First Landing

by Robert Zubrin

  The past week had been pure hell. By the fifth day of digging, she had fallen into a kind of exhausted trance, which had helped her make it through. But as useful as such a state might be in helping one sleep through a day of digging, she knew it could be a dangerous frame of mind. They were on Mars, after all, and the slightest mistake could be fatal.

  On the first day, she’d been too tired to eat much, but hunger had set in the following morning. The workload had increased everyone’s appetite, and by the fourth day it was apparent that the previous short rations could not be maintained. Rebecca increased their allotments from seventy percent to one hundred percent NASA minimum . . . then to one hundred twenty percent, then to one hundred fifty percent.

  No one seemed to notice. Even doubled, the meals were still modest, and the hungry crew gobbled them quickly. But Rebecca knew they had crossed a divide. By increasing the rations, she was throwing away all possibility that the five of them would last until the 2015 return window. If they continued to consume their larder at this rate, the crew would have to make it out in 2013, or else starve.

  She felt her sore arm. The muscle had become a lot tougher. While she could never match the others’ digging, she was becoming stronger and more productive with time. That was good. It wasn’t just a matter of pride. She had done the math: Without her pitching in, they simply couldn’t make it.

  Rebecca watered the plants carefully. Thanks to the increased efforts, more water was available; barrels were now being carted over from the oven to the ERV for use in the propellant-making unit. She had been tempted to request more for the greenhouse and for the personal hygiene unit, but had resisted the impulse. Propellant was everything. If used with precision, the present greenhouse water allotment was enough.

  Accumulated sweat and grime made the biologist itch. If only she could wash. She shuddered at how unkempt she’d appeared in the mirror that morning. What she would give for a shower, or even a sponge bath! But the logistics calculations were clear: Washing would just have to wait.

  She hesitated; something seemed wrong. She stopped what she was doing. It was the sound. The greenhouse was too quiet. The ventilation fans had stopped working.

  Stiff, she hobbled over to the control panel, which revealed the source of the problem clearly enough. Fuse 16 had burned out. Easy enough to fix. She opened the fuse box and looked inside. Sure enough, Fuse 16, a 1-amp unit, was fried. She pulled out a spare and replaced it, then opened the log to record the repair.

  There, she spotted a notation written with a shaky stylus: “F16, replaced by GL, 6/2/12.” So Gwen had replaced the fuse yesterday. Curious that it should burn out so fast.

  Rebecca opened the unit manual and called up the specs for Fuse 16. That was strange: A 1.5-amp unit was specified. Yet Gwen had used a 1-amp fuse. It was certainly very unusual for the flight mechanic to make such a mistake.

  Rebecca removed her 1-amp fuse again and inserted a properly specified 1.5-amp unit. When she threw the restart switch, she was gratified to hear the renewed hum of the greenhouse ventilators. Then she relaxed a bit.

  She hadn’t been in immediate danger, but it was a scary thought that if she hadn’t noticed the ventilator failure promptly, she might have been overcome by a toxic overdose of carbon dioxide. It was already late afternoon, and without the ventilator, CO2 would have built up within the greenhouse as the reduced solar light level caused photosynthesis rates to drop.

  She checked the CO2 monitor. It read yellow—outside of recommended limits, though not yet unsafe.

  So why hadn’t a warning sounded? She checked the alarm circuit, and discovered that it ran through Fuse 16. A chill ran down her spine. I almost just bought the farm.

  Tiny mistakes like that could kill. She realized with a start that she was not the only one who was played out. Her companions might manage bigger shovel loads than she, but the rest of the crew—who had been tired enough before the intensified effort—were also transitioning into mental numbness.

  She thought of how they would stagger into the Hab after a day’s shift, lurching out of bed in the morning, becoming increasingly unkempt, punch-drunk, worn out. How long could they keep this up? As the crew wore itself out, so would their machines. And with increasing frequency, that would force repair jobs upon an ever-more exhausted Gwen. Formerly simple repairs would become hard, and formerly dependable work would become unreliable.

  But they had no choice. It was launch in 2013, or nothing.

  As the sun went down, Rebecca limped from the greenhouse to greet her returning crewmates.

  HOUSTON

  JUNE 15, 2012 12:30 CST

  Dr. George Kowalski pushed his plate away and glanced impatiently around the private dining room in the Nassau Bay Hilton. The food had been acceptable, but Darrell Gibbs had already kept him waiting long enough. The Science and Security Advisor did not like to reveal his interest in certain delicate matters by forcing the conversation, but it was time to get down to business. “So, Darrell, have you completed your investigation into the events of January twenty-eighth?”

  The Special Assistant faced his boss. “Yes, sir. I followed through, using our hand-picked people exclusively, just as you ordered. There’s no doubt about it—the propellant dumping was done by Holloway.”

  Kowalski leaned back in his chair, surprised. “Are you sure? The NASA probe of his data transmission showed no appended instructions. FBI’s keystroke-by-keystroke analysis of the internal video of Holloway’s moves during the riot showed he did nothing more than transmit that harmless data file.”

  Gibbs smiled. “It wasn’t harmless.”

  “No?”

  “It included a self-erasing nano-encryption.”

  Kowalski raised his eyebrows. “He used a SENE? Really?”

  Gibbs nodded.

  “Clever boy,” Kowalski said with genuine admiration. “So, does he have an intelligence background?”

  “None. Not with us or anyone else.”

  “Then how? SENE technology is top secret.”

  “Apparently he picked up the trick in the M.I.T. Hacker’s Club five years ago.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Gibbs spread his hands, palms outward, and shook his head.

  Kowalski began to laugh, but managed to suppress his reaction. The scenario was hilarious. The government, under his direction, had spent $14 billion to develop SENE capabilities. Now it appeared that some M.I.T. brats had duplicated the feat in their spare time—at least three years before the Science and Security Advisor.

  Gibbs waited for his boss to calm down, then he posed the obvious question. “So, do we pick him up?”

  Kowalski steepled his fingers, thinking. This was a very interesting situation. Finally, he said, “No, I don’t think so. That would be giving too much away. Don’t you agree?”

  Gibbs regarded his superior quietly. Keeping SENE from public view was a credible rationale for not arresting Holloway. However, Darrell Gibbs was anything but naive, and it was clear that more was involved here. This time the SSA was asking a great deal of him.

  If Holloway remained free, it was quite conceivable that he could strike again, even from a distance, especially if it started to look like the crew had some chance of making it home. The Science and Security Advisor’s views on the back-contamination issue were well known, but there was probably another hidden agenda beyond that.

  Gibbs thought fast. Clearly, his future lay with Kowalski . . . but it would be best if all the cards were on the table. He framed his answer accordingly. “Certainly, sir. And I have to say, that while Holloway’s illegal actions were reprehensible, it’s clear to me that he acted only on the basis of the purist motives.”

  Kowalski glanced sharply at his assistant. “Pure motives” was SSA slang for fanaticism.

  Gibbs didn’t flinch. “I think it would be a shame for someone who has so much to offer the nation to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

  Kowalski smiled inwardly. He had
chosen his protégé well. “So, you think Holloway may prove to be a national resource someday?”

  “Quite possibly . . . if he feels called upon.”

  The SSA shared meaningful eye contact with his Special Assistant. “It’s good to know that there are still young men willing to put themselves on the line for their convictions.”

  “I quite agree, sir,” Gibbs replied.

  CHAPTER 15

  OPHIR PLANUM

  JULY 20, 2012 17:10 MLT

  AFTER TWO MONTHS of nonstop, back-breaking work, the crew took the day off. It was the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and the Viking 1 landing on Mars. During the decades that had followed those events, space scientists, astronautical engineers, and activists used this date as a special time for conferences—technical and otherwise.

  In 2012, for the first time, Space Day was observed on Mars. The celebration was simple: The crew slept in past noon and spent the afternoon in blissful idleness. In the evening they assembled in the galley to teleconference with Mission Control.

  “You’ve got to stop this maniacal effort,” flashed Chief of Operations Mason’s video image. “It’s no good. You’re killing yourselves, and it’s not working. Our calculations show that you’re way behind on making enough fuel to launch by the time the 2013 Earth return window closes, and at this rate you’ll all be dead long before the 2015 window opens. You’ve got to call it quits. Trust me, a resupply mission is in the works. Leave it to us.”

  Townsend looked at McGee, who just shook his head. In disgust, the colonel switched off the TV.

  Gwen spoke up. “It’s not over yet, Colonel. Maybe our present rate is too low, but the soil’s getting wetter deeper down. We still might make it.”

  The commander turned to his geologist. “Luke, is it possible?”

  The Texan didn’t have the energy to argue. “No. We’re too far behind for that to make a difference.”

  Rebecca slumped in her chair, feeling weak. “It’s my fault. All my fault.”

  Townsend said, “We all agreed with the decision, Doctor. And we’re no worse for trying.” He stretched his aching back. “Not much, anyway.”

  “You don’t understand.” Rebecca shuddered, then appeared to gain control. “In order to maintain the crew’s strength over the past several months, I increased the rations drawn from the Beagle’s reserve. Well before the 2015 return window opens, we’ll have nothing left to eat but the greenhouse output, and that’s only enough for three. Max.”

  McGee decided to lift their spirits with a joke. “Hmm. Just how did the folks at Donner Pass decide who got to be hors d’oeuvres?” It didn’t work. Met with scowls from the others for his black humor, the professor retreated. “Okay, another stupid mistake. When will I ever stop putting my footnotes in my mouth?”

  Townsend didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “Let’s get this straight. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pick straws or flip coins to see who lives or dies. It’s not the American way.”

  “It may soon become our only rational choice,” Rebecca said icily.

  Gwen fumed. “I don’t care about what an atheist bitch calls ‘rational choices.’”

  “Major, please!”

  Rebecca’s face reddened, but otherwise she appeared to ignore Gwen’s outburst. “Colonel, the greenhouse is filled to capacity, as is all available space on the Hab’s lower deck. The only potential space we’re not using is the interior of the pressurized rover.” She shrugged. “If we decide to convert the rover into a stationary greenhouse, that might add enough output to allow one more person to survive. Maybe.”

  “Bad idea,” Luke commented. “We need the rover.”

  The biologist was puzzled. “For what?”

  “For prospecting.” Now everyone gave him puzzled looks. “Look, we’ve been going about things the wrong way, processing large volumes of low-grade ore, when we should’ve been searching for the mother lode.”

  “What do you mean, mother lode?” Townsend asked.

  “A concentrated source of liquid water.”

  Townsend looked quizzically at the geologist. “There can’t be any liquid water on Mars. Even I know that. It’s much too cold.”

  “On the surface, yes. But underground . . .”

  Rebecca grasped the concept instantly. “So you believe in the existence of a subsurface Martian water table?”

  Luke seemed almost apologetic. “I didn’t used to, but the dating of some of my igneous samples shows volcanic action in Tharsis as recently as forty million years ago—in other words, back just one percent of the age of the planet. Might as well be yesterday.”

  “So . . . that means Mars has a hot core, like Earth?” McGee asked, trying to understand the implications.

  “Right. And if the core is hot, then at some depth it must be warm enough for liquid water to exist. It’s got to be there, somewhere, because the north polar cap is a low-elevation ice field that almost certainly continues underground as the terrain rises in the Borealis and Acidalia regions. Now, since subsurface ice is stable only above latitudes of about forty degrees—”

  Sensing an incipient lecture, Townsend interrupted: “How deep would we have to drill?”

  Luke rubbed his chin. “Around here, a kilometer, maybe two.”

  Dammit, another fantasy scheme. Townsend shook his head pessimistically. “That’s much too deep. Our drilling rig only has a reach of a hundred meters.”

  “I could double that by hooking the spares in series,” Gwen offered.

  “Still way too short.”

  Luke was undaunted. “True, but if we drive the rover down to the lower elevations in Xanthe Terra, the water might be much closer to the surface. We’d need to find a place that has a surface regolith layer of anomalously low thermal conductivity lying over a subsurface layer of high porosity.”

  Even with his limited knowledge of geology, McGee realized the Texan was describing a long shot. “But something like that has got to be a rare occurrence. We can’t drill everywhere. How are we going to find it?”

  “Electromagnetic sounding. Send low-frequency radar signals down into the ground. If there’s water there, the bounce back will tell you.”

  Simple enough, Gwen mused, provided we can produce the right type of signal. “What frequency?”

  “You can generally get down about ten wavelengths, so we’ll need a twenty-meter signal.”

  “Twenty meters, that’s fifteen megahertz, HF band,” Gwen thought out loud. “Our over-the-horizon radios can access that frequency. I could rig up a quarter wavelength downward-pointing Yagi antenna and attach it to the rover, and put a pulsed modulator on the power amplifier. Then, as we drive along, we—”

  “—do some honest prospecting,” Luke concluded with a smile.

  The colonel was far from convinced. “Now hold on, I’ve had a bit of experience with ground-penetrating radar in military applications. It’s easy to get all kinds of false positives.”

  “True, we’ll probably end up drilling ten dry wells before we hit the real McCoy. But with luck, sooner or later we’ll find it. It’s a gamble, sure, but I don’t see how we have a whole lotta choice.”

  So now we’re relying on luck, Townsend thought. “If we’re going to make the launch window, it better be sooner.”

  Rebecca quickly parameterized the problem. “The probability of a quick find would rise in direct proportion to the intensity of the search.”

  McGee understood. “So we drive the rover fast and cover a lot of miles. But that means we burn a lot of fuel.”

  Luke was undeterred. “The ERV’s tanks are over one-fifth full. We’ve got lots of fuel if we tap into that.”

  “Out of the question,” the colonel said firmly. “That propellant is part of our ticket home. Think of all our hard work so far. We can’t make the 2013 return window, but if we keep adding to it we can have enough to launch for Earth when the 2015 window opens.”

  “The three of us still al
ive, you mean,” Gwen commented dryly.

  Townsend began to feel confused. “It’s a reckless gamble.”

  Sensing Townsend’s weak spot, Gwen pressed the point. “All of us or none of us, Colonel. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “That was just betting greenhouse margin and wasted labor,” he explained. “We knew there was moisture in the soil, and that bet paid off. We now have a way to get home.”

  “Some of us,” Gwen said flatly.

  This is so irrational, Townsend thought. “You’re asking me to throw away all the work we’ve done, the only chance we have, on wild speculation.” He turned to Rebecca. “Dr. Sherman, you’re a scientist. Using your logic and not your emotions, do you really believe in this near-surface water-table theory?”

  “No, I don’t believe in it,” she replied simply, to the horror of most of the crew.

  Townsend, however, was gratified. “There! That settles it.”

  “But I think it is a reasonable hypothesis that should be put to the test.”

  Rebecca’s reversal sent the commander mentally reeling. He turned to the historian. “McGee, where do you stand on all this?”

  “Let me put it to you this way, Colonel. If you were deciding for yourself alone, and didn’t have a crew to be responsible for, what would you decide?

  Townsend paused for a moment and looked out the window, then returned to face the crew with a rueful grin on his face. “You got me there, Professor. If I were flying this solo, I’d go for the drill. But there’s more at stake now.”

  McGee was puzzled. “I don’t get what you mean.”

  “The mission.” Townsend tried to appear decisive. “If even some of us get back, the mission will count as a success. We can now be sure of that outcome, simply by continuing our current digging effort, scaled back a bit so we can stand it. If we gamble on Luke’s theory, we risk not only our own lives, but the success of the mission. NASA, Mission Control, will never agree.”