by T I WADE
As the dust was churned up, he saw a clear liquid, and he dove in his first bottle on its four-foot pole and allowed it to fill up. It didn’t gurgle as a bottle would on Earth, but he felt it become heavier as something entered the bottle. He capped the bottle just as a second gust hit him hard and literally flattened him on his back on the hard ice; he hoped he had not broken anything on his backpack. As he reached for the second bottle a second wave, this time a foot high, came in and approached to within inches of his feet.
“Filling the second bottle with clear liquid. I think I have damaged something on my pack, it’s getting harder to breathe.”
“VIN, get back to Boris, now!” shouted Ryan. “Jones, your partner needs you!”
VIN watched as the bottle filled, and taking a hard gulp of air, he placed the top on it, picked up the first one, grabbed the rope and headed back to Boris. Boris already had the rope taut and pulled VIN towards him. VIN’s next breath was even harder.
“Twenty seconds out, coming in from the south, I’m decompressing the shuttle cockpit. Boris, push VIN in the side door we use on Earth. I’m suited up and ready,” Jonesy ordered as a third wind gust hit them pushing both men onto their stomachs this time.
“Jonesy, wind gusts intermittent, 30 seconds apart, forty miles an hour at least,” VIN said, gasping for air.
Jonesy came in fast, closer to where they were standing, put the shuttle down quickly and opened the side hatch, which allowed the atmosphere of Mars to enter the cockpit. Boris pushed VIN in from his metal legs while Jonesy hauled him in holding his helmet.
“Michael, land by the canister. I am not leaving without it,” shouted Boris while Jonesy closed the door. The next gust flattened Boris, and if the shuttle wasn’t facing into the wind, it could have lifted it off as well. But Jonesy had other problems; he needed to get VIN’s helmet off while pressurizing the cockpit at the same time. VIN’s face was beginning to turn blue, and he was gasping for air. The cabin would take at least ten minutes to be safe to breathe, and while he unscrewed VIN’s helmet, he reached for an emergency bottle of oxygen from behind his seat.
“Come on, hurry up, helmet. I don’t want to give the guy mouth to mouth,” he stated to the helmet as it unscrewed what seemed like a hundred rounds. VIN’s eyes were fluttering as the helmet came loose, the pressure was bad, but that didn’t matter. Jonesy opened VIN’s mouth and he forced the mouthpiece in.
The oxygen sprayed into VIN’s mouth and his eyes opened as an even stronger gust hit the ship making it begin to slide slowly backwards towards Asterspace Three.
“Partner, breathe! You are on your own!” Jonesy said, suddenly realizing that VIN couldn’t hear him. He wiped his hand across his throat, showing VIN that they were in trouble, and his eyes told his partner that he was on his own. He jumped back into the left seat, made sure that the cockpit pressurization system was on full power and lit up the thrusters to 50% power.
The sliding had stopped, as he lifted off, and a second gust hit him at only 20 feet above the ice sheet. He hit full power, and immediately banked right to get away from being rammed into Asterspace Three, pushed the throttles to full power, and like a leaf in the wind he was blown upwards and away from the ice sheet.
Asterspace Three was ready when the gust hit. Boris had packed away the canister and the bottles and was climbing inside the docking port. He had just pulled in the rope when the vicious wind hit them, spewing red dust all over them. Asterspace Three, like the shuttle slipped backwards towards the other red dust line, now only yards behind it. Michael saw SB-III pass above him only a few feet higher and through the corner of his eye, watched Jonesy bank away. The thrusts from the shuttle’s blasts vibrated his craft. He pushed his throttles forward and lifted off just before his ship slid down into the dust behind it. Under full power, the mining craft shuddered as its assistance from the ground lift underneath the thrusters changed from solid ice to liquid water, causing havoc with the aided thrust off the crater surface.
With smaller thrusters than the shuttle, Michael grappled with the controls as it dropped a couple of feet. Boris was trying to close the outer hatch and was nearly thrown from the craft. Then the thrust air must have bounced off solid ice or rock again, as under full power the craft headed up fast, and was literally blown away backwards as another gust hit it. Boris was thrown to the bottom of the port, the outer hatch slammed above his head, and like SB-III, they were whisked away like a leaf in the wind.
Chapter 21
Mars – The South Pole
It took VIN a week to recover from his encounter with the atmosphere on Mars. Jonesy had him back in America One within two hours, after narrowly missing the mountainous ridge of the large crater by less than a few hundred feet. Michael Pitt had actually been forced to fly through a hole in the cliff wall, to get out of the crater. Both craft required maximum power to climb out of the first 40 miles of the Mars atmosphere.
Jonesy headed straight for America One’s orbit. VIN was laid out on the floor of the shuttle, but breathing. The internal cockpit air and air pressure had returned, Jonesy had vented the bad air out of the cockpit, and his computers were calculating liaison with America One on her next orbit far above them.
Boris was OK in Asterspace Three. He had held tight inside the docking port for the first minute, as they were blown this way and that. Once the main directional struggle died down, he sealed the outer hatch, vented the port, resupplied it with fresh air, and opened the lower hatch. Thank God he had managed to tie down the canister in the hold, or it could have blasted through the craft’s cargo wall with all the turbulence.
Once out, he lowered the hatch downwards the three feet to its parking place, and strapped himself into to his seat. He felt dizzy and he wanted to puke, but he was OK. As he watched Michael fly the craft, Boris realized what a good pilot he was. Michael was relaxed, his hands were doing several things at once as the 30,000-foot high mountainous ridge came up to destroy them.
They were still too low and already at full power, and Michael began looking for a hole, or valley to slip through. Boris saw one to their right about fifty miles away, Michael nodded and turned the craft towards the rising valley, still thousands of feet above them.
Suddenly his stomach dropped as a strong gust from below hit the craft hard. Then Boris figured out that the wind must be hitting the base of the crater wall, and was pushing them upwards with tremendous power as it rose to escape. The valley Michael was aiming for slowly lowered to allow them through and at two thousand miles an hour they slipped through a mile-wide valley so fast that it took Boris’ breath away.
The two men were carried out of the docking ports. Safely back in America One, the two miners were quarantined in the hospital ward under plastic infectious disease tents, as was Jonesy’s space suit. Ryan told them that by wearing it, Jonesy had saved their lives. Full spacesuits would be mandatory from now on for at least one of the two pilots when performing maneuvers in the Martian atmosphere.
Both men were given full checkups including blood tests and saliva tests. VIN’s face had erupted with red spots, like a teenager with acne. Jonesy mentioned that VIN’s new acne made him look twenty years younger, which earned him a hefty kick from Maggie, who was sitting next to him. Saturn and Mars were not allowed into the medical cylinder.
Doctors Rogers and Martin were excited to have an opportunity to examine VIN; this was new ground to them. After a day’s tests, they believed that he was experiencing a horrible skin irritation from the bad air inside the cockpit. Dr. Martin explained to VIN that people don’t just explode once subjected to the vacuum of space; first their blood begins to boil.
Jonesy and Michael were surprised to learn that the gusts that had blown them around like leaves were the earliest, smallest gusts from the storm still 2,000 miles to their north. There was no way any of the craft would have survived stronger gusts unless tied down, and certainly not when the storm hit with winds a hundred times more powerful. Compared to Ma
rs, Earth was a peaceful planet. Many lessons already had been learned by the crew.
Martha Von Zimmer and Suzi were thrilled to be handed the canister of ice and the two bottles of liquid the team had saved. Under safe conditions especially designed for these circumstances they excitedly began tests.
Of course, Suzi often checked up on her husband, but she knew he was tough, and a little crappy air wasn’t going to hurt him. His body was one-third metal anyway.
There was no rush. The health of the crew was of utmost importance to Ryan. They had all the time in the world to orbit and wait for the two crew members to be nursed back to health.
Boris was released three days after returning, and VIN, still with a bad case of acne, two days later.
The next day, Ryan held a briefing to discuss new rules and regulations for flying down to the planet. All crew members would be fully suited up until further notice, unless in a safe resting. There would be a third crew member on each craft to help if one was in trouble. There would be two pilots aboard at all times who were able to able handle the craft.
It took another week for reports on the ice and water to reach the bridge.
“Yes, it was water,” smiled Martha Von Zimmer, “with large quantities of radiation, and a very acidic pH level of 1.79. The water can be used aboard America One after considerable radiation filtering and the addition of alkaline soda ash.” The shuttles had brought up five tons of soda ash for this exact purpose.
“Unfortunately, the upper surface of the ice is, as predicted, 99 percent pure dry ice, all carbon dioxide,” she continued. “But, after more study, we found something interesting on the thickest block, a block over two feet thick. On its underside, where the mean temperature was much colder than in the atmosphere, we found 93 percent carbon dioxide and seven percent nitrogen. This mix of dry ice and frozen nitrogen is not possible on Earth, since they have different melting points, and Earth is far too toasty for liquid gases. Therefore, we must realize that at extremely cold temperatures, with certain atmospheric pressures in some remote places on Mars, certain gases can combine. I believe that deeper, where the ice may be colder, we could also find frozen hydrogen in the mix. The reason there is no nitrogen on the upper surface of the ice, is that the nitrogen has turned into a gas with the warmer temperatures.”
“Can we bring this extremely cold mix up here?” Ryan asked Martha.
“Yes, if we use the same type of tanks we store our liquid hydrogen fuel in. If we ever had a loss of power aboard this ship, all our liquid hydrogen, our fuel, could be in danger. As you all know, our fuel tanks must be well insulated to prevent boil-off; and nitrogen, one of the coldest gas/liquids, must be pressurized for safe storage on Earth. This means that we must first warm up the ice to allow the nitrogen to boil off into a gas. We then collect the gas, decrease the temperature again and turn it into liquid, and only then pressurize it.”
“So you think we could gather decent amounts of nitrogen down there?” Ryan asked.
“I believe that if you had the chance to dig deeper, say another six to even ten feet,” replied Martha, “we could see a larger mix of nitrogen, even parts of pure oxygen in the ice at minus 300 degrees. So, to answer your question, take down insulated tanks to bring the ice back. With the room-size cryogenic air and gas separation plant in our lab, we can allow the ice to slowly melt. At minus 235 degrees the hydrogen will burn off. We collect that and tank it. Then, we reduce the temperature to minus 190 degrees so that the nitrogen burns off. We collect that and store it. Then, my good friend Mr. Jones can add the dry ice to his schnapps for all I care. It has very limited uses.”
“What is the melting point of frozen oxygen?” Maggie asked.
“Minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit,” Martha responded. “It is much harder to keep the coldest ice we can find on Mars at that temperature, but it is possible with what we have to work with on board ship, and also necessary for us to survive for the extremely long periods in space Ryan wants.
“So, if we incorporated a tank surrounded by pressurized hydrogen, this will solve our transportation problem, even for frozen oxygen?” Ryan asked.
Martha nodded. “I think that would work, or we could just use the same materials we used in the walls of the ship. I believe that the best transportation unit we already have, is one of the smallest cylinders with its walls primed for extremely cold temperatures. But you guys have gone off the mark,” smiled Martha. “What is water?”
“One hydrogen atom and two oxygen atoms?” suggested VIN.
“No, Herr Noble, the other way around; two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, H₂O. With the water you found, Herr Noble, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and you, Herr Jones, for flying it back to us, all we really need to produce air to breathe, fuel to blast us around the solar system, and food to eat—other than the water you brought—is nitrogen. You two have already found the most important element in the universe. To keep our lives simple, we just need to add the nitrogen we found in the dry ice and water, and America One has all the basics for survival out here in space.”
That got Ryan thinking. He gave orders to Boris to bond ends to an extra cylinder to turn it into a large tank that could fit into Asterspace Three’s hold. It would need an opening to place the ice into it. And if there was boil-off in transit, then the nitrogen gas would still be inside the cylinder. He was feeling very good about the scientific side of his odyssey. He did have the best brains from Earth aboard his ship and enough equipment to keep them all alive.
A month later and still in orbit around the planet, three craft returned to the bald ice sheet Jonesy had to uncover again to land back on the dry-ice shelf.
With new digging and lifting equipment, and the next storm not scheduled for several days, a larger mining team of five, with VIN and Boris in charge, used much larger, more powerful oxygen pneumatic hammer guns to dig deeper into the ice.
Within hours they were hauling out square slabs from a ten-foot depth and as soon as they had them out, each foot-square cube was lifted into the cylinder inside Asterspace Three.
Over four days, they reached down into the ice while others filled the canisters with water and placed them in SB-III. All of them thought it was very weird to see water in liquid form at minus 170 degrees. Even the space suits were at warmer heat settings to keep the miners alive. It could only be done with the heavier than Earth’s atmospheric pressure in this small part of Mars.
Ryan’s crew was like a professional mining operation at the Antarctic, except that one slip-up or heavy gust of wind could mean instant death.
Two days before the storm was due, the three mining craft and SB-III left with a thousand chunks of dry ice, and 1,800 gallons of valuable acidic H₂O. Ryan had mapped out the area, and could return at any time. Now he wanted to check out the south pole of Mars and test the ice there.
Once the crew was rested, the same ships and crew members took off for the coldest place on the planet. Like Earth, Mars had seasons, and if the planet were Earth, it would now be summer in the northern hemisphere.
Much like the Antarctic on Earth, an expanse of white covered a wide area. The three craft picked the lowest area they could see with infra-red and night vision sights on SB-III’s laser gun. It was pitch black on this side with little to no sunlight. The temperature was also cold enough to freeze nitrogen. They could detect all this from 20 miles up.
Again, there was a small deep crater, close to where the South Pole should be. It was deep, over three miles deeper than the surrounding white expanse, and Ryan instructed Jonesy to try a landing. There were no wind storms expected in this area for a week.
However, there was wind when Jonesy landed, and it looked like the movies he had seen on television. The snow blew sideways, and he hoped it was water, not methane, or hydrogen, as his engines could explode at any time. The crater shielded much of the 200 mile an hour winds above the crater, but close to the lower windward wall, there were 20 to 40 mile an hour blasts now a
nd again.
The other two craft, Asterspace Three and Astermine Two came in and they had a windy, snow-blown first night after the craft were tied down with nails and cords by the mining team. It was so cold outside that for the first time in his life, Jonesy heard the walls of the shuttle clicking and cracking with contractions. It was quite scary, especially when all the cords froze and snapped like frozen twigs.
The next day, the wind died down and the team went to work filling everything they had with the ice. They dug down ten feet below the crater floor with their new tools. It was still pure white ice. In one-foot cubed blocks they filled the special tank aboard Asterspace Three in three days. On the third day it became impossible to work due to increasingly cold temperatures; the crew was beginning to freeze in their suits and spacewalks were reduced to 70 minutes. With over three tons of pure, transparent ice, and a ton of the windward swept snow, they returned to America One, tired, cold, and thinking about beaches, hot weather, and Earth.
Chapter 22
Oh my God!
The beer, sunlamp, and warm water of the swimming pool was certainly relaxing after the cold, difficult trip. They had to unload all the supplies in the shuttle and Astermine Two before they could take a break, and this had to be done outside the craft to keep the temperatures as low as possible. The space outside America One was a toasty minus 163 degrees; summer to the mining crew and the craft.
The crew rested for a week while the scientists worked hard solving the puzzles the miners had brought them.
At the same time, Ryan was conducting meetings, this time on where to park and set up camp on Mars. There were four major areas that suited a long-term site and all four sites were good: the six-mile high walls of Melas Canyon; the Gusev Crater, a place which likely had contained water; the Athabasca Valley, where the youngest water channels seen on the planet used to flow; and last, Hematite, an area named after the grayish-colored rock near the equator. This was the only area on the planet where hematite abounded, which needed water to form.
