America One: The Odyssey Begins

by T I WADE

  “Mars has been studied by Earth-based instruments since as early as the 17th century but it is only since the real exploration of Mars was begun by NASA in the mid-1960s that close-range observation has been possible. Flyby and orbital spacecraft have provided data from above, while direct measurements of atmospheric conditions have been provided by a number of landers and rovers. Advanced instruments in orbit around Earth, which were destroyed thanks to General Mortimer, used to provide useful ‘big picture’ observations of relatively large weather phenomena. Igor, will you continue with past missions? You are more familiar with the history,” asked Ryan.

  “The first Martian flyby mission was America Mariner 4 which arrived in 1965. That quick two-day pass was limited and crude in terms of its contribution to the state of knowledge of Martian climate. Later, Mariner 6 and 7 missions filled in some of the gaps in basic climate information. Data-based climate studies started in earnest with the more technical Viking program in 1975 and continues with such probes as the Reconnaissance Orbiter,” Igor explained.

  “Mars’ temperature and circulation vary from year to year,” continued Ryan, who had studied this planet since middle school. “Mars lacks an ocean, a source of much inter-annual climate variation on earth. Martian weather tends to be more repeatable and hence more predictable than that of Earth. If an event occurs at a particular time of year in one year, the available data, sparse as it is, indicates that it is fairly likely to occur the next year at approximately the same location, give or take a week. That is why we have designated a few places we would like to set up a base; we know their predictable weather patterns. Of course, once we have our Nano-Silicone shield or dome built, the only part weather will play will be landings and launches. We cannot have our craft under the dome. They must have their own dome hangars or holes in the ground outside. The weather can vary tremendously. On September 29, 2008, the Phoenix lander took pictures of snow falling from clouds 4.5 km above its landing site; Of course the precipitation vaporized before reaching the ground, a phenomenon called virga. Differing values have been reported for the average temperature on Mars; they are so extreme that the highest temperature ever recorded at one of the winter polar caps was an unbelievable 81 °F, the coldest, -237 °F. Scientists believe, and this is extremely important, that temperatures even colder than minus 237 degrees exist below the ice caps, or the surface of any ice. The Martian atmosphere has a mean surface pressure of about 1/20th of Earth’s. One effect of this is that Mars’ atmosphere can react much more quickly to a given energy input than that of Earth’s atmosphere. As a consequence, Mars is subject to strong thermal tides produced by solar heating rather than a gravitational influence; these tides can be significant. Earth’s atmosphere experiences similar diurnal and semidiurnal tides but their effect is less noticeable because of Earth’s much greater atmospheric mass.

  “Although the temperature on Mars can reach above freezing, liquid water is unstable over much of the planet, and water ice simply sublimes into water vapor, as Igor mentioned earlier. Exceptions to this are the low-lying areas of the planet, most notably in the Hellas Plantitia impact basin, where we will definitely visit first. The Hellas Plantitia is the largest and deepest crater on Mars. It is so deep that the atmospheric pressure at the bottom is 89% higher than the average pressure on Mars, so if the temperature exceeded 0 °C, liquid water might be in existence exist there. Any questions? And, Mr. Jones, please stay awake.” There were no questions.

  “OK, on to winds, winds that could rip an Earth aircraft to shreds,” and Jonesy’s attention was again in the room. “The surface of Mars has a very low thermal inertia, which you pilots know means it heats quickly when the sun shines on it. On Earth, winds often develop in areas where thermal inertia changes suddenly, such as from sea to land. There are no seas on Mars, but there are areas where the thermal inertia of the soil changes, leading to morning and evening winds akin to the sea breezes on Earth. For example: When the Mariner 9 probe arrived on the planet when I was a kid, in 1971, the world expected to see crisp new pictures of surface detail. Instead they saw a near planet-wide dust storm with only the giant volcano Olympic Mons showing above the haze. That storm lasted for a month, an occurrence scientists have since learned is quite common on Mars. I can see several of you have eyes beginning to glaze over, so to end my short lesson, let me say we need to treat Mars with respect. The weather here is certainly going to be a factor in all our activities.” Ryan ended.

  “What has all this got to do with us flying in craft adapted for space travel?” VIN asked.

  “Easy and very important,” replied Jonesy. “Pilots must treat the atmosphere of Mars just like on Earth. With winds and dust storms, we have to factor in extraneous forces, and the safety of flying down there.”

  “Well said, Mr. Jones,” Ryan responded.

  “And up to an attitude above 100 miles, higher than on Earth,” added Igor, and the pilots nodded.

  “How deep is this massive crater?” Maggie asked. Ryan smiled.

  “It has to be deep to get that sort of atmospheric pressure. 24,000 feet to be precise, and the floor is 30,000 feet below its crater rim. There are reputed to be glaciers on the crater floor, and I want to look at building our first outpost down there.”

  “Will the crater protect us from the weather?” Jamie asked.

  “Maybe a little, but I don’t think so. It could be a good place to mine for metals deep inside the planet’s surface.”

  “Ryan, as we have discussed for so many years, I believe the crater is a dust bowl, and like a drain, collects its fair share of dust from the dust storms. If we build a permanent dome on the crater floor, it could be covered over in a decade or so,” Igor added.

  “Quite true, Igor,” Ryan replied. “There is nothing wrong with a subterranean cavern, or dome; it would be like having a dome under the sea.”

  “Won’t be many fish down there on Mars, Ryan. Mr. Noble, it could be the home of our friend the space shark!” chimed in Jonesy.

  “Oh, shut up with your space shark story, General Jones,” replied VIN, looking to the heavens outside the Bridge, holding his arms up and pleading. “Would somebody please demote the guy? Maybe a decrease in rank will silence him and his space shark saga!” There were numerous comments sympathetic to VIN’s plea. Even Maggie smiled. Her husband’s story was getting long in the tooth.

  With the long meeting over the crew proceeded to their chores. Mars was only a few weeks away, and the crew was eager to touch terra-firma again.

  Chapter 20

  Mars – Terra Firma

  A month later SB-III approached the floor of the largest crater on Mars with Asterspace Three flown by Michael and Boris.

  Nearly seven months after leaving Earth, the crew were well adjusted to life in space. Even though the journey so far felt like a lifetime, they knew that it would be a much longer time before they saw the blue planet again, and they would just have to put up with this dusty red one.

  As Ryan had planned, the four craft mapped and recorded the planet, and its current storms into their one billion terabytes of computer memory aboard America One.

  Three areas of possible habitation had been finalized by Ryan and his crew of scientists, and it was up to Jonesy to check out the first one, to see if liquid water did actually exist. Liquid water was possible for VIN and Boris to collect. The canisters had not been designed to pick up liquids, but only samples were necessary for the scientists to analyze; they had designed an aluminum one-gallon bottle and cap on the end of a four-foot pole to collect any liquids they found.

  Ryan predicted that where there was liquid water, there could be life in the water, and he wanted to be the first to research that possibility. Ryan would be the happiest man alive to be the first person to find life on another planet.

  The flat surface was dusty when the thrusters got to within twenty feet of the crater’s floor. They had again found a crater within a crater, and they were down inside the second crate
r, close to the 30,000 foot high mountainous peaks of the largest crater on Mars. The thrusters sprayed out massive amounts of dust below them, which could damage the engines. The engines did not suck in atmosphere, but a dust coating inside the thrusters could cause an explosion or make the engines become erratic.

  Asterspace Three was to land on the top of the wide wall of the second inner crater several miles away, ready for Jonesy to call her in if it was safe to land. VIN was with Jonesy this time. It was too dangerous for Maggie and ten-month-old Saturn.

  “Can’t see much with the dust storm you are creating below us, skipper,” VIN stated.

  “Maybe if you got out, rappelled down and swept the place, it would be easier to see,” remarked the Chief Astronaut, concentrating on looking for a place with less dust.

  “Look below us,” remarked VIN, “slightly to our right. There seems to be a sort of dome being cleaned off from the dust. It seems to be higher than the surrounding area.” Jonesy acknowledged that he had seen it and SB-III hovered over to the dome.

  As the thrusters cleared away more dust, Jonesy carefully hovered around in a circle getting rid of the dust which was forced away from the area directly below them.

  “Wow!” exclaimed VIN. “Will you look at that? You have cleaned off all the red dirt, and now it looks sort of white.”

  “Ice!” shouted both men together.

  “Hey, Ryan, we found some ice,” VIN reported over the intercom. “The dust is clearing but it looks like an iceberg, or glacier. It is slightly dome-shaped, like a desert island in the Pacific, and its sides slope back down into the red dust. It looks like a sunburned man’s white bald head.”

  “See if you can clear away the dust some more. There could be water underneath the dust,” Ryan directed.

  Jonesy hovered lower and slowly the dust storm grew, this time enveloping the ship. He descended another few feet, and then with full power brought the shuttle out of the dust storm. The full power really made the dust cloud spread out and he raced up 100 feet before he escaped back into the dull Martian daylight. Luckily for them, the sun was overhead, and its powerful Martian rays shone dimly into the crater and the growing dust cloud spreading out below them.

  Jonesy expected that it would take hours for the dust to disperse. There was a slight movement of the dust cloud, a breeze was blowing it in one direction, and he flew up to Asterspace Three to enjoy their first night on the surface.

  With the shuttle parked within a hundred feet of Asterspace Three, and the dust not so bad atop this 3,000-foot high ridge, they watched their first Martian sunset.

  The view was magnificent. About thirty miles away was the mountainous peaks of the large crater that looked more awesome than the Himalayas back on Earth. They sat on a narrow 200-foot wide ridge in the second crater, about 1,000 feet higher than the floor of the large crater. Before them, the second crater spread out for about 40 miles in front, and Jonesy had recorded that the second crater floor was another 3,000 feet lower than the first crater’s floor. It was a far grander view than anything on Earth, about a thousand times bigger than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

  It wasn’t very romantic for Jonesy and VIN to see this wonderful sight without their wives. It was certainly not as warm and luxurious as the beach in the Seychelles, downing Tequila Sunrises while watching the sunset, but VIN had brought two bottles of beer, Grolsch bottles from Amsterdam with the reusable tops. They clinked glass and ate some jerky, while watching the sun go down directly in front of them. The area around the craft turned from grey to black and the outside temperature dropped 100 degrees within an hour.

  “Nothing like a cold sundowner viewing a Martian sunset,” smiled Jonesy into the intercom.

  “Got a spare beer?” asked the crew from Asterspace Three.

  “Boris, you have more chance of getting pregnant in there with Michael Pitt, than getting a beer from us,” growled Jonesy in reply. “Go down to the local supermarket and get your own.”

  “Comrade Jones, I’ll tell my Russian friends aboard America One to never allow you to have our secret Russian vodka aboard the ship ever again,” replied Boris smiling. There was no way he was prepared to spend an hour dressing up in his spacesuit just to visit a neighbor to bum a cold beer. He was just pulling Jonesy’s chain, and there was no secret Russian vodka. All stocks from Earth were long used up.

  Much like Earth, the Mars night was just over eleven hours long when the sun rose over the horizon behind them. It had been so dark outside that the weak dawn was pretty impressive. The red sand far below in the crater lit up as the sunlight shone on it, with the line between sunshine and darkness moving across the vast crater at breakneck speed.

  Jonesy took off again, leaving Asterspace Three to wait for the command to join them. Even with the weak Martian atmosphere, valuable liquid hydrogen gas was being used up by the shuttle. The fuel was still as valuable as gold to Ryan.

  “OK, we see the same ice cap we saw yesterday,” said VIN over the intercom. “It’s about a mile across but it’s hard to determine its height above the surrounding layer of flat red dust. We certainly cleaned the area. I see some glistening on the ice. It could just be the ice dazzling in the sunlight. Over.”

  “SB-III, go down and attempt a soft landing on the ice cube. If you feel it is secure, call in Asterspace Three. I want pilots in command and thrusters ready for any emergency. This ice cube could just roll over, or sink at any time with your added weight. Better yet, since your safe landing zone is only twenty miles or so from the ice, I want only one craft down at any moment. SB-III, you drop off Mr. Noble with bucket, spade and water bottle, and get out of there. Asterspace Three, go in, drop off Boris, then both leave them on the ice for 30 minutes, no longer, unless they need you. All I want is ice and liquid samples if we can get them.

  Jonesy did as ordered. This time there was little dust as he lowered the larger shuttle towards the ice dome. As they neared, both VIN and Jonesy noticed that it wasn’t as high as expected. The dome had a gentle incline and it was no problem for Jonesy to touch down.

  After telling Asterspace Three to take off, Jonesy gingerly lowered the thrust, even after the shuttle had touched down. Slowly, he allowed the full weight of the shuttle to be added to whatever they were landing on. It could have been a ball of ice in a lake for all he knew. They didn’t move and VIN prepared to exit out of the docking port, already suited up for the occasion. The gravity down there was no different than the overnight location and Jonesy had used 25% thrust on both approaches.

  “VIN is out with his toys, and fifty feet away from the craft. He has taken a cord as well as mallet and nails. I’m taking off, gently.”

  “Roger that,” replied Michael. “One mile out, at 200 feet above the floor and coming in from your rear.”

  “I’m going out forward, Michael. You are clear to land; just treat your landing like it’s on thin ice.”

  “Roger, Jonesy, Asterspace Three going in.”

  Twenty minutes later the second craft banked away towards Jonesy, already sitting on the ridge.

  “This ice is pretty strong,” VIN said to Boris. “I’ve chipped away a few small chunks, but I want to get to the edge of the ice.”

  “I think we should fill up the one canister I brought, and then the sample containers. We can put it back into the hold to keep it cold. Then we head towards the edge and use the rope. We only have 30 minutes,” replied Boris.

  With ice picks they chipped away at the ice. Together they loosened a large piece that they had to pare down to fit into the canister.

  “If this is water, then that is at least fifty gallons,” Boris guessed. “While we are here, we might as well fill it up.”

  “Boris, Mr. Jones,” stated Ryan,“there is the dust storm heading your way, the one we discussed on the bridge and reminded you about yesterday. I believe you have two hours before you must be gone. It is coming in from your north across the large crater, and it is halfway across, about 4,000 miles away
from you. Wind speed is about 1,700 miles an hour.”

  “Roger that,” replied Boris. “VIN, we still have time to fill this canister.”

  For the next 15 minutes, they chipped and forced pieces of ice into the aluminum canister until it was hard to close. They then got it ready to be packed into the hold of the craft.

  They walked towards the northern edge of the bald ice dome to the line of red dust, about 200 feet away. VIN hit a three-foot long nail into the ice with his mallet and tied one end of the 100-foot cord to the nail. Then he ordered Boris to stay by the nail, and slowly walked towards the line where the ice ended and the red dust began. He was three feet away when he couldn’t believe what he saw. A wind ripple was coming across the red dust towards him.

  Suddenly the first wind gust hit VIN, nearly blowing him over. Boris felt it a second later and immediately called in the rescue craft.

  VIN just stood there, feeling the wind hitting his space suit, and suddenly the red dust was not so flat anymore.

  “There’s liquid under the dust, Ryan. I can see ripples, like on a lake coming towards me. Jonesy, we have a direct wind coming in from the north, I would say about thirty knots, and I’m earning my side-gunner salary right now. It is suddenly not nice here anymore.”

  “Mr. Noble, fill up the two bottles and get back for rescue,” ordered Ryan.

  VIN got to the end of the rope. It was ten feet too short and he put it down to go forward. Gently, like treading on egg shells, he moved to within three feet of the red dust when the first tiny wave broke on the ice.