“Ready?” Martin asked.
“Yes.”
“Computer, bring up the remote sensing suite in a four-by-three window. Voice interface.” There was a delay of perhaps thirty seconds while the covers retracted and the instruments deployed.
“Computer, hide everything but the visible light telescope view.” Spectrometry, infrared, and other data disappeared leaving only the currently-black view from the telescope.
“Where do you want to go? Just preface it with ‘computer,’ and tell it where to point the telescope.”
“Computer, point the telescope at Saturn.”
The giant planet appeared, with stunning clarity and detail, casting its enormous shadow over its rings.
“Computer, point at Titan.”
Saturn swung out of view, the magnification increased, and Titan was shown with its strange rusty, mottled, coloring.
Kinuko was having a great time.
“Enceladus.”
“Dione.”
“Pandora.”
“Jupiter.”
“Callisto.”
“Europa.”
“Ganymede.”
“Io.”
“Venus.”
“Neptune.”
“Alpha Centauri.”
“Sirius A.”
“Arcturus.”
“Vega.”
And so it went on. She could have stayed there for several lifetimes. Martin enjoyed both the astronomy itself, and her enjoyment of it. He thought that if she could have transformed herself into a bodiless being of spirit or energy and gone anywhere in the universe, she would have. She was at home there.
At last, they had to go to bed. He stowed the remote sensing suite.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re most welcome.”
Her hand accidentally brushed his as she turned to float off to her cabin.
32
T-plus 36 days
The IME spun slowly, in a counterclockwise yaw motion. The ship was helpless. Her attitude control system was completely disabled, and she was closing in on Mars fast.
The planet, with its reddish-brown surface and white polar ice caps, was looming large in the windows and getting larger all the time. She was heading straight for it, at a point just to the left of the center, steadily picking up speed.
The crew were helpless. They had done everything they could to try and fix the attitude control system, but nothing worked. Christopher was outside, trying to find any physical cause of the problem, while Martin feverishly ran diagnostics on the computer. Nothing. They knew that this was the end.
Mars grew larger and larger, as its gravity drew them in. Even if they had recovered attitude control, they were now so close that their main engine thrust would not be enough to get them out of the way. Finer and finer surface features could be made out, as the planet filled up the window. Mountains, valleys, plains, craters, and fine wispy clouds became visible. Their destination would become their end. Still they spun, helpless.
Mars' atmosphere is as deep as Earth's, so they encountered it sooner than they expected. There wasn't a whistling sound, or even any heat buildup. The Explorer, which was a flimsy structure only built for exoatmospheric travel, virtually exploded into a shower of fiery shards.
Alessia woke abruptly with a scream. She was drenched with sweat. Immediately, Kinuko shouted, “Are you okay?” from the cabin next door. Christopher appeared at her door, knocked, and entered without waiting for an answer. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I just had a bad dream,” she answered, relieved to find that all was intact and everyone was okay. She looked at her wall display, which she had set to show the view outside, and Mars was nowhere in sight. She lay back down, her heart still pounding.
“I will stay with you for a little while if you like,” said Kinuko. She went back to her cabin to retrieve her sleeping bag, and bedded down on the floor next to Alessia's hammock. In the microgravity, it was still more comfortable than the most advanced comfort mattress on Earth. She listened as Alessia's breathing slowed and returned to normal. Presently, Kinuko drifted back to sleep.
Alessia, however, couldn't sleep. The dream had been so vivid; one of the most vivid she had ever had. She was still disturbed by it, even with Kinuko's presence next to her. She hoped it wasn't an omen of some kind.
33
T-plus 40 days
The music could be heard outside Christopher’s room. Martin knocked and entered.
“What on earth are you listening to?” he asked.
“A Tribe Called Quest.”
“Who?”
“They were popular ages and ages ago. I remember my dad listening to them sometimes,” Christopher replied.
“You have some funny musical tastes, man.”
“Well, you liked Justin Bieber.”
“I know. It took man points from me.”
“They also had great electronic music back then. It was also known as rave, or club, music to the masses. There were many sub-genres though, like trance, house, drum and bass, et cetera. They said we have every recording and film ever made on board, but they missed this lot somehow. Good thing I brought them. Here’s a couple from the 2010s.”
Christopher played OceanLab’s “If I Could Fly,” followed by Brookes Brothers’ “Not Just Yet” and Bungle’s “25th Floor.”
“That’s cool stuff. It’s kind of an old sound now, though. Music is continually being redefined. Our kids will say our stuff is old-fashioned.”
“Yeah, if we ever have kids. We’re all getting a pretty good dose of radiation up here.”
“LOL.”
“LOL? Now you’re taking me back. You can’t just say that in a conversation, by the way. We’re talking face to face, not texting.”
Martin saw an object spinning in the corner of the cabin.
“A gyroscope in a vacuum bell? Cool!”
“Yeah. I wanted to see how long it would keep spinning for in the microgravity. There’s virtually no friction. It’s been going for two days now.”
“Sweet. You should post on the blog about it.”
“I think I will. Although someone on the ISS already posted one,” Christopher replied.
“So? They’re completely in zero-gravity, unlike us. Besides, that place smells funny, and we’re badass space explorers. They’re not.”
“Heh. Yes, I noticed that when we were on the ISS. Some of it’s pretty old, and well lived-in.”
Martin glanced over at Christopher’s wall.
“You’ve got the odometer display running… holy cow, look at that thing go.”
The kilometers clocked up quickly: 85,183,488 … 85,183,551 … 85,183,620 …
“We’re really traveling.”
“Yep. Thank Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz for that. He invented the VASIMR engine.”
“A worthy man, indeed.”
“Oh, are you going to the ping-pong semifinals later? Well, you kind of have to, since you’re in it.”
* * *
Interactions with the Cosmos – The Blog of the International Mars Explorer
This just shows how big a part friction plays in our lives on Earth. This gyroscope is running in a vacuum, and with virtually no gravity, there is almost no friction. It’s been going for two days, and will likely keep going for another week.
[Attachment: video of gyroscope spinning.]
-Christopher Fay
* * *
@KR_IME: HEY HIPPIE PROTESTERS, BIG BUSINESS AND CONSUMERISM ARE GOOD. GO BACK AND HIDE IN THE MARIJUANA SMOKE CLOUDS IN YOUR MOTHER’S BASEMENT!
* * *
The next day, the whole crew received an email. It read:
IME Crew,
Traces of the originating IP address of the recent Twitter posts, in which inflammatory remarks were made concerning the heightened tensions here on Earth, show that they are coming from the International Mars Explorer. Beginning now, the firewall rules have been changed to block Twitter posts from th
e spacecraft.
Lesley L. Jones, Flight Director, NASA
34
T-plus 43 days
It was evening, and the day’s work was done. The ladies had decided to watch the classic movie Gone with the Wind, in a window on one side of the hub. Three of the guys were watching a Formula 1 race on the other side. Christopher looked at Martin and said, “I think it’s time.”
“I think it is. Are they charged?”
“Yep. Did you leave them somewhere I can find them, in the chaos that is your cabin?”
“Yes, they’re in the corner.”
“Okay. I’ll be back.”
Christopher returned clutching the three tiny flying robots.
“Are they set to record?”, Martin asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, close the hatch so they don’t fly out, and let ‘em go.”
Martin closed the hatch into the tunnel, switched on the bots, and let them go. They circled the hub several times, locating themselves and each other in their surroundings, to shouts of glee and excitement from the crewmembers that didn’t yet know about them. Then, they came to a stop about halfway between the ladies and the window that was showing their movie.
“Okay, we get it,” Alessia said. “Can you make them move now?”
“I can’t” said Christopher, shrugging his shoulders. “They’re AI beings, with minds of their own. Besides, what can I do? I am just one man, against a swarm. I’m already afraid they’ll start self-replicating.”
“You put them there, so you can make them move. We’re trying to watch a movie here.”
“It’s a crappy movie, anyway. Way overrated. We think you’d much prefer watching them.”
“Well, we don’t,” said Kinuko. “Please make them move, or we will move them for you.”
“You wouldn’t treat a small, helpless, flying robot like that, would you?” Christopher asked. “After all, what’s it ever done to you?”
Kinuko sprung up from the floor to try to grab two of them. They flew apart, in opposite directions, and she missed. She twisted around so she was feet first to the wall, bounced off it, and lunged at them again, heading for the leftmost one. She reached her hand out to grab it, but it moved out of the way just far enough that she missed it. She now couldn’t stop herself, and ended up crashing into the opposite side of the hub, on which the race was being displayed.
“What the heck?” said Aleksandr.
Meanwhile, Alessia lunged to grab one of the other bots, which had not moved. It, too, dodged her grasp, and she had to fend herself off the wall with her hands. She twisted around to find the infernal thing hovering a meter from her. She pushed off to try to grab it. It then took off and made a complete circuit around the hub, and flew back past her. She pushed off gently, so she would still be near the wall when it came back around. It did, but it came to a halt shortly before it reached her. It then headed back off in a circuit in the opposite direction.
The other two bots were chasing each other around the central truss, as Kinuko snuck up from below. She shot out her hand and grabbed one of them.
“Ha!”
The other one had seen her and headed back out towards the wall. Alessia, meanwhile, was tumbling slowly, since she didn’t have anything to grab onto. She would have to wait nearly a minute until she landed.
“I think our work here is done,” said Martin.
“Agreed,” Christopher replied. He pressed a button in an app on his tablet, and the bots obediently returned and hovered in front of him (except the one that Kinuko still had).
“Punks!” she yelled out, as they disappeared back up the main tunnel.
* * *
@KR_IME: THIS IS WHAT AN ANGRY ASTRONAUT LOOKS LIKE:
[Attachment: a video of Alessia lunging out to grab a bot, from the bot’s point of view.]
[Attachment: a video of Kinuko colliding with the wall, in front of the surprised men.]
* * *
Lesley Jones frowned as she watched the videos. She contacted Samesh Gupta, the Space IP Communications Systems Administrator, to have him investigate whether the latest post had slipped through their firewall somehow. Two hours later, he called back.
“I am sorry Miss Jones,” he said. “A trace of the IP address shows that it originated somewhere in Georgia. Shall we attempt to track down which Internet subscriber it was?”
“No, that’s okay. It’ll only result in negative publicity for the mission, if we’re seen to be conducting a witch hunt.”
“The astronaut must have emailed the handle’s password, and the contents of the email, to somebody, and had them post it.”
“Mmm.”
“Of course, we can’t tell who it was, as the crew’s personal email is encrypted for privacy, and completely hidden from us.”
“Yes. That decision was taken early in the mission planning, to give them an emotional outlet, and private personal communications, without worrying that we’re watching every word they say. We can’t change it now. Thanks anyway, Samesh.”
“No problem, Miss Jones.”
35
T-plus 46 days
* * *
Interactions with the Cosmos – The Blog of the International Mars Explorer
We are traveling faster than humans have ever traveled, by a long way: 47 km/s! (That’s nearly 30 miles a second to you users of Imperial units!) It is a little disconcerting. If we hit anything – even a tiny object – at this speed, we would be annihilated. Luckily, our radar scans two million kilometers ahead and to the sides, and the ship will let us know if it spots anything that's not supposed to be there so we can avoid it. It won’t necessarily spot anything under half a meter though, so it’s best not to think about it! I also wish there were some visual references to go by, so we can see how fast we're going – a planet, a moon, anything. It would be a thrill to see how fast it goes past!
Our distance from Earth is not increasing as fast as our total distance traveled any more, as we are chasing Mars in a curved path around the Sun. We are hot on its heels! We will be turning around soon, in order to slow down by the time we get there so we can enter orbit around it.
-Nikita Vinogradov
36
T-plus 47 days
At the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Wen Mah, a fully uniformed and decorated high-ranking government official from the Ministry of National Defense, walked with his two aides into the main control complex. The director of the complex met him in the lobby. The two shook hands and exchanged brief, formal greetings. They walked down a long, featureless corridor in silence.
At the end was a steel door. Mah nodded to his aides, and they stood aside, where they would remain until his return. The director punched a code on a keypad, the door opened, and the two men entered the Level One Secure Area. The corridor continued, featureless and bland, with various unmarked doors on both sides. Ten meters after the entrance to the Secure Area was an elevator. Mah punched the down button. The director nodded to him, and left, going back the way they had come. The elevator doors opened, and Mah entered alone. There were buttons for floors two and three, and three underground floors marked L1, L2 and L3. He pressed L2 and L3 together. This would take him to a floor completely unknown to anyone else, even in the Secure Area.
He entered a darkened room. A large screen at the front showed a map of Mars, with a spacecraft and its orbital track displayed. Nine other monitors glowed at workstations, crewed by uniformed technicians. Their supervisor rose to greet him.
“How are the preparations going?” Mah asked.
“Very well, sir. All the avionics are completely nominal. Cryogen boil-off is nominal.”
“Very good. How is the software?”
“The latest version is undergoing final testing now, and will be uploaded soon. The navigation parameters have been cross-checked and updated to their final values.”
“Fifty-three days to activation,” Mah said, with a look of satisfaction.
“Yes.
All the world will see the glory and technological prowess of China.” The supervisor, who almost never smiled, cracked the slightest of smiles at this thought.
37
T-plus 50 days
“This is Jill Bowers reporting live for ENN from IDSA headquarters in Lyon, France, where an important moment in the International Mars Explorer’s mission is to be announced.”
The camera panned to the stage in the large auditorium. Fernand Alliaume took the podium.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this very important moment in the mission of the International Mars Explorer. Today, the crew is traveling at the fastest speed that man has ever attained. We will turn the ship around and begin to decelerate now, in the approach to Mars, so that we can intercept it in its orbit around the Sun.
“To give you an idea of the numbers, the ship is traveling at 50.33 kilometers per second. That is equal to 181,200 kilometers per hour, or 112,598 miles per hour. To illustrate what that means, if it were traveling from New York to Los Angeles, it would only take seventy-eight seconds. It would only be two hours to get from the Earth to the Moon. We are covering a million miles every nine hours.
This is a testament to the brilliance of the engineers who got us to this point, and the expertise of the crew and the people in Mission Control.”
The broadcast then cut to the studio. “In the studio with us today we have ENN science correspondent, Bill Barnes. Bill, can you explain more about what we just heard?”
“Sure, Jill. The Mars Explorer’s engine is on all the time, so the most efficient way to use it is to spend half the trip accelerating, and the other half decelerating, until it gets to Mars. Today is simply the day when that point is reached, where the ship turns around and begins to slow down. They will turn around and start going backwards, if you will. This will put them in the right place, at the right time, and going at the right speed, to enter orbit around Mars.
“It’s hard to visualize the speed they’re going now, but you can think of it being roughly equivalent to a bolt of lightning. Now, lightning has a downstroke and a return stroke. What I’m talking about is the downstroke, when it first goes from the cloud to the ground. We’ve all seen it at some point. Well, that’s about sixty kilometers a second, Jill, which is only slightly faster than the Mars Explorer. I put up an interactive explainer about it, on the ENN website.”
KR_IME Page 9
