy larger and larger areas of real estate as the colony grew: the mission decided to go with Wind Collectors. Cleaning those existing Habitat solar collectors was what occupied almost all of Little Dawg’s work time. Converting to wind energy would free up the little bugger for other important work.
The sand, however, could still be a problem. The openings at the top of the AtmoGen station would allow destructive amounts of sand to enter the inside of the otherwise protected area. That meant that I now had to manually close part of the openings and install Elastomer (rubber) boots around the remaining openings. The designs made this an easy task, and it only took me about ten minutes work at each of the four openings. Of course, after each one I had to stop for a minute and scan the skies around me, energy weapon still slung over my shoulder.
As I finished the last boot, I was about to unclip my safety line when I noticed some movement. Looking up quickly I saw it was a dust devil, headed right for me! The cyclonic wind pillar itself would extend high up into the atmosphere; but the destructive sand in this one was only about 800 metres high. As stated, it was headed straight for me. Pucker time.
I watched as it got closer and closer, whipping up sand in the regolith as it moved along, a fine mist of sand and small pebbles ejected from the sides, slowly falling back to the ground. It was probably moving at about a 50 km/hour ground speed. When it contacted the side of the AtmoGen station, the cyclone shape was warped by it a bit, and then continued right on over the AtmoGen station; and me along with it. I had to grab hold of the tether with one hand, and the hardpoint anchor with the other, and made myself as flat as I could.
The force of the cyclone tried to pull me free of the roof. I could hear the sand and pebbles rushing across my helmet. I could feel the wind tugging and pulling at me. After a few seconds, it was gone. I rolled over and looked behind me and watched it move off in a south east direction, totally missing the habitats, heading towards the sand dunes. Very cool! Mission Control would have caught the whole thing on video from the Habitat roof cameras. I wish I had turned on my helmet video camera for it, but I was more worried about pulling a Dorothy Gale.
The Boot Box, with its proprietary tools, however, wasn’t as lucky. I looked over the side of the station and saw it lying on the ground, tools strewn in a line away from it. It was at that moment I said a silent thank you to the German engineer that had come up with the idea of the ground anchors. Since I was still up on the roof and tethered, with the cyclone having gone right over the top of the station, I did a visual inspection of the wind collectors so recently elevated into place. They all functioned perfectly, and there wasn’t a scratch of damage that I could detect with my eyes. The Elastomer boots had held perfectly in place as well.
Scanning the sky around me once again, energy weapon still slung over my shoulder, I unclipped my tether, and closed the wee hatch. I coiled up the safety line, hanging it from my utility belt. I climbed down the extruding ladder rungs, and stepped back inside the service hatch of the Atmogen station. Now that the power generators were online and functioning better than expected, it was time to get the critical part of the system up and running. This would take longer.
First I ran the unlock sequence, then ran the sequence of commands to open the two side doors that were three-quarters as tall as the station. One opened on each side. Each opening was 97 cm wide. As the doors opened, I went outside and did a visual inspection to ensure the built in operational hatch seals, the heavy Elastomer blades, extended properly. As these hatches would be closing onto pieces of metal, hoses, and power cords; the outer few centimetres of the door were actually hinged. When released, small armatures pushed them outwards and back against the hatch itself. There they were held in place by strong electro-magnets. The heavy Elastomer blades also hinged outwards from their interior transit position. Once extended, simple mechanical pressure held them in place when the hatches closed on the extended equipment.
Next I activated the extender motors, and had a flashback to the wing wells on the Jalopy. Two rectangular frames extended from each side, approximately 2.7 metres. Each of these equipment carriages held a collection of metallic fins, canisters, and armoured hoses. These were the actual workhorse parts of the AtmoGen plant. Due to their nature, they were made as tough as possible, but had some limitations. They were hardy enough to withstand the daily general blowing around of sand on the surface, and could even withstand moderate-sized dust devils such as I had just experienced. During a prolonged sand storm however, they would have to be retracted. Therefore, the extending and retraction of them was push button automated, so we didn’t have to suit up and manually go outside to do it. Once they were fully extended, I ran the sequence to close the doors around them. I did a visual inspection outside and now with more room to move around inside, did a visual inspection there as well. The Elastomer blade’s seams looked tight, as there was no light coming through them. Awesome, things were going like clockwork.
As this process needed to be automated and run from the habitats, it had to be tested from my tablet. I remembered that I had left my tablet back in the W-Hab. I went back to get it, cycling in and then out of the airlock. I had now used up the three airlock cycle tolerance for the reserve air tanks in the habitat. This AtmoGen had better work properly or I was in the deep. As I walked bac
k to the AtmoGen, my stomach suddenly sank and I froze in place. Out across the plain towards the ice wall I could see a shimmer in the air. I stood there feeling both helpless and enraged, not sure which one to go with. After maybe twenty seconds of this, the shimmer shot straight up in the air, becoming another gray orb, and disappeared from sight.
I stood there for a few minutes scanning the sky, energy rifle now at port arms. It didn’t return, and I didn’t see anything else to stress about, so, resigning myself to being the latest microbe in the Petri dish, I slung the weapon over my shoulder again, and went back to work.
I pulled a USB cable out of the small compartment on the back of the tablet carrying case and plugged it directly into the AtmoGen onboard controller. I launched the AtmoGen software, let it initialize, and then hit the “Storm Close” icon. I stuck my head out the hatch and looked from side-to-side to watch the hatch doors open, the equipment carriages retract, the Elastomer blades and the outer door rim rotate back into a closed state, then the doors finally closed, sealing and locking in place.
I climbed back down to do a quick visual inspection, then with the tablet still attached and sitting on the deck, I just reached in and hit the “Start Operations” icon. The process reversed and after a final interior and exterior visual inspection, I then pronounced the mechanical portion of the manifest item completed.
Next was the dicey part. I had very little to do with it, and yet my survival was highly dependent on it. In two years, I’d be better off. One of those future planned supply drops would include a hopper and feeder system/filtration system that would allow me to drop chunks of frozen water and frozen CO2 into it. The hopper would crush, then feed these items into an as yet unopened port, and the equipment package coming with it would then process the ice just like it was processing the Martian atmosphere. The added benefit was that the solids processing system would also produce methane and hydrogen as well as oxygen, using the Sabatier process. The eventual production of methane and hydrogen would be used for a far more efficient lifting power of the SRVs; allowing them to return larger quantities. Right now, if they weren’t damaged irreparably in yesterday’s event, the carbon monoxide and oxygen lift for the SRVs would only put about 40 kg on its way to Terra. Using methane and hydrogen, with oxygen as the oxidizing agent, then they would be able to take about 150 kg.
