by Cliff Roehr
“I see that our time is up for tonight folks, I hope you have enjoyed tonights news as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to you. Stay tuned now for the nightly news with Keith Edwards Unfortunately this wil stil be 24 hour delayed.” Sue Yang had responded to several of the questions that Rusty had asked but Dan Just sat there without saying a word. Rusty asked Abner after the show if he had done anything to offend Dan. “Naw,” said Abner “I have been working with Dan Yang for seven years and I have never heard him say much.”
January 16, 2108: Tim had a chance encounter with Bob the Hamburger man and ask him how the deal went down that his company was given permission to operate on Mars when the Government and The Company were partners in the space ships and in the land they would be doing business on.
“This is what I have heard Tim and mind you that I am not a member of top management of the company. Our company wanted to operate a franchise on Mars for publicity purposes back on Earth and Our company is one of the principals in Mars Colony, Inc. They offered two bil ion dollars to the Government and The Company for the following: The Mars ships would move al the equipment that we needed to Mars along with twelve employees. The employees would have the same benefits as your company employees and would be on a ten year contract just as, I assume you are. The Company would keep us supplied with food stuffs and supplies that would arrive an all future ships for the next ten years. The Company wil construct our business building on a one hundred by one hundred square foot lot in your business district. That is about all I know other than there is not really any profit motive for Our Company but it wil provide us with commercials for years to come. Oh there is one more thing, we wil not be allowed to charge more for products here than the average price that we charge on Earth.” “That about answered all my questions, Oh yeah, when wil the rest of your employees and your food stuffs arrive?” “On the next ship which is due in some time in May of this year, Tim, so I hope our building is ready by then.” “Are you kidding, with all the extra construction guys we have here now they could have sent the employees on this ship. We wil have the whole thing wired, plumbed and ready to open in a week. Thanks for the information and I hope you enjoy Mars.”
January 17, 2108: Abner Jacobs was busy inspecting the corn crop at the temporary farm when a nondescript construction worker walked up to him and handed him a small match box without saying a word. When Abner opened the box he noticed that it was about half full of little white seeds the size of BB's. Abner knew exactly what these were. Abner just smiled and put the box in his pocket. The construction worker smiled back and walked away, neither of them had said a word.
Abner walked out amongst the corn stalks and planted the seeds. He would need to transplant them once they had germinated but for now they needed to be in the soil.
January 17, 2108: When Tim showed up at work the next day Carter assigned him to pick out a crew of thirty workers put someone competent in charge and assign them to work for the farmers. Tim gathered the crews together and said “before you start work I need thirty of you to help get the farm set up. I think that prior farm experience might be helpful so if any of you have some farm experience and would like to work for the farmers for a couple weeks or for however long they need you please step over here by me.” About twenty or so moved over behind Tim, “OK now any of you others who would like to construct the farm house the farm lab and the animal pens please form a group over there by the flag pole.” Another thirty moved over by the flag pole.
“Sorry folks but I only need ten of you so if you do not have plumbing or wiring experience please return to the main group.” The thirty of them began discussing the matter then al but ten moved back to the main group. “Now you work group leaders take note of how many men you have lost and get together with the other work group leaders and shuffle people around until you have the number you need to go to work on what ever project you were working on last.”
That only took five or ten minutes and everyone was happy, Tim liked that management style. He allowing people work where they considered themselves to be most valuable to the project and where they would be happiest. Maybe this management style wouldn't work with the class of people that you have working construction jobs on Earth but it sure works out wel here. Tim addressed the two work groups and said “The new farm is going to be just over the bridge at the back of The Company cavern. The area is a little over three hundred twenty acres but wil help keep the farm and animals all in one place. It wil also leave plenty of room for the house and barn and lab. I think you might have to wall off the generator to keep the noise from disturbing the farmers and the animals. Other than that the rest is up to the farmers. Put everything where they want it and do everything they ask of you.” About then Abner and Jennifer showed up and Tim gave them the layout. “We think the farm should have this whole area from the river and lake to the back wall of the cavern.” Tim told them. These forty construction people wil do what ever you ask of them to help in getting the farm set up and equipped. These thirty have some farm experience, the other ten wil construct your buildings. At that point he introduced Abner and Jennifer to the workers and then said “Go to work.”
Tim stepped back and saw Abner begin talking with the volunteers explaining everything that he would need to have done. One of the construction people asked Abner to come with him. He would show them where to find the tools and equipment they would need in the supply yard. “All of it may not be unloaded yet but we can take what there is and start moving it over to the farm..” Before Tim left he told Abner that if he needed anything or if he needed more help with a big job to let him know and he would send more workers. It now seemed to Tim that workers were the only thing on Mars that was not in short supply.
There were other things that had been provided for the farm, the most important of which was six large box hives of honey bees to pollinate the plants and to provide the colonists with fresh honey. There was also an assortment of caterpil ars and even four small mulberry trees that were covered with silkworm cocoons when the ship left Earth but by the time they arrived on Mars the cocoons had hatched into silkworm larva.
Shortly after Tim left Abner was unpacking packets of seeds when he came across a package of seeds labeled Ivy. Abner didn't even know there was such a thing as Ivy seeds. He tore open the envelope and found, not seeds but tiny dried roots. Not knowing what else to do with them and failing to appreciate their benefit he scooped up a shovel full of fertile soil and planted them in the corner where the generator wal met the cavern wall. By the next day Abner had forgotten all about the Ivy. Seeing the fertile soil and noting the depressions Abner had made with his finger when he planted the roots Sue Yang shrugged, went over to the lake, scooped up some a bucket of water and poured a little on the spot, figuring Abner was trying something and had been distracted before he had watered it. The next day Sue Yang poured a little more water out of the bucket onto the soil. By the time the bucket was empty there were little green shoots sticking out of the ground. The odd thing about this was that there were no grow lights shining directly on the area where the shoots were coming up just the ordinary cave lighting and where these plants were coming up there wasn't even much of that. Sue Yang then went and got Abner and showed him the shoots. “These shoots are growing without the benefit of grow lights, Abner, whatever you were trying here worked, congratulations.” Abner had to pause and think just what he had planted there, then he remembered the Ivy. “Oh, yeah, Sue, I thought I would try some Ivy, there was a package of dried Ivy cuttings in among the vegetable seeds that I had ordered rather than to just throw them away I stuck them in the ground over here then I got busy and forgot al about them.” “Do you realize the significance of this Abner? We have come up with a plant that we can grow anywhere in the caverns. True you can't eat Ivy but you can sure breath it's byproduct. Ivy spreads like crab grass so if we were to plant it everywhere it would grow everywhere. It is nice to look at and the plants wil enrich our atmosphere immense
ly once they take hold.” Abner called Tim and asked him to drop by the farm next time he was in the area.
CHAPTER - Planning the March to Utopia
January 17, 2108: That afternoon when Tim returned to Carter's office there were three construction workers and a couple Government scientists going over some drawings on Carters desk. “Tim, take a look at this. The big cavern which I think we should start calling Utopia for now, is about six miles from this wall in the Government cavern. There are smaller caverns along the way that we are going to have to secure and pressurize before advancing and the way I see it we are going to have to tunnel for up to two miles. Our biggest problem is that these caverns are not all on the same level. See this long narrow cavern right here it is deeper than the others but once we reach the floor of this long slender cavern right here it will enter right into Utopia on the same level. so it looks like we are going to have to tunnel down to that sliver before we can continue. Setting the downgrade into that cavern wil be a real problem. We wil have at least five, maybe six smal er caverns to secure and pressurize before we reach Utopia .
How long do you estimate it wil take us to dig two miles of tunnel Johnson?” “Let's see” said Johnson, “if we can complete one foot of tunnel per hour average it would take roughly ten thousand hours, that would be about seven months of continuous tunneling if we worked around the clock. That could vary considerably depending on soil conditions and problems that we might be encountered in sealing off the small caverns that we go through. We have six hundred workers now and can expect at least three hundred more before we reach Utopia
. “I would say that our tunneling crews would have to work in Mars suits a lot of the time. Of course once a new cavern had been pressurized they could headquarter in that cavern. The men will need 24 hours rest after working eight hours and we wil need eight men working at all times so that would mean a tunneling crew of 32 men. Al things considered I would say we wil reach Utopia in one to two years. At least that gives a workable time frame.”
“Once a tunnel is opened it wil need to be enlarged. We will need four more crews of eight men each for this job. They should not start work on a tunnel until the tunneling crew has moved on to the next tunneling job so they do not get into each others way. The crews doing the enlarging can use the dirt they remove for top soil at the farm or for fil dirt in leveling the caverns. The tunneling crews working for breakthrough will be digging approximately eight foot by eight foot tunnels, the second crews wil be enlarging the tunnels to 25 feet wide by 20 feet high.”
“Your next Fossum, how long wil it take to seal off the small caverns and pressurize them? “Does your chart show how many fissures need to be sealed between here and Utopia, yes there is a count here for each cavern and a total of up to one hundred fissures but that is only an estimate. There average width on the chart appears to be three or four feet. “I estimate that a crew can seal one fissure per day. That takes into account that the workers can not be exposed to the surface for more than two hours at a time. Al things considered there is probably three to four months work there if we have the materials and if we could only have one crew working at a time.” “Why don't you explain how you go about sealing a fissure, Dave.” “We locate the fissures that need to be fil ed by placing a bright light in the cavern then going out after dark in Mars suits and making a visual observation of where the light penetrates the surface. Then we flag the location so that we can find it the next day. To plug the hole we dig out around the fissure, usually an eight foot hole and down three or four feet until we hopeful y hit bedrock. Then we lay in an eight foot piece of circular one Inch tempered plywood. We then mix the concrete and pour it into hole about eight Inches deep. When the concrete has cured we lay down eight foot long pieces of rebar, criss crossed and wire the joints together. we pour fresh concrete about one foot thick then when that has cured we lay on another course of rebar followed by another course of concrete. The rest we just fil with Mars soil until it is level with the surface.” This will take a crew about eight hours in working time but they can be working on other fissures while the cement is curing. Also keep in mind that when the winds come up on the surface we can't do any work outside. Twice a year for almost a month at a time the winds are too strong to do any work on the surface. There will probably be times when opening one of the caverns wil be delayed for a considerable time waiting for the wind to die down.”
“How about installing and moving the air locks can one crew keep up, Johnson fielded that question, “That is a definite yes but they would be kept busy. As long as we have plenty of workers we should probably assign two crews. One crew can set the small temporary locks while the other can set the larger permanent sliding air locks once the tunnels have been enlarged. Can our system handle the load of pressurizing that much new space. “Certainly not al at once but if we only had to do one small cavern per week the answer would be yes, We have some old oxygen making equipment over in supply that could keep the atmosphere breathable without running any risk at all. Lets say we can handle the atmosphere problem throughout the whole system as we go but none of what we have said so far applies to Utopia .”
“If any of the smal caverns turn out to be larger than anticipated then we wil install additional atmosphere apparatus along the way. While we are at it we might as wel have several more systems on order. We do have three backup systems in the supply yard now but it is important that we always maintain twice as much atmosphere equipment as we need so if we have an equipment failure we will stil have atmosphere. We could instal the new systems as we go and keep ordering more back up systems from the Company. Actually the more area that we are providing atmosphere for the safer we will be. We should discuss our needs in this area with the government employee who handles the atmosphere now and assign more workers to that function. If they are not needed on a given day he can release the workers to perform other work until he does need them but they should all be trained to install and maintain these systems. When we reach Utopia we'l need several new systems to maintain atmosphere in a cavern that large. I won't know just how many until we get there and I make some calculations.”
As for our maps and our estimation of the size and shape of the caverns we will be going through keep in mind that this information was gathered several years ago by flying over the area and taking infrared pictures. For a number of reasons they may not be completely accurate.
“How many men can we spare now to start digging?” “With all of the problems that I know we wil encounter, my estimate is that we wil need, fifty or more. That would cover all of the support operations. I suggest that today we select who we want on our tunneling crews, gather our equipment and start them out in the morning under Johnson's supervision. Our first tunnel is going to be a little over eight hundred feet long, we have plenty of people and we can work them four hours on and 24 hours off. We won't need to set the air tight seal until they are in seven hundred ninety feet. Then we wil set the door and the men wil have to start working in Mars suits for the last ten feet to breakthrough.”
Johnson and Tim spent the rest of the day going over lists of employees and picking out the men that they wanted on the first four crews. The men were notified by cell phone that they would start tunneling the next morning. They were then asked to join Johnson in the supply depot and start locating all the equipment they could find. A concrete block wal was erected in front of the tunnel site but set back 20 feet to give the men room to work. The electricians ran power over to the site and trenches were dug to catch the debris. Any of the soil removed would be moved to where the farm was being set up. The farmers could use it to make topsoil or the crews could use it in the wal that would run along the river to protect the lake and stream from being contaminated by the crop runoff.
January 19, 2108: Among the cargo Items unloaded from Mars Supply One was the new equipment for processing human waste. As soon as Carter saw it and read the setup manual he set two crews to installing the equipment. One of
the Scientists looking over the equipment decided that the machine would fit in the small cavern attached to the Government cavern that had been used as public bath rooms. Once it had been installed men dril ed a four Inch hole down from the surface and attached a power vent. Then put an air lock on the door leading into the Government cavern. When the machine was in use they would shut the air lock and work in Mars suits until they had finished processing the waste matter.
The machine separated the matter into three parts. The liquid was processed through reverse osmosis equipment and then allowed to run off into the crevasse where they had been dumping everything. The non biodegradable matter, ie the plastic porta potty liners or any other non biodegradable matter that had found it's way into the sewer system, were compressed into bricks and spat out the front of the machine where workers stacked them to the side of the cavern. The machine then processed the biodegradable mass which came out as a kind of mulch which was odorless and and only slightly damp. All harmful bacteria had been removed but the mulch was stil rich in nutrients. The men captured this material in large plastic garbage bags. Once the machine had finished processing the batch for the day the crew turned on the power vent to the surface and opened a vent pipe that ran along side the air lock. It only took a few seconds to exhaust all the stale air in the cavern. Once the air was clean they could they would close the vents and inject a strong ammonia based deodorant into the small cavern and open the air lock. It took three men working in Mars suits about two hours per day to process the waste. The result was about five hundred pounds of fertile mulch and thirty or so plastic bricks that could be very valuable as light weight building materials.
